In my experience, there are three basic kinds of people. Wolves (a.k.a. the bad guys) are the first kind. They are the human predators, the ones that prey on the weak. The Sheeple (sheep + people) are individuals that believe it is society’s duty to protect them. These people blindly submit, even if it means death because they cannot bring themselves to use force. The third type of person is the Shepherd. Shepherds are those people who are strong and alert. They can protect themselves. Shepherds protect the weak because it is right and because they care. Police, Firemen, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines are shepherds, but they are not the only ones. You don’t have to be one of those ready professionals in order to be a shepherd. Protecting your own family is enough. You don’t even have to carry a gun to be one; just stepping up and doing what needs to be done is all it takes. A shepherd knows that all wolves understand is force, and against someone like that sometimes force needs to be applied.
Force should never be used lightly. It is the province of serious individuals. People who use force must make sure that what they are doing is justified. Your mental state should be that while it is not desirable to hurt or kill another human, anyone that uses force to get you to submit to their will has probably done it before and will probably do it again. Is it better to do what a wolf wants and risk death simply because he wants no witnesses, or risk death and fight back? That is a decision only you can make based on the situation. Think about this, what good is it to submit to violence if the aggressor commits a similar crime next week to someone else?
The FBI’s uniform crime statistics suggests that there is a connection between submitting to the will of a criminal to avoid injury and being injured. However, before you decide to resist, you must seriously consider all available options. If all the criminal wants is something you can buy, borrow, or replace, then just give it to him. It is not worth your safety to fight over the twenty bucks in your wallet. If he wants to force you or a loved one to go with him, or if you truly believe he has another motive besides theft, then fight. You have to! Ask yourself is it better to be shot in a parking lot where people can get you medical attention, or to be found six months later in a shallow grave because you submitted to a kidnapers demand?
Remember it is not just yourself that you are protecting. On a practical level, you need to be alive for your loved ones. Your family needs you. If you are not there, who will be there for your family? On a larger level, in the equation between you and some criminal scumbag, the world is better served by you, not them, surviving the encounter.
Above all, you must never give up. You will be hurt, and you will probably be alone. Fear is a given, just don’t allow fear to paralyze you. Train hard and remember your training. Studies have shown time and time again that you fight like you train. Visualize different scenarios so that mentally you will be ready to survive and go home to your family. They need you.
David is a former U.S. Marine Corps noncommissioned officer, correctional supervisor and firearms instructor for the TN Dept. of Correction. He is presently commissioned as an operations officer for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. He is also a certified NRA instructor, and holds instructor ratings with both the TN Dept of Safety, and the TN Dept of Commerce and Insurance.
http://www.shepherdschool.com
The Parador of Caceres is located in one of the great monumental cities of Europe. UNESCO has declared Caceres a World Heritage Site. Here in the historic section is concentrated the most impressive remaining example of medieval stonemasonry in the world. The perfectly preserved old town sits on top of a large hill rising above Plaza Mayor, and situated very near the center of the old town is the Parador Caceres.
This impressive hotel is the result of the creative refurbishment and joining of five contiguous buildings; the former palace of the Marquis of Torreorgaz and four ancestral homes of former nobles. The palace part was built around 1488 by a knight of Saint James, Don Diego Garcia de Ulloa. The other ancestral homes were built later and they’ve all been combined into a labyrinthine, yet pleasing whole.
The Parador is located on a very quiet street and provides the traveler with modern accommodations that still blend harmoniously with the medieval city beyond its walls.Try to have an evening meal at the Caceres Parador. Dining in the outside patio among orange trees on a warm summer night is a true pleasure. The cuisine here is superb, and of a variety you won’t encounter elsewhere. Try the venison with Casar cheese, or the roast kid with rosemary - both very representative of typical Extremaduran fare.
The Romans founded the city in the 1st century B.C. as Norba Caesarina. Its present name is derive from the Arabic “alcazares” meaning “fortified castles.” The old part of Caceres is encircled by an ancient stone wall. This old section of the city - the “barrio antiguo” - is definitely for walking. A car would only inhibit your explorations and present a parking nightmare.
