We are REALLY excited about 2012!  We already will have quadrupled our business by the end of January, compared to January of last year.

Now is the time to start working on your house if you are thinking of selling this year.  Start by de-cluttering and de-personalizing!! 

• Go through cabines, closets, clear off counters, tables etc..  You'll be amazed at how much more spacious it already looks. 
• Get rid of any plants that are not doing fabulous.  Dead or droopy plants are dead energy!!! 
• If the colors are outdated, update them.  Watch HGTV --- see what's in. 
• Replace flooring that looks tired , dirty or worn if it's not going to clean up. 
• Paint walls and ceilings if they need it. 
• Check the wood-work.  If it's painted, it may need freshened.  If it's stained, go over with Old English.  After you've painted the walls, don't put much back, if anything. 
• If you have any wallpaper at all, TAKE IT OFF!!!  I listed 2 houses this past year that had been listed by another agent that had wall paper.  They chose to remove when I listed, but only did so after a couple of months.  The next people to look at both of them bought the houses-yay.  It's a hassle - but worth a sale and the sooner it sells, the more money in your pocket!! 
• Go through your closets, take items that you haven't worn or are out-dated to a resale shop.  At one point, Curt was making 2 trips a week to the LSA resale shop. 
• If there is a basement and it's finished, all of the above suggestions apply.  If not finished, paint walls, floor and ceiling if at all possible.

Before it goes on the market, make sure the following are new or "like new":

• landscaping
• front exterior lights
• house numbers
• door handle, lock, etc..

You never get a second chance for a first impression!  The buyer sits in front in the car and stands on the front porch critiquing the house.  It's your only opportunity for the first impression!

Yes, I did all of this to my house.  We had a contract in 1 week.  You can either do all this work up front or after you put in on the market - reducing the price as you go.  It is a tough market, but if you want to sell as soon as possible for the most money in today's market, our team would love to help you!  If you want me to stop by and give you suggestions, it would be my pleasure, just let me know when.

We had a team advance (retreat is going backwards) at my house in December.  Goals set for 2012 and a great deal of discussion of new ideas and ways to help us be better at what we love doing!  We all left excited and energized!

Let us know who we can assist!  When you hear of someone needing our services, tell them to call us, then pick up the phone and give us their name and number.

It is an absolute pleasure to be of service!  Can you tell I have a true passion about this business?  God has blessed me abundantly each and every day and I love sharing!!

Can you believe that?  FHA, VA, and rurual housing rates are 3.875%.  Conventional rates with loans over $100,000 with credit score over 740 are also 3.875%.

so how much is that per $1,000?  $4.70 per thousand on a mortgage.  For a house with a $100,000 mortgage, that is 470 per month, Now that is great!!!

Who do you know that is thinking about moving?  Please do two things:

1. Tell them about us
2. Pick up the phone and tell us about them

A word of advice - give us a call - Do NOT wait until Spring.  There are a lot of people waiting until Spring to list their house.  We have buyers NOW!!  Call and let's strategically work on a plan to market your property! 

My mother always told me "the early bird gets the worm"!

There is also a 3% grant for any other 1st time buyer.  Please call us at 875.8081 or email at glenda@glendawilliamson.com for details.

My husband, Curt and I attended the Open House Sunday at St. Mary's!  Wow!  It was a wonderful event and a very impressive addition!!  From Kevin Kast meeting and greeting everyone at the front door to the speaker, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, to the food to all the old photos!  There was an aerial picture of the facility at an open house back in 1961 - with all of the old cars in the lot.  Lots of memories for me!!  I worked there in 1961-62 as an X-Ray tech when Dr. Snullen was head Radiologist and Jack L Fond, Chief X-ray tech - sure has changed.

Jacke Joyner-Kersee spoke.  What a wonderful lady.  She had me previously with young athletes.  She is such a splendid person and gave back to her East St. Louis community!

     Sports Illustrated for Women magazine named Jackie the Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century.  On three different occasions (1994, 1987 & 1986), she was honored by Track & Field News as the World Athlete of the Year.  She also was named as the top American Athlete five times (1994, 1992, 1991, 1987 and 1986).

Hats off to all of the people participating - made the event happen!!  Most of all to all of the faithful, loving and dedicated people that work at St. Mary's and love what they do!  God Bless!!!

UPDATE:  As of today 12/15/11, the Toys for Tots program in our area is short on toys for Girls, ages 8 - 11.  Suggestions are: make up, bath sets, anything at Claire's, etc.

