Brian French

Self Evaluation For Purchasing

Oftentimes people are unaware of how involved negotiations can be when purchasing a home, or what type of person they are when it comes to the actual process. Here are a few things to consider when you decide to negotiate a real estate transaction. Number one, are you generally well prepared and know all the facts? Number two: how
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Are you Ready to Retire?

Today's retirees face many new challenges that most of our grandparents did not when they retired. Years ago, people could count on pensions and social security to take care of them during their golden years. In today's world that is the furthest thing from the truth. Everything is so muchmore expensive today. Taxes, health care, insurances
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Are You Motivated?

How do you perceive your future? Are you a person that plans ahead or just sits back and takes life as it comes? I believe it is not where you start in life but where you finish. There are so many choices in life that we have to make and the person who makes the tough choices typically is the one who finishes ahead in the end. Oftentimes,
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Driving Lessons

Have any of you had to teach your children how to drive yet? My son turned 15 in January and got his permit two days after his birthday. Needless to say, we have to try to sneak out the door if we want to go anywhere like the store or we get the "can I drive from him". It's not that he is a terrible driver, it's just that he's still
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Summer is Here

Have you had a chance yet to spend some time in your back yard with the grill going and your family by your side? If not, now is the time to do it. Recently it has been incredibly warm, although we could do with a few less showers that's for sure. Summer is here and it is almost July. Incredible how fast the time flies by. Here in Vermont,
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Attitudes

Have you ever wondered how some people always seem to have great luck? Everything they do just seems to turn out right. They are the people you want to be around. Most often what is overlooked about these people is that they have great attitudes. Realistically, they are not smarter and don't work harder than yourself. They just have
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Negotiating a skill in itself

Do you ever wonder how your best friend is always getting such great deals on things that he or she purchases? It also applies to real estate as well. Often times buyers think that they don't need any help in negotiating a great deal for themselves when it comes to the real estate purchasebecause they have done it before. I could tell you
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Rental Excitement

June 1st is that time of year in our area where many apartments turn over. Lots of the college kids graduate and move on.For thosekids who have lived on campus, somedecide to spread their wings and move off campus. It is an exciting time for those students with their first real taste of independent living. No resident director to keep track
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Time to Buy

There is an article in today's newspaperquoting one of the State's Economist that Vermont is in a recession. That's the bad news. The good news is that he is predicting that we will slowly start moving out of it in the last quarter of this year. Not too bad considering the fact that we may have already experienced the worst. With that said,
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Marathon Fever

I ran in the local marathon this past weekend and I must say it was extremely exhilarating. I ran the last leg 5.6 miles on a relay team with some friends. What an incredible event the city of Burlington puts on. There were over 7200 runners and 30,000 spectators experiencing the event. The weather was great, a balmy 70 plus degrees sunny,
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More on the ball field

DuringMemorial Day, me and two other volunteers took advantage of our time off to put the roof on the new storage shed that we will have for our new baseball field for the kids when it is complete. We started this project almost a year ago to construct a new baseball field and we are getting in the home stretch for completion. We hopefully
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Happy Post Memorial Day

I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone well after such a wonderful weekend we had here. The weather could not have been better for the Memorial Day Weeend festivities. I hope all of you were able to spend the time the way that you wanted to. Ialso want to acknowledge the huge sacrifices that all our Veterans have made so that we do have
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Selling tips 101

If you are thinking of selling your home today, here are a few pointers that you may want to take advantage of to help sell your home. First of all, make sure that you are completely realistic about your price. If you are at the top of the competition, plan on staying put for quite some time. Secondly, hire an experienced agent. Someone who
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Too Happy to be Rich?

I just got done reading an interesting article in Money magazine which compared the amount of happiness one felt with their financial status and spending habits. Based on a study done by World Values Survey which measured the happiness of their respondents on a scale of 1- 10 with 10 being the happiest, they found that income did indeed
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Market Upswing

Today's local newspaper has an article in it talking about the positive turn the real estate market has taken in a number of places across the country. This speaks to the point that there is no such thing as a national real estate market, just like there is no such thing as a national weather report. All real estate is local and so is the
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Enhance Your Curb Appeal

If you are thinking about selling your home, you may want to take a moment to think about what makes some homes sell faster than others in a neighborhood full of like kind homes. There is definitely one thing that all of them have in common, curb appeal. Most homeowners view their homes as being bigger and better than most of their
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Legislative Session Ends

I just went to a Government Affairs Committee meeting this morning to get an overview of what the last minute finagling by our legislators did for the future of housing in our state. All in all I was pleased by the report we received by our representative, but also put on notice that there will be some things down the road that we will need
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Healthy Living

May is almost half gone and we are all starting to feel good about the warmer temperatures. My kids are playing baseball and soccer and my wife and I are training to run in the marathon. Living in Vermont is such a wonderful experience. There are so many outdoor activities to get involved in that it truly makes Vermont one of the most
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Our Business is Up

We just got our numbers through April and I have to admit, our business is up from last yearat this time. If you listen to the national news and even the local media, they are promoting a picture of real estate doom and gloom . Well let me tell you folks, we have had 3 deals in the last two weeks where there were two offers on the same
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Retire or Not ?

Today's retirees are much different than retirees of past. Years ago we thought of retirement as the end of the line. Nothing much planned other than to kick back and wait for our maker. Certainly, retirees look much different in today's world. Most of them have a plan and don't take the plunge until they are ready to fulfill new dreams,
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