How to Avoid the 8 Most Common Home Buying Errors.

Shopping for a new home is an emotional experience. It is, however, also a business transaction, and must be treated as such. Three of the most devastating things that can go wrong are:

• Paying too much

• Losing a dream home to another buyer

• Buying the wrong home

When you have a systematic plan before you shop, you’ll be sure to avoid these costly errors. Here are some tips on making the most of your home purchase:

Get the information you need
What price do you offer a seller? Is the seller’s asking price too high? Is it a deal? Your own research is important, as is the assistance of a Realtor®. A professional Realtor® can offer an unbiased opinion on the value of a home, based on many factors and a great deal of information. Without knowledge of the market, your offer could be too much. Or worse, you could miss out on a great buying opportunity. Hire the right person and trust that person to represent your interests.

Buy YOUR home
What do you need and want in a home? Sounds simple, but clearly identifying your needs and bringing an objective view to home shopping leaves you in a much better position. How much space do you really need? Too small and you may feel like you live in constant clutter. Too big and maintenance may become too daunting. Outline all of your priorities, and work on finding not just a great home, but a great home for you.

Check the title
Before you sign any document, be sure the property you are considering is free of all encumbrances. As a part of his or her services, a Realtor® can supply you with a copy of the title to ensure there are no liens, debts, undisclosed owners, leases or easements against the title.

Update the survey
Before the purchase is completed, an updated survey is essential. This report will indicate boundaries and structural changes (additions to the house, a new swimming pool, neighbor’s new fence which is extending a boundary line, etc.), and will guarantee that you are indeed getting what you pay for.

Minimize the unexpected
For $300 - $500, a professional inspector will conduct a thorough inspection of the home. Their expertise can mean the difference between uncovering major flaws before or after you own a home. Make the final contract subject to the report’s findings.

Get pre-approved
It only takes a few days to get financing pre-approval. When you are shopping for a home, this gives you more power. A seller is more likely to consider an offer from a serious buyer.

Remember additional costs
Besides the funds for the purchase of a home, you’ll need funds for items such as loan fees, insurance, legal fees, surveys, inspections, etc.

Take a deep breath
Before you sign, ensure that all documentation clearly reflects your understanding and conditions of the transaction. Has anything been forgotten? Don’t rush. You could lose money, financing, or even the sale if you attempt to push things through too hastily.

Get the latest listings in Blue Ridge, Ellijay, Blairsville, Jasper, Young Harris, Hiawassee and Talking Rock directly emailed to your inbox goto http://www.quicklistingalerts.com

Joost Invites

Ok... I do Have joost invites if you want one... let me know..

Quest to be Skinny Update

Well Happy Anniversary to My Wife and I. Six Years. And any day were are expecting another little one. Very Exciting Times.

Onto the Quest to be Skinny Update. I have reached 278 finally after a couple of bumpy weeks. I am very excited. I am actually feeling a lot better. So this is very good. I have been baking weight watcher foods today. My wife remember today how much I enjoy cooking. I don't get to do it as much I use to. But this recipe was my favorite of today. Apple Cornbread Muffins.


UPDATE: As soon as I got done typing this entry. I remembered I had something else cooking. These took over as my recipe of the day.

Cheese Muffins
Points Value: 3

Cooking Spray
1/2 Cup Chopped Onion
2 Cups low-fat baking mix (Bisquik Heart Smart)
3/4 Cup (3 oz) preshredded reduced-fat sharp cheddar cheese, divided
1 Large Egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup fat-free milk

1. Preheat Oven to 400
2. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat; coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion, and saute until tender. Remove from Heat.
3. Lightly spoon baking mix into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Add baking mix and 1/2 cup cheese to onion mixture in pan. Combine egg and milk; add to onion mixture, stirring just until moist. Spoon 1/4 cup batter into each of 0f 9 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle evenly with remaining 1/4 cup cheese.
4. Bake at 400 for 22 minutes or until golden. Remove from
Pan immediately, and serve warm.

Yield 9 Muffins (serving size: 1 muffin)
Per serving: Cal 138 (28% from fat); Fat 4.3g (sat 1.4g); Pro 5.8g;
Carb 20.1g; FIB 0.4g; Chol 31mg; Iron 1.1mg; SOD 384 mg; Calc 266mg

Source: Weight Watchers, five ingredient, 15 minute cookbook

Moore Joost

WOW! Joost did a major ramping up. The new version is even better. Talk about some great content. I absoultely love the World Records Channel, Poker Channel, MTV and more. And they are just testing. This has so much potential. I have read some folks that are negative on Joost but not me. Great Content. They even dished out some Invites (wink).

Open House, Showing Property and The Diet!

Well, last week has been one of those.  I showed property for two days straight and not sure of the results as of today.  The open house was a FLOP, noone showed up.  And the Diet!  Some how I miraculously lost some weight but I am back to hard core dieting today!

