Last winter, we replaced our 550 gallon in-ground oil tank with a 275 gallon above-ground tank.  As a result, the oil truck cometh twice as often as it used to, to fill up the tank.  We are on automatic delivery and while we never paid much attention to it before, it is now obvious that we should be paying attention to what we are paying for heating oil. When I saw the oil truck backing down the driveway, my first though was, “Man, it seems like he was just here! We just paid an oil bill about a month ago! We can’t need oil again already!” I ran downstairs to check the gauge and it read ½ full.

We asked the delivery man what oil was going for that day and he said $3.94.9. Wow, that seemed really high – I know heating oil and what we pay at the pump for gas are related, and I know gas started to go up again as soon as the holidays were over, but I’ve always had a problem understanding why a rise in the cost of a barrel of oil today (or an orange crop for that matter!) affects the price of the product which is already in inventory. Anyway, I decided to ask the delivery man to hold off so I could call our oil supplier of 16+ years and find out if they were able to offer a better rate.

I explained to the customer service rep that we still had ½ tank of oil in the tank and asked if the company wanted to offer a better price or if I should just call around myself. She put me on hold for about 45 seconds and came back on and said, “the best we can do today is $3.69.9 a gallon”. That’s a whopping twenty-five cents a gallon! I thanked her, took her name and told the delivery guy he could go ahead and fill us up. While it was great to call and get this discount, I was a little disappointed that this company we’ve used for almost 17 years doesn’t automatically give its loyal customers the best price they can.

Lesson learned. From now on, we will call the oil company, get the scheduled delivery date and then call around and shop rates to get the best possible price. If they don’t put any weight into loyal customers who pay their bills, why should I give them an automatic pass to overcharge us?! The few people I’ve spoken to tell me I am crazy not to shop around – they do every month and it saves hundreds of dollars every winter!

The company probably wouldn’t want us to know either that the delivery guy told us to also tell the company that asking for the “economy oil,” will also save additional money. He said the only difference is that the oil is delivered in an unmarked oil truck. Huh?

Happy January… only 64 days until Spring!!

Posted by:  Kim Simms

I cannot let January go by and another year fly by without documenting some of my personal favorite highlights of 2011, starting with my favorite act of kindness and service.

I am honored to be affiliated with like-minded professionals under the umbrella of an organization whose commitment to community is one of its four core values. Houlihan Lawrence defines community as, “Caring for and contributing to the welfare of each other and our communities.”

I was grateful to have played a small part in the annual holiday food drive our East Fishkill office held for 11 families in need through Van Wyck Junior High in the Wappinger Central School District. The caring, generous souls in our organization, led by Suzanne (Martha Stewart) DeCosta, provided each family with: a 20 pound turkey, a spiral ham, 5 pound bag of potatoes, 2 pounds of carrots, 3 pounds of onions, canned peas, canned corn, gravy, pineapples, 1 pound of chopped meat, jar sauce, pasta, dinner rolls, 18 eggs, bacon, 1 box of cereal, bagels, bread, english muffins, cream cheese, butter, 1/2 gallon of orange juice, a gallon milk, 1/2 gallon of cran-grape, 2 liter bottle of soda, stuffing, cookie mix, brownie mix, and a big box of Cream Puffs!

We live in the same communities that we work so hard to serve. I am a proud member of this organization and endeavor to remember this feeling when I start the campaign to bring together people in need with people who want to help. It’s one of my 2012 goals. I come across people every single day who want to help but aren’t sure where to turn and I also come across people who can use a hand but don’t know where to go. It’s possible and necessary. My plan is taking shape…

Kim Simms is a full-time licensed real estate salesperson and residential real estate consultant with Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate of East Fishkill, NY. She can be reached at .

Posted by:  Kim Simms

So far this winter it has only snowed once – and that was waaaay back in October before winter even officially started! Good winter weather means it’s easier to get out and enjoy some of the events and things going on in the area. There are so many things to do year round in the Hudson Valley, here is a very small sampling of January (2012) activities, including contact information and website links:

• This Friday and Saturday night, comedic actor Steve Kramer performs at the Bananas Comedy Club in Poughkeepsie, New York.  You may recognize Steve from Spike TV’s “Hype." Bananas is conveniently located in the Clarion Hotel-make an evening or night of it by adding the dinner and or overnight package. Call 845-462-3333 for reservations. I heard he is hilarious!
  