Walking around Caceres Viejo from the Parador:
- Wandering “el casco” (the old quarter) at night is especially pleasing. It’s easy to let the mind slip into the very real illusion that you’ve stepped back five centuries in time.
- See Plaza de Santa Maria - Surrounded by old noble mansions.
- Iglesia de San Mateo
- Plaza de las Veletas - Stop into the archaeological museum there.
- The “ferias de Caceres” is a fun time to visit. It usually starts during the last week of May and for seven days, the city puts on a continuous and action-packed series of events, bullfights, parties and fireworks. Be sure to arrange accommodations at the Parador well in advance.
Interesting day trips include:
- Trujillo - Another city that is a wonderful slice out of history.
- Guadalupe - With its historically fascinating Real Monasterio de Santa Maria de Guadalupe.
- Merida - With its many Roman ruins.
The Parador of Caceres can well serve as a base for exploring Extremadura if you choose. It is no more than a couple of hours drive to any of the other captivating cities mentioned above. This is the area of Spain perhaps most reminiscent of the era of the conquistadores and the Golden Age of Spain. Stay for awhile - experience the history and ambience of one of Spain’s finest cities and most interesting hotels.
SpainParador.com makes it easy for you to plan and arrange your next trip to Spain. This time stay in palaces, castles, and other places of great historical interest and rare beauty - the wonderful Paradors of Spain. www.SpainParador.com
With the rise of Blogs across the U.S., a new type of information dissemination has grown to mammoth proportionsconsumer generated media produced by blogs. Pew Internet & American Life study reports that 7% of the 120 million U.S. adults who use the internet say they have created a blog or web-based diary. That represents approximately 8 million Americans. Twenty-seven percent of internet users say they read blogs, totaling 32 million people. What most people don’t know is that search engine spidering technology is attracted to web sites whose content “changes” constantly. This means that blog content has a higher likelihood to find its way to the top of search engine results as compared with static web site content. This is the primary reason for the POWER behind the growth of the blog as a media outlet.
The birth of blog related consumer generated media has played havoc with the fundamental goals of public relations firms. As late as ten years ago, all a good PR firm had to do to control the image of its clients was to maintain good relations with the three major TV networks, the fifteen major hub newspapers that feed content to hundreds of other daily newspapers, and the 3 or 4 major radio networks. Currently, a PR firm has to contend not only with the mainstream media, cable and radio networks, but also a tidal wave of information flooding onto the internet from blogs.
This new wave of internet related content may not have been a problem if the role of the World Wide Web had remained in the hands of the universities library system and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) where the internet was spawned. Unfortunately for those companies recently targeted by negative commentary via the blog network, the following chilling internet user statistics are quite relevant. On a typical day at the end of 2004, some 70 million American adults logged onto the Internet to use email, get news, access government information, check out health and medical information, participate in auctions, book travel reservations, research their genealogy, gamble, seek out romantic partners, and engage in countless other activities. That represents a 37 percent increase from the 51 million Americans who were online on an average day in 2000 when the Pew Internet & American Life Project began its study of online life. This trend is ONLY going up.
Another Pew study identified that fact that over 50% of all online purchases are now PRECEEDED by an internet search. Thirty-six percent of all internet users under the age of 30 say that they could not live without internet search engines. This illustrates what many ad agency executives now take for grantedthat people, in higher and higher numbers, are using internet information, not mainstream media related advertising, to make buying decisions. Every day, more and more people are turning on computers versus the TV set for information and entertainment.
Public Relations Firms Must Adopt New Strategies
Public relations executives and professionals must begin to develop new strategies for controlling what is said about their clients on the internet. This can be done in one of two ways: 1) focus efforts towards influencing bloggers in terms of what they are saying about their clients and change any negative attitudes (the way PRs used to address potential negative messages distributed through the limited number of mainstream media outlets of yester year); 2) control what is found on the first half dozen pages of internet search results when their client’s information is being looked up. The goal of the latter solution is far more attainable than the first solution. With millions of bloggers, and the number is growing hourly, pumping out terabytes of information each and every day, control of their message is an impossible task. Only through some revolutionary content control techniques can a PR begin to win the battle with the bloggers.
