Don't miss the annual skiers picnic at Greek Peak, Virgil, New York tomorrow, October 17 from noon to 5:00 pm. There will be loads of activities for adults and children alike. The picnic is all you can eat for $15 (adults) and $12 (children). The Greek Peak shuttle will also take those interested in viewing properties for sale in the surrounding townhomes and single family dwellings in the afternoon. 

Come to visit the open house at the new listing located at 9 Horvath Drive in Ithaca, just off North Triphammer Road, on Sunday, August 2 from 1:00 to 3:00 pm. Spacious 5 bedroom 3 full bath raised ranch that has been recently renovated with new kitchen, baths, and more! Lower level has apartment for extended family, au pair, or rental. Visit the virtual tour at http://tinyurl.com/9HorvathDriveIthaca.

 Location is everything! This nineteenth century 2-story Colonial is located in the Town of Dryden with the 2^nd fairway of Dryden Lakes Golf Course in the back yard. With 4 bedrooms and 3 baths, this home has plenty of space with just over 2400 sq. ft. and is sited on 2.5 acres. Also nearby is Dryden Lake and 5 miles of marked hiking trails known as the Finger Lakes Trails.

Get your copy of the January Ithaca Area Real Estate Statistics by following the link from my homepage at www.IthacaAreaHomes.com. Although the market experienced a downturn last month, we are finding that February sales seem to be rising and with the new $8,000 tax credit available for first time home buyers, the spring market in Ithaca will be a busy one! If you have any questions feel free to contact me. And for the latest news in the Ithaca real estate market, follow me on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/IthacaAreaHomes.

Green Building and Green Houses (not the garden variety) are terms that we are hearing more and more about these days. Green houses are basically designed to be eco-friendly from the insulation, flooring and paint materials to appliances and landscaping.

Washers and dryers are energy saving (or hang your wet clothes on the line to dry) and faucets are low flow. In flooring, I was surprised to find that bamboo is the environmental hardwood of choice as it is technically not a wood, but a grass yet is a very hard surface and easily replenished. Linoleum is actually made from linen and other natural fibers.

Manufacturers are checking into the viability of milk-based paints as opposed to the paints with carcinogenic chemicals. Kitchen and bath tiles are being made with recycled glass.

And although solar energy conversion is a large initial investment, you will realize the savings each month in lower energy bills.

According to Wikipedia.com, Xeriscaping refers to refers to landscaping in ways that do not require supplemental irrigation and using plants that are appropriate to the area.  The word Xeriscaping was coined by combining xeros (Greek for "dry") with landscape.

I have not come across many truly green houses in the Ithaca area, but do know of a few that have been remodeled as such. I'm sure we'll hear more about this concept in the future.

I thought I'd start your Monday with a few interesting tidbits regarding real estate and home decorating.

Interested in seeing what residential properties sold in Ithaca and surrrounding areas last week, where they were, and for how much they sold?

Ever have trouble visualizing what an interior room in your home would look painted a different color? My daughter found the color visualizer page at glidden.com to be a great help. You choose the room and furniture that best matches your own, click on your paint color of choice, and you instantly see how well (or not) it will look.

Enjoy your week!

If someone were to ask you, in relation to selling, buying or even redecorating you home, if you know Feng Shui, and your response is, "Who?" this article may be for you! Here is a dictionary definition:

feng shui (fŭng' shwâ') n. The Chinese art or practice of positioning objects based on a belief in patterns of yin and yang and the flow of chi that have positive and negative effects.

The purpose of the art in home decoration is to create a harmonious environment and enhance the flow of positive spiritual energy, or chi. Whether or not you subscribe to these beliefs, some of the ideas behind feng shui just make good decorating sense.

You'll find a good example of this art in Feng Shui Your Bedroom at hgtv.com.

As mentioned in my last blog article, Ithaca area residents are fortunate to have a variety of services available to us so we can make informed and educated decisions when buying a home and then maintaining it.

If you're thinking of purchasing a home that may need some fixing up, or live in one that could use a bit of repair, Better Housing for Tompkins County is offering a series of maintenance classes that are hands-on. They suggest you come prepared to get dirty! The cost for each class is $5 and the facility is located at 950 Danby Road. All classes begin at 6:30 p.m. Here are their offerings:

These sound like extremely useful classes to me! My father alway said to have a healthy respect for electricity. Maybe I should attend that class to learn what I should NOT do. And who hasn't pounded a big nail in the wall to hang a picture, tried to spackle it in preparation for repainting, only to make it look worse? And have you ever stumbled across a tool made for a specific task that you sure wish you'd known about last spring when you were trying to make that repair?