  
  
• Monday is Martin Luther King holiday and there is no school. Scenic Hudson offers a “School’s Out Winter Fun Day” from 12-4 at Long Dock Park in Beacon. Their website encourages us to visit for an educational free and fun expernience with birds of prey courtesy of Bill Streeter, the director of the Delaware Valley Raptor Center.  For more information call 845-473-4440. If I didn’t have to work, I would definitely go!
• Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award–winner Mavis Staples graces the Bardavon 1869 Opera House stage on Friday, January 20^th at 8 p.m. The legendary vocalist invites you to join her for  “An Evening with Mavis Staples” at this historic Poughkeepsie venue with tickets priced at $45.00 for non-members. For information call (845) 473-2072 or call the Ticketmaster at 800-745-3000.  Who doesn’t love Mavis??!!
• If you are just looking for a fun family outing, take ride to Hyde Park’s Roller Magic for Crazy Hat Night on Saturday, January 28^th from 7:30 to 1030 p.m. Not only is it great exercise, you can enter the hat contest for a chance to win a gift certificate.  Rollerkating or Rollerblading, is good, affordable family fun! For more information call 845-229-6666. It’s far less expensive than the movies!!

Go ahead and get out if you want. The weather is great.  These events and more can be found on the Dutchess County Tourism website.

Happy January… only 69 days until Spring!!

Kim Simms is a full-time licensed real estate salesperson and residential real estate consultant with Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate of East Fishkill, New York. She can be reached at ksimms@houlihanlawrence.com.

Posted by:  Kim Simms

So the question is, how far will you go in your daily commute, so that you can earn a decent pay while living in an affordable community with the desired quality of life for you and your family? We think we are justifying a longer travel time by getting what we want most from life…or are we just fooling ourselves??

A buyer client I am currently working with needs to commute to New York City and recently he fell strongly in like with a home in New Paltz, Ulster County, New York.  As I conduct my due diligence regarding the potential purchase of the house, and he does his with regard to the impact on his current lifestyle requirements, he mentioned that he came across this article titled Extreme Commuting.

I know, but look at the sunset from the screened-in porch.

Kim Simms is a full-time licensed real estate salesperson and residential real estate consultant with Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate of East Fishkill, NY. She can be reached at ksimms@houlihanlawrence.com.

Posted by:  Kim Simms

Starting a new year is like

a beautiful sunrise that you

just can’t take your eyes off of.

The thrill of expectations and starting fresh

from this day forward

is appealing, exciting, and powerful.

Step to the right my friend, Happy New Year.

Posted by:  Kim Simms

Part 3 of 3

In the first two parts, we talked about how homes for sale in three Dutchess County towns that are in close proximity to each other, in the same school district and price range, are competing for the same buyer. 

Properly preparing your house for the market is one way to make sure your house will be considered by a potential buyer. In this market, buyers want homes that are priced at or below market value and are move-in ready; most won’t mind painting and minor cosmetic changes, but they do expect a home that’s clean, free of clutter, and not in need of repair before they even move in. We’ve been talking about how pre-staging your home is vital before you can stage your home. Let’s look at an even larger view of the market, county-wide. According to the Mid-Hudson Multiple Listing Service, April 2011 Sales Statistics showed that there were 1927 single-family detached homes for sale in Dutchess County and another 421 single-family attached homes, like condominiums, townhomes and co-ops. Competition for a financially-able buyer is stiff.  

Any home, no matter what size, age, or location can benefit from these few suggestions, when preparing to introduce your home to the marketplace:

GENERAL PRE-STAGING TIPS

• It’s difficult to look at your home objectively and easy to overlook imperfections that are obvious to buyers when you live in and see your home every day.
• STEP 1: Declutter; Step 2: Repair/Paint; Step 3: Decorate Minimally
• Less is More
• Live Plaints tend to bring the outdoors inside
• Visual is the first sense a potential buyer uses when they approach your property; Smell is the is the first sense upon entering your home
• If you must paint only a section of a wall or ceiling, it’s usually better to paint the whole wall or ceiling so the surface is uniform
• Use flat paint on walls and ceiling paint on ceilings; gloss is for trim work
• If you cannot find matching missing hardware for furniture that will be displayed during staging, either replace with all new hardware or remove the piece of furniture from display
• As you’re cleaning floors, pay special attention to the transition flooring between each room; Buyers Notice!
• Use sheer window treatments in each room to allow maximum natural light exposure
• If your yard and the exterior of the house is unkempt and messy, a potential buyer could get the idea that it’s too difficult to keep up
• For painted walls, especially light-colored ones, taking a picture will help expose imperfections like dirt, grime, fingerprints and stains that might not be noticed with the naked eye. The same is true of cabinets, entrance doors, wallpaper.

