Reading and Writing on Helium

Let the Fun Begin With PhotoFun

Here is a fun site, http://www.photofun.com/ where you can upload, store, sore, and for a competitive price, print your photos. You can also create Photo Albums. As an amateur photographer, since I take photos of homes in my Tallahassee community, I am always looking for good online photo, video, and printing services. This one is a good fit, I think.

You can create a 32 page photo book at http://www.photofun.com/. Awesome, isn’t it? I am working on one now. If you go to the website, you can see examples, and what is good about it, is that you can customize the photo book. I always like customization. I do it with my blogs, my websites, and with most everything online. That way, you are not stuck with one look or style only.

Another thing you can do at http://www.photofun.com/, is create your own cards, for business, special occasions, whatever. You simply use the images you already uploaded to the photo album. So, you get many things you can do at Photofun.

This may be your favorite one-stop shop for all your online photo needs.

It is not always a pile of dirt

This pile of dirt does not represent the greeness of Tallahassee, and Florida in general. Tallahassee, Florida, is filled with evergreen trees, green parks, green yards, but here, in the midst of green, we have a big pile of dirt.

Sometimes, we feel like a pile of dirt. We all have ups and downs it seems. That pile of dirt sometimes seems like it just will not move away.However, isn’t is comforting to know that there is the soothing inspiration of greens all around us.

I grew up with green. Green has always been my favorite color. I think of the many hikes in the forests, the camping trips to green spots, swimming in creeks, lakes, ponds, surrounded by green forests. I think of the many hours of yardwork that I performed, not only in my yard, but in others’ yards, since yardwork, like cutting the grass, and raking the leaves, was my first job. I think of those spiritual moments alone in the woods, in a green haven, filled with peace and comfort. Alone, to be with my Creator, and contemplate the goodness of His creation, including the green trees in my comfort zone. Then, later in life, when I bought a house, I painted the walls, a sage green. I decorated with green accessories, including, live green plants to bring into the structure, the comforting naturalness of green, and the smell of living nature provided in the odor of the plants.

Now, back to that pile of dirt. I quickly am able to move that dirt mountain out of my view, so that I see what I really want to see: green nature flourishing.

Kenneth Fach, REALTOR
Weichert, REALTORS-Anchor
Tallahassee, Florida
cell 850-339-5753  blog http://KennethFach.com

These Ranch Style Homes Sure Look Familiar

Open Your Homes to Buyers but Protect Yourself From Identity Theft

There are many homes for sale in Tallahassee, Florida, and sellers truly want to sell. In the course of opening their homes to potential buyers, there are security issues that need to be addressed.

As a Tallahassee real estate agent, I have walked through homes either while hosting open houses for sellers, showing homes to buyer prospects, or in consultation with sellers regarding the real estate listing of their homes. During these moments, I have seen credit card statements left on the kitch counter, or on a bed. I have seen social security cards or documents sitting around. I have seen investment records, tax returns, bank check book, banking statements, application for services with personal information on them. Too many people just are not aware of the seriousness of identity theft today. All of these documents need to be hidden, or locked up somewhere. Identity theft is an issue that harms many people.

I do tell my clients and customers that all documents showing personal, confidential, or financial information should not be left out, even if other agents are right there with their buyers.

Having certain documents left out for prying eyes can lead to one or more of the five types of Identity theft. These types are:
Driver’s license identity theft, social security identity theft, medical identity theft, character or criminal identity theft, and financial identity theft, which is the one that most people think about when they hear about identity theft.

Think of the repercussions of experiencing victimization of Identity Theft. Go into a hospital, and they pull someone elses’s medical records thinking it is your information, and you get as a result, incorrect medication that could be harmful. Drivers License identity theft can have you stopped by a police officer, and you ending up in jail because your identity has been mistaken foe a real ciminal. Actually, the drivers license should be one of the most protected documents in our possession.

As a Tallahassee resident, and real estate professional, I am concerned about the identity theft issue. So much so, that I have protection, and so can you. It is called, Identity Theft Shield. I am out telling people about this good protection we can have. Prepaid-Legal Services offers this protection but the provider is Kroll, who has investigated big national and international issues. Kroll will investigate and restore a stolen identity. They have been in this business for 30 plus years. You get Identity Theft Shield for only $9.95 a month. That is worth it and valuable security in a world with too many security breaches at all levels of society. For more information, visit, http://prepaidlegal.com/hub/kennethfach

Kenneth Fach, Tallahassee, FL
Independent Associate
Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc., of Florida
Cell 850-339-5753

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When I think of ranch homes, I think of Frank Lloyd Wright

Looking at things that are uniquely from the heart and soul of the United States, I find that the architecture, vision, and interior designs, of Frank Lloyd Wright fit that category of uniqueness. One lasting contribution of Frank Lloyd Wright is the ranch style home that is found all over the nation.

