20111222 #RE101 Advice to sellers

Where do we begin.   I guess the first thing I must address is your MLS photos.  For GOD's sake these pictures are the first impression for your house on the Internet.  Your home is marketed 24/7/365 all over the world.

1. Hire a professional photographer!   If your home is professionally staged, your stager will also most likely be taking excellent photos (Before/After) for their website.  Your stager will also look for hidden traps in your photos.   Toilet seats down....nobody wants to see that.
2. De-clutter and de-personalize your home!   You are moving out of your home pack up your home now.  When you think you are done, do it again.  You may ask what are you going to be doing with all your packed boxes?  There are many moving companies that offer load and go storage containers.
3. Buy lawn seed about 6 months before you put your house on the market and get your lawn in top shape.  It doesn't grow overnight and you need time to let it take hold.   Mow that lawn and rake your leaves.
4. Paint is cheap and it makes a great impression.  If you have Sleeping Beauty Pink walls in your daughter's room and Wrigley Field in your son's room. Paint the rooms to a neutral less personalized color scheme.  You're buyers aren't buying a theme park they are buying a home.  Consult your local hardware store and ask for "Staging safe paint colors" A good professional paint crew can power spray an entire interior in a matter of hours.

20111120 Paoli Indiana Tornado November 2011

A tornado touched down in downtown Paoli Indiana earlier this week. This tornado did lots of damage to the town square where the county courthouse is located.

This same town square had a disasterous fire which burnt 1/4 of the square down.  Paoli was just begining clearing out the burnt lots when this tornado came thru.

This comes at a bad time with the holidays and all.  What was supposed to be a time for strolling around the decorated town square and Christmas Shopping has turned into a mess of rubble.

Please, if you're in the Louisville, Bloomington and Evansville area. Please do some of your shopping in the Paoli area.  Just visit and have a lunch in the area.  The people of Paoli can use your assistance.

They area a proud people and wont ask directly. So I am doing it for them.

SHOP PAOLI INDIANA and help bring back this community.

20111117 Some things to do in the San Leandro area

Oakland Zoo
Dunsmuir Hellman Historic Estate
Chabot Space and Science Center
Bayfair Center
Harry's Hof-Brau
Banchero's Italian Dinners
Porky's Pizza
East Bay Regional Parks
San Leandro Library
San Leandro Marina
Paradiso Restaurant
Cinemark Bayfair Cinemas
Zocalo Coffeehouse
Sabinos Coffee
Ghirardelli Outlet
Marina Square Outlets
Marina Square Auto Center
Ford Store San Leandro
Otis Spunkmeyer Cookies
Boulevard Burgers
Horatio's
Hilton Garden Inn San Leandro
San Leandro Marina Inn
Real Estate in San Leandro

20101027 The Bed & Breakfast and my planned additions.

Here are some of the ideas I am working on for turning the mansion into a bed & breakfast Inn.  Oakvale Park Inn will be located on the outskirts of West Baden Indiana.  I plan on adding a bathroom to each of the bedrooms at the front of the home.

The second floor would get a similar addition with bathrooms off the bedrooms up front as well as an upgrade to the existing master bathroom.

I would also add an innkeeper's cottage. The innkeeper's cottage may also be the prototype for extended stay cottages for RV (Recreational Vehicle) pad guests.  My owner's cottage will be the same with the exception of two additional bedrooms added out the rear of the unit.

20111026 Sorry I haven't blogged as much

Hello all again.

I've been twittering @mdgreenslade, follow me.  I am trying to get my web-presence up a notch.  I have also been dealing with some issues on my mansion back in Indiana.  I have also been dealing with mother's successful surgery for her colon cancer.

If you're on twitter, follow me, I think that I am doing to be able two tweet these postings.  I am covering a real estate course #RE101 and highlighting neighborhoods with #NeighborhoodSpotLight.

 Master Bath Ceiling

 Laundry Room Wall

 Dining Room Door

 Storage shed

 East Side View

On the issue of my house, as you may remember I've had a contractor installing a standing seam metal roof on the mansion, garage and storage building.  The contractor left the job 1/3 of the way through. My house was tarped once and then never maintained.  Ceilings and walls in just about every room in the house have been damaged.