Good luck in your quest to find a willing and able buyer in this market – luck is when preparedness and opportunity meet. If you’re serious about competing in it, take the pre-staging checklist to heart. If you can’t do all the work yourself, hire someone. Finally, once you’ve done all the pre-staging work, focus on what will appeal to the majority of the buyer population, like neutral wall colors, paint instead of wallpaper, hardwood floors over carpet. Kitchens and bathrooms still sell homes.

Contact Kim Simms, a full-time licensed real estate salesperson and residential real estate consultant with Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate of East Fishkill, NY for more information on homes for sale in Dutchess County and surrounding areas, staging your home for sale, and current market conditions. She can be reached at .

Posted by:  Kim Simms

In part one, we took a quick look at how many other homes that a seller, who currently has their home listed for sale between $275,000 and $325,000 in the towns of Fishkill and Wappinger, is competing with. Let’s take this concept one step farther.

It would be safe to say that if someone were looking to purchase a home in southern Dutchess County, they might also consider the towns of East Fishkill and Beacon because all four towns have a close proximity to Route 9, the Taconic Parkway, I-84, and I-87. We will only add East Fishkill to the list here because most of East Fishkill is in the Wappinger Central School District, as are Fishkill and Wappinger.

According to the Mid Hudson Multiple Listing Service, there are 24 homes currently for sale in East Fishkill priced between $275,000 and $325,000. So between the three towns, that is 77 homes on the market so each individual seller is competing with 76 other homes! The age of these 77 homes currently on the market in these three towns averages 35-50 years old.

The three basic criteria for selling a home are still LOCATION, PRICE AND CONDITION. The location can not be changed. The price is driven by the market conditions and what someone is willing to pay for a particular house. THE CONDITION IS IN THE SELLER’S CONTROL.

When a buyer looks at one of these homes they want to know that they are buying a house that has been kept up, that is in good condition, and has possibly had updates to the roof, siding, windows and mechanicals. Simply put, in this market, homes that meet all three criteria are the homes that are being bought – and quickly. If a house is in disrepair, cluttered, dirty, AND dated, it simply won’t sell - at least not at the price the seller is hoping to get for it.

This extensive list for pre-staging your home and getting your home ready for sale includes items that can be done fairly inexpensively by the sellers themselves or can be hired out. I believe that in either event, the cost of making sure a home can be competitive in this market is still less expensive than a seller’s first price reduction. If a home can not compete because of condition or price, the seller will have to keep reducing the price until he or she finds a buyer willing to purchase the home in its current condition. With all of the homes on the market, it could take a very long time or even not sell at all. Keep in mind that the number of homes currently in competition with each other in these three towns is only as of today; more homes come on the market everyday.

Are you missing out on having serious buyers consider purchasing our home? You have to ask yourself that question and answer honestly.

In Part 3 we’ll look at how to actually stage your home once it’s been decluttered, cleaned and repairs have been made.

Contact Kim Simms, a full-time licensed real estate salesperson and residential real estate consultant with Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate of East Fishkill, NY for more information on homes for sale in Dutchess County and surrounding areas, staging your home for sale, and current market conditions. She can be reached at .

