October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and today is my birthday so I'm going to be a little self indulgent and share a personal story.  1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. That's a statistic most women are familiar with.   What most do not know is that an irregular mammogram only comes with a 20% chance or cancer. In fact, only about 2% of irregular mammograms lead to a biopsy, because most can be addressed with an ultrasound to make sure it's a false positive, dense breast tissue or some other common anomoly. If you do the math (which you know I love to do), you realize that about 10% of mammograms come back irregular  every year! But somehow the fear of an irregular mammogram can keep some women from getting tested.  It's a shame, because once you know the statistics, you know that an irregular mammogram is nothing to be afraid of! No, I do not have breast cancer. And for that I am thankful. But like most women will at some point in their life, I d...

I have relatively consistent set of closing gifts I plan for my clients but when I received notice on Thursday that a house was closing on Tuesday I didn't have time for my standard personalized seller's gift.  I took to the internet for inspiration and ended up coming across the coolest lists of gift ideas! One thing I saw that I had never considered - people buy closing gifts for their Realtor?  Is this really a thing?  Sure, who wouldn't love a personalized coffee mug or an engraved business card case?  But to be completely frank... As a Realtor, I'm here to tell you: a referral or a positive (and honest!) review is the absolute best gift you can give your Realtor!   Some friends of mine are buying a home that is for sale by owner.  Yes, they wanted to use me as their Realtor and we had even looked at a few houses.  But they came across this house through an old friend and the seller specifically doesn't want to work with a Realtor.  I ful...

When you move into a new home there are always unknown adventures awaiting. Most are wonderful and exciting, and such a happy bonus to homeownership. Others...well, others make you thankful for family and friends who come to the rescue to help you through! Sometimes when you pull the kitchen cabinet doors off and lay them out on the floor to paint, your dog decides to walk across them and decorate your floor with pretty little painted paw prints. That was my first home, and thankfully that carpet was coming out anyway! Sometimes it's the basement flooding because the sump pump that worked perfectly well during the inspection suddently went out right after you moved in. This was our current home, but it's also why you ask your sellers to give you a home warranty! And sometimes, like yesterday, you invite your parents out to celebrate Mother's Day but then 2 trees you knew were going to have to come down unexpectedly falling. Thankfully your parents still come for dinn...

Remember last week when I shared my opinion of what Coronavirus is going to do to the market ? First, let me tell you I still fully believe everything I said. Second, let me tell you that doesn't mean I don't still have my moments of despair. Truth time - I'm feeling it today. I'm over this quarantine, I'm over my business taking such a hit, I'm over the "funny" memes of people making light of something that sucks so bad. I'm just over Coronavirus. I had a couple showings scheduled for this afternoon that got cancelled because my client isn't feeling wel, cue me panicking because I just saw her last week and she isn't giving me any details on her illness. I needed to stop and collect myself, so I started going through a few pages I follow and found this: Just what the doctor ordered, I'm breathing again. When we moved back in October, the house needed so much work we didn't take the time to get to kn...

I've been working with a client with very specific wants for a couple weeks now and they just can't find "the one".  As we stood in the driveway of yet another "not quite right" home this past weekend, they asked me what I anticipated the market doing over the next couple of weeks.  Usually I would say the market always picks up in the Spring and we should take our times because the right house was out there and would be coming on the market soon.  Unfortunately, in these unprecedented times I just couldn't give a straight answer.  This one is going to be a little darker than usual, so here's a picture of the beach for a quick pick me up before you dive in. I tried and failed. For the past several months we've had a lot of people interested in buying a new home but not a lot of people selling.  We've had what we call a seller's market, because houses have been moving quickly and bringing a pretty good price. With the current situa...

Having lived in small town Indiana my whole life, I'm used to the only delivery options being pizza places.  Imagine my delight when Batesville ToGo opened and we can now get Skyline, Izzy's at Hillcrest, The Sherman and...wait for it... Big Four Cafe delivered! Admittedly, in this time of social distancing, I have not yet talked to the owner but I can't imagine they would mind a little free promotion.  Unfortunately this means that my information and my pictures are a both lacking, but I did get a little background when I talked to the owners of Big Four Cafe. Batesville ToGo is owned by the same family that owns The Cell Guy.  Arriving home from work particularly late one night, The Cell Guy had no desire to cook, but also no interest in the delivery options available at that time (hello, pizza).  He realized that Batesville had a lot of wonderful restaurant options, but no way to get those options delivered to his home, and the idea for Batesville ToGo...

In these times of uncertainty and social distancing, my usual lighthearted tone feels a little flip and disrespectful.  That said, we're hearing about Coronavirus everywhere  and I don't need to be one more person reminding you to wash your hands.  What I will do, though, is take this opportunity to talk about community. Real Estate is a social industry.  We bring in business by getting our name out there, building relationships and earning trust.  Our clients become friends, our friends become family and everyone becomes a potential client.  We go to local businesses.  We forge partnerships.  We blog about those businesses and they share our blog for a type of cross promotion.  We have a deep respect for small businesses, because we are one. I have been working with Susan Knabe of Haus & Home , an online magazine, for several weeks now to get my Feature Friday posts published with their magazine.  It has been a long, educational...

It's Girl Scout Cookie Season!  Perhaps more importantly, this weekend is Girl Scout Cookie Weekend.  If you're like me and live near the border of a Girl Scout Council, you may have notice that Cookie season starts at different times in different areas.  This is because there are two different bakers used, in addition to each Council setting their own calendar.  But this weekend all the Councils are selling, so the girls are out in full force and the booths are set up everywhere.  And while it may seem like a lot of money for a cookies, there's so much more in the box than flour and sugar!  What?  I'm glad you asked. The Five Skills (first line of each skill taken from a Cookie box, so you know it's true!) Goal Setting - girls learn how to set goals and create a plan to reach them. Girl Scouts learn at an early age that they have to work for what they have.  The Cookie program gives them an opportunity to learn to work toward not only the in...

As a Realtor I work really weird hours.  It's not uncommon for me to work in bed from my phone as soon as I wake up, work off and on throughout the day and be on my phone again as I lay in bed at night.  A lot of people don't understand how or why I work all the time and from everywhere, but I truly love what I do.  I have to be honest, my husband is a bit of a workaholic so it actually works out pretty well for both of us.  In fact, as I write this we're on a plane coming home from vacation...and we're both working! I've mentioned before that Hubs and I are foodies, but we sometimes take it to the extreme.  We've been known to plan days out and even vacations around whether we can get a great meal.  Hey, some meals are worth the drive!  This vacation was certainly no exception.  Don't worry, I'll post scenery pics over on my Instagram (@kpcrealtor), but I right now we're talking food! Every day was a different adventure.  We had a beac...