Thursday, October 4, 2012

5 Biggest Turnoffs When Touring a Home

By Brendon DeSimone | Zillow – Fri, Aug 31, 2012 12:08 PM EDT
(Photo credit: Jupiterimages)

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A real estate agent’s job entails more than assisting clients with the nitty-gritty details of buying or selling a home. Good agents also tour as many homes as possible. Knowing the local inventory gives them an edge over the competition and provides great value for future buyers and sellers because those agents know the market — their product. Having toured hundreds of homes through the years, agents have come to loathe certain sights. They sometimes leave houses wondering whether the seller even knew a showing was scheduled for that day.
Here are five huge turnoffs that agents and their buyer clients see when touring homes and how to avoid them:
Pets and their stuff
Pets bring so many great things to a family and home. But no potential buyer wants to see a dirty cat litter box next to the breakfast table or Fido’s bitten, saliva-filled bone on the sofa in living room.
When your home is for sale, nobody needs to know that a pet lives there. Potential buyers who are allergic to dogs or cats will be turned off immediately, and the mere presence of a pet will send some buyers right out the front door. Have a plan in place to keep the pet remnants at bay, the home tidy and your pet’s stuff out of sight. It may seem like a burden, but if you are serious about selling, this is of utmost importance.
Toys and baby supplies
Selling your home when you have children — especially a newborn — can be trying and stressful. For the most part, buyers can appreciate that keeping the home tidy under such circumstances is a challenge, and they are forgiving. But it is important to make an effort before showing the home.
If possible, have a toy chest or large closet dedicated to storing your kids’ stuff. Also keep in mind that buyers have a hard time with the more sanitary or personal items associated with infants. Leaving breast milk, a breast pump or dirty baby bottles on the kitchen counter could make a buyer feel that the home isn’t clean or sanitary. If you have a newborn, put a plan in place and allow 20 minutes to store baby items before a showing.
Cluttered counters and dirty dishes
Kitchens and bathrooms help sell a home. Most people spend the majority of their time in the kitchen, and buyers will want to spend some time in yours.
If the counters are crowded with the blender, coffee maker, toaster oven and other items, it will appear that there is little counter space, or worse, that your kitchen lacks cabinet space. And last night’s meatloaf caked onto plates sitting in the sink is sure to turn buyers off. Clear the countertops and put away the dishes before leaving home for a showing.
Personal items and toiletries
Don’t stop with the kitchen; the same holds true for bathroom countertops as well.
Clean the toothpaste off the sink and put away your prescriptions, open body lotion containers, toothbrushes and dirty towels. Buyers want to feel clean in the bathroom, and although it’s clear that they won’t be the first to use this bathroom, they don’t need to be reminded that they will be taking over a “used” bathroom.
Toilet and toilet seat
Imagine a serious buyer touring your home. They’ve fallen in love with the chef’s kitchen and are already planning where they would put the television and how their sectional couch would fit in the living room. Then, they stumble upon your bathroom to find the toilet seat up and not clean.
The last thing anyone wants to see is a dirty toilet, so make sure the toilet seat is down at all times. Will buyers be scared off otherwise and not move ahead with an offer? Probably not. But you want them to fall in love with your home, not be turned off.
Most home sellers won’t make these mistakes, but for the 20 percent who do, these five turnoffs could mean the difference between a full-price or lowball offer — or worse — an offer on a competing property.
Brendon DeSimone is a Realtor and HGTV real estate expert. He has collaborated on multiple real estate books, and his expert advice is regularly sought out by print, online and television media outlets like FOX News, CNBC and Forbes. An avid investor, Brendon owns real estate around the U.S. and abroad and is licensed to sell in two states. You can visit his website or follow him on Twitter.
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or position of Zillow.

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Why You Should Eat Mango Often

Vitamin Content: Mango is rich in Vitamin C and Vitamin A. Vitamin C content is more in raw mango as compared to that in ripe mango. It also has traces of Vitamin E, Vitamin B and Vitamin K.
The dulcet, juicy insides of the mango pack a nutritional punch. Its characteristic orange color is a clue to its storehouse of beta carotene (Vitamin A). Ripe mangos hold the highest levels of beta carotene, while green mangos are higher in Vitamin C. These antioxidant carotenoids are known for their protective power against certain cancers. Mangos also supply ample potassium, making them ideal for hypertensive patients or anyone looking to replenish energy after physical activity.
Mangoes are high in antioxidants, low in carbohydrates (although they are about 15% sugar – but good sugar!) and like other yellow/orange fruit such as pumpkin and carrot, they are an excellent source of beta-carotene (Vitamin A). They also contain Vitamin E and selenium which help protect against heart disease and cancer. You can obtain 40% of your daily fibre intake from a mango.
We all know the importance of fiber in our diets. If you are eating your mango-a-day, irregularity is not a problem for you and so we’ll spare the gruesome details regarding constipation, piles and spastic colon. Research has shown that dietary fiber has a protective effect against degenerative diseases, especially with regards to the heart; may help prevent certain types of cancer, as well as lowering blood cholesterol levels.
The nutritional value of mango makes it good for weight gain, eye disorder
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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Samsung files lawsuit against Apple over latest iPhone

