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Sunday, June 15th is Father’s Day. The seven million dollar question – have you figured out what you’re going to get him? You know as well as we do that dads aren’t always the easiest people to buy for. To compound the problem, the big day is only a little more than a week away. If you have yet to get your gift for Dad, do not fear. The staff at YOU Magazine has compiled a list of some very original ideas.

No one wants to get his or her dad a generic Father’s Day gift like a tie or a bottle of cologne. On the other hand, ask your dad what he wants or needs and he’ll probably say something like, “I already have everything.” That being the case, the following ideas are meant to stir your creative juices, as most can be adapted to your father’s personal likes and tastes. And don’t worry. You still have plenty of time pull them off.

A day at the ballpark
If your dad is a baseball fan, then this gift is an absolute home run (pun intended). Tickets to a game are always a winner, but accompanying him to the game is a day that your dad will never forget. Remember, the game doesn’t have to be played on Father’s Day. Tickets can be for a game several weeks down the road. The point is to attend a baseball game, or any other sporting event, together.

A car wash
Almost every dad loves a clean car. If your budget is a little tight, wash and wax Dad’s car yourself. If time is an issue but money isn’t, why not pay for a mobile detail service to get his ride looking cherry?

A new barbecue
Is your dad the grill master of the family? If so, you may want to consider upgrading his equipment. Nowadays, great barbecues can be purchased anywhere from stores dedicated to grilling, to establishments like Home Depot. While an upgraded grill may be a pricey gift, it’s perfect for sharing the cost with siblings. And if your dad already has a great barbecue, you may want to look into something like a smoker or grilling tools.

A digital picture frame
If your dad still has a framed photo of you graduating from high school, and you’re currently married with children of your own, then perhaps a digital picture frame would be the perfect gift this Father’s Day. Load it up with pictures of the family, and Dad will have a high-tech way to look at his loved ones.

Anything golf
If your dad is a golfer, you almost can’t go wrong by purchasing a golf-related gift of any kind. The options are not only endless, but they run the gamut in terms of price. The expensive side would be a new club or clubs, or even a round of golf at a championship course. The cheaper end of the spectrum would include various pieces of golf equipment, a one-day golf lesson, or a subscription to Golf Digest magazine.

A day of beauty
Not your dad, right? Guess again. A professional shave and a great haircut are gifts that’ll make your dad look and feel great. Besides, professional shaves are somewhat in fashion right now. While you’re at it, why not throw in a professional massage? If he’s never had one, he doesn’t know what he’s missing.

A reunion
Does Dad have family or friends he hasn’t seen in a while? Why not arrange some type of reunion? Of course, every situation will be different, so only you know what is feasible. It’s also an appropriate gift for soliciting either financial or logistical help from siblings and other family members.

Clean out the garage
If your dad loves to spend time in the garage, then chances are, even more, he’ll love a garage that’s clean and organized. See if you can get Dad out of the house for the day to make this happen. It’s an inexpensive way to show how much you love him.

Gone fishin’
No matter if it’s his hobby or not, there’s nothing quite like spending the day fishing with Dad. Depending on the type of fishing you do, worthy equipment can either be rented or purchased rather inexpensively. So, whether you decide to charter a fishing boat or sit by the lake, it’s sure to be a Norman Rockwell moment.

Gift-of-the-month club
A simple Google™ search will turn up a plethora of gift-of-the-month clubs. Find one that suits your dad, and Father’s Day can come once a month, 12 times a year.

A night on the town
When was the last time Dad and Mom had a great night out? Dinner, tickets to a movie or a concert and a hotel room would be a great place to start. You could step it up a notch and give them a weekend vacation. The best part about this gift is that Mom gets to enjoy it, too.

A digital camera
This is a great gift for Dad, especially if grandchildren are in the picture. There are countless models on the market, available in a wide range of prices. If photography wasn’t a hobby for him, it may just become one.

We hope this helps. However, it’s important to remember something that may sound a bit contradictory to what we said at the beginning of this article. While it may seem like fathers are hard to buy for, they’re actually quite easy. The reason is that with Dad, it’s never about the present you buy him. It’s the fact that you thought of him in the first place.

Happy Father’s Day!

Your Folsom Current Market Analysis for the Month of May.  Folsom is holding strong in this market…new shopping centers,gas stations,circuit city,In and Out Burger Oh My….

