Our Mission (part 4)

The mission of the Nolting Real Estate team is to invest in the lives of homeowners by providing reliable, innovative, and personalized service to maximize the economic and personal value of their real estate investment and to earn their trust in order to build lifelong business relationships.

It’s easy to get service today. In economics and marketing, a service is the non-material equivalent of a good. Service is easy to provide. But how do you provide innovative service? This is an entirely different story. Innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved idea, good, service, process or practice that is intended to be useful.

What is Nolting Real Estate doing that is innovative?

Let me start by saying that real estate has changed. Take a look at these stats:
70% of homebuyers used the Internet in 2004.
80% of homebuyers used the Internet in 2005 to research homes for sale.
The trend of using the internet is growing – and fast! What does your agent have to offer? To be quite honest, a significant number of agents aren’t prepared for this new model of real estate. According to a National Association of Realtors poll conducted in 2005, only 26% of realtors use a PDA and only 20% of realtors use a digital camera. Did you know that homes listed on the internet that have multiple photos are viewed 299% more than homes with 1 photo or less. Did you know that the average internet consumer has to wait 54 hours to receive a response from an agent? Did you know that most agents spend 7 times more money on print advertising that they do on online advertising.

Do you see my point? Most real estate agents aren’t cutting it! They are spending YOUR MONEY in places that don’t amount to anything. They are ignoring the most important part of the game – technology!

What are we doing that is different? We are on the technological cutting edge. We use our technology the right way. We don’t carry BlackBerry phones in order to impress our clients – we carry them because they enable us to receive and respond to email anywhere we are and at any time. We can access the internet on our laptops using a wireless internet card – anywhere we are and at any time. We carry portable printers that allow us to print important documents for our clients – anywhere we are and at any time.

In terms of marketing, we will market your house 24/7 on scores of websites. We focus first on getting your MLS listing right, with full color digital pictures and inviting text. We then send the listing all over the web to multiple websites. We put together a website for your listing. For example, we are currently listing a home in Kirkwood, MO, at 29 Sweetbriar Lane. If you want general information, driving directions, a virtual tour, a recorded message via podcast, a satellite photo of the home, and more, just visit our site at http://www.12sweetbriar.com/.

You see, we are different than the competition. We constantly research, constantly learn, and constantly innovate because we are the best. Check us out today at http://www.noltingrealestate.com/

Make Spring Cleaning a Breeze With These Helpful Ideas

RISMEDIA, March 21, 2006

When getting ready to clean out winter cobwebs, it’s best to have a game plan for every room when you start your spring cleaning projects. It will simplify your tasks at hand and keep you from becoming overwhelmed. And remember, you don’t have to do it all in one day! The following are some spring cleaning tips and techniques for every room in your home.

Livingroom
1. Dust and vacuum corners and crevices from high points to low. Remember dust falls downward so you want to clean from the top to the bottom of any room.
2. Vacuum furniture, lampshades and pictures. Remember all those gadgets that come with your vacuum cleaner? Use them here, and experiment with different attachments for furniture and corners of rooms.
3. Vacuum or wash curtains.
4. Dust wood furniture.
5. Dust mop floors.
6. Vacuum carpet.
7. Take plants outside for a gentle washing with a fine spray from your garden hose. Plants and their pots get dusty over the winter.

Bedrooms
1. Wash, or dry-clean curtains.
2. Take blinds outside and wash them with a mild ammonia solution Rinse with that good old stand by--the garden hose!
3. Strip bed linens and dust ruffle.
4. Vacuum your mattress and box spring. Flip and rotate the mattress before putting on new sheets. This will prevent dips from forming on the mattress, and keep it firmer longer.
5. Polish wood furniture and dust knickknacks.
6. Vacuum everything, from the floor behind and under the bed to the carpet, lampshade and pictures.
7. Clean mirrors and wipe down light fixtures and lamps.
8. Dust mop wood floors.

Kitchen
1. Let cleansers do the scrubbing for you! Spray your oven with cleaner the night before you plan to spring clean your kitchen This will literally "marinate" the grease and grime, making it simple to sponge off.
2. Here is a great microwave cleaning tip: fill a paper cup with water and a few tablespoons of baking soda. Nuke it for about 30 seconds, or until you see the contents explode! Then just take a paper towel and wipe it all off. The explosion spreads the cleanser over the entire area, and you can even use the moistened rag or paper towel to wipe outside the microwave and its surrounding area.
3. Vacuum stove vents, refrigerator coils, floor, and counters.
4. Defrost that freezer. A blow-drier aimed at the ice will speed up the process. Get rid of old foods, or those jars of things you thought you'd like but never ate.
5. Clean the inside of freezer and fridge with a solution of three tablespoons of baking soda and one quart of warm water.
6. Clean outside of fridge with glass cleaner.
7. Clean counters, appliances and stove top with an all purpose glass cleaner or the baking soda solution listed above.
8. Wash out the trash can and spray it with a good disinfectant before putting in a new lining. Leave it outside the kitchen for the next step.
9. For linoleum floors, spray a foaming tile cleaner and take a five minute break, (you can change the CD, or start clearing out items in another room). When you come back, you just need to sponge mop the floor. The foaming cleanser will have already lifted up the dirt so you don't have to.