This report will track the progress of one company, In Touch Media Group, in its daily efforts to control client search results through tools it has recently developed and streamlined (www.intouchmediagroup.com).
ITMG, one of just a few companies that have been awarded the prestigious Google Adwords Qualified Company status given out to experts in their technology, created a two-part plan to dominate the initial search results found whenever someone was seeking information on any of its clients. The process, known as Press Direct, involves creating professionally written, interest grabbing articles and press releases that are linked in terms of story content and then distributing the articles to dozens of article content hubs. These content sites provide news stories, articles, and commentary to tens of thousands of users such as TV and radio news directors, print editors, popular web sites, news sites and other information destinations. ITMG subsequently distributes the related press release, which is targeted to media contacts, after the prior articles begin popping up all over the internet.
The article hubs aren’t just any media outlets. These sites are selected because of their substantial distribution reach and Alexa ranking (Alexa.com is tantamount to the Neilson of the internet world. Alexa ranks web sites worldwide in accordance with their visitor traffic levels). Each article and related press release is search engine optimized based on the most popular keywords connected to a given industry so as to make it search engine friendly before placement. Once the initial article is submitted and that same article finds its way onto thousands of other web sites via the content hubs, a press release version is distributed to major wire services and to a large home grown list of media contacts owned by ITMG, numbered in the thousands.
“We figured out that we should write an appropriate ‘linked article’ in conjunction with a press release”, describes Bob Cefail, Chairman of In Touch Media Group, “and place the article into as many of these article hubs as possible. The effect was breathtaking when we saw that the article we had written was sweeping across the internet”. What ITMG figured out was to first lay the ground work for a press release through the use of a well designed article. What ITMG didn’t expect was that the article, placed in the hubs, and the follow-up press release would completely dominate the first few pages of any internet search on almost any topic; thereby, pushing negative content back into the back pages of the search results.
When considering the fact that huge article hubs have ever-changing content numbering in the thousands of daily changes, one can see why the search engine spiders are highly attracted to the article hubs. One can liken these content hubs to “super blogs” in terms of their effectiveness in search engine ranking versus normal blogs. The key to In Touch Media Group’s success can be tracked back to the ancient teachings of a Chinese Military figure named Sun Tzu. The famous general wrote in his well known book, The Art of War, that when one has a larger opponent, one must get a bigger friend. By using what amounts to “bigger blogs” in its efforts to help its client, In Touch Media Group was able to out- create negative consumer generated media produced by consumer blogs.
The Press Direct campaign also accomplished several other significant results. With one movie company client, the Press Direct service resulted in over 400 media pick-ups of just one press release story over only a 7-day period as reported by PRWeb.com. In another case, an ITMG faith-based media client, whose Alexa ranking was 2,398,449, had its ranking bettered to under 94,000 in less than a month!
With consumer generated media creating as much as 40% of all search results presently, a substantial percentage of which is negative in nature, potential candidates for search engine content management and control includes politicians, entertainment, sports, and large public corporations. Consumer product companies are at particular risk as concerns negative blog commentary because their products or services reach such a large mixture of clientele. If just a small percentage of clients find reason to complain, a large company’s search results can be critically damaged and no amount of traditional PR firm repair work can remedy their online image. Only a highly targeted campaign involving the aid of article content hubs, search engine optimized articles and press releases can stem the tide of negative commentary.
Bruce Prokopets
Managing Editor
Marketing World News
www.marketingworldnews.com
Connect men’s primary pursuits and you’ll discover a rage we generally call a Web sportsbook. Well: what could conceivably be more resourceful… Fancy a troop of admirers clapping to support any chosen team, and constantly lays will be reckoned to go with the din. Seeking to get some of the anticipation, bystanders generally venture to foreknow who will make it the coming fight. In the end, this boils down to a warmhearted fight known as Web sportsbook.