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Great time to have a martini! You are in good hands for all your realestate needs.

Orange Martini Recipe
6 parts vodka
1 part triple sec
1 dash orange bitters
Orange twist

Combine liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice and shake well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with orange twist.

Confirming just how important curb appeal is to hooking new owners, JELD-WEN, a leading window and door manufacturer, discovered in a recent survey of real estate agents that 82 percent have had potential buyers decline to look at the interior of a home based on the exterior appearance.

“In today’s competitive market, buyers want upgrades, like windows and doors, that create visual appeal,” says Elizabeth Souders, product marketing manager for JELD-WEN. “A home must present itself favorably in a quick snapshot. The real estate agent survey shows that without strong curb appeal, buyers might not even consider looking inside the home.”

Upgrading curb appeal is proving to be a good investment when selling a home. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), window and door projects mostly pay for themselves at closing. Typically, homeowners can expect between an 81 to 88 percent return on window upgrades, the NAR said.

Top Five Curb Appeal Tips

In addition to obvious touches like a new coat of paint or fixing cracks in the pavement, updating windows and doors is an ideal first step in boosting a home’s image. Whether owners are listing a home for sale, or simply want to increase their home’s stature in the neighborhood, JELD-WEN suggests these five tips to increasing curb appeal:

1. Stay true to style: Upgrades should fit in with a home’s architectural style. For example, JELD-WEN says contemporary homes call for windows and doors with clean lines and simple profiles, while traditional homes such as Craftsmans or Colonials are better matched with windows and doors featuring appropriate divided lite designs.
   
2. Add details: Custom features are a great way to achieve one-of-a-kind looks that stand out. Adding a doorknocker, speakeasy, decorative glass or metal accents to an upgraded front door can give an Old World home a heightened level of charm to catch a buyer’s eye. New house numbers and porch lights also provide a fresh look for entry areas. 
3. Remember the garage: The most prominent exterior feature in many homes is the garage door, so this upgrade goes a long way toward elevating curb appeal. JELD-WEN is seeing many homeowners ordering garage doors complete with window inserts, metal accents and hardware to match the main entry door for a coordinated appearance.
   
4. Dress the yard: Make sure the house is the first thing potential buyers see, not overgrown hedges or dead grass. Hire a gardener to spruce up the landscaping and add colorful touches like seasonal flowers, decorative rocks or bubbly water fountains. Shaping bushes and curving lawn borders can shake up a tired front yard.
   
5. Coordinate color: Color, when done right, sells. Doors and windows give homeowners ideal opportunities to infuse color into their curb appeal without having to paint.

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johnhayes

firstime home buyers

I found this great Article found in money magazine.  Thought is would share

 A well-thought-out strategy for responding to e-mails is central to your success with today’s Web-savvy buyers and sellers.

BY MICHAEL RUSSER

If you’re like many of today’s real estate practitioners, the majority your new leads come from the Web. An online consumer will shoot you an e-mail (often anonymously), fill out a form on your Web site, or maybe just send you a text message.

Given today’s challenging market conditions, you want to treat these inquiries like gold. You must respond professionally – honoring prospects’ desire for privacy while also providing valuable information that will eventually turn them into clients. Here are six general rules that will help you accomplish that goal.

Best Practice #1: Respond in Kind

If a prospect e-mails you, respond via e-mail. If a prospect text messages you, respond via text. (By the way, you will see more initial online inquiries via text messages as the “Thumb Generation” reaches the age where they are considering purchasing their first home.) The general rule is to respond in kind, unless the inquiry explicitly asks you to do otherwise.

Best Practice #2: Don’t Call Them

If you’ve somehow acquired a prospect’s phone number and you’re tempted to pick up the phone, stop yourself. It’s generally a bad idea. Why? You risk driving that potential client away because in all probability, he or she just wanted information, not a salesperson trying to set up an appointment.

Most human beings feel vulnerable and defensive when they’re on the phone with a salesperson with whom they don’t have a relationship. That’s one reason why Internet is such a popular place for prospects’ to gather information before speaking to a real estate professional.

So, is it ever appropriate to call an online prospect in response to an online inquiry? Yes, there are a couple of exceptions.

