Please go to http://www.housingwatch.com/2010/08/18/home-listings-only-half-of-last-years-have-sold/ to read it!

Congratulations to the Duffy Realty team for 8 great years of real estate! We signed on and helped our 15,000th client this week and tomorrow we are celebrating our 8th Anniversary of being in business here in Atlanta. We certainly could not have done it without the hard work and dedication of many, many truly gifted people. Job well done team! And thank you to all our clients for your business, we wouldn’t be here without you!

If you would like to become our client please give us a call:

Sellers call 678-366-7846

Buyers call 678-892-1186

40 Year Old Business Virgin – Business Radio

Come join Ted Jenkin and Kile Lewis;
CEOs of oXYGen Financial

This and EVERY Friday at 12pm as they interview local Atlanta Area CEOs to learn the do’s and don’ts of starting up, running, and growing a new business in today’s economy.
Visit the 40 Year Old Business Virgin Radio Show Online

Visit the 40 Year Old Business Virgin Radio Show Online

TED JENKIN IS SECURITIES LICENSED THROUGH INVESTACORP, INC. A REGISTERED BROKER/DEALER MEMBER FINRA, SIPC. ADVISORY SERVICES OFFERED THROUGH INVESTACORP ADVISORY SERVICES, INC. A SEC REGISTERED INVESTMENT ADVISORY FIRM. Linked sites are strictly provided as a courtesy. Investacorp, Inc., and its affiliates, do not guarantee, approve nor endorse the information or products available at these sites nor do links indicate any association with or endorsement of the linked sites by Investacorp, Inc. and its affiliates.

Join oXYGen Financial (Ted Jenkin and Kile Lewis) Live at 9 am this morning with the Real Estate power house – Rhonda Duffy on 640 WGST AM Atlanta

Don’t miss a minute of the show! As we sit down with the most powerful person in Real Estate.

This enlightening show exposes the truths and busts the… myths of real estate. Call in with your
questions regarding buying, selling or the home you live in to 404-367-WGST(9478) or 1-866-640-WGST (9478) outside the Atlanta area.

The Duffy Realty Show is hosted by nationally known, Consumer-advocate Rhonda
Duffy, the owner and broker of Duffy Realty, She also owns Duffy Auctions, and Rainmaker Realty, the company by which she has licensed her business model all across the country. Rhonda is the #1 agent in Georgia and ranked #6 in the U.S., for now the fifth consecutive year.

Rhonda SOLD over 1500 resale homes in Atlanta in the last two years with Duffy Realty of Atlanta and those were sold in less than half the days on market (77) of the average agent (170). Rhonda has saved her clients $Millions in commission fees with her $500 Full Service Buyer Magnet listing program. She has also helped over 2,000 buyers purchase their next home, allowing them to pocket up to half her commissions while enjoying FREE expert buyer representation. Tune in every Sunday morning at 9 on 640 WGST and she will tell you exactly step by step what you need to do to get your home sold.

Rhonda has written many articles and produced several videos on real estate and creative thinking (www.RhondaDuffyBlog.com). She has licensed her business model across the U.S. and is a paid consultant by many corporations and hedge funds to dispense her unique take on the industry. Call in and get her sage advice for FREE. If you are too shy to be on air, call her during the week at 678-366-7846.

Join Rhonda and her husband Frank as they give Atlanta’s help in all their real estate needs. Rhonda and Frank have been helping people Buy, Sell & Save for the past 5 years on The Duffy Realty Show, here on 640 WGST.

Have Questions? Contact Duffy Realty of Atlanta Today

Tune in Thursday May 13th and Join Rhonda Duffy on Mayhem in the A.M on 790 The Zone – with Steak Shapiro, Nick Cellini and Chris Dimino. Rhonda will be on around 9:30 am, shifting over from her own Real Estate Radio show on Sunday mornings on 790 The Zone…

Click Here to Listen Live on Thursday morning…

Or Visit 790 The Zone

After more than two decades in the broadcasting industry, Steak Shapiro is sipping the sweet wine of success. As co-founder/owner of Big League Broadcasting, Steak has been instrumental in the local and national recognition of Sports Radio 790 The Zone. In addition, he is the co-host of Mayhem in the A.M., Atlanta’s favorite sports talk morning show for men, alongside Nick Cellini and Chris Dimino from 6 to 11. His love of sports and his gift of gab have earned him three A.I.R. awards for Best Talk Show Host in Atlanta and four prestigious Gabby awards as the Personality of the Year in the state of Georgia.