It is bound to seem to be compulsive, but on the contrary - sportsbook gambling is essentially just entertaining and to bond with one’s fellow sports buddies. Here, you can risk a a smallish amount of gravy and all the same enjoy an extravagant time. See below for a group of basics to help you get started sportsbook gambling.
To place your bet, you’ll probably want to surf to a Web sportsbook, i.e. a place which accepts Web sportsbook. In the United States, you’ll find four states where people can do sportsbook gambling in a lawful manner, but inofficially you may do it anywhere you like assuming you discover a bookie *and* you are legally of age. Many of the sports events you’ll have a choice of risking some money on are pro & college football & college basketball, professional hockey, professional hockey, & dog and horse racing. You’ll be able to wager on the overall result of a competition or game, when exactly a contestant will be defeated, and even if a given coin toss in a competition or game lands heads or tails.
The bookmakers lean on stats and maths to assist you discern which team you feel will make it. First off, there’s the spread, meaning point lead assigned to the weaker side assumed to go down by x number points. We’ll find plenty of a lot of different categories of lays- straight, parlays i.e. combined lays on various sporting contests, and so on, the straight bets being the most prevalent in sportsbook gambling.
So why not give it a try, and relax at the same time… But see to it that you won’t get too carried away and use up your total income on a fancy… Because you’re bound to end up full of lament for life… Always wanted to try online sport betting ? Click here, now!
You may feel that you will always be nervous as a public speaker, but it’s not true unless you have a disorder. I know some speakers who brag about still being nervous even after doing the same speech for ten years. Please. I don’t need that kind of pressure. Part of the problem is that we fail to recognize the difference in excitement and anxiety. Discover the difference and your public speaking will take a turn to greater confidence.
Excitement: This is an opportunity to help people.
Anxiety: I hope I don’t mess up.
Excitement: This is a solid presentation that is easily applied.
Anxiety: Is this a bunch of confusing garble? Will anyone know what I’m talking about?
Excitement: This is a new crowd. They’ll be getting the best material for the first time!
Anxiety: This is a new crowd. If I blow it, I’ll never be invited back.
The more you speak the less nervous and the more excited you will (should) become. It’s possible to reach a level of zero nerves and while sensing a positive confidence. This is what athletes and top speakers call “the zone.” It’s a place where the presentation flows seamlessly without conscious effort.
These are the keys to making the switch from anxiety to excitement…
#1. Speak for experience, not just speaking experience. Speaking does more than give you experience with your words. More importantly it will help you learn to handle various situations. You discover what to do when the audience doesn’t laugh. When a point doesn’t connect. When technology fails. When the room is not set up right. You will begin to realize that you are more concerned about these issues than the audience ever will be. And it relaxes you.
#2. Live your message. Many speakers stay nervous over time because they have good information, but they don’t live it. Deep down we know if we are being honest with the audience or not. If we’re not, if we compile a stack of information and try to go in and act like an expert, we should be nervous. “Live your message” sounds cliché, but don’t be fooled. There is an unmistakable difference between the speaker with real passion and contrived enthusiasm.
#3. Grasp the value of your message to the audience. What are you giving an audience that they can’t easily find elsewhere? That can emerge in the form of information, style, relevance, practicality, experience, and the like. When I speak I work extensively with the planner to make sure I will deliver what that particular audience specifically needs. That instantly increases the value of the talk. It’s adapted, but not canned.
#4. Reflect on each engagement positively. Process each event for what you can learn and apply next time. What to avoid and what to expand. Don’t get so emotionally involved that you think things like, “I was so embarrassed! I’ll never speak again.” Our minds magnify encounters and make them much better or worse than reality. Refuse to get caught in the trap of negative evaluation.