I grew up in different ranch style homes, and have a particular fondness for this American architectural style. Most of the homes of my childhood, in northwest Florida, and even now, are ranch style homes. They are everywhere. Tallahassee, Florida is filled with small, and big, ranch style homes.

Actually, the ranch style home came after the other earlier contributions of Frank Lloyd Wright, such as the Praire home, but it was his vision, that made this architectural style the most widespread, and popular home style from the early 1940’s through the 1970’s. Unfortunately, not many home builders today make real ranch style homes, but that is not a bad thing since there are so many of these homes in most communities anyway, as long as buyers don’t mind having an older home.

The fascination that Frank Lloyd Wright had with horizontal lines, open spaces inside the home, built-in shelves, window seats, high windows, long rectangular forms, oneness with nature, natural materials, natural movement through the home, simplicity, spaciousness, low pitch gable roofs, earth colors, are fixed into ranch style homes. The homes opened up our lives to one another, and allowed for more sense of community within. The thinking of the great America architect is manifested all over the ranch style home.

One of the features of a ranch style home that most identifies it as such, is the very low gable roof, a gable that has a low pitch, and can even be flat in some versions of this home style. Look at the many homes that Frank Lloyd Wright created around America, and you will see the flatness, or near flatness of the roof, and the dominance of the horizontal over the verticle, and how these homes fit right into the local natural environment.

That is why I am so attracted to Frank Lloyd Wright and his architectural achievements. I too, love nature, and grew up hiking, camping and admiring the natural surroundings, not far from ranch style homes. I can’t think of another home style that so appropriately fits in, and snuggles with the land forms around it, and the trees that shadow it.

Frank Lloyd Wright did so much more than planting the seed for ranch style homes, but compared to his other architectural works, the ranch home became the most common, popular, practical for most people, and more affordable. With ranch came a new, tremendously successful and vibrant lifestyle. More people became home owners than ever before.

I don’t think the ranch homes will go away anytime soon. There are so many of them, and not everyone will want to live in two story homes. Many of us like one story homes, with easy access in and out. You know when you get a true ranch creation, you will have a good piece of work, a solid structure, that has lasted for many years. Tallahassee has so many of these strong, brick structures, with the characteristic low pitch gable roofs.

Kenneth Fach, REALTOR
Weichert, REALTORS-Anchor
1607 Village Square Boulevard, Suite B103
Tallahassee, FL 32303
Cell 850-339-5753    http://KennethFach.com

Each office is independently owned and operated.

Hotel Travelers and Camping Travelers

Who does not like to travel and visit favorite attractions, or take in a new travel location? You are probaby a hotel traveler or a camping traveler. One usually dominates over the other, but most of us tend to do both kinds of traveling.

It is good to have an easy source of hotel price information, as well as pictures of the hotels. One site has all of that, and provides an easy comparing of hotel prices in a given location. http://www.hotelscombined.com will be your travel guide to your next hotel desination. I just recently found the site, and have made use of the information, having planned an enjoyable getaway weekend trip with my wife and son. We are passionate travelers, and thank to HotelsCombined, we were able to easily compare hotels and make online reservations. Not a bad deal. I don’t like using the phone for everything, when my world is more real-time, online. Yes, don’t we love real-time?

Now, not all our traveling includes hotels. There is a great website to go to to make reservations in state and national parks all around the nation: http://reserveamerica.com. Yes, I have used that online service a lot, having a son who loves camping with his boy scout daddy. You get information about the park, include maps and area attractions. Similar to making hotel reservations at http://www.hotelscombined.com, you get to put in the dates, and park location, and presto, you get a map of sites, that are available or not available. You pick the campsite you want. You can choose under the criteria of tent camping, RV camping, cabin or lodge.

Both these websites should be a true traveler’s companion, as they are mine.

Mortgate Rates, Fees, and What is More Important.

House hunting is fun. I mean really, fun. I have been there and done it personally, along with my wife, on a number of occasions. We go out and view properties that we desire, can afford, and are needing for our lifestyle requirements. An important question we ask ourselves is, “how long do we see ourselves living in the home?” “What is more important for us when getting a mortgage loan, the interest rate, or the fees associated with getting the loan?”