The metal roof has to be trashed and now I am having a second new roof installed which will be an asphalt shingle (Certainteed Landmark Series Slate).

Now to some good news, the doctors at Kaiser Permanente were able to get all of mom's colon cancer.  She is now cancer free for the first time since 2005, that's six years with cancer.  She will be having radiation therapy to make sure that if anything is still there, it will not grow again.  I am so happy for her..

Now, I need to ramp up my Real Estate career.  If you know anyone looking to buy or sell real estate in the San Francisco East Bay area.  I would appreciate it if you would send them to me. 510 334-7800

20111007 Some recent updates

Some recent updates.  I have added a profile to HGTV's Frontdoor.com covering real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area.   Click the link to see.

http://www.frontdoor.com/pro/Sanleandro

I visited my property out in French Lick Indiana and checked out the roofing job that was supposed to have been going on.   Notice the way I phrased that.  The contractor, Mark Kimmel, walked hasn't worked on the house in months.  Rain has seeped into the interior and my tenants have been dealing with moving buckets around to catch the drips.   Ceilings have been falling down and the plaster on the dining room is, well, melting over the door to the veranda. I have already posted a Yelp.com review for the contractor.   2/3rds of my metal roof never showed up to the property and I am going to end-up getting the sheriff involved in what appears to be the theft of thousands of dollars of metal.

20110805 City employee parking abuse.

Here is a City of Oakland vehicle parking in the Grand Avenue pay lots.  These stalls go for $2.00 an hour.  This city worker is taking up three parking stalls.  That's $6.00 for the hour he was there (lunch hour) 

Let's not forget that if we mere citizens who pay his salary were to park in a manner like that we would get a very hefty parking ticket.

Oh did I mention that in this same pay lot there were two meter maid SUV vehicles also parked there too.

No wonder the city is complaining about not enought revenue coming in.  Let's make these exempt vehicles accountible for their actions.  Parking tickets to the law breaking employees. 

It's only fair

20110430 Let's solve the national budget

1) Ground Air Force One for daily use and fundraising trips.  Use of the executive jet to be used to go to funerals of world leaders and when needed to evacuate the President in case of a threat to Washington D.C.

All other trips can be and should be substituted with secured teleconferencing from the oval office. There will be plenty of time for vacation after your term is over.

2) Banks--- It was in large part due to your bad loans causing this collapse of the Real Estate Market.  Stop flooding the market with your foreclosure mistakes.  Stopping the flood of foreclosures on the market, you will help save the value of the surrounding homeowners in each neighborhood. 

If you must foreclose on homes keep them in your inventory.  Set up a property management subsidiary and rent the houses back to homeowners that are foreclosed upon.   I wouldn't suggest that the homeowners that lost that house rent as part of that program.  Let the dislocated homeowners move in as tenants into another home as a renter in the same town or city.  Let's make the rent fair and equitable.

3) If someone is in our country illegally, we need to stop pandering to them and supporting them with our public services and assistance.

4) We need to go back to the constitution and reexamine our spending habits.  If it's not in your charter, we don't require you to spend a dime on it.  Do not expect the public to sponsor your pet projects.

20110322 The solution to social security

We need another baby boom to go out earn wages and support this existing group of retirees.

Having congress stop raiding the money would also be a great start.

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/3311634" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/3311634%22%3ERide For Love</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1330579%22%3Eryan gilchrist</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com%22%3evimeo%3c/a%3E.%3C/p%3EOn a f

Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan

text "REDCROSS" to 90999 to the Japanese Earthquake relief.   This is the link we have all seen from the Red Cross.  By texting Redcross to this number you will make a $10.00 donation

I just did!

2/18/2011 No I will not do your job for you!

I often get ticked off when I am asked to do the work of someone offering a service to me.

I will just stare back at the grocery store checker at Safeway when they have completed scanning the bar codes over the laser.  I pay the bill and then they give you the look as if,  are you going to start bagging now?

No, I don't work for Safeway and I do not get a paycheck from Safeway.

