Looking Out From the Garage

I want a Trophy... Video Sunday... 101 Cars, Part 11.  Do you know what a Trophy Truck is?  If you don't, you should.  Even if you aren't a car junkie like me, these things are impressive.  The power of an Indy car, the suspension travel of a monster truck, and the endurance of a LeMans prototype.  All in one dirty package. 

A lot of people have called me names.  I try to embrace the good in them.  Be the Twit(terer)...  So, I'm happy to be a Twitterer.  And a FaceBooker.  I'm happy to be LinkedIn... and to be Active in the Rain. 

Ocassionally I get hit by a creative bug.  While reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas for my son, I thought it might be fun to make it over for real estate...  So, 'Twas a Month Before Christmas...  I even got forced into Utterli in order to podcast it. 

Gwinnett Home Values are what I watch.  In order to get the best outcomes for my clients, I watch every part of the market I can.  In this case, I looked over the Case-Shiller index.  One thing I NEVERlike to do is just throw out a bunch of numbers without some sort of framing and interpretation. 

The only turkeys on Thanksgiving Day weren't on tables.  Some of them were on computer screens... or even in driveways.  I my neverending desire to serve up the best, Happy Thanksgiving... Have some turkey.  Wonderful machines all.  Chevy Vega, AMC Pacer and the explosively popular Ford Pinto. 

So, you missed your chance at saving a couple bucks at WalMart on Black Friday?  Cyber Monday snuck by without you getting your required savings?  How about saving real money?  Black Friday Shopping?  Save $100,000.  That is SERIOUS savings. 

101 Cars, Part 12.  What could possibly a more deserving car for the list than a Shelby Cobra?  Massive power, light weight and amazing curves.  For 45 years it has been one of the most desirable cars on the road.  I have driven an amazing kit, but didn't get to drive the original.

Ahh, minimalism.  I went maximalist on my minimalism for 101 Cars, Part 9... Video Sunday.  I love a nice Lotus 7.  Minimalist car, maximalist performance.  Think go-kart, steriods, velcro and faster than thought.  It handles like a go-kart, powered with steriods, sticky like velcro and it reacts BEFORE you can think about it. 

Gee, you'd think that there wouldn't be a lot of opportunity in a market like this, when the truth is exactly the opposite.  Gwinnett Investment Properties?  You bet!  Seriously, in a buyer's market, buyers rule.  We are in a buyer's market, and if you are a buyer, there are deal to be had. 

Over a few days I posted several great deals I ran across in the Lilburn area...  I had teased them, so I had a Tease revealed post. 

If you like things that are funny, don't mind getting a little offended and are not a PC freak, this might be fun for you.  Stay tuned for actual political incorrectness...  Real estate agents and investors get a little skewered.  I loved it...

If you haven't been paying attention, the government is offering a "tax credit" for first time home buyers.  Although the description isn't accurate, if you are defined as a first time home buyer, then you could get $7,500 for buying a home.  Time is limited...  It is Almost like free money...

When I saw the first video clip for this post, my first thought was Mr. Bond... Your driving lessons are ready. 101 Cars, Part 10.  Subaru isn't the first name in performance to most Americans, but the WRX STi is a serious performance car.  And Ken Block is a serious performance driver. 

I got smacked and I want to apologize.  Around the time I went to the NAR something happened on my blog.  I saw the result, but misdiagnosed the cause... more than once.  I have it fixed now, but the damage was done.  If you came while it was screwed up, I'm sorry...

you might notice that this anthology update covers two weeks rather than just one...  The NAR Convention was at Disney World in Orlando, and we were down there for a week.  So, I wasn't able to provide regular updates...  Sorry.

As has now become a little bit of a habit, Video Sunday was a post in the new series...  101 Cars, Part 7.  One of my favorite cars was my Shelby Mustang.  It was a brutal car to drive, and not as much a high maintenance Diva as an athlete that performs amazingly on the field but is a little rough around the edges everywhere else. 

I had teased it a couple of days previous, so I had to deliver the Gwinnett County, GA Market Report for November.  It contained the final data for September and the preliminary data for October.  It was really shocking to see that there indeed WAS a bump in sales (positive rather than negative sales growth) for September.  I wasn't really expecting that... 

My friend and fellow blogger Jay Thompson came across a cool map from the NAR with median home price data.  If you are Curious about Median Home Prices?, this is a cool resource. 

As mentioned at the top, we spent a week in Orlando for the NAR Convention and a little vacation.  When we were Back Again... I started the posting machine right back up.

This is one of the most important posts I have written in the last couple of months.  Sellers need to find THE reason buyers will pick THEIR home.  The should be Looking for the hook to sell your home?  I think that we have found a BIG piece of the puzzle to help a home stand out. 

Of course I needed to get another installment of the 101 Cars, Part 8, into the mix.  This time it was the Ford Bronco.  Broncos (not Bronco IIs...) were great 4x4s.  From the sporting intentions of the first generation (1966-1978) to the later generations, they made great hobby vehicles, as well as excellent vehicles for those that needed to get into the back country.