Reuters – 8 hours ago
SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics said on Tuesday that it filed a new lawsuit against Apple Inc in a U.S. court, contending the iPhone 5 infringed on Samsung's patents.
In a statement, Samsung said: "...we have little choice but to take the steps necessary to protect our innovations and intellectual property rights."
(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Ken Wills)
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List of favorite fast food chains in the US: Zagat

AFP Relax – Mon, Oct 1, 2012 8:17 PM PHT
A survey of more than 10,550 Zagat readers has unveiled some of the most popular, top ranked fast food chains in the US.
Here are the some of the highlights from the burgundy guide’s annual fast food restaurant survey for 2012:
Top overall
1. Wendy's
2. Subway
3. Pizza Hut
4. Taco Bell
5. McDonald's
Most popular
1.   Subway
2.   Wendy’s
3.   McDonald’s
4.   Taco Bell
5.   Burger King
Top Food
1.   Wendy’s
2.   Subway
3.   Pizza Hut
4.   Taco Bell
5.   Burger King
Best Burger: Five Guys
Fried Chicken: KFC
Grilled Chicken: Chick-fil-A
Fish: Long John Silver’s
French fries: McDonald’s
Coffee: Starbucks
Milkshakes: Steak ‘n Shake
Ice cream/Custard: Rita’s Italian Ice
Breakfast Sandwiches: McDonald’s
Salads: Wendy’s
Value Menu: McDonald’s
Overall Value: McDonald’s
Child-friendly: McDonald’s
Wings: Buffalo Wild Wings
Healthy Options: Panera Bread
@yahooph on Twitter, become a f
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Arnold Schwarzenegger's marriage to Maria Shriver was full of secrets

By | Yahoo! TV – 18 hours ago
Arnold Schwarzenegger can keep a secret – and he kept many from his wife of 25 years, Maria Shriver.
[Related: Arnold Schwarzenegger on Affair: 'Worst Thing I've Ever Done']
Appearing on “60 Minutes” Sunday to promote his new book, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story, Schwarzenegger – who referred to himself as “an expert in living in denial” – said he hid many things from his wife during their marriage. Of course one of those was his affair with the family housekeeper Mildred Baena, which produced a child and ultimately ended his marriage. During the interview, the 65-year-old actually 'fessed up to cheating on Shriver on multiple occasions and keeping other potentially life-changing secrets from her, including having open heart surgery and deciding to run for governor of California.
“That's the way I handle things,” Schwarzenegger said of keeping secrets. “And it always has worked. But, I mean it does not – it's not the best thing for people around me because I sometimes – some information I just keep to myself.”
Opening up about having heart surgery in 1997, Schwarzenegger recounted telling his doctor that he would be keeping the operation a secret from his then-pregnant wife. “I said, ‘Now here's the plan. … I'm going to have the heart surgery. You do it quietly. No one knows about it,” the “Expendables 2” star said. “We’ll do it at six in the morning, and then four days later I'm outta here and I go down to Mexico. And I'll tell Maria, I'll say, ‘Look I'm down here. Little busy. And I'm on vacation.’ And when I come back I will be tanned. No one will know. He said, ‘Arnold, are you outta your mind? … You're going to have a big scar here on the chest. What do you mean your wife is not going to see the scar?"
[Related: Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about his affair with housekeeper in '60 Minutes' interview]
Schwarzenegger took a similar approach when it came to running for governor. He said he waited to tell Shriver until just a few days before he made the announcement and she was shaken by the news. “I was thinking that she would say, ‘Wow, that is amazing, welcome to the club. We finally convinced you to be a public servant, just like my entire family,’” said Schwarzenegger. “None of that. So all of a sudden it came to a grinding halt and I had to now deal with the drama.” It was his mother-in-law, Eunice Shriver, who convinced her daughter to support her husband during his run.
Shriver later gave up her career as a TV news journalist, and started campaigning for her husband. She also publicly defended him when he was accused of groping more than a dozen women earlier in his career. When asked if he regretted having her vouch for him – at that point, Schwarzenegger had already secretly impregnated their housekeeper Mildred Baena – the actor said no. “No, she vouched – she says, ‘Look. I know Arnold. He doesn't do those things that you have read. And I am his wife, I know him better than that.’ You know, end of story.”
Schwarzenegger spoke more about Baena, most notably the fact that he and the woman never had a conversation about the obvious fact that Joseph was the actor’s son. He said seven or eight years after their affair, he noticed the boy resembled him and he just started sending Baena money to support the child. “It just appeared to me there was something off, that he started looking like me,” Schwarzenegger said. “So that's when I kind of got it. It was never discussed. … I gave [money] to her and she knew what it was about.”
As we previously reported, during the interview Schwarzenegger also talked about the moment Shriver confronted him about Joseph. The day after he left office in 2011, Shriver asked to meet him with their marriage counselor. “That particular visit that you're talking about was the visit where she then said, ‘Hey, I think that Joseph is your kid. And, am I off here on this or – or not?’” he recalled. “I said, ‘You're absolutely right, and I am sorry.’ It was very painful for her. She was very disappointed.”
That wasn’t her only disappointment. Asked if it was his only affair, Schwarzenegger – who also spoke about a “hot affair” with Brigitte Nielsen – said, “No. I had others. But I mean, ah, but you know, it’s something that’s obviously between Maria and me.”
[Related: Arnold Schwarzenegger confirms 'hot affair' with Brigitte Nielsen]
Although he knows he hurt his wife, Schwarzenegger said he’s not hung up on the failure of his marriage – or anything else. “Dwelling on it, like some people do, you know, years later, say, ‘Oh, yeah, I lost this, and I will never forget that. I'm still suffering.’ No, that's not me,” he said. “I don't suffer over anything that I've lost.”