Posted by:  Kim Simms

PART 1 OF 3

Last weekend, while out showing houses with clients, I repeatedly thought about the importance of pre-staging a house before it’s introduced to the marketplace to attract a buyer. Don’t get me wrong, all of the homes I took them to met a few of the desired features on their list, like square footage, number of bedrooms, lot size, location, and in most cases even price, but upon arrival, my clients formed opinions as soon as we pulled in the driveway, and those opinions formed the basis for their expectations as we looked inside. This is about pre-staging – before you even think about where to position furniture, light scented candles and play soft back-ground music during an open house. Here are a few highlights of our tour:

• As we approached the door of one, the door was dingy, dirty, marked up and in need of a really good cleaning and paint job. No one wanted to touch the door knob it was so grimy-looking. Not a good first impression.
•  Looking out the window from the basement level of another, the stairway from the upstairs deck looked like it belonged in a fun-house. We all agreed we would not be using the deck stairs once we got outside. They wondered, “what else is in need of serious repair in this house?” and went looking for other problems.
•  While in the basement (storage area) of a third, someone pointed out about a dozen different paint cans with the dried drippings on each can representing what we believed to be all of the colors in the rainbow. When we got upstairs to the bedrooms, sure enough, each room was a different color, including but not limited to, purple, lime green and pink. The worn carpets boasted a different non-coordinated color in each room. It was distracting. My client was thinking about how much it would cost to replace the carpets and repaint ALL of the rooms.
• After visiting this particular home, I went back and checked the special agent-to-agent remarks to see if  I missed the note about this property being separated from a donkey and llama farm by a mere fence – it wasn’t in there. My clients ran when one of the llamas started toward us – they said they spit! Not sure how it smells out in the yard when you are upwind from the farm or if the two-year-old could safely play in her own backyard, which was fenced all around.
• Last, but certainly not least, there was a pretty old, but immaculately clean home that my clients did not have the chance to consider because one of them pointed out the urn of ashes holding a deceased family member of the seller, prominently displaced on the mantle over the fireplace. It’s all they could talk about on the way to the next house.

My clients and I were both disappointed with the results of the day because we had started the day with such high expectations. I know the sellers are probably disappointed that the showing did not result in an offer and they may even wonder why.

Do these sellers truly know what they are up against? They may not. As of today, in the towns of Fishkill and Wappinger, where we toured, there are 53 single family detached homes priced between $275,000-$325,000, which is the price range my clients will buy in. This means that each of the homes we looked at are in competition with 52 OTHER HOMES to attract a qualified buyer! Not only that, since January of this year, 31 homes have either been sold, are in contract, or have an accepted offer in Fishkill and Wappinger. So, an average of six homes per month are being sold in this price range, in these two towns!

By all accounts, this would appear to be discouraging news to a seller who needs to sell now, not a year or two from now.

There is hope. In Part II of Pre-Staging Your Home for Sale, I will share an extensive checklist that, if a motivated seller were to follow, could very well attract a qualified buyer right now.

Contact Kim Simms, a full-time licensed real estate salesperson and residential real estate consultant with Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate of East Fishkill, NY for more information on homes for sale in Dutchess County and surrounding areas, staging your home for sale, and current market conditions. She can be reached at .

Posted by:  Kim Simms

— Henry David Thoreau (Walden: Or, Life in the Woods)

Kim Simms is a New York State Licensed Salesperson and Residential Real Estate Consultant with Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate Brokerage in East Fishkill, NY. She can be reached at ksimms@houlihanlawrence.com.

Posted by:  Kim Simms

With the forecast for the weekend looking much brighter than this past week of almost continuous rain, you may want to get out this weekend and explore a few of the many activities Dutchess County has to offer. This list is in no particular order but represents an assortment of interests.

• Go see the wildly popular, always entertaining, Trans-Siberian Orchestra at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie on Saturday.
• Take the family to the Hudson Valley Fair at Dutchess Stadium through Sunday, May 22^nd. Click here for discount coupons. There is also free entertainment including Saturday night fireworks.
• Take a hot yoga class on Saturday at Tadasana Yoga Studio in Wappingers Falls. This studio offers a yoga menu of assorted styles.
• For those interested in bird-watching, join the Ralph T. Waterman Bird Club on a field trip at the Thompson Pond Preserve/Stissing Mountain, in Pine Plains this Saturday.
• In the market for a home? On Sunday, I am hosting a public Open House from 1-4 pm at 10 Cedar Lane, Hopewell Junction. This is a gorgeous contemporary colonial with a grand, two-story foyer, hardwood flooring, oversized bedrooms and a massive master suite. Come take a look inside.

Kim Simms is a New York state licensed real estate salesperson and residential real estate consultant with Houlihan Lawrence East Fishkill. Contact her for additional information on this property or any other property listed for sale in Dutchess County, as well as real estate market conditions and reports. She can be reached at ksimms@houlihanlawrence.com.