Practicing those four areas will give you confidence. You do not have to keep getting nervous. You will not be nervous for the rest of your speaking life. Ultimately it will come down to belief. Those who believe they will always be nervous will always be nervous. Those who don’t believe, won’t. And that’s not oversimplified.
Paul Evans helps over 24,000 people and companies each week with their Public Speaking He also publishes a multimedia newsletter for Presentation Skill Training.
Preventive maintenancethis is the main reason being cited by the leading oxygen sensor manufacturers why they would advice BMW owners to replace the O2 sensors of their vehicles periodically. A damaged oxygen sensor can greatly increase the fuel consumption of a vehicle. Further, the failure of the BMW oxygen sensor may cause damages on other parts of the vehicle, especially on the catalytic converter which is necessary for emissions control.
An automotive oxygen sensor is a small electronic sensor inserted into the exhaust system of most engine-fueled vehicles, especially on those manufactured after 1980. Vehicles manufactured in the 1980s are usually equipped with one or two oxygen sensors, usually located on the branch manifold before the catalytic converter. This number, however, has been doubled after the introduction of the Onboard Diagnostic II (ODBII), with the added sensors usually placed after the catalytic converter to measure its efficiency.
The main function of automotive oxygen sensors is to measure the volume of oxygen remaining on the exhaust gas. The data obtained by the oxygen sensor would then be delivered to the engine management ECU computer. Based on this data, the ECU computer would then adjust the amount of fuel to be delivered to the engine. If the oxygen sensor gets damaged, this function of the ECU computer would be compromised, usually resulting to feeding the engine with more gasoline than what it actually needs. Such richness in the fuel-to-air ratio would also cause the catalytic converter to run hotter than normal, a condition that may lead to the eventual failure of the converter.
To prevent such things from happening, oxygen sensor manufacturers advise that oxygen sensors be replaced at regular intervals. For vehicles manufactured prior to the implementation of the OBDII, unheated oxygen sensors must be replaced after every 30,000 to 50,000 miles while heated oxygen sensors after every 60,000 miles. For those vehicles with OBDII (vehicles manufactured in the mid-1990s and newer), the replacement of oxygen sensors is recommended after every 100,000 miles.
By replacing the BMW oxygen sensor at the said intervals, BMW owners will be assured that the emission levels and the fuel consumption of their vehicles will be held at the minimum. The power generation of the vehicle’s engine is also guaranteed to become more efficient.
BMW oxygen sensor
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Tracy is a 29 year old researcher and writer from Dallas, Texas with extensive experience in writing auto-related articles and covering automotive related events. She is currently a contributing writer for a leading automotive e-zine.
Often we turn on our television sets and are bombarded with the sound and fury of the mindless masses protesting and rioting somewhere in the world. And of course the mass media always brings us images of the very worst of the worst during the events which may have been for the most part just humans acting out who are said to be mostly harmless anyway. Nevertheless perhaps it has occurred to you that the protestors are in fact war like in their motivations and could be considered Problematic.
This subject recently came up in our very controversial political Blog when one gentleman who I guess you could call an anti-Protestor, Protestor states;
“We should cull all the war protestors, with lethal weapons. They just don’t get it. War is a genetic trait of mankind and an innate characteristic, why do you think they are so apt to join in the sound and fury of the protest. Total hypocrisy, as they are inciting violence by their mere protesting. It is just a lesser form of war for those who lack the strength of character to take it to the next step and change by force the things that are wrong in the world?”
Philosophically speaking protestors are indeed warmongers themselves always looking for something to fight over. Watch and listen to them sometimes, perhaps the gentleman has a point in that the real problem is the protestors and not the actual war. Consider this in 2006.
“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/
Spyware has lots of side effects on the computer system. The major drawback is the deceleration of the computer system. This effect continues until the antispyware cleans the spyware. If individuals browse the internet for a longer period, there are possibilities of downloading some sorts of spyware into the PC, although accidentally. For this reason, the analysts known as spyware, arises without the knowledge of a user. It is legal software, since it gets downloaded in a computer system with the user’s permission. Banning children from computers or allowing using it only when parents are supervising the process is not a good solution.
