DC Real Estate and Area Events: January 2008

I know a lot of us real estate professionals who don't have a team work at least 40 hours or week. But we know that you need your rest. One thing I have learned in life is that you are your best investment. Without your good  heatlth,you can't do such things as work and provide for your loved ones.

I know that in order to achieve success,you need to work hard,but it shouldn't risk you losing your good health. Its always good to work but too much work is not good for you. I mean,if we don't work,we can't feed our family. So if you work a lot,especially over 40 hours a week and/or six days a week.please rest at least one day out of the week. We are supposed to rest on sundays and spend time with family and friends as well as using that day to plan for the upcoming week.

Resting as we all know reduces our chance of getting any kind of illness,sickness or health problems. Resting will only add more years for you to enjoy life on this earth. So re-examine your schedule and free up time to do things that you love doing such as going to movies,a play,theatre,play sports or go for a walk and think. Think about life,family,friends,goals,dreams etc. Make the best of your life on earth now while you still can. You only live life once.

To receive a free list of "Houses for sale in Washington DC',please give me a call at your earliest convenience. I can be reached at (202) 378-0283 (Direct) or (301) 560-6700 x1154 (Office). I can also be reached online on my websites at www.buyandsellnewhomes.com and www.freelistofhomesforsale.com. Thank you very much. Looking forward to helping you make your home purchase a stress free and very happy one. Have a great day. Lanre Folayan - Real Estate Professional with Exit Premier Realty. "Buy and sell a home in Washington DC"

Can anyone please tell me when did free cost you something? Can someone please tell me when did paying for something become free? I am sick and tired of people always saying that they are offering free services or products only to request money later on. I think it sucks and very misleading. I"ll appreciate it if I can know upfront whether something is free or not. To me,it says that you are either a fraud,thief,crook,liar or all of the above if your saying one thing and doing the opposite of what you should be doing. Sorry if I am ranting about this but I just don't know why people say "Advertise for free. But you have to pay for it. This has to stop. That's all I am saying.

To receive a free list of "Houses for sale in Washington DC",please give me a call at your earliest convenience. I can be reached at (202) 378-0283 (Direct) or (301) 560-6700 x1154(Office). I can also be reached online on my websites at www.buyandsellnewhomes.com and www.freelistofhomesforsale.com. Thank you very much. Looking forward to helping you make your home purchase or sale a stress free and very happy one. Have a great day. Lanre Folayan- Real Estate Professional with Exit Premier Realty. "Buy and sell a home in Washington DC"

     Call me crazy - Okay! Maybe I am crazy. But does anybody out there think that the New England Patriots are going to lose today? I mean,I know New England Patriots destroyed San Diego Chargers in Week 2. But this team is a very different team now then before. Plus,they have been a very good Indianapolis Cots team twice this year. That should help them prepare for the mighty New England Patriots. Anyway,I didn't say that the New England Patriots lose. I am saying that do you think they are going to lose? I guess we will find out later today.

Update: New England Patriots won this game! But they didn't win the Super Bowl. They lost to the New York Giants. So New England Patriots home fell down afterwards.

To receive a free list of "Houses for sale in Washington DC",please don't hesitate to give me a call at your earliest convenience. I can be reached at (202) 378-0283 (Direct) or (301) 560-6700 x1154 (Office). Thank you very much. Looking forward to working with you and helping you make your home purchase or sale a stress free and very happy one. Lanre Folayan - Real Estate Professional with Exit Premier Realty. "Buy and sell a home in Washington DC"

I was just blogging on here when I saw one of the Active Rain Sponsors ads on this site. It says

"Be More Productive". Bring the blog. You're paid to sell,not to blog. We blog for you $399/yr.

Of course,we all blog on here to share information/knowledge,gain knowledge from the brilliant real estate professionals on this site,get good leads,referrals and hopefully turn our leads and referrals into closing. But if you pay someone to blog for you,isn't that cheating? I just want to get your opinion on this because I can be wrong. Maybe I am missing something here or not seeing something. But I just want to know what you all think about that. And if it is not cheating,do you think paying $399 is too much or too little? Please let me know what you think about this.

 Looking for a Washington DC Real Estate Agent that will help you buy or sell your next house or want a "Free Real Estate Market Report" in your area of choice? Check out my website Houses for sale in Washington,DC. I can also be reached at Lanre Folayan "Buy Washington DC Real Estate" (EXIT PREMIER REALTY ... or Twitter http://twitter.com/DCHomesforsale. Please give me a call at 202-378-0283 (Direct) or 301-560-6700 x1154 (Office) at your earliest convenience. Thank you very much. Looking forward to helping you make your home purchase or sale a stress free and very happy one. Have a great day.  "Buy a home in Washington DC"

Here are ten things you can do to improve your financial situation. Each one can easily be done in fifteen minutes and then forgotten about, but over time, these moves will slowly put significant money in your pocket. Think of it as an investment of time that continually pays dividends to your wallet.

