Blogging Tulsa Real Estate: October 2008

Polished Granite is Out -- Polished Wood is In -- that is according to an article that Mike Beirne wrote for Brandweek (see:  Affluent Look to Facelifts for the Home  / -By Mike Beirne, Oct 10, 2008).

I remember more than a year ago I read in the CRS Specialist that granite is "so 2006!"and concrete and glass is coming in.  However, while I have been keeping an eye out for a reversal of the trend to emphasize granite, everyone here is still in love with the look of granite.

New construction is still very zha zha about granite.  It's still in all our local upscale magazines. What are you seeing in your market?

For more kitchen design trends, go to the new website for Wolf and Sub-Zero:  KitchenInspiration.com.  There are some pretty examples of the polished wood on the You-Tube video.

"Simple white" is coming back with wood being used to bring warmth.

Pastel spring colors are in.

Streamlined, handle-free cabinet designs -- less of everything -- getting away from the elaborately carved corbels and moldings.

So there you have it.  Kitchens will once again be functional -- for cooking.  Pretty, yes, but no longer elaborate fashion statements.

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Come to Oklahoma where neighbors are nice and help one another.

I just read an article in the Daily Real Estate News dated October 13, 2008 that really upset me.  No, it enraged me.  The article is entitled "Gramps Jailed for Snubbing Lawn Care Order." 

This blew my mind -- this story would never happen in Oklahoma -- Certainly not in Weleetka where I held an open house yesterday.   In fact at my open house neighbors came and took lots of flyers and mortgage information to tell their friends at work about the house they were visiting.  That's because they knew the owner and wanted to help her sell her house.  Weleetka is a quiet little town with nice people and friendly neighbors -- people who care about one another.

That is sharp contrast to other parts of the country.  Compare it to the neighborhood in Florida where "Gramps" just got jailed for not resodding his lawn.

Here is a snippet of the story quoted from the Daily Real Estate News, whose source was the St. Petersburg Times, Jodie Tillman (10/11/08)

"A 66-year-old grandfather in Bayonet Point, Fla., is doing jail time because he couldn't afford to replace the sod on his lawn in his deed-restricted community after his sprinkler system failed."  The man had been unable to fix the lawn after his adjustable rate mortgage rose... yada, yada, yada.  One of the board members of the neghborhood association "expressed regret that... [Gramps]... had landed in jail. 'It's a sad situation,'"... "'But in the end, I have to say he brought it upon himself.'"

Deed restrictions or not, the result is the same. Shame on those people!  They should have helped the man out.  If they couldn't resod the lawn for him, then they should have quietly raised the funds and somehow gotten it done for him.

And that's all I have to say about that!

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CONSUMER ALERT:  Four Paws Pimple Ball

I am in the Dog Lovers Group on LinkedIn.  The owner of a dog named Chai has put out a plea to owners of dogs to take away the Four Paws Pimple Balls even though this may be their dog's favorite toy.

The pimple ball does not have a second hole in it, and so when a dog plays with it a vacuum is created.  Poor Chai's tongue was sucked into the vacuum and the ball essentially cut the circulation off to his tongue.  The dog was in terrible pain and eventually his tongue had to be amputated.

Here is a link to the blog about Chai.  Scroll down past all the comments to see the original post and the images.

http://thechaistory.blogspot.com/

Warn all your friends and clients!!

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