At the airport when standing in line for the check-in counter, being told by the employee standing right next to your bag, to lift your bag and place it on their scale for weighing.

Hello!, I just paid for your airline to take me and my bags to my desired destination.  Once I am in the airport standing in line at your counters, I am your highest priority!   No I will not pick up my bag and place it on the scale.  How about exerting some energy and giving some service.  I do not work for United, American, Delta or Southwest.   I do not get a paycheck from your airline.  I am your customer and I vote with my dollars whom I wish to travel with next time.

Dial 2 and enter in your account number.   Hello AT&T I think that you can retain that information from your computers to see what line I am calling from.  I also gave that information to the last bureaucrat I talked to!
No I will not do any labor for you, AT&T does not pay may paycheck.

If you have a job to do for me, do not ask me to do it for you!

2/16/2011 Nutella and other sins

Readers,

So here it is a rainy day by the San Francisco Bay.   Mom and I both have colds.  We are both coughing and sneezing and generally feeling crummy.

Have you ever tried the Nutella hazelnut and chocolate spread.  In checking their website, you can see that it a division of Ferrero Rocher chocolate company.  It is so very good and spreads very easily over toast.  If you can imagine a See's candy melted and spread on toast, that is what Nutella delivers.  I am so glad I tried something different in the peanut butter aisle in Lucky's supermarket.

If you read my first posting, I will be eventually moving to French Lick West Baden Indiana.   I hope that the stores there are carrying Nutella.   I am going to have to stock up if they don't.  

2/14/2011 Liberal Berkeley California made me obese

Hello Readers

When I was a child my parents would take my brothers and I for vacation at the City of Berkeley's Camp Toulumne.

It was a great fun place to camp with the family.  Tent cabins with wooden floors and half walls with tent tops.

During the days swimming in the swimming pond and diving off of the large Beaverhead Rock.  The camp councilors would take kids on nature hikes to the Indian tee-pee down the South Fork of the Toulumne River toward the town of Hardin Flats.  Craft lessons were held in an area underneath the mess hall overlooking the swimming pond.

In the evening talent shows at the outdoor stage and campfires.

It was in the mess hall is what changed my life forever.  Meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner would be served family style at long tables with a few other families.   The food was actually good.

It was the CLEAN PLATE AWARD program that they had that changed my life.  These little circles of yellow construction paper would be given out as merit badges for each meal you left a clean plate.  You would take your used plate up to the dishwasher lady and then they would give you a clean plate award.  The activities director councilor would make an announcement of your achievement.

As a little child that was such a cool thing to collect these awards.

Now as an adult, I think back to that damn award and now, I cannot leave excess food on the plate or to ask for a to go container.   If I could change the portion size from the restaurant and put food into a container before chowing down on the meal.  I could save money and have future meals too.

I recognize where my obesity began and it was with those damned CLEAN PLATE AWARDS.

I am going to combat this and create a HALF PLATE AWARD in my notes app on my iPhone.  Each time I ask for a container or leave some on the plate at the end of the meal, I will note down the achievement.

Why not join me in starting your own HALF PLATE AWARD program.  Share with me your success

Feb 12th 2011

Hello readers,

I am a Realtor in the San Francisco bay area.  If you know of a person looking to buy or sell, I would thank you to refer me.

Michael Greenslade
Better Homes & Gardens | Mason-McDuffie
3320 Grand Avenue   Oakland, CA 94610
510 334-7800
DRE 01824328
Michael.Greenslade@Bhghome.com

Feb 10th 2011 First posting

Hello and thank you for reading my blog.  My name is Michael Greenslade and I am a Realtor.  I am located in the East Bay side of the San Francisco Bay Area.

I am with Better Homes & Gardens | Mason-McDuffie in Oakland California.  I like to work with first time home buyers.  I have a passion for 1920s and 1930s Storybook Style bungalows.

I am a caregiver for my mother who has colon cancer.  She has been going through chemotherapy since 2005.  Six years and going strong. 

I am a single chubby guy.

I bought a home in West Baden Indiana 47469.  It is a 200 year old plantation style mansion.  I am planning on having it operate as a Bed and Breakfast Inn.