His love of the broadcast business is only matched by his love of food. In 2006, Steak’s passion for food sparked a new show on 790 The Zone called, Steak Tips: The Atlanta Restaurant Show. When asked about his hobbies, Steak proclaims, “dining, travel, working out and dining out again.”

Tune in to not only get Mayhem in the A.M but a little sampling of Real Estate Expert Rhonda Duffy, #1 Agent in Georgia – Helping SMART People – BUY, SELL and Save..

Visit Duffy Realty of Atlanta today for all your Metro Atlanta Real Estate needs!

Victorian Houses

There are few housing styles that evoke such an emotional response from buyers.
By Barbara Ballinger | March 2009

At a time when the economy boomed and industries began mass producing architectural elements for affordable prices, home owners became fascinated with a variety of styles that fell under the umbrella term “Victorian.”

Named after England’s Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837 to 1901, the look of the homes varied widely—from the kooky Second Empire mansion featured in TV’s “Addams family,” to the more straight-laced Carpenter Gothic home that Grant Wood painted in “American Gothic.”

Despite their differences, houses of the Victorian genre shared an optimistic spirit, manifested by complex rooflines, rambling front porches, detailed ornamentation, and asymmetrical layouts. These design idiosyncrasies appealed to a growing number of constituencies—developers trying to outdo one another with curb appeal, construction professionals showing off skills with emerging technologies, and home owners displaying new wealth and individuality, says architect James B. Garrison, an associate principal at the New York-based architecture firm RMJM.

As a real estate practitioner, your role is to help buyers and sellers understand the Victorian home’s variations so they can evaluate their options in the marketplace. You also benefit from the knowledge of how to best remodel, furnish, and stage Victorians for resale. Some buyers may also seek advice about building a Neo-Victorian house.

A Time When More Was More

In Victorians’ heyday, generally said to be the 1870s-80s, elaborate ornamentation signified an owner’s wealth and status. Many equate this golden age with French Second Empire homes with mansard roofs and applied ornaments.

“Sometimes every square inch sometimes covered and it became an anything-goes architecture style,” says Miami-based designer Marianne Cusato (www.cusatocottages.com) and co-author of Get your House Right (Sterling, 2007). “Previous constraints were thrown out the window.”

These homes also had larger rooms with bigger windows and higher ceilings, and were among the first to have modern conveniences such as central heating and indoor plumbing, says Garrison.

Regional variations diminished as railroads delivered parts far and wide and as an increasing number of catalogs informed home owners of styles previously not known beyond their borders. “It was the first time you saw the same house built in San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston,” says Garrison.

After the Civil War and the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the American Shingle, Stick, and Romanesque variations replaced the European-inspired Italianate and Second Empire in popularity, says Garrison, author of Houses of Philadelphia (Acanthus Press, 2009), which has an 1885 Queen Anne on its cover.

By 1900, most Victorian-era homes lost favor, replaced by Colonial Revivals, which “celebrated American history but were also a reaction to immigration,” says Garrison.

Practical for Modern Families

In the 1960s and 1970s, Victorian-era homes regained followers, who found the style’s optimism and quirkiness appealing, says Garrison. “They also worked well for modern families because of their spacious interiors,” he says.

If your buyer is interested in Victorians, experts say it’s important to pay attention to the details on the inside and outside—especially if they want a home with authentic features.

Study what’s on the surface. Because few rules governed what was stylistically correct, many Victorian-era homes reflected a free-for-all exterior, says Cusato. What matters most is that the proportions of parts—windows, doors, siding, porches, brackets—share a complementary scale. Windows were among the most important features since glass had become easier to ship and was another status symbol, Cusato says. Any additions should have been added in the right scale and place. “You wouldn’t want a three-car garage to be a dominant front feature,” Cusato says.

Check beneath. Advise buyers to consider hiring an expert to examine the home’s bones to know if the structure is intact—that no termites are dining on porch railings—and that no lead paint, asbestos, radon, or mold lurks, Cusato says.