Posted by:  Kim Simms

In the process of compiling one list of really good moving tips from many lists, I came across this very helpful website, which lists 101 Best Moving Tips, a list also compiled from many sources.
 
While this website includes the plan for if you are using a moving company, it’s useful for anyone. I especially like the tips for packing and unpacking specialty boxes, like "Open Me First" boxes. As a real estate agent and consultant, I would add tips relating to turning on/turning off essential services on or as close to your actual move as possible. It would look something like this (and could be added to the LETTING PEOPLE KNOW category):

At least two weeks prior to moving, your real estate consultant should give you the names and phone numbers to coordinate your household utilities and services start dates as close to your actual moving date(s) as possible. These might include:

• Electric
• Heat
• Gas/Oil
• Cable
• Garbage Removal
• Newspaper Delivery
• Yard Service
• Snow Plowing
• Municipal Utilites like water 

Clearly appointing an end date for the services in the home you are moving from, and coordinating for the services you will need in the home you are moving to, as close to your actual moving date as possible, will enable you to relax and focus on other areas of your move.
 
I also like to include current coupons and gift certificates to local businesses that you can begin to use right away. Whether you’re moving out or moving in, everyone appreciates savings. Typical items might include groceries, fast food, curtains, paint, household items, tool rentals, etc.
 
While you may not need to do everything on "101+ Moving Tips" this list, I think you’ll find most of the tips are helpful for most - I know they were for me! Happy Moving.
 
For more information on moving to Dutchess, Westchester or Putnam County, including the most up-to-date market conditions, contact Kim Simms at Houlihan Lawrence East Fishkill, NY. Contact Kim at .

Posted by:  Kim Simms

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of spending the night with my troop and the entire Fishkill Girl Scout community at Sharpe Reservation in Fishkill, New York. What a great example of available outdoor venues for Dutchess County and the Hudson Valley. It’s home to the Fresh Air Fund which was created in 1877! According to their website, it’s an independent not-for-profit organization, created for the purpose of allowing children living in disadvantaged communities to get away from hot, noisy city streets and enjoy free summer experiences in the country. Sharpe hosts 3,000 kids each summer in the program.

In addition to being a Fresh Air Fund site, Sharpe Reservation is utilized for the remainder of the year by schools, clubs, churches and associations for meetings, conferences and retreats. Girl Scouts is one such organization. Every year, local Girl Scout communities hold weekend camp-outs and our community’s camp-out was last weekend. Camp Mariah, the Career Awareness Program site, is named after world-renowned R & B singer Mariah Carey, who generously supports the program which serves several hundred inner-city adolescents in the exploration of career paths and options. For as long as I’ve know about Sharpe, I always thought that Camp Tommy indicated that Mariah’s former husband, Tommy Mottola, was also a supporter, but Camp Tommy is named after Tommy Hilfiger, the famous designer. I could write a book on the amazing things that go on at Sharpe, but I’ll save that for another time. This is about Girl Scouting and camping.

The majority of my troop arrived on early Saturday afternoon with bagged lunches and their camping supplies in tow. The camping supplies list included everything from a mess kit to a sleeping bag, depending on if you were coming for just the day, or if you were braving the overnight high up on this mountainside in the middle of the woods. (For those of you who really go camping, I know this isn’t really considered "roughing it" because we did sleep inside the cabin and there were indoor bathrooms, but this was close enough to get the experience. I was never a Girl Scout but my previous childhood experiences involved a bunch of us kids sleeping outside in lawn chairs and blankets under the stars, waiting for the grown-ups to go to bed so we could raid my great-grandmother’s garden.) We resided at Camp Hayden Marks, although the girls kept insisting it was "Camp Nick," as in Nick Cannon, husband to Mariah Carey. There was a very kind security guard named Robert at the gate who, upon my inquiry as to whether or not he was the one in charge, gave me kind of a quizzical look before he started, "Well..." I let him off the hook by asking him that since he was in charge, if he could keep it from raining, which was the weekend weather prediction. He laughed and promised that he could pray but that once his shift ended at 10 p.m., all bets were off. (It did rain that night, but only after we were all safe and dry in our cabins. Thank you, Robert!)