Here is a useful tip: If you plan on living in the home for about 5 or 6 years, you probably should focus less on interest rate, and more on fees and closing costs. However, if you see yourself living in the home for more than 10 years, you should focus more on getting the lowest interest rate you can, and worry less about the loan fees and closing costs.  You want to build up equity in the home, and have lower monthly payments over the long run of say a 30 year fixed rate mortgage. If you are moving a just a few years, who cares about interest rates. Your concern is not long term equity growth. By that I mean, paying down the home, even possibly making extra payments to pay off more interest. Long term buyers are much more interest oriented.

This is just my suggestion to help our buyers. I have seen cases of buyers disappointed with their loan after purchasing the home, and after living in the home a few years. Either, they got the wrong type of loan, an ARM, versus a Fixed rate loan, or they shopped interest rate, and not closing costs, or they shopped closing costs and not interest rates, or they shopped from the perspective of a buyer living in the home for many years, when the buyer knew that she will be relocating in three years.

Some things are a given in real estate, such as location, disclosures, architecture, land type. Some things are a given in getting a mortgage loan as well, interest rates, term, which can be less than 10 years or more than 30 years, lender fees, and other closing costs.

 

Kenneth Fach, REALTOR
Weichert, REALTORS-Anchor
1607 Village Square Blvd., Suite B103
Tallahassee, Florida 32309
Cell 850-339-5753  email kennethfach@gmail.com  blog kennethfach.wordpress.com

Each office is individually owned and operated.

Costs and Disclosures that Home Buyers Should Know About

In real estate, the big all powerful rule is, location, location, location. That does not seem to change. You will always know that waterfront property, property with scenic views, property in a cul de sac, property in most desireable areas, will have a higher value. Who determines value? Not the seller, not the real estate agent, not the mortgage company, not the appraiser, not the title company. The buyer, and only the buyer, determines the value, because the buyer is the one who will purchase a property for a given amount of money. The seller only determines what he wants the price to be on a property, often with the assistance of a real estate agent, or an appraiser.

There is also another rule in real estate: disclosure, disclosure, disclosure.

Sellers must disclose to buyers any issues on the property that materially impact the value of the property, home and land. Nothing material can be hidden. If the seller is aware of a sewer plant planned around the corner, the seller must disclose that to the buyer. Sellers need to let the real estate agent representing them, anything thing about the property that the buyer has a right to know about. The agent cannot be in the dark, since her/his job is to best represent a safe, clean, Win/Win real estate transaction. The real estate agent needs to have the seller fill out a lengthy Seller’s Disclosure document, and copies need to be made to hand out or send to potential buyers. This protects seller and buyer, and should be properly filled out completely. This is one valuable disclosure, as the seller is admitting what he knows to be the history and condition of all the home’s systems, structure, and the surrounding land.

RESPA (Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act), has its strict, and I mean strict, requirements for disclosure. RESPA says that within three days of receiving an application for a mortgage loan, or preapproval if the property has been identified, the lender or mortgage broker must provide an informative Settlement Cost Information Booklet educating the buyer about fees and issues relating to a real estate transaction. A Good Faith Estimate has to also be provided the buyer within three days after applying for loan. The buyer has to receive the Uniform Settlement Statement on the day of closing, or before the actual closing appointment.

Now here is what the buyer should do. He should take the Good Faith Estimate, from the beginning of the loan process, and compare that as soon as he gets the Uniform Settlement Statement (HUD), so that buyer can compare the monetary amounts for correctness. Mistakes do happen, and I have never met a buyer who likes surprises having to do with their money.

Although, lenders are not required to provide a copy of the appraisal to buyer (if lender requests an appraisal to process a loan), and although, the appraiser is not allowed to discuss the appraisal, since officially, the appraisal belongs to the bank, the lender, however, the buyer can request to have a copy of the appraisal within 30 days after closing.

So, several things need to be considered in a real estate transaction, and they are, the location, the needed disclosures, and the rights that each party in the real estate transaction has. Buyer has rights to know all about the property being purchased, what the financial costs are, what the breakdown of fees are, and what documents he can keep.

Kenneth Fach, REALTOR
Weichert, REALTORS-Anchor
1607 Village Square Blvd., Suite B103
Tallahassee, Florida 32309
Cell 850-339-5753 email kennethfach@gmail.com blog kennethfach.wordpress.com

Each office is individually owned and operated.