Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.

– Sam Levenson

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The Psychology Of Moving – Tips For Helping Your Kids Cope

by | Apr 9, 2014 | Buyers, Sellers

Moving is stressful—for everyone, regardless of the reason for the move. Moves due to job and financial loss, death or divorce, etc. may be even more stressful.  Moving for school age children means new social circles and friends and for some children that means new anxieties. Psychologists Shannon Mitsuko, MD and John Magee, PhD of the Carolinas Healthcare System say that children take many cues from parents. That’s why it’s important to understand what you as a parent can do to help your child readjust and cope with the stress of moving to a new home. Misuko and Magee say that it’s important to allow children to have their feelings rather than telling them how happy, sad or excited they are and then validate or affirm them during this time.  With that in mind here are 5 tips on how you can ease the transition to a new home with your kids and cope with this life change. 1. Know your child and play to their needs. Mitsuko and Magee say that knowing your child is key – there is no one size fits all advice. For example if you have an older child with an outgoing personality, you may want to have a going away party. However, that’s not the case for everyone.  According to Mitsuko and Magee hosting a going away party is a nice way to say “aloha”, it’s not goodbye.  But again, this is more of an adult way to handle transitions. They suggest that this may be a good approach if you have a teenager but for a school aged child it may just be too much...

Before & After

by | Apr 8, 2014 | Homes

Here’s the before and after of the updated living room at 3119 Corte Portofino in Newport Beach....

“Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.”

– George Bernard Shaw

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4 Pitfalls Of Online Home Searches And How To Avoid Them

by | Apr 3, 2014 | Buyers

According to the National Association of Realtors, 90 percent of all home buyers start their real estate search online. What buyers don’t realize however are the various pitfalls they face when doing online searches and the opportunities they could be missing. There are four big mistakes you might be making when searching online. Most of these problems can be avoided simply by finding an experienced agent with the time and know-how to catch all the hard to find listings out there. So listen up, here are the top 4 pitfalls you face when doing online searches and how to avoid them. 1. Missing homes that have been mislabeled in the MLS All third party sites are fed data from Multiple Listing Services (MLS) but this data is only as good as the listing agent inputs it.  Many large cities are broken into MLS areas and agents can get the area totally wrong or may use a “catch all” area.  If you think you have figured out the area you want and are searching exclusively, you may be missing some homes that have been mislabeled or only very generally categorized. Even if you search by drawing the boundary on a map, just to catch everything, you may be missing the few misplaced homes.  These are not common, but they happen.  Agents sometimes even make mistakes about number of bedrooms or square feet, sometimes they leave the field blank and it could show as 0. How to fix it: Search several different ways yourself, eliminating the other criteria to make sure you haven’t missed any.  For instance realtors shouldn’t call a...