Blog

May 22, 2009

Are you keeping secrets?

We all have secrets we are keeping. There are secrets we have with our spouse. Secrets we have with our girlfriends. Secrets we have with our family.  We keep secrets with people we can trust and keep secrets from people we can’t trust. There are certain relationships in which you should have no secrets. They are the relationships where keeping secrets could […]
May 20, 2009

What’s in your credit reports?

If you are planning on purchasing a Spring Texas home in the near future you need to know what’s in your credit reports.  Not only can the reporting errors hiding in your credit report mean the difference between loan pre-approval and loan denial but reporting errors can cost you hundreds of dollars a year due to a higher mortgage interest […]
May 18, 2009

How do you determine the right price for your house? by sizing up the competition

The other day I was meeting with potential home sellers and we were discussing the Spring Texas real estate market and what it takes to get homes sold. We looked at the MLS print-outs of the comparable homes and discussed how the homes could attract additional buyers with better quality and more photos, advertising descriptions, and staging.  […]
May 14, 2009

Spring TX Real Estate: Market Report April 2009

The latest MLS numbers for the Spring TX real estate market are out and April 2009 had the highest quantity of pended sales in a month dating back to before Hurricane Ike barreled through in September 2008. The average sales price for the month decreased by 14% to $154,804 but the decrease was not because home prices […]
May 13, 2009

Under Construction

Recently when my husband, Rick Ratchford and I were at Cheddars for dinner we ran into Chuck and Elizabeth Lalonde, past clients and avid readers of our Spring Texas real estate blog.  Chuck asked if I knew what was under construction at Spring Cypress and FM 2920 and I said yes a HEB grocery store is going in […]
May 8, 2009

How do Real Estate Agents get paid?

Like most people, before I got into real estate I had absolutely NO clue how Real Estate Agents got paid.  I had only known one Real Estate Agent and she was the Real Estate Agent I used to help me buy my first home and whose services I used to sell my first home two years later. What […]
May 6, 2009

Spring Texas home builders going out of business

Over the last two years, we have seen several Spring Texas home builders including Kimball Hill Homes, David Powers, Royce Homes, and Newmark Homes go out of business. Did the builders inefficiently manage their inventory and that was the cause of their demise? Or was the drying up of the credit markets the cause?  Who […]
May 4, 2009

Letters of the real estate alphabet – A

The real estate alphabet has 4 primary letter(s) home buyers come in contact with when searching for Spring Texas homes for sale.  They are A, OP, P, and PS. I will start by explaining what the letter A stands for in real estate because not only is it the first letter in the alphabet but it is […]
May 1, 2009

My Arch Enemy – Fire Ants

The annual battle between me and my arch enemy, the Fire Ants has begun.  To the winner of the battle goes control over my Spring Texas yard and to the loser goes either death or at least immense pain followed by swelling and severe itching.  Back in March I made my first move and applied Over n’ Out Fire Ant […]