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There’s a thief in my neighborhood.

Actually, there are at least 1000, according to Rochester Hills’ City Naturalist Lance Devoe.

Deer.  We all love them.  Watching Mama Doe and her babies meander through the yard is nature at its finest.  On one snowy day last winter, we had 10 deer frolicking through the back forty.  One deer, [...]

The last few months have been whirlwind for Dmitry and me.  In spite of all that you hear about the crummy housing market, we, through hard work, good fortune and a bit of creative thinking, find ourselves square in the middle of our best year in real estate-EVER.  Yes, you read that right.  Our best [...]

A new program about home staging is set to debut on HGTV Sunday night (10pm EST). The Stagers joins a plethora of shows (six that I can think of off the top of my head) focusing on preparing a house for a quick sale. This one promises to “go inside the hectic world [...]

Breaking News!
Fannie and Freddie are changing the rules on how payments on existing primary homes are treated when a buyer is purchasing a new home and plans to rent out the old house. In the past, we have been able to offset the payment on their existing home by showing a lease [...]

Dogs are people too, right? Not when it comes to selling a house.
As hard as it may be to accept and implement, when a property is on the market all traces of your beloved pets should be out of sight. This includes the food dishes, toys, cages, pet beds, litter and yes, [...]

I hesitate to write this post because I hate to put ideas in anyone’s head about how to commit fraud. The perpetrators are always one step ahead of the banks and “the system” and, just like with mortgage fraud, the rest of us will all end up paying the bill for the latest trend [...]

When the Feds dropped the prime a couple of months ago, my husband and I decided to refinance our home in Rochester Hills. Our 5-year ARM was maturing in September.
We never planned to refinance this home. In fact, I believe the phrase “if we’re still living here in 5 years, I’m going to shoot myself” [...]

HGTV recently aired a special program entitled “25 Biggest Real Estate Mistakes” which featured experts in all aspects of real estate: agents, mortgage lenders, home inspectors, flippers and stagers. The experts opined about the top reasons a listing lags on the market. Catch the full list here. Better yet, watch [...]

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Oakland County (and farther afield) mothers out there. Gloomy as our weather here may be, I hope it is a special day for all.
We’ll now return to our regularly scheduled real estate discussions. There is a Mother’s Day tie-in since today is Sunday, open house day [...]

Yes, that headline is correct. Sales are up over last year for the fourth month in a row, according to our MLS, Realcomp II. We’ve told you, we are seeing a lot of activity, and we are busier than ever. Spring has sprung! Here is Realcomp’s report
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Yesterday I tried to [...]

Dmitry and I have had our busiest Spring in real estate in years in 2008.  We are working with more clients than ever before.  Last week we had a couple of closings and we asked the other Realtors and mortgage brokers if they were seeing what we are seeing: a lot more buying activity in [...]

After an excruciatingly long winter, I hereby declare… gratefully and optimistically… that spring is finally here! The birds are chirping, the trees are budding and the baseball season has begun.
In the real estate world, this means the time has come to kick curb appeal up a notch.
In a buyer’s mind, the home’s exterior [...]