Call 273-2187 to reserve your spot. Also, visit their website for additional information on buying and maintaining your home and  to find out about the other services provided by Better Housing for Tompkins County.

I haven't posted to my blog in a while for a variety of reasons; one being that I have been extremely busy because the real estate market in Ithaca is not suffering the same downward turn as in other areas of the country, and generally doesn't.

A recent article in the Ithaca Journal dated July 18 espoused the discouraging news about the difficulty that first time homebuyers have. As pointed out in a letter to the editor by my esteemed colleague and good friend, Peggy Haine, even first-time homebuyers have the great good fortune to be able to avail themselves of services provided by Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services for Tompkins County and also the SONYMA program that allows first time homebuyers, that qualify, to take advantage of, among other perks, a lower interest rate.

So the sky isn't falling. The real estate market always experiences fluctuations, By and large, real estate prices are reflective of the uniqueness of a property competing against other properties at a given time. If there are several similar homes on the market at one time, prices tend to go down. Because of the transient nature of the Ithaca population, we have more buyers than other areas (particularly in the spring) to absorb the excess housing and competition for the declining number of homes will cause the selling prices to escalate.

Buying real estate is not risky and is a great way to build wealth over the long run. Don't buy into all of the doom and gloom about the poor state of the real estate market. We're doing just fine in the Ithaca area.

Well I just finished watching the virtues of listing your home on redfin.com versus using a Realtor. I bill myself as providing state-of-the-art representation and using technologically advanced marketing, so my mind was open when I began watching. I'll be the first Realtor to sign on with redfin.com if they truly provided superior service for buyers and sellers. From what I saw, they're not there yet. They showed a testimonial from only one satisfied client who was able to afford to feed the guests at her reception because she chose to use redfin over a traditional real estate agent.

The segment on 60 minutes would have you believe that many Realtors are money-grubbing salespeople with no regard for their clients' best interests. Guess what, some Realtors really are money grubbing, unethical salespeople. So are some doctors, tax preparers, lawyers, etc. etc. On the other hand, I know many honest, diligent, hard-working Realtors that put the interests of the client above the money. I truly feel that no matter what profession you are in, if you treat the client well and put their interests above all else, the money will follow.

Just to be sure I got the full picture before I made my mind up about the redfin services, I immediately visited their website. Uh oh. Their server was down. They did offer a few documents for viewing that gave a synopsis of their services. Again, I wasn't impressed. You truly can save money by using their services, but this means you do a large part of the work on your own. You hold your own open houses and arrange for private viewings on your own. (And I hope you don't have a full time job that makes it impossible for buyers to view your house while you are working). It appears your listing will show up on a few Internet sites with redfin. Their flyer states that the traditional agent does not do Internet marketing. With the marketing that Beth Ganem, my colleague, and I do, our listings show up on well over 50 Internet sites.

I think consumers were well served when we could book our own hotels and flights on the Internet and bypass, for the most part, the traditional travel agent. Real estate is a huge investment for most consumers. Flying to Disney isn't. For now, I think consumers are best served by the hands-on care given to our buyers and sellers. When that is no longer the case, I'll join redfin.

The Ithaca Board of Realtors has just released the Annual Statistics Report for Residential Properties to its members. There were no big surprises. The real estate market in Ithaca has remained fairly steady over the past 12 months as the statistics bear out. Traditionally, the market value of homes in Ithaca continues to increase, albeit only slightly some years. This is possibly because of the transient nature of our residents due to the college population.

Tompkins County saw 1,041 closed sales in 2006 (there were 1,040 closed sales in 2005). The average selling price was $193,506 in 2006 and $184,026 in 2005. The average selling price to list price was 96.8% last year, and 96.6% in 2005, and the average days on the market was 61 in 2006 and 55 in 2005.

The Belle Sherman School District saw the most closed sales, followed by the Dryden Central School District and then Caroline. By dollar volume, Cayuga Heights came in first, followed by Belle Sherman and then Lansing Central.

If you have any questions about sales of properties in areas of interest to you, I'd be happy to talk to you!

The Ithaca Board of Realtors and The Ithaca Journal are co-sponsoring an event, Home Within Reach: A Housing Opportunities Fair, for the community which promises to be fun, informative and educational. There will be seminars and workshops for first-time homebuyer financing, programs to help homeowners keep their homes energy efficient, information on assessments, and more. The event will be held next Saturday, March 24 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Ithaca High School. Admission is free. Stop in and meet with Ithaca area realtors, mortgage lenders, home inspectors and attorneys regarding the home buying process!