This will be our first year of many serving as a "drop off" location for the Marines Toys for Tots!  We love our community and wish to serve in any way we can.  Our location is a great North side location surrounded by many wonderful residential neighborhoods.  Please don't hesitate to stop in during regular business hours, Monday through Friday to donate (1110 W. Arbor Drive, Suite D)!  Toys for Tots campaign request new, unwrapped toys.

 We have some suggestions for you...

Suggestions of what to avoid:

• Toys with many small parts
• Toys with breakable parts
• Toys that require batteries, unless you purchase the batteries as well
• Toys that are cheaply made in foreign countries (try your best)
• Freebie toy giveaways (from McDonalds Happy Meals, etc) as these toys are often recalled
• Toys that require extensive adult involvement to assemble
• Food toys, toys with liquids, electrical toys, plug-in toys and unsafe toys
• War toys, weapons, guns
• Video or digital products

 Suggestions of what to buy:

• Familiar name brand toys
• Inflated soccer, football, basketballs kick balls, jump ropes, hand ball and racquet ball, tennis racquet and balls,  any sports equipment
• Art supplies:  markers, chalk, washable paints, self contained art kits, drawing pad, colored pencils, play-do, moon sand
• Blocks, building toys, Lego products
• Baby dolls and accessories
• Backpack or purse with jewelry, hairbrush, personal care items, hair toys
• Games card games

Did you realize that the police department takes an average of 5200 calls per month - that's 300 incidents a day!  Wow... Kudos to them!!!

Of the 7 homicides this year, there have been 6 arrests and police have invested 1000 additional hours (overtime).  That's a lot of very dedicated people working to retain our SAFETY!  That means they are giving up time with thier fammilies and friends to keep us protected!

Next time you see an officer - tell them THANK YOU!

Our Open House on September 25th was a Great Success!  Thanks so much to all who attended.  What a gorgeous day.  Everyone had such a fun time!!  It was like a huge neighborhood tent party that also included our friends, families and fantastic clients.

The children had so much fun in the bounce house, getting their faces painted and having Sally the Clown make their favorite things out of balloons.

It is our way of giving back and saying thank you to everyone that supports us at Glenda Williamson Realty.  We could not have done it without the wonderful donations of door prizes from our local business partners, clients, and friends... a great big THANK YOU (you know who you are)! 

Next years' open house is scheduled for Sunday, September 23rd, 2012.  Mark your calendars and invite your friends and family!

To see more photos, "like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/glendawilliamsonrealty!!

The LSA Golf Outing was a great event with wonderful weather! 

Glenda Williamson Realty sponsored the "Splash for Cash" hole.  Curt drove the golf cart and I was the photographer... what a fun day!!!

 To see the photos "like" us on FaceBook and check out our photo album for that day. 

Yesterday was a beautiful day and evening!!!  I ended the day showing all of the condos in our complex.  When I returned to our condo my husband had the cooler packed.  We boarded our boat and cruised over to my listing on Lake Crest, we docked, and I met a client for a showing.  After the showing, Curt grilled burgers out on the water on our little grill and we had a fabulous time!  It does not get much better than that!  The air and the beauty of the outdoors is wonderful!! 

In this photo he is on one of his favorite seats – right there on our little old float boat!!  Lake Decatur is such a treasure!!!

Amy Daum, Marcia Comerford, Curt and I left Decatur so very early to drive down to St. Louis for our flight to San Diego leaving behind the 90+ degree temps and the near 100% humidity.  The weather in San Diego was 70 – 80 degrees and sunny during the day and down to the mid 60’s at night… PERFECT!

Sunday morning we were in class by 8am taught by Alex Charfen of the Charfen Institute.  He purchased StarPower from Howard Brinton.  Four days packed with information, networking and all facilitated by the experts in Real Estate.  I was honored to be on 2 panels in 4 sessions; “Leadership for Beginners” and “Core Values in the Office”.  The rest of the time I attended sessions along with Amy, Marcia and Curt.

We all came home with a huge list of things to implement at the office in order for us to be cutting edge with technology in our industry and gain product knowledge, all to be of better service to our community.

We stayed over one extra day to be a tourist.  We visited Coronado Island and the famous Del Coronado Hotel and, of course, ate more sea food!

We are already implementing some of our new ideas and are so very excited to better serve our friends and clients.

We had an offer in a week and got it together after a week of negotiation.  I followed my own plan to prepare and stage the house.  Curt very often thought I was way too anal, though he did no resist my suggestions.  We did our work before putting the house on the market.  Very often people list the house then correct the objections after the house is listed.  Then you have lost the buyers that are excited about a fresh new listing and loose the opportunity to get top dollar for the property.  The longer on the market, the lower the offers will be.   We also priced it appropriately for the present market.