Video Sunday meets 101 Cars, Part 4.  And the subject for today is hybrids between race cars, street cars and off-roaders... that carry 100 gallons of fuel, very quickly.  So, how many people have heard of the Bowler Nemesis? 

Is your Lilburn listing getting ready to expire?  Brace yourself.  I'll tell you why.  All of the agents that never saw your home prior to expiration are now going to be doing everything they can to get you to list it with them... including me (I'm at least honest about it).  I have a strategy... 

Atlanta has traffic is among the worst in the nation.  The worst traffic in Atlanta is generally the drive home on Fridays.  The worst day of the year is traditionally Halloween.  Halloween was a Friday.  My warning?  Abandon all hope on Atlanta area roads Friday...

Shocker, I wanted to write a little more of the 101 Cars series...  101 Cars, part 5 is about the Lancia Stratos.  It is a truly evil looking car... and I WANT one.  Preferably one with too much power. 

Not ever car in the 101 Cars series is an obscure vehicle that can only be found by someone connected and rich.  101 Cars, Part 6 is about one of the easiest to find vehicles around... and pretty affordable.  Jeep CJs and Wranglers. 

I love to find ways to twist lessons from other areas of my life to real estate.  Kind of like having a Football Coach speak about motivation (I'm flattering myself...).  in this case, I had been writing about Jeeps (the day before) and wandered over to off-road spotters.  They are a lot like real estate agents.  One of the things they have is Detachment. 

Sometimes I tease my Market Reports.  Often, as I am putting them together I see some sort of exciting trend, or anomalous data, and I just HAVE to say something right away.  So, I write a Market Report Preview.  September data came in above expectations...

I think that as soon as people ran the first car on a road, one of the guys thought... "Let's see if we can jump that beast."  Thus was born Truly Stupid Human Tricks...  After all, what fun is it if it doesn't get a little air now and then.

I enjoyed watching the Speed Channel series 101 Cars You Must Drive.  However, every once in a while I wanted to write a letter asking why they picked one car or another.  Some of the cars were amazingly cool, but others were neither historically significant, not exciting.  So, I decided instead to start a series...  101 Cars I must Drive...  Part 1 is the Ariel Atom.  Seriously fast, reasonably affordable.  A track car that does it's job amazingly well. 

Since I was on a roll I figured I would write about the off-road equivelent of a track day car.  In this case I picked the Scorpion 4x4.  101 Cars, Part 2.  It is a Swiss Army knife of an off-roader.  And it looks really cool, too. 

sing along...  If I had a Mallett, I'd pond in the morning, I'd pound it in the evening, all the day long...  So, for 101 Cars, Part 3 I selected the Mallett Corvette.  Take a great sports car, add a load more power... still keeping it well under the cost of its Italian competition, and you have the Mallett... 

One of my mortgage brokers called me up to tell me that he had a bunch of money to lend and there wasn't anyone asking for it.  It is tough for a lender and mortgage broker when nobody cares that they Got money to lend... 

What do you do when you find out that school is shorter than you planned on a perfectly yucky day?  If you are me, you have a rainy day plan.  We went racing (shocker, huh?).  The 4 year old beat me to pieces at the Slingshot Speedway. 

If by chance you have a copy of the 2008-2009 Parkview Football Booster's program, you can take a look on page 137 and see my full page color ad.  I am thrilled to be able to support Parkview Football.

Video Sunday is my regular feature where I post up a couple of interesting videos... usually racing related.  This week I posted about Freestyle Motocross.  When it is good...  It is REALLY good, but when it is bad, it is REALLY bad. 

I often find myself sitting down to write a blog post and ending up with something completely different than I thought I would have.  Sometimes the subject forces me to change, other times I find myself going in a new direction as I start researching.  This time I did a 180* turn... when I logged into the admin panel and saw some comment spam.  In this case it was about "Cash Ready Investors"...

Coca-Cola is the Juice of the Gods...  I had a cold, and my throat was raw.  Coke is a wonderful product, and it actually makes my throat feel better...  So I posted about it. 

Continuing on my track of non-real estate related posts, I found out about an effort to help out a soldier that had his Jeep vandalized here in the US.  One of the companies that I buy Jeep stuff from decided that they wanted to do something about it.  The 4x4 community, in the form of Pirate 4x4 took the ball and ran with it.  Take a look and see what Blue Torch and Pirate put together.  This is how a community shows its thanks. 

I DO actually write about real estate sometimes.  And I am often opinionated.  Sometimes I might even be right (just sayin'...).  Housing starts fall to the lowest level in 17 years... and it is good!  Of course I try to support that position. 

I took just a moment out after the Thrasher's v Sabre's game to talk about it for just a moment.  Go Thrashers.

Every once in a while I come up with a very compelling title...  This was one of those titles.  I even got Matt Heaton to come over to read it out of curiosity.  Dirty things you can do to your...

Both the gas crisis in Atlanta and the worldwide credit crisis need the same message.  Don't Panic.  Panicking makes everything worse.  People topping off their cars every day, people selling off all of their stocks... same thing.  They just feed the panic.

