A few months ago, Filtrete, the home filtration products brand by 3M, had a rebate for a free air filter. Being a homeowner, I thought that this was a pretty nice promotion and I shared it with readers and clients on Facbook. Well, it seems that Filtrete now has just rolled out the Clean Air Club to help consumers get a better idea of how their products can help improve the air in your home.
Signing up is free and you automatically receive a $3 Filtrete Rebate Blindness movies
(just click on the link to download) on certain Filtere products. Here are some of the other benefits:
A Homeowner’s Guide to Better Indoor Air Quality
This is a great way to learn about things that affect the air in your home and methods to help create cleaner indoor air (from the American Lung Association® buy Under Siege 2: Dark Territory
).
Indoor Air Quality Journal
Keep track and schedule easy steps to help improve indoor air quality.
“My Size” wallet card
This is useful if you can’t remember your filter size.
Seasonal eNewsletter
This Clean Air Club eNewsletter is packed with exclusive special offers, product news, home tips and filter change reminders.
Exclusive member promotions
Enjoy a range of members-only perks, like sweepstakes, rebates and special offers!
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Thanks for all of you that attended last Saturday’s Rainmaker Properties Client Appreciation Movie Event featuring Madagascar 2. It was great to see so many clients and friends. On behalf of the Rainmaker Properties team, we want to thank you for all of your support.
Click on the video to see our red ticket raffle drawing. There’s also a great slide show toward the end of the video, so don’t forget to check it out.
Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!
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One of the local Silicon Valley faith organizations that Rainmaker Properties supports is the Great Exchange Covenant Church (GrX) in Santa Clara. GrX has been a great influence in my own personal life as well as with the local and global community.
GrX will be presenting a photo documentary on the truth about modern human trafficking.
This exhibit seeks to put a human face on a human trade that takes its victims across international borders. It challenges the world to address the globalization of human trafficking and slavery in the 21st century.
Humans For Sale: A Photo Documentary
Friday September 5, 2008 7:00PM to 10:00PM
River of Life Christian Church
1177 Laurelwood Rd
Santa Clara, CA 95054
Exhibit material may not be appropriate for children under 14. Parental discretion advised. folic acid dilantin side effects
Little Miss Sunshine rip Christmas Town move
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One of the most difficult things for home sellers to accept when pricing their Silicon Valley home is that they may need to compromise on their asking price when they list and negotiate the sale of their home.
Proper pricing, always a critical component in real estate, and one of the most critical insights a real estate agent — whether in Mountain View, Los Altos, or beyond — can provide, has become especially important today because buyers are cautious and the market is in flux.
If fact, inflexibility can lead to missed opportunities. I’ve been working with home sellers who are facing just such a situation.
After analyzing the local market and the homeowners’ goals, I thought a property in Mountain View should be listed at $1.2 million, but the owners insisted that we start at $1.35 million.
Within six weeks, we got an offer for $1,170,000. The prospective buyer was solid and I thought the offer was strong. The homeowners (lifelong Mountain View homeowners) had nearly paid off the mortgage, so they would be walking away with a respectable profit. Yet, they rejected the offer immediately. This all happened before the recent national financial crisis.
After the house sat on the market and we received no additional offers, we lowered the price to $1.3 million for six weeks. Unfortunately, this pricing strategy yielded not one offer.
We then dropped it to $1.25 million and finally received an offer for $1.15 million. The owners wouldn’t accept that price and decided to rent the house. Three applicants applied and we found one tenant that would commit to a lease. But the owners then decided to go back and try negotiating with the prospective buyer who had made the $1.15-million offer.
Eventually, both possible deals—the one with the home buyer and the prospective tenant—fell apart. The homeowners were left with no prospects for a rental and no sale.
They’re now facing a market that has gotten more difficult because of the stock market crash and the ensuing credit crunch.
Elizabeth Weintraub of About.com offers a list of pricing techniques
Pulse (aka Octane) film
that this owner should have heeded, but this situation also illustrates several key points to consider when you decide to sell:
1. Consult a professional REALTOR®, a real estate agent who is a member of the local association of REALTORS®, who knows the local market, for example the Silicon Valley Association of REALTORS®. Follow the person’s advice. He or she is best prepared to properly price a property.
2. Do your own due diligence. You can find insight on pricing, how the local market is performing, and how long it typically takes to sell a property in your neighborhood by going online.
3. Be realistic when you get an offer. The emotional response is to reject a disappointing offer from the get-go. But you can negotiate and work toward a more favorable price. It’s important not to get too emotionally involved in the deal.
4. Know that in a declining market the offers may not get better. You have to really weigh your financial situation and how long you’re willing to wait for that perfect price to come in. After all, you’re likely still making money, just not as much as you once thought you would. Can you afford to put your plans on hold? If you reject an offer in hand, are you willing to risk getting an even lower offer next time?
5. You hired your REALTOR® because you had confidence in his or her abilities and the market analysis that the person presented to you. Remember that the market decides what price a house is worth, not the REALTOR®. If the listing agreement expires and you and the REALTOR® part ways, you’ll have to start from ground zero with a new REALTOR®. And that new person, after weighing current conditions, may suggest an even lower starting price than the offers you’ve already received.
6. By making impulsive decisions, you could lose valuable time and miss out on solid offers.
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At my recent open house in downtown Mountain View, I was recently chatting with a real estate agent that earlier this year had been interested in joining my team, and she surprised me. I happened to ask whether she prepared brokers open houses for her two Mountain View listings, and she said, “What’s that?” Her answer was another reminder that not all real estate agents are the same.
A “brokers open,” as we Realtors call them, is an open house exclusively for brokers that takes place right after a home is listed but usually before buyers see the property. Brokers opens are an important first step in selling a home because they not only generate interest for a listing within the Realtor community, they’re also a great way to get feedback on listings.
Of course, brokers opens are useless unless brokers attend. I always have catered food at my brokers opens because the rumors are true—Realtors are always hungry, and they love free stuff. Sounds funny, but it works. I recently held a broker’s open in a great neighborhood in Mountain View bordering Los Altos area, and 30 agents come by. At another in a great downtown Mountain View location, 20 agents stopped in. And at a broker’s open in Sunnyvale, 10 agents attended. Those stats say something about which Silicon Valley markets are most active. Mountain View and Los Altos aren’t too affected by the economy, but some areas of Sunnyvale is seeing a slight slowdown in activity today.
The Washington Post has a great article commenting on how during a real estate downturn, the focus for selling homes shifts back to traditional marketing to brokers and real estate agents Dark Water on dvd
.
Once they’re there, real estate agents’ feedback at the brokers open house can be very helpful. I always ask, “What would you recommend with this listing?” I’ve had brokers suggest that I stage a certain room and even mention that the bathroom smelled funny (That was particularly helpful since I don’t have a great sense of smell).
I don’t change my marketing based on every suggestion. But if I get several remarks on an issue, it’s probably something I need to address. For example, if a few brokers tell me I’ve priced the property well, that reinforces my confidence. But if three or four tell me the listing is overpriced, I’ll discuss those comments with my sellers. avodart vs flomax
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