I suppose I got my "coffee shop signing habit" started because it was easy. Meeting a client to sign paperwork early in the morning or in the middle of the day can be hard with too many tasks fighting for the few open slots on the schedule. Sonoma Count covers a lot of ground and it didn't make s
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04/26/2010
Guardian of the Sonoma County Humane Society on Highway 12 between Santa Rosa and Sebastopol. There's a lot of art in Sebastopol. Big art. Animal art. This fellow shares Highway 12 with a giant cow that gets pushed around the field by all the real cows it's sharing the pasture with. It's always
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04/25/2010
I love working with numbers. I know that makes me somewhat odd, but you can't work in real estate without having a pretty good grasp of math. From calculating square footage prices to loan payments to listing values, our whole business floats on a sea of numbers. For me, charting sales trends and
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04/22/2010
This weekend, April 24 and 25, is one of the big deal wine tasting events in Sonoma County The Passport to Dry Creek Valley is an opportunity to meet wine makers, sample many wines that aren't being tasted any other time, and paired with the wine you get to eat food from many famed local chefs. I
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04/21/2010
I leave my Sonoma territory most often when I head to the coast and end up in northern Marin. I was exploring a nice ag listing near Tomales yesterday and came across a couple of beautiful eggs in the more modern barn on the property. Modern might be a misnomer, but it's not a 19th century timber
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04/21/2010
The Sonoma coast is a spectacular blend of rugged rocks, blue ocean, and grassy slopes rising rapidly from the coastal bluffs to the hills beyond. One of the favored bike rides on the Sonoma Coast is Coleman Valley Road, a narrow and winding road that has few cars, many cows, and wonderful views.
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04/20/2010
I never doubt activerain's power to reach people. I got two contacts from activerain today. One may eventually lead to a transaction, but the other was simply a great opportunity for networking. A local agent I don't know found me on activerain due to a post about auctions. He needed to get more
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04/19/2010
On several recent transactions appraisers have taken an uncharacteristically aggressive approach to safety and code violations. I'm not talking big issues here, but things like a hole in the ground that needed five minutes to shovel dirt back in or a wall heater that may have been installed witho
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04/18/2010
Architectural photography is not the same thing as an agent taking listing pictures. Many agents, myself included, take a lot of pictures of listings. In cases with lower value properties, I will use my own photos just as an economic necessity. Good photography is not cheap and a listing that pay
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04/18/2010
My parents are my north stars. My earliest memories always include my mother and father's faces, smiling, warm, with lively eyes. Growing up in the fifties we were a normal sized brood. Five kids with only six years separating us. What made us different, and maybe only apparent internally, was th
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04/18/2010