The girls were given various jobs to do, everything from gathering twigs and small branches for a campfire, to filling buckets with water from the hose to wash the dishes in. In between chores, they went on a hike on one of the many nature trails, attended a day program of outdoor games, participated in a scavenger hunt, learned to build and extinguish a proper campfire, and practiced skits that they would perform that night around a giant campfire in front of the whole community.

They ate spaghetti, tacos and nachos for dinner, with the girls doing the cooking; it included cooking ground meat wrapped in heavy-duty aluminum foil over the open fire. They also roasted hot dogs and my co-leader, a passionate outdoorsy-type herself, taught them how to build a Dutch oven out of a box, some foil, wired hangers and duct tape, which she used to cook "monkey bread" in (aka cinnamon rolls). After dinner, we gathered around the campfire for an evening of comradery, bonding and Girl Scout tradition. We learned that there is a song (and dance) that accompany the retirement of flags and the Brownie Girl Scout troop who performed their first official flag retirement ceremony were so cute.

They took turns, troop by troop, from Daisies to Ambassadors, performing comedy routines, songs and short skits that kept us all entertained. The heat from the big fire felt good as the chilly, damp air settled on the camp with the darkness. We ended the night by singing the Girl Scout "Linger" song, whose lyrics contain sentiments of friendship, camping, and the wish to linger just a little bit longer together.

We retired to our cabin for the night where the girls chatted, giggled and told stories until only three of them were still awake. I fell asleep at about midnight to the sound of one of the girls (we’ll call her, "The Story Teller") telling yet another story but woke up again when I heard my daughter comforting another girl who was crying because of one too many scary stories from "the story teller."  It was necessary to suggest that it was time for everybody to get some rest.

A heart-felt shout out to all of the beautiful-spirted women and girls who make up the Fishkill Girl Scout community, for another goosebump Girl Scout memory that will be nurtured and fondly recalled, for the rest of my life. It was a sweet time...

Kim Simms is a New York State Licensed Salesperson and Residential Real Estate Consultant with Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate Brokerage in East Fishkill, NY, and a Girl Scout troop leader with the Fishkill community. She can be reached at .

Posted by:  Kim Simms

I love Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer, and catch his program whenever I can. Of all his shows I’ve watched, I have yet to see one that deals with how to keep your dog from rolling in chicken "stuff"! (you fill in the blank). I’m not positive that’s what it is, but I know that occasionally the neighbor's chickens wander into our yard and I wouldn’t mind it so much because they supposedly eat ticks, which is a good thing, but boy, do they smell!!! Our high-energy female boxer (Mitzi) gets away from us every now and then and she will not return on command. Calm and assertive doesn’t seem to impress her when she’s out of eyesight. So home she finally comes, bounding into the house, taking the steps two at a time, lays down and immediately emits this smell that could easily get her qualified as a hazardous waste. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear she’s smiling. What do we do?

Well, it’s off to the doggie wash - Foam and Wash in Fishkill! Keep in mind that we just applied the flea and tick control several days earlier and now she needs to be washed. Again. We’ve tried washing her with the house hose and coconut-vanilla dog shampoo but that doesn’t do anything except make her smell like wet hazardous waste. I’m not sure if the Advantix flea & tick medicine will work once you wash it off. But we’ll worry about that later. First, we have to get her into the truck, but not before removing any article of clothing or personal belongings that might absorb her smell. This happens often enough that the last time we agreed the loser of the basketball game H-O-R-S-E had to take the dog to get washed. I lost. Where’s Mitzi?

While my husband prepared the truck, I changed my clothes and leashed the dog. With cloth seats, we try to tie her to something in the very rear cargo area so she doesn’t jump the seats and get the car smelling like her. Doesn’t work. By the time we reach our destination, she’s in between to two front seats laughing and breathing in my face. If I was merely the observer, this would be funny. I’m not and it’s not. Time to wash her. What I love about this place are the choices of different shampoos, from a mild oatmeal to the skunk remover. It has a spray hose to rinse her down, a blower to dry her and multiple choices of length of service and payment options. This is at least a $5.00 job. 30 seconds wetting her down, two-and-a-half-minutes shampooing (with the skunk remover and flea & tick), conditioner, one minute rinsing, one minute drying. So she won’t be completely dry - it’s almost summer time. It’s time to ask Cesar for help. Maybe I’ll write to him...

