Five Star Customer Experience
September 28, 2011 Leave a Comment
I love the simplicity of this short clip on the ‘New Consumer.’ Here’s to you delivering a FIVE STAR customer experience!!!
Spring Advertising Campaign Set to Kick-Off
March 6, 2011 Leave a Comment
Real people with a real message! That’s the theme of these three television commercials that are starting to run on WGAL, Fox 43, WHP 21, Comcast and Viamedia. They will run through the Spring buying season and end during the latter part of May.
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Harrisburg, PA and Business; A Great Match
January 19, 2011 Leave a Comment
The Wall Street Journal’s online business site, MarketWatch, recently named the ten best cities in the United States to do business in. Drumroll please – - – coming in at number nine – - – Harrisburg, PA! MarketWatch cited our city’s ”high personal income levels and strong business attraction” as two of the reasons it made the list. Geographically, it has the advantage of being located between the major metropolitan cities of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC and New York. Penn State, one of the top research universities in the country is also located within an easy drive. In addition, the regions boasts a top notch medical facility in Penn State’s Hershey Medical Center. You can see the entire list by clicking here.
If you’re thinking of locating your business in Harrisburg, the Capital Region Economic Development Corporation (CREDC) is a great resource. Its mission is to be a catalyst for policy change for job creation and for business growth in Cumberland, Dauphin, and Perry Counties that enhances the quality of life in our region.
Congratulations Harrisburg!
Hidden Benefits of Refinancing Your Mortgage
January 18, 2011 Leave a Comment
So you’ve had your mortgage for a while and think you have a good rate. Most people only consider refinancing if their present interest rate drops one percentage point – - – say from 6½% to 5½%. But there are other good reasons to refinance your mortgage that will save you cash and make your life easier in the long run. Consider the following:
1. Dis-ARM yourself. You may have obtained an Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) when you first purchased your home and received an unbelievable rate. You’re now probably experiencing the escalation part of the ARM which means your monthly payment is going from great to – - – hmmm - – - not so great. Check into refinancing your loan so that you can lock in an interest rate and with it, obtain peace of mind knowing it won’t increase in the future.
2. Eliminate Holiday Blues. Are you like many Americans that went out and racked up credit card bills over the holidays? If you’ve been in your home a couple of years you probably have an untapped resource in the equity sitting in your home. Read more of this post
The Most Important Time in Selling Your Home – Week One
September 11, 2010 Leave a Comment
OK – so you’ve decided to sell your home and buy one that suits your lifestyle better than your present one. You may want a house with more bedrooms for your growing family or perhaps a condominium to get away from shoveling snow during Central PA’s winters. Whatever the circumstances, perhaps the most important decision you’ll have to make in determining how successful you will be is setting the price on your home, and in most cases, this is where sellers end up shooting themselves in the foot.
It’s human nature to want to price a home high to attract that one buyer that will magically appear and fall all over themselves to give a seller anything they want, but we all know that these buyers are a figment of the imagination. In other instances, sellers set their price too high anticipating that buyers will automatically try to offer something lower. For some reason, sellers have it in their mind that every home ever offered for sale has sold for something less than the original list price.
In the past, when a seller put their home up for sale, all they considered were what comparable properties similar to theirs sold for in the market. While this is certainly a good idea, it is by no means the only thing to consider in this hyper-competitive market we’re in today. Read more of this post
The Difference Between Short Sales, Foreclosures and REO’s
September 8, 2010 2 Comments
Practitioners in the real estate industry sometimes throw around acronyms and terminology that we understand, but in many cases our clients do not.
Here is a prime example: short sales, foreclosures and REO’s (Real Estate Owned). I found this short video clip that does a great job in explaining the differences. The guy in the video is Spencer Rascoff, the COO of Zillow.
Five Tips for Deciphering Your Home Loan’s Good-Faith Estimate
September 6, 2010 Leave a Comment
I recently had an agent in my office who showed me their Buyer’s HUD-1 Settlement Statement form two days prior to settlement that had some inconsistancies when it came to the numbers jiving with the original Good Faith Estimate provided by the lender. I found this article of the National Association of REALTORS® consumer website, HouseLogic, that provided some good answers to questions about Good Faith Estimates. The article is reproduced here in its entirety:
Knowing how to read your good-faith estimate can help you save money on your home loan.
When you’re shopping for a mortgage loan, it’s sometimes hard to understand the jargon lenders use in the good-faith estimate explaining the costs and fees you’ll pay when taking out a mortgage.
When you apply for a mortgage, the lender has three days to give you a good-faith estimate of the fees and interest rate you’ll pay, as well as other loan terms. Here are five tips for using the new three-page form to your advantage.
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