Caution about upkeep and changes. While it’s easy to be charmed by a Victorian-era home, Duffy warns that it’s important to advise buyers that it can be pricey to keep the home in working order. But Jacob Albert I, an architect with Boston-based Albert, Righter & Tittmann, who’s also active with the Society for Architectural Historians, says the homes can be easier to make energy efficient than many 1950s modern houses because of solid walls and good infrastructure. He believes it’s important that remodeling reflect the home’s original design. “We’ve remodeled to remove unsympathetic details and put back something more in the home’s spirit,” he says. Homes in an historic district must heed other guidelines.

List Wisely

To help sellers present their listing in the best possible light:

Be sure systems are a go. Rhonda Duffy, owner & salesperson with Duffy Realty in Atlanta, says an older home in any style should always be presented in working order, with functioning appliances and energy-efficient windows and HVAC systems, unless it’s being sold “as is.” But even then, a seller should provide information on how the buyer might make it more functional, says Duffy, whose Web site offers useful tips.

Play up historical significance and greenness. People buying older housing stock like the idea of being connected to a prior era when homes didn’t come from the same cookie cutter, Duffy says. She advises sellers to share a home’s history by building a story. “I have owners write a letter to buyers telling details about who lived there and what occurred in the home and neighborhood. They might research at an historical society. I also tell them to print it up with photos and allow lookers to take a copy,” she says. Garrison recommends emphasizing that the available supply is small and getting smaller. In addition, he says, “There’s nothing greener than keeping an old house.”

Stage properly. In showing the house, Duffy advocates focusing on special features and making sure rooms aren’t overcrowded, which is a tendency of Victorian-era homes. “You don’t use as many furnishings and accessories as you would if you lived there,” she says.

Neo-Victorians

While Victorian-era homes are not the most common style to replicate today, there are some exceptions. Shingle houses have become prevalent in coastal vacation communities such as New York’s Hamptons because they connote a leisurely bygone era.

Folk Victorian farmhouses have been built in traditional new development neighborhoods to provide old-fashioned, affordable charm, says Georgia Toney, a certified professional building designer who helped develop the Vinyl Siding Institute’s Designing Style guidebook. The element that stands out most as the hallmark of a modern Victorian home is a front porch. “It immediately says the house is part of a community,” says Garrison.

Whether new or old, Victorian homes have charm and a historical connection that’s uncommon in architecture today, writes Witold Rybczynski in his book, The Look of Architecture (Oxford, 2001). “They remind us of who we once were. And of who we might be again, for old buildings also inspire,” he says.

Barbara Ballinger is a freelance writer for REALTOR® magazine.

This article was posted on HERE

Don’t doubt what your mind can do if you open it.

When I was at Matt Bacak’s Marketing Madness event a few weeks ago, I had the privilege of meeting Rhonda Duffy, a local Real Estate agent who also hosts her own radio show. There was a special session for women where we participated in a spoon bending activity. Rhonda explained that we were supposed to pick out a spoon by “talking to the spoon and asking if the spoon would bend for us”. Once we picked out our spoon we were supposed to return to the circle and bend the spoon. I guess my ADD was kicking in pretty strong that day because I had already bent my spoon while she was talking. Oops.

So I went and got another spoon. I waited until the proper time this time around and bent the second spoon. Then she asked us to get another one. I’m thinking, “Well I’ve already bent two spoons so I should be able to sit down, right?” but being the good sport that I am, I got a fork this time and proceeded to bend that one too.

Moral of this story: You can do whatever you put your mind to if you have proper coaching and surround yourself with positive energy.

Visit DeAnna Troupe Here
DeAnna Troupe is a virtual assistant. She provides affordable administrative services for solopreneurs. For more information on her virtual assistant services, go to www.deannaspencer.com

She also teaches entrepreneurs how to advertise their business in an affordable manner.

Check this blog often for informative articles and tips related to small business matters.

We traveled to Abilene, Texas where my Dad lives for Thanksgiving. The Feed The Homeless Event is where we spend Thanksgiving morning. This year, the event feed 2 times the amount of people as the past. Here are some photos.