 

More Later

How I measure success?

These days I a measuring success by how much weight I have lost? Or how many deals have I closed? And so on...

So my weight is at 283... I have slowed but I am refocusing.

Give me some JOOST™!!

Several years ago, my wife and I made the decision that we weren't going to pay for TV. To be quite honest, we couldn't get cable or satellite where we lived so it was a forced decision. With the exception of a one year subscription to a satellite dish company, we haven't paid for television since.

Where we currently live we could have any number of "pay" television services, but we choose not to subscribe. We have even gone as far as not to have an antenna, because we want to feel better about ourselves and say we don't watch TV. We do subscribe to high speed internet though, which we could not live without.

To be honest, we do watch quite a few TV shows, just not on the television. We will watch a TV show through a network website (I am addicted to Survivor), rent a DVD on Netflix, subscribe to a video podcast, or use YouTube.

So imagine my excitement when I acquired an invite to Joost.

Joost was founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (the creators of Skype, which is now owned by Ebay). Joost's site says that it's "powered by a secure, efficient, piracy-proof Internet platform that enables premium interactive video experiences while guaranteeing copyright protection for content owners and creators". It's a cool new way to watch TV, but over the internet!

The Interface is really slick, and the video quality is great! Mind you, Joost is not like the YouTube player where the videos are downloaded to your computer in the background, and then play from your hard disk. Joost actually streams the content to you over a Peer to Peer network. And just like "normal" TV, it has advertising but these ads are infrequent.

What can you watch on Joost? This is a challenging question to answer: it depends on where you are located. Joost seems to be geographically sensitive. Many users are reporting different sets of channels.

Pixelspread published an exhaustive list of all reported channels, if you're interested. I have installed Joost on two separate computers in my home, and I can report that I am missing some channels on my laptop that I have on my desktop machine.

The videos are clean and clear, and channel surfing is very well done; it is very easy to switch from one channel to another.

Some of the content highlights include National Geographic documentaries, Rocky and Bullwinkle Cartoon Classics, and organic cooking shows.

Some of the content doesn't really appeal to my taste. For example, Bollywood music videos (Savvn) and old reality television shows (Lazy TV US).

Joost recently signed a deal allowing Viacom to be a key content partner. Viacom plans to offer a full range of programming for free. Under the agreement there will be content from MTV, BET and Paramount Pictures. Over the last couple of weeks, Joost has also signed deals with other content providers.

I have used many internet television delivery options. The speed at which the content is streamed on Joost is superior, and I have experienced little delay in delivery. I've rarely experienced a stutter or stoppage of content from Joost. It should be noted that my desktop computer is under the specifications, and despite this Joost performs very well.

Joost does use quite a bit of bandwidth as is mentioned on their website. During an hour of viewing, the application will download 320mb of data, and upload 105mb. If your ISP has a 10gb cap, you'll exceed that in around 10 hours. It's also worth noting that Joost will consume bandwidth when it's minimised and you're not actually watching anything, so they suggest quitting the application if your bandwidth is limited. In short, if you have an ISP that has caps on bandwith, you may run in to problems with Joost.

Right now Joost's beta is closed to the public and is strictly invitation only. Before you ask: no, I don't have any invitations! But many folks have received an email telling them that they'll be invited to the service soon, and that they haven't been forgotten.

It will be interesting to see how their network holds up when Joost comes out of beta in the next couple of weeks. I will be sure to keep you up to date.

Weight Loss

As of this morning I weighed 282. I am about to the weight I weighed before we left Asbury Hills. Hard to think that I put on so much weight in the last year but I guess that is what stress and fast food will do to you.

Mind you I wasn't pigging out. At least I didn't think that I was pigging out. Until I realized that a Big Mac Extra Value Meal Had 940 Calories and 50 Grams of Fat. 23 Weight Watcher Points.

Oh I could eat that If I wanted but that would be eat for the day. I just prefer to stay away.

Lately I have been enjoying Lean Cuisine Sandwiches. They are very good. And of course Subway Sandwiches.

Doug

Joost

So I was fortunate enough to receive an invite to Joost.com . An amazing piece of software. Right now the content is decent but nothing that blows my socks off. The amazing part of Joost is the Delivery. It is Video on Demand. And it most cases it is instantaneous. So If I want to (Edited because of Non Disclosure Agreement). Wow! Does Joost have potential Definitely. So bring on the content.

Catch Up

So..... This week was awful as far as the diet goes. I have no will power when there s candy lying around. Or someone brings brownies to the house. I only lost one pound this week. My accountability partner moved away to Connecticut a couple of weeks ago. So now it is all on my own.

I enjoy doing weight watchers but some days I just am not very good about keeping up on the points. Hopefully tomorrow.!!!