Anti-Spyware Spyware is nasty as it collects information from you without your consent. Different programs offer different features and some are more powerful than others, but you should definitely be utilizing some type on your system. Data loggers, key loggers are just a few programs which harvest info from your computer. Winclear is the only program created specially to auto remove such spywares. html. That is why every computer owner needs winclear.
Protect With Winclear :Clear Craigslist Search History
However, because of Spector’s ease of use, it enables almost anyone to become a cyber criminal. According to Robert Graham, security executive at Atlanta based Errata Security, 99% of the people who download programs like Spector do not use it for legitimate reasons. Winclear is the only software which is capable of removing keylogger programs. This is easily solved in most cases by setting a higher security level for cookies requiring that the browser ask you before saving any cookies to your browser or hard drive. Winclear has been the industry leader in fighting keyloggers for the last 8 years.
Winclear:
This scam involves setting bogus websites and luring people to visit them as a rule by links in emails. That is the reason why you need Winclear installed onto your computer. Most anti-spyware software makers lump adware (that stuff which gets installed because it’s free or cheap) BHOs (browser helper objects - stuff that suddenly appears on your browser) distributed attack tools keystroke loggers pcp software tracking cookies and unauthorized remote admin tools in the same global spyware box. Protect your computer security by using Winclear! More about Winclear here: Winclear.
Warren Edward Buffet is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. In 2006, in an unprecedented act of charity, he gave away 85% of his fortune to philanthropic organizations of which the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation received the greatest share and spotlight. The amount of the unforeseen donation is so staggering that Carol Loomis, an editor of Fortune Magazine asked the philanthropist if he was ill — to which Buffet replied that no, he definitely was not. The death of Susan, Warren Buffet’s wife, moved him; Buffet commented that his former wife always wanted to share their wealth to society. The investor has split Berkshire Hathaway B shares to the following recipients:• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Ten million shares• Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation: One million shares• NoVo Foundation: 350,000 shares• Howard G. Buffett Foundation: 350,000 shares• Susan A. Buffett Foundation: 350,000 sharesDefinitely, Warren Buffet has started a trend of philanthropic donations as seen by the following comments of prominent papers:• The Wall Street Journal has commented that Warren Buffett’s $31 billion pledge to Bill Gates’ foundation has “led” and motivated affluent Americans to donate 21 gifts of $100 million or more in 2006 alone. • The Seattle Times has commented that the $30 billion committed by Buffet has made such an impact that philanthropists are now finding themselves under the spotlight in a degree unparalleled. The donation radically changed how philanthropists decide where there funds would be donated. The Economist magazine calls the new paradigm shift in philanthropy as “philanthro-capitalism,” a model wherein rich individuals invest in social advocacies as they would in stock markets.
Carlos Abadi is a philanthropist and prominent investment consultant.
Learn more about active philanthropist Carlos Abadi on Faces of Philanthropy.
Carlos Abadi is part of the RGE Monitor Team.
Pricing your home is both an art and a science. It is probably the most important decision you and your real estate agent will make. This is especially true as the hot housing market turns from a seller’s to a buyer’s market. To be comfortable setting the listing price for your home, consider these key factors?
1. Think Like a Buyer Buyers will look at your home with impersonal and calculated eyes. They won’t have an emotional attachment or your personal interests in mind when they make an offer. Regardless of weather the overall market favors the buyer or seller, the buyer will want your home at a fair market price. They are not considering how much you paid for the home, the value of the memories that you have in it, how much cash you need for to close on your next home, or how much time and money you have invested in your home’s landscaping, bathroom updates, painting or other improvements. When you first decide to sell your home, it’s no longer your home. It belongs to the buyer with the best offer for you. Emotional detachment from your home will help you see your home the way a buyer will be looking at it. Brush up on more selling advice.