1. Request a reduction in your credit card interest rate. Take your credit card. Flip it over. Call the phone number on the back. Ask to speak to a supervisor (when you finally get to a real person). Say that you're considering switching credit cards with a 0% balance transfer and ask if they can reduce your rate to keep you as a customer. It won't always work, but it'll work often enough to make it well worth your while.

2. Review your health insurance and other benefit choices at work. Take a look at what kind of health insurance you chose at work. Do you use it regularly? Would a less expensive option cover you just as well in an emergency? Do the same for your other benefits as well. This is a good time to bump up your 401(k) contribution a bit, too.

3. Sign up for a customer rewards program. If you shop regularly at a particular store (for me, the weakness is Borders), sign up for their customer rewards program, especially if it's free. I constantly get 20% and 30% off coupons from Borders, and somewhat regularly I get $5 in credit there as well. The program costs nothing, I get the coupons in my email, and it took me just a few minutes to sign up. Concerned about spam? Just use a Gmail address for this purpose - it's free and the spam filtering is impressive.

4. Install a programmable thermostat. A programmable thermostat lets you define a program for temperature change in your house throughout the day, which basically means your air conditioner and/or furnace won't run during the day when you're away from home or during the night when you're asleep. This will save drastically on your energy bills. Even better, they're easy to install if you're a bit familiar with home electricity - but don't hesitate to get an electrician to install it for you if you don't know what you're doing.

5. Optimize your auto insurance. Consider raising your deductible on your comprehensive insurance - or consider entirely eliminating it if you're thinking about buying a new car. Call your agent to get quotes on these changes. It might also be worthwhile to shop around a little.

6. Visit your local library. You'll find out exactly what's available there - and the quantity and quality of the free stuff is usually surprising, from books to CDs and DVDs. You might just find yourself using their DVDs for your DVD rental needs for free instead of buying them or using Netflix. For me, I get the majority of my books from the library, saving quite a lot on book costs.

7. Air up your car tires. Look in your car's manual and see what the recommended maximum tire pressure should be on your car - that's what the pressure for your tires should be. Get an air gauge, then the next time you're at a gas station, head over to the free air pump. Check the pressure in each tire, then air up to the maximum. For every 8 PSI you add to any tire, you improve your gas mileage by 1%, and the average tire is 10-12 PSI below the recommended maximum. Thus, airing up your tires can save 6% on your gas mileage. If gas costs $3 a gallon and your car currently gets 20 miles per gallon, over your next 10,000 miles (a typical year), this tip will save you $85.

8. Eliminate any monthly bills for items you don't use. Still paying for Netflix but haven't received a new movie in months? Paying for unlimited text messages but only use four or five each month? What about premium movie channels on your cable bill that you maybe watch once every few weeks? These are pure money wasters, and they're well worth getting rid of. All you have to do is look at your last month's worth of checking account statements to identify your regular bills, then eliminate the ones that you're not using. Then, look at a few specific bills, like your cell phone bill, and eliminate any optional services you're not using. The first time I did this, I came up with an extra $30 a month quite quickly.

9. Replace your light bulbs with CFLs. Even if they're not burnt out, replace them. Let's say you use a bulb four hours in an average day. Over one year, at $0.10 per kilowatt hour, replacing a 75 watt bulb with a 26 watt equivalent CFL will save you $7.15 over a year. The bulb has paid for itself in four months. Even better, consider replacing every bulb in your home - replacing just fourteen of the old incandescents will put $100 a year directly in your pocket.

10. Sign up for an online savings account and set up an automatic savings plan. There are a lot of reputable online-only savings accounts out there offering interest rates above 4%. Sign up for one, then set up an automatic savings plan within the account to pull out a small amount from your checking account each week. How much? Why not just save the amount you've saved from these other tips? Let's say all together, you figure that you're saving $60 a month from these tips. Set up a plan to save $15 a week into the account. You won't notice any difference at all in your day-to-day spending, and at the end of the year, you'll have about $750 in the account without lifting a finger!

To receive your free list of "Houses for sale in Washington DC",please give me a call at your earliest convenience. I can be reached at (202) 378-0283 (Direct) or (301) 560-6700 x1154 (Office). I can also be reached online on my websites www.buyandsellnewhomes.com and www.freelistofhomesforsale.com. Thank you very much. Looking forward to helping you make your home purchase a stress free and very happy one. Have a great day. Lanre Folayan - Real Estate Professional with Exit Premier Realty. "Buy and sell a home in Washington DC"