One of my greatest passions for this business is to really assist someone in getting their house sold for top dollar in the shortest time.  The condition has to be remarkable in order to accomplish this.  Let me know who I can help accomplish this task with their house.

My house is sold!  Yay!!! 

All those months of working on it paid off.  We replaced the front door locks, outside light fixtures and other items that looked worn or dated.  Painted the inside, power washed, cleaned windows and on and on.  Months of hard work up front sure beats time on the market and price reductions.  It is a price war and a beauty contest!  The cost of improvements is a lot better than a price reduction to compensate for imperfections months later. 

We are so excited as we see the progress on our condo.  Lorie at Huff Lumber is great with ideas and suggestions for cabinets.  The crown molding and black dental trim went on top of cherry cabinets yesterday! 

We are having our last family 4^th of July party this weekend and really looking forward to a fun weekend!

The LSA Resale Shop has been an absolute life saver for us as we cleared items from our home to get it ready for sale. 

Curt routinely made 2 trips a week to the new LSA Resale Shop at 421 E. Cerro Gordo. 

They take about anything – clothes, kitchen items, lawn equipment and on and on… We even took water skis and a knee board!   The new facility is fabulous!  Furniture is one of the best selling items.  I have a client that had some furniture that needed to be cleared away as they remove paper and paint to update.  Judy Gross from the Resale Shop even picked it up.  What a blessing!

Today was the Ribbon Cutting ceremony for the new location!

Our condo is now only a couple of walls and a fireplace.  The kitchen cabinets (cherry) are ordered, and so are the appliances.  Tomorrow we will order the hardwood (maple) and carpet for the bedrooms and 4 season porch.  We will also choose locations for the lighting.  We are using lots of can lights - giving a very open, spacious feeling.  Later this week we will order the fixtures for the bathrooms.  On the right is the sink I ordered for the hall bath - fun!!!

Our next major project is the garage.  Time to go to Lowe's and buy light fixtures for the outside. 

The view of the lake gets more beautiful every day!  So anxious for our house to go on the market and find someone to love it as much as we have!!

Curt is working daily on mulching the planting beds around the house, see photos on our company facebook page.

The Hawthorne trees around the deck should be in full bloom in a day or two and I will share photos on facebook.  Such a beautiful time of year with all of the blooming trees.  There are lots of flowering trees on the Glenda Williamson Realty facebook page, check them out!!!

Things are progressing at home way too slowly.  We had stored in our basement several boxes for my sister, Kathy and her husband, Ken.  They drove down last weekend from Davenport, Iowa and took them back home.  The best part was we had the opportunity to visit and show them our new condo.  This was the “before” viewing, next time they see the condo it will be the “after”, as we are going to remove walls, put in new kitchen, flooring and baths.  Our basement is simply a storage area, so it has been way too easy to tell people that I’ll keep it for a while – years???

In our present house, our kitchen and woodwork are all freshly painted so the next step was to freshen up the cabinets.  They are hickory, so Curt washed them down with Murphy’s oil soap and I followed with Old English.  I have advised so many people over the years to use Old English; it comes in several colors and is great.  Brings new life to the wood!

As I’ve said before “It’s a price war and a beauty contest” and our goal is to WIN BOTH!

The last time I moved, 12 years ago, I made the comment that Realtors should move often in order to have true compassion for their sellers.  Well, it is time for change again in my life and we are preparing our house to sell. It truly gives me the empathy that I should have for all considering the change.  From time to time I will keep you updated on our progress. 

We want our house to be move-in condition.  The first thing I tell my seller is de-clutter and de-personalize.  As we paint each room, personal items and pictures are coming down and are packed for moving.  They will go to our storage area that we have rented.  We have already cleaned out the linen closets and the pantry in the kitchen is next.  I will make notes as we progress and will definitely let you know when our 2 story home is ready to go on the market!

Spring in Decatur, Illinois is wonderful.  The daffodils and the tulips are blooming, Lake Decatur is springing back to life, and our terrific parks are turning green and lush.  Spring will be arriving before you know it and along with the sunny skies there is some other bright news. 

Then unemployment rate in Macon County has decreased by 1.6% in January.  GREAT NEWS for our local economy. 

The number of people actively looking to buy a home has increased, as well.  Home sales have been steadily increasing since the first of the year in addition to the number of the new listings.  

It is definitely time to get your house back on the market if your listing expired this winter.  It would be great for you to be able to get a jump start on the spring market!