2. Start with CMAs Invite a few real estate agents to work up a CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) for your home. A CMA compares the price of homes recently sold, homes that were on the market but didn’t sell, and homes currently on the market to give you and your real estate agent an idea of how to price your home. Ask the agents why each particular home was included on their CMA. Have a list of questions and compare the answers you get from each agent. As you will find out, a CMA will show you varying prices for what each agent thinks your home is worth. Look for what seems to be a reasonable price. Some real estate agents will want to price your home below market value, looking for a quick sell or a bidding war. Some will overprice it looking to play on your hopes that your home is worth more than it really is, but an overpriced home will sit on the market longer and will likely need to be reduced later. Most real estate agents will provide you with a home value estimate or Comparative Marketing Analysis (CMA). It as good idea to find real estate agents who have plenty of experience pricing homes in the area, especially as the market turns to a buyer’s market.
3. Consider a Professional Appraisal A CMA will give you a good idea of the value of your home, especially if the agent is familiar with pricing homes in your neighborhood. However, for several hundred dollars that it usually costs to purchase a professional appraisal, the money could be well spent for several reasons. If the CMAs you get from real estate agents are not reasonably consistent, you might want to get an totally unbiased view point, one that you pay for. An appraisal of your home will make clear anything that may be wrong with your home and it adds an additional layer of assurance for prospective buyers. Appraisers rely on in-person inspections of your home, recent sales of like-homes in your area, and other data to arrive at their opinion of your homes’ value. The report you receive from an appraiser is more detailed than a common CMA. The appraiser’s report is a full-blown description of your home and the criteria used to formulate the valuation.
4. Research On Your Own You can research several ways. Stop by homes that are for sale in your area and pick up a flyer. Spend an hour or so on the Internet looking at homes in your zip code with the same square footage, bedrooms, and bathrooms. Finally, visit open houses around your home and make an impartial assessment of how those homes compare to your own in terms of condition, location, size, ages, and upgrades. As you visit the open houses, make an honest assessment. Given similar condition, age and square footage, would you buy your home or the home you are touring?
5. Price per Square Foot Some agents may want to price your home solely on price per square footage. While this is an industry standard way of calculating home prices, there are many other tangible aspects that go into your home’s price. The average price per square foot in your neighborhood should be the starting point for setting your home’s price.
6. Market Conditions Consider the overall housing market in your area. Are home prices moving up over time? How long do homes stay on the market before they are sold or withdrawn? Where are interest rates? Is the overall economy in your area and state strong or weak? Are employers hiring or are they overly cautious of bring on new employees? Are builders actively building new homes? Will you be entering a buyer’s market or a seller’s market.
7. Determine Your Selling Costs
There are many costs involved in selling your home. Don’t shy away from getting to the bottom line as this is essential information. Use a variety of mortgage calculators and financial calculators.
8. Flexibility and Options Both you and your buyer may have needs that go beyond the bottom-line. If you are willing to close escrow quickly, you will attract buyers who want to move in right away. A lease-option can help first-timers who need down payment assistance. If you can offer seller-financing, your home will appeal to buyers who need to stretch their financial resources. The more creative and flexible you can be in meeting the buyer’s needs, the more success you will have in pricing your home to sell. If your home has been on the market for a while, can you offer a point or two back to the buyer to help with closing costs or needed repairs.
9. Use a Discount Real Estate Broker There are many good reasons to use a good discount real estate broker. The obviously reason is that you keep more of your home’s equity, but in a buyer’s market, using a discount real estate broker gives you pricing flexibility and that gives you not only a cushion to negotiate but a distinct competitive advantage over the other homes on the market using full-commissioned brokers.
Jeff is the owner and partner of We List homes 4 Less, a full-service real estate broker in the Santa Clarita Valley. Jeff is a strong advocate of using the Internet to promote niche local business and pass the savings onto clients. Their site rates in the top 99.75% of all Websites according to Alexa, a traffic rating service owned by Amazon. Find more house selling advice and mortgage
calculators at We List Homes 4 Less.
