My assistant and I just helped a couple moving from Dallas Texas to Cincinnati. She (the new Doctor) begins her internship at Children’s Hospital this June 1st. They had exactly 3 days to find the home of their dreams and head back to Texas.

It’s hilarious to explain to out-of-towners that they flew into the Greater Cincinnati (Northern KY) International Airport and landed in Kentucky. Then to get to the Mt Washington/Anderson Twp area you need to cross the Ohio River from Covington to Cincinnati, head East on Fort Washington Way and take 471 across the Ohio River a second time through Newport, Ky and up to Southgate, Ky to I-275 and back across the Ohio River a third time to Ohio once again. It is the absolute shortest route. 

It was also interesting how they absolutely fell in love with the Cincinnati Skyline as we drove through the cut in the hill on I-75 from Covington Ky heading towards Ohio. Then I really put Cincinnati to the test. I asked them if they had heard about Cincinnati Chili…they said “Yes, we have heard it was different”. So we went to Skyline Chili for lunch and I was a hero. They really loved it. So now we have new converts to Cincinnati Chili.

This couple wanted a move-in condition home, with at least 2 baths and a two car garage. It needed to be within 20 minutes of Children’s Hospital and between $140,000 - $160,000. We found a few in Delhi, Bridgetown, Deer Park, Reading, Mt Washington & Anderson Twp. In Northern Kentucky we found a few in Erlanger, Villa Hills and Ft Thomas.

Their first choice was a home in Delhi. Well, the market is not as bad as the media is telling us because we were into a 3-way multiple offer. We went from a Skyline Three-way to a this and lost. Yep, the sellers took one of the other offers and rejected ours. It is a good thing we had a very close second choice. A home in Mt Washington. We immediately got that offer to these sellers on Sunday morning and got it accepted before they flew out of CVG for Texas.

So the moral of this story is …you cannot believe everything you read in the papers about how BAD this market is. Buyers are buying and sellers are selling. This is a good thing. So if you are actively in the market to buy a home don’t think you have plenty of time to make your offers and think you can low ball the seller and expect to get it. That isn’t so in the greater Cincinnati area. If the home shows well and is priced well, someone will buy it. Will that be You? You need to act on it and act reasonable. Don’t be silly or you will loose.

God Bless you and pray for our Troops

Did you ever reply to an email in a hurry, forget to use spell check or re-read it to proof before hitting SEND?

Then you get your CC…(carbon copy) and are embarrassed at what you sent. Maybe you were angry at the email you received and thought “Well, I’m going to throw in my two cents worth” only later you feel what you said wasn’t even worth two cents…now that you had a chance to read it.

But once you hit the SEND BUTTON…it’s too late, you cannot take it back.

I experienced a unique situation the other day. I received an email that really looked like it was from my bank. It had the official logo, footer disclosures and everything. This email didn’t even go to my spam folder…and that was very unusual. Most all my email unless extremely legitimate goes into my quarantine.

This email said  Account Notification   -We were unable to verify your account information during our regular database verification process. This might be due to one or more of the following reasons:…..
Then it asked me for my current user name and password, My social security number, my check card and pin number and three of my security questions and answers.

I use Roboform password manager and form filler on my computer. This is a great product. I highly recommend it to anyone that has more than two or three passwords to remember. Well, I hit Roboform and it was about ready to fill in all the blanks this email asked for. Then I thought about it a little more. I wasn’t even logged into my personal banking highly secure website.

I called my bank and they verified that this email did not originate from them and they asked me to forward it to their ID theft division. Whew…that was a real close call. I could have lost everything in my bank account had I not had a second thought about what I was doing. I am so grateful God was watching over me that day as he always does. But especially that day as rushed as I usually am to get everything done on time. This is one way people experience Identity Theft. Please be sure to verify anything that asks for your confidential information.

So…I am extra careful to read everything I reply to and make sure that I use Roboform wisely.

God bless you and pray for our Troops.