Great Menu Planner Website

How about a website that knows what is on sale at your neighborhood grocery store and has recipes that take advantage of those sales!  Is that cool or what?  FoodOnTheTable is a subscription service that also has a  free teaser membership that gives you a chance to test drive the service.  The Teaser membership limits you to 3 grocery stores.  I chose a Tom Thumb, a Kroger and Central Market.  I tried to add Whole Foods which is how I found out about the limit of 3 stores.   Once those stores are identified, you specify which meats appeal to your tastes.  The website then does a side-by-side list of which store has those items on sale, giving you a choice of which store you want to shop in.  I asked the website to give me 3 menus.  The recipes generate a grocery list that can be emailed to yourself so it shows up on your phone as a list.  Now, THAT is a feature I can use!

http://www.foodonthetable.com/

The grocery list also has coupons for in-store specials.  I couldn't find how to print the grocery list, but obviously there has to be a way to do it!

North Texas Traditional Dance Society

Should you find yourself with a free Saturday night, consider going Contra Dancing with the North Texas Traditional Dance Society (NTTDS).   http://www.nttds.org/  It is fun. It costs very little.   It is good exercise without being being too far off the charts in terms of physical effort. 

NTTDS has been around since the early 1980s.  They have a dance pretty much every Saturday night with live music.  Check their calendar for location.  They welcome strangers.  You don't have to show up with a partner.  The group encourages everyone to change partners for each dance.  There are usually more women than men so it is common for women to dance together.  These people don't let much stand in the way of having a good time!

What is Contra Dancing?  It is sort of like square dance, kind of like the old fashioned English country dancing they show in the Jane Austin movies.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contra_dance.  You will want to take a bottle of water with you.  Dress is casual.  Ladies wear skirts mostly because it feels good to dance in a skirt!  Show up early and they will walk New-comers through the basics (currently between 7:30 and 8 when the dancing begins).

Foreign Parts

I love my job. I get to learn something new just about every day!   I have had 3 situations recently that required me to think about how things done locally have to mesh with things done in Foreign Parts.

In the first instance, a Canadian National wanted to buy a condo in Dallas.  What I found out is that for her to do that, she would have to pay cash.  In order for her to borrow money, it could only be with a US lending institution.  And, her Canadian credit history won't help her.  She has to establish credit in the US.  And, it would take 2 years for that to happen.

The other two deals both involved a real estate sale by a US citizen who is currently working out of the country.  In both cases, it was necessary for the seller to travel to the closest US embassy to have papers notarized in a form that is recordable in the US.  One of my sellers decided that he didn't need to travel that distance.  He got the papers executed by a local French notary and then paid to overnight those papers to the title company.  That set off the Tilt Meter at the title company.  The seller got to do it again, this time traveling 200 Km to the embassy.

Buying a Condo? Are you getting a Mortgage or Paying Cash?

If you are buying a condo and you plan to get a mortgage, you need to find out if the complex is FHA Approved.  You need that information even if you are getting a Conventional Loan. It used to be possible to get FHA “spot approval” for an individual unit. That option has been completely eliminated as of February 2010. Now the complex has to get approved. It didn’t used to matter at all because there really weren’t that many differences between FHA and Conventional financing. Currently, unless you have 20% to put down, the only kind of condo financing reliably available is FHA.

I recently had a deal where the buyer paid cash for the condo. He told me that it doesn’t matter to him that the complex isn’t FHA Approved. I told him that he may not care now, but eventually it will matter because he will need to sell it. The bigger the pool of potential buyers, the higher the demand there will be for the property. The higher the demand, the more likely the sales prices will go up. The more difficult it is to get a loan for units in the complex, the more likely it is that prices will be stagnant, or Heaven Forbid, go down.

To find out if the complex is on the FHA Approved List,

https://entp.hud.gov/idapp/html/condlook.cfm

Dramatic Downtown Views

I was showing property to someone yesterday in Oak Cliff. He is a photographer. We began to talk about locations in The Cliff where it is possible to get dramatic views of downtown. I showed him my 3 personal favorites.

1. Commerce and the Levee. The City has put up an awning on the western Levee, just south of Commerce Street. The City did it to help people visualize the Trinity Project. I have always intended to stop but never have until yesterday. Good view (go figure). The photographer decided that for his purposes, from that perspective, fully 1/3rd of the view is consumed by the brown mass of jail buildings located at Commerce and Riverfront. He preferred the view from the Visitor Parking garage associated with the jail complex. It can be accessed from Riverfront. I have never gone into that parking garage, but the signage indicates that it is accessable to the public.

2. The Belmont Hotel. I don't know if there is any more scenic bit of real estate in Dallas. I know from experience that it is possible to ask the desk clerk to let you tour rooms until you find the one with the view that makes you happiest. http://www.belmontdallas.com/index.aspx There are two cheaper ways to enjoy the view. One is from the patio of the Belmont Bar. The other is to drive up along the bluff just north of the hotel. Both have great views of downtown. Interesting Preservation Tidbit. The Belmont was designed by Charles Dilbeck.

3. North-bound on Hampton Road as it crosses over I-30. It is obvious that it is possible to access the areas off-road, but getting there on foot is going to require some focus and determination as well as extreme caution. Dallas drivers don't expect to encounter foot traffic anywhere close to City Streets. Historic Tidbit. This bit of very high ground is the general neighborhood of the Utopian Colony, La Reunion. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/LL/uel1.html

"Hip Pocket" Listings

A "Hip Pocket" listing is a property that can be bought but that isn't being openly marketed at the moment. The listing agent has it in their "hip pocket". The most common reason for a property being in "hip pocket" status is that it isn't in "market-ready" condition. I currently have several of those we are working on. In the case of a Lakewood classic, the elderly owner has been relocated but the 17 cats are still in residence. We are working on those cats. That home can't go into the Multiple Listing System (MLS) until we get the cat situation under control.

I almost always have 2 or 3 hip-pockets that are condos around Central Market. It is common for me to get phone calls from other agents who are looking in the area and haven't found what they need. They call me.

The flip-side of that happened recently when I had a client who wanted something in one of the highrises. I phoned 3 agents who work in those buildings. Sure enough, I found a hip-pocket that we were able to go see.

Before MLS was put into use, the only way to find out what was on the market was to contact each and every real estate agent and ask what they had to sell. It was like going booth-to-booth at a flea market. Commercial real estate is still largely that way. You have to know what agent works in the area in which you want a bit of commercial real estate. Then you have to phone that agent and ask. On one level, it feels slow and cumbersome. On another level, I like it better because it is a much more personal way to do business. Real estate is a relationship-based business. Even in the age of social media and text messages, it is still about relationships, first and foremost.

Blondes vs Brunettes

My precious friend, Jenn Thompson, is part of a really amazing group of women who have found a way to raise money for the Alzheimer's Association of Greater Dallas. They will be playing a football game Saturday night. In the last 2 years, the game has raised right at a quarter of a million dollars. They are on target this year to raise about $200,000.

If you don't have other plans, consider coming out for the game! I will be there, partially because Jenn is going to be at the gate with an Attendance Check List and partially because there is going to be "free" beer at the after-party (having paid for two tickets, it isn't "free" free...but, it is easier to call it "free" than to call it "at no additional expense").

Ebby herself is going to be there, doing the coin toss. And, watch for the Blondes' QB....it will be Jenn!

http://www.bvbdallas.org

How to crochet: lesson 1