• If the prospects explicitly ask you to call them and provide their phone number.
• If it is clear that the lead has come directly from your highly targeted Web site, and the prospects offered their phone number voluntarily (in other words, they were not forced to reveal it in order to access information on your site or order a report). It’s so important the lead comes from your highly targeted Web site because then it’s more likely they’ve already learned about your business and have started trusting you. That’s a contrast from most inquiries from third-party lead generation services or “one size fits all” sites are actually quite cold.

Best Practice #3: Always Include Your E-mail Signature

An e-mail signature is an information block, usually at the end of your message, that includes your complete contact information. In addition to being professional, it is a required disclosure by some real estate regulatory jurisdictions. Once you have established a solid and ongoing client relationship with the prospect, including your signature in each e-mail message is no longer absolutely necessary. However, you still may decide it’s a good idea, as it provides a convenient way for clients to find your contact information.

Best Practice #4: There’s No Such Thing as Too Fast

Online consumers are a very impatient bunch (remember, the Internet connects people around the world in just milliseconds). They expect a very fast response to their inquiries. Ideally, you will respond to e-mail within a few minutes. However, this presents a logistics problem if you’re showing property, at a listing appointment, or in the middle of a heated negotiation – or on vacation, at your child’s dance recital, playing golf, etc.

So, how can you be responsive without having to sit in front of your computer all day? The most practical answer, in my opinion, is to use a virtual assistant who specializes in online lead management. VAs do sit in front of their computer all day and therefore are in a position to respond immediately on your behalf. The best place to find a VA with specific real estate sales support skills like these is REVA Network (in the interest of full disclosure, I’m one of the founders of this network).

In addition to acting as your online proxy by providing immediate response to online inquiries, they can also help you stay in touch with those online leads who are not quite ready to move just yet. Should an inquiry arrive via text message, you at least will be in a better position to respond to it in a timely fashion since it arrives on your cell phone. Once again however, you could re-direct these messages to your VA to handle them as well.

Best Practice #5: Keep in Touch, Or Else

Or else you risk losing the prospects forever. I’d estimate that 19 of 20 valid online real estate related inquiries are prospects in the information gathering stage and can be three to 18 or more months away from taking action. So if you want any chance of doing business with this massive 95-precent segment of online leads, you need a way to stay in touch that doesn’t drive them away.

Drip marketing is a great solution for turn latent leads into closed transactions, If you follow these guidelines:

• Give them value. Every message of your drip campaign needs to be perceived as highly valuable by the recipient. If the prospect is part of your specific target market (luxury buyers, first-time buyers, etc.), put them into a campaign that addresses their specific needs. If all you know is their interest in a particular property (typical for most third-party lead generation services), then provide them with ongoing, up-to-date information about properties and neighborhoods in the general area of their interest.
• Don’t overwhelm or underwhelm. You want prospects to remember you for the right reasons. Avoid contacting them more than once a week or you’ll likely push them away. On the other hand, make sure your campaign keeps in touch with them no less than once a month.
• Make it easy for them to say “no thanks.” At the bottom of each message (assuming you’re doing a drip e-mail campaign), include easy “one-click” opt-out instructions in case the prospect no longer wants to receive your messages. Online consumers don’t like to feel like they’re trapped into receiving something they don’t want. Also, since most email drip campaign systems track opt-out requests, you can see whether your campaign is doing its job or not.

Best Practice #6: Treat Online Leads Like Human Beings

Yes, there is a person on the other end of that e-mail you just received. Remember that online consumers are human beings just like you and me. The key is understanding human behavior in the online context, and then leveraging that understanding into practical communication strategies that result in the highest likelihood of converting casual inquiries into closed transactions. 

Now I have to go do my Honey Dew list!  But First Its time For A Martini!

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http://www.therealestatemartini.com

Some Great Info.  Knowledge is POWER. 

http://www.johnhayesrealestate.com

Sacramento Home Sales Recorded in April 2008

Reporting resale single family residences and condos as well as new homes. % Change is from the same month last year at the Median Price. Sales include all attached and detached homes, both new and resale, including FSBO, family transfer and out of area sales. The information is gathered from public records at county recorders offices where documents are filed after the close of escrow. Source: Dataquick

John Hayes

RE/MAX GOLD

http://www.johnhayesrealestate.com

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