<![CDATA[Short Sale, Long Sail, Stone Harbor]]>


Its been a few weeks since we got the home on the market.  I put some nice bright yellow mums out front, but the two tall oaks in the yard dumped on them and buried everything.  We are maintaining the electricity and water so the crowds of short sale buyers will be comfortable looking around.  Even though we are now listed at $185,900 (started out at market value $214,900), no one is even looking at it yet.  It is a wonderful opportunity for some buyer or even investor who isn't in a hurry.  We are pulling together the paperwork for the bank's short sale division, all ready for an offer when and if it comes.  Price will continue to go down until we have an offer.  Its a great house.  Take the virtual tour and if you are interested in purchasing it, contact me.  I will give another update next week.  http://realestateshows.com/437888

www.RuthParker.net ]]><![CDATA[Short Sale, Long Sail, Stone Harbor]]>
I have a home listed in Coatesville that I was hoping would not end in foreclosure or short sale.  It is one thing to really know and like the house, the construction, the open beams, the shady side porch, the fenced in back yard... but it is another when you know the people who lived there, ate at the picnic table with the peeling paint, sipped lemonade on a hot day on the side porch feeling the breeze and cooling shade from the HUGE oak tree in the front yard.  Now that they have had to move away, before the equity in their home had a chance to develop, the waves crashed around them, the market receeded leaving them beached.  The home is caught up in the receding values in Coatesville and all of the surrounding area.  This is good news for some lucky buyer.  They will find this home to be a solid Stone Harbor. 
Heres a link to the property flyer  http://www.realestateshows.com/flyer.php?id=437888

Now that we know it is going to have to be a Short Sale, we need to submit papers to the bank and start the process.  Would you like to take a sail with me to learn how a Short Sale works?  Climb aboard and watch your step.

]]><![CDATA[Selling real estate is like gardening..]]>Gardening is a love of mine. Gardening is hard work, dirty work, but rewarding work.  Sometimes, like when the ground hog eats off all the blossoms of my dianthas overnight, it is discouraging work.  And when you till the soil, plant the healthy tuber or seed, fertilize and cover with Miracle Gro dirt, and stand back to admire your efforts it is visionary work.  If you don't have a vision of what that tuber or seed will look like when it is full grown and blooming, you won't have much joy in planting it or patience in waiting for it.

pink azalea from my garden

When a plant blooms, there is a feeling of awe and wonder that fills me.  I know that I planted it, watered it and fed it as I should but yet there is the feeling that the beauty is far beyond any thing I did.  God shines out of the blossoms.  I feel the same way about children.  You can care for them from birth, nurture them, discipline them, protect them from danger, educate them, but when they mature and bloom, mixed in with the pride that you feel inside when looking at them is this measure of awareness that all you were doing was taking care of something that God entrusted to you.

Okay, so what does that have to do with real estate?  I have been a Realtor in the Coatesville area of Chester County Pennsylvania for 13 years now.  I have planted seeds in different farms, built trust in different clients, seen looks of exhausted joy on the faces of some buyers getting their first homes and felt the disappointment deeply of buyers or sellers when deals fall apart.  I love the process of getting as stern, as dirty, as patient, as visionary as I need to be to make my Garden of Homeowners happy and contented with the whole process.  I especially like perennials who come back to me.  They create the beautiful foundation of my business.  But I love the annuals as well, the buyers and sellers who are new each season, who fill in all the empty spots in my garden with splashes of color.  I am blessed with beautiful people who buy and sell houses and entrust me to make it happen.  In the end, just like a flower blooming, a child graduating, and a set of keys being passed across the settlement table to a happy buyer, there is still that feeling like I was just a steward entrusted with something special by God.
My website is like a photogarden of all my wonder homes I have sold and have listed now.  Click here for my website.]]><![CDATA[Come and Get It]]>arly in town again, outsiders visit the local restaurants and movie theaters again.  Lottery sales will go down, crime will go down and new grocery stores and shops will go up.  I saw a burned out house being worked on the other day. It looks beautiful now. The delapidated row homes are crying to be revived and the prices are very low.  Is there someone out there who believes in Coatesville's revival?  Is there someone out there who will fix up some houses and let them become homes to the many families who are homeless now due to foreclosure?  If you are out there, willing to invest in this great city,  the needs are great and so are the opportunities. Come and Get it.  I will send you a list of all the homes listed under $50,000 in Coatesville.]]><![CDATA[Love the Sound of Music]]>

I totally enjoyed this.  Almost appears to be spontaneous but wasn't quite.  It would be fun to be there , in Belgium, to see this. In fact it would have been fun to be one of the crowd.]]>