Bathrooms
1. Spray shower and tub with strong cleanser.
2. Pour cleaner into the toilet bowl, and spray the outside with the same cleaner. Let the chemicals do the cleaning while you do the next steps.
3. Clean mirrors, chrome, bathroom scale, and light fixtures with glass cleaner.
4. Vacuum everything! This will remove dust and hair that is so hard to get up when surfaces are wet.
5. Empty and clean the wastepaper basket.
6. Clean the sink and wipe off the cleanser you already applied to the shower and tub.
7. Working from the top of the toilet down, clean the outside, and brush and flush the inside.
8. Scrub the floor with a strong cleanser. Tough tile floors can be most easily cleaned by hand with the scrub-brush side of a bathroom-only sponge.
9. One more tip: spaghetti mops are more efficient at getting into tough corners than sponge mops. Many types can even be thrown in the washing machine between cleanings.

Source: www.familydigest.com

For Some Buyers, Good Real Estate Agents Hard to Find

RISMEDIA, March 20

It took Jennifer Zuech and her husband nearly a dozen tries to find a real estate agent they felt comfortable with as they hunted for their first home. Some were inexperienced, pushy or didn't seem to listen, showing the couple places they couldn't afford. Others just seemed "conniving," not pointing out the much needed and costly improvements certain houses needed, Zuech said. "We got more educated as we went along at what to look for and what to ask for," she said.

In a Gallup poll conducted last November, a randomly selected sample of 1,002 adults rated the honesty and ethical standards of 21 types of professionals. Real estate agents ranked No. 11 with 20 percent of those surveyed giving them a very high or high rating. That's compared to 82 percent for nurses, who ranked No. 1, 65 percent for doctors and 44 percent for funeral directors.

Some people might not have as positive an impression of real estate agents because it's an easy field to get into, said John Boatright, a business ethics professor at Loyola University Chicago. It doesn't take years of education to get a license, and it's relatively inexpensive, Boatright said. "Almost anyone can become a real estate agent," he said. Many people also question whether the fees they charge are justified, he said. They're less aware of the financial incentives in other fields like medicine, Boatright said.

The recent heated market has probably helped compound the issue, said Bakersfield Association of Realtors president Don Cohen. Hundreds of new agents have leaped into the business, and some are out to make a quick buck. "When one person does wrong, it takes a tremendous amount of effort to counter that," Cohen said. The association has monthly education classes for its members. "We've been growing in leaps and bounds. It's hard to keep up with them," Cohen said. "We're just doing the best we can to educate them and make them as professional as possible." But with so much money changing hands, there are more opportunities for issues to arise, he said. Everyone has been in such a hurry to close deals that "you're going to see flagrant violations," said local broker Chuck Dawson. "People get so sloppy because they want to do as much volume of business as they can."

Homebuyers or sellers can help avoid problematic agents by being vigilant and asking some important questions. They have a responsibility to ask about an agent's experience, Dawson said. Agents' professional standards are almost directly proportional to their education and the amount of knowledge they've gained, he said. A successful agent is one who is constantly taking courses, learning about new technology and ways of doing business, he said. Agents who join the association also have a code of ethics they're expected to follow.

The association has grievance and ethics committees to deal with those who don't. It receives 40 to 60 phone calls a month from frustrated people. Of those, between five and 10 will become complaints that go before a committee, Dawson said. Statewide, the Department of Real Estate receives somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 complaints a year. The department's Web site, www.dre.ca.gov, allows consumers to search for potential violations using an agent's license number.

Potential buyers should also talk to friends and family, Cohen said, and find out who an agent's done business with in the past six months. "Don't just take it for granted because they give you three names and three phone numbers," Cohen said. "Check the references out." And if you have any doubts, keep looking, he said.

Jennifer Zuech and her husband eventually found their agent, Leslie Walters, through a work friend. Some agents had given the couple false impressions that they could afford particular houses. Walters was honest with them, she said. "She's awesome," Zuech said. "She really paid attention to what we could or couldn't afford."
Copyright © 2006, The Bakersfield Californian Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

At Nolting Real Estate we are committed to providing exceptional costomer service. Our agents work to meet the client's needs, not their own agendas. Let us prove to you why we are the Right Team of agents to meet all of your St. Louis area real estate needs. To find out more about our team and our mission statement, visit www.NoltingRealEstate.com. To speak in person to one of our agents, call 636-391-9997, or email our broker/president, Russell Nolting at RTNolting@NoltingRealEstate.com.