Kim Simms is a New York State Licensed Salesperson and Residential Real Estate Consultant with Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate Brokerage in East Fishkill, NY. She can be reached at

Posted by:  Kim Simms

The purchase power of buyers looking to mortgage a home is such a driving force in the market right now, I’d like to offer the expertise Michael Marinaccio, a 20+ year mortgage consultant who provides a weekly mortgage update to keep real estate agents, sellers and buyers informed about the most current market conditions.
 
Friday, May 13, 2011:
Conforming 30 year fixed rate 4.625%
 
Mortgage Weekly Update
Friggatriskaidekaphobia is the official name for "fear of Friday the 13^th."

In 2009, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had raised their loan limits in "high cost" Metropolitan areas to as much as $729,750.00. As of October 1, 2011, this amount is going to be reduced to $625,000.00. This will have a negative affect on the buying power of many buyers as the cost of money above the new $625,000.00 limit is more expensive, as well as being more difficult to qualify for. Sellers in "high-cost" areas need to take this into consideration when they are pricing their home to sell. A home that is priced correctly will always sell quickly.

Over the next few months, it is possible that certain home owners really need to manage the buyer’s new lending environment if they are to sell quickly at the maximum price that the (new) market will bear.

Interest rates crept down a little this week with JUMBO money creeping under 5%. I would recommend that if you are in the market for a mortgage, that you lock your rate at these low levels. All of our programs have a "float down" option in the event that rates continue to drop.
 
Rates are for NEW Purchase Money & are subject to change without prior notification.
 
Michael Marinaccio HMC, is a Mortgage Consultant with Thoroughbred Mortgage and he can be reached at 845-742-4638; or . Click here to visit his website.
 
Kim Simms is a New York State Licensed Salesperson and Residential Real Estate Consultant with Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate Brokerage in East Fishkill, NY and a Girl Scout troop leader with the Fishkill community. She can be reached at

Posted by:  Kim Simms

I don’t have a green thumb but I love fresh flowers and plants of all kinds. I admire people who grow plants so effortlessly and every year I aspire to be a better gardener. Last summer, I tried growing vegetables on my deck, like tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini. Although I harvested a few cucumbers, I was in competition with my then two-and-a-half year old boxer who would innocently walk by the planter and quickly take a bite out of each one she could reach. I know it was her because of the under-bite teeth marks and when I lined up the size of the bite mark in the cucumber with her mouth, it fit perfectly. The zucchini never really understood what I expected of it and I think everyone had a tough time with the tomatoes last summer.

So as the memories of my lack of gardening talent fades, and as I watch the Hudson Valley come to life with azaleas, daffodils, cherry blossoms and forsythia, I am inspired to garden again. I primarily stick to annual flowers because they are easy to keep alive and vary greatly in color and variety (plus, they always seemed to adapt to my rigid "everybody gets watered and nourished at the same time and in the same intervals and if you can’t stick with the program, you’re out of here!"). Actually, last year, I began to talk kindly to them, encouraging them and pointing out how the universe must be perfect in order to produce such beautiful specimens of nature - I’m not sure if it worked, but they didn’t die prematurely.

This year, I’m going a step further. I’m going to make my own seedling pots! In preparation for a Girl Scout event, whose Spirit Day theme this year was, "Girl Scouts - Forever Green," I came across a YouTube video on how to make these pots from newspaper that can be planted right into the ground or larger planter. It’s an origami fold so no staples, glue or tape are needed. It’s environmentally friendly and biodegradeable. I recently found some seeds that I thought I had lost, taken from some really strong annuals I grew two years ago - I think I correctly identified the seed - so this week I will make my newspaper pots, fill them with Miracle Grow (and it will be if this works!), and plant my flowers. Wish me luck...if all else fails, I will buy them from the local stores, like Plant Depot, William Tell Hardware (and Gardening Center), and Blue Seal Feeds & Needs, like I usually do. Happy Gardening!

Kim Simms is a New York State Licensed Salesperson and Residential Real Estate Consultant with Houlihan Lawrence Real Estate Brokerage in East Fishkill, NY and a Girl Scout troop leader with the Fishkill community. She can be reached at

Posted by:  Kim Simms