Part three of my Atlanta Gas Crisis was more focused on finding ways to mitigate the issue.  There is still some good info as supplies are steady and prices are dropping.  If you want to know who has dropped prices the most, this is the place to look.  Looking for gas?

It's HOCKEY time...  And I'll be giving away some killer tickets again this year.  They are section 120, Row D... on the aisle behind the "attack twice" goal... fourth row.  My son can recognize the players when they are working behind the net.  Sorry, the tickets are for consumers (you don't have to buy or sell a house from me)... although I can occasionally be talked in to taking someone to a game. 

I want to do it more, but each year I do manage to get away the first weekend in October for a few days of Camping time...  The Southern 4 Wheel Drive Association hosts their Dixie Run in the Upper Tellico OHV area, and my club, GBR 4wd, has run the registration for the last several years. 

The fourth installment of my Atlanta Gas Crisis series (gee, I feel like I should have a cool graphic like the news stations).  Gas Crisis Easing?  I think so.

One of my favorite books is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  It is an amazing book.  Many people absolutely HATE it... some because of the 1200 pages, others because of the message.  The book largely answers the question, Who is John Galt?  But, to know WHY the question is important, you have to read it...

It isn't enough to have a fast car that you tow to the track... now it is also uber-cool to have a nasty fast tow rig.  After all, with the newer technologies in diesel engines, the wick can get turned up pretty high fairly easily.  When you go to the diesel drags, you'll see contractors and landscapers with their "work" trucks...  Race your tow rig...

I ran across an interesting article written 8 years ago about two of the main causes of the current financial crisis... and yet both of these are escaping notice from the media.  Ok, one is escaping notice, and the other is getting plenty of press (bad) but not related to this particular issue, but rather related to their illegal voter registration activities.  It is an Interesting article.

The crisis seems to have already mostly passed, but if you are wondering what it was like around here during the gas crisis, I wrote a few posts about it, starting with I've got gas...  It might be good for some people to read BEFORE the next time it happens. 

If you aren't reading Ken Cook here on Active Rain, you are missing a solid voice about the mortgage world.  Ken is always on my short list as a respected writer AND mortgage broker.  Mortgage Approvals gone wrong points out a couple of Ken's recent posts.  They are both Must Reads. 

I hate seeing people ripped off.  I also hate to see people thinking they have a "right" to things that aren't.  Finally, I hate the entitlement attitude that many seem to display... even when it flies in the face of reality.  I was able to wrap up all of those in one post...  Get the good credit you deserve...

Washington Mutual got WaMu'd...  They were the biggest failure up to that point.  Now, we don't even think they were a big deal because of the subsequent failures.  But, as a customer I was wondering, Did you gets Whammed by WaMu?

Looking back it doesn't seem as big of a deal as it was, but this was the second post about the fuel shortage here in Atlanta.  And What a pain in the gas! it was.

I love Video Sunday...  And I love Rally.  Rallying through the ages was a great excuse to revisit some really cool cars of the past, like the Lancia Stratos... the Darth Vader of Rally cars. 

Well... in the couple of weeks from then till now, the Fannie/Freddie thing has become SMALL potatoes.  Bailing here, bailing there...  It is amazing how the government is just trying to throw money at this problem... and ignore the market.  

If you haven't seen the SNL with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, you need to .  It has been everywhere... including my blog.  But, OK, this IS funny...

Foreclosures are the hottest thing going.  Everyone that is thinking about real estate is thinking that foreclosures are the place to be... until they actually find themselves in one.  So, you want to buy a foreclosure home?  Think before you act.  The price might be lower, but it might not be a deal. 

There are some really cool Upcoming Lilburn Events.  I try to keep track of them and post them regularly... 

Parkview Football is a doing a pretty fair job this year...  Their wins have been blow outs... and they are 4-2.  I am keeping their schedule and results updated here.  Parkview High School Football Schedule/Results

Real Estate up? Real Estate down?  I tried to lay out the cases for how real estate may react (good AND bad) to the bail-outs, rescues, whatever.  And there are points for either side... that's why we play the game, because the stats don't tell the whole story.

The name is Ballast... Mobile Ballast.  Sunday, Video Sunday took a look at sidecar racing.  It is amazing to watch.  The "rider" climbs all over the back of that thing to put the weight where it needs to be for the best performance.

Boy, most of us had NO clue that What does the Fannie/Freddie bailout mean? would amount to small potatos after the events of the last couple of days. 

It isn't every day I can tell you something that will help you Save $100,000... 

I am really Stoked about Lilburn Dwellings coming online.  I have been busy building some base content for it... and now it is almost time to unleash.

It was a normal day...  Originally posted last year, it is about my Sept. 11th experience. 

I ran across a site that breaks the polls down by state, and then applies the Electoral College to the state votes.  Basically, it sums up The REAL Presidential Race...

This is just funny...  I love a little good political humor.  This was a pretty good clip... even if you think he is great, the video is still funny.