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Monday, October 1, 2012

COA questions LGU’s payments to Sinulog choreo, CVRAA cooks

Sun Star – 6 hours ago
THE Mandaue City Government paid P160,000 to choreographers and instrumentalists for last year’s Sinulog sa Kabataan even without a contract and other documents, according to a Commission on Audit (COA) report.
State auditors said the City’s payment of honoraria to two choreographers and two instrumentalists “was not supported with documents that could show that the hiring of their services was the most advantageous for the government.”
The COA report also pointed out that the City paid P81,000 to cooks and helpers during the Central Visayas Regional Athletic Association (CVRAA) in 2010, though it was not supported with documents such as a contract.
It said the City violated Section 4 of Presidential Decree 1445 (Government Auditing Code of the Philippines), which states that “claims against government funds shall be supported with complete documentation.”
Sought for comment, City Legal Officer Giovanni Tianero said he still has to check documents related to the issues raised by COA.
Documents
COA wants the City to submit the required documents: a canvass of choreographers and instrumentalists showing the reasonability of the rate; a contract between them and the Department of Education (DepEd) Mandaue City Division detailing the rate per personnel, terms of reference or expected work to be done; a certification that the hired individuals are not related to the hiring officials and to the accountable officer; the personal profiles, expertise and qualification of the personnel; and personal identifications, including Community Tax Certificates.
The COA asked the same documents for the hiring of cooks and helpers during the CVRAA.
State auditors also noted that the choreographers and instrumentalists did not submit accomplishment reports.
“These discrepancies cast doubt on the validity, propriety and legality of the disbursement,” the report said.
DepEd Mandaue City Division hired a chief cook, six assistant cooks and six helpers during the CVRAA, which was held from Feb. 8 to 14 in Liloan, Cebu.
The COA report also noted that the proposed budget for the services of the cooks and helpers was P76,500 but the actual payment was P81,000.
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Analysis: Obama, Netanyahu got what they hoped for at U.N. meeting

By Louis Charbonneau | Reuters – 2 hrs 53 mins ago
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to get what they hoped for at the annual U.N. General Assembly after closing ranks to send a message to Iran that it may face war over its nuclear program.
Obama and Netanyahu did not meet with each other at the United Nations, where leaders and foreign ministers from the world body's 193 member states have gathered since last week to give speeches and hold private talks to resolve conflicts and boost trade.
But the two men left the U.N. meeting with more than they arrived with: Obama with an assurance that Israel would not attack Iran's nuclear sites before the November 6 U.S. presidential election, and Netanyahu with a commitment from Obama to do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from producing an atomic bomb.
The General Assembly, concluding on Monday, was notable for what was not accomplished. World powers failed to break deadlocks over Iran's nuclear program, the conflicts in Syria, Mali and Congo, and the stalled Israel-Palestinian peace talks.
As in previous years, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad assailed the United States, Israel and Europe, while calling for a new world order. He made his eighth and likely final address to a U.N. General Assembly.
The lack of substantive progress on the world's protracted conflicts led diplomats and analysts to question the relevance of the United Nations, saying it was incapable of moving decisively as it did last year on Libya.
"The diplomatic situation at the U.N. may have to get worse before it gets better," said Richard Gowan of New York University. "Perhaps we need a diplomatic debacle on the scale of Iraq - or a peacekeeping failure like Srebrenica (Bosnia) - before big states wake up and ask why the U.N. is stagnating."
In July 1995, U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia failed to prevent the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.
Analysts and diplomats argue that the lack of U.N. backing for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 highlighted the need for a U.N. seal of approval for military interventions. Widely seen as "illegal," as former U.N. chief Kofi Annan described it, Western powers made certain that the NATO intervention in Libya last year had the backing of the U.N. Security Council unlike the Iraq war.
While the United States and Israel have long refused to rule out the use of military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Netanyahu has criticized Obama for failing to make clear to Tehran under what circumstances Western powers would be prepared to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.
Suggestions from Israel that he was letting down the Jewish state were an irritant Obama did not want to put up with in the final weeks before an election, especially given the way the issue has been leveraged by Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
Meanwhile, Western officials say, Netanyahu may want to avoid antagonizing Israel's main ally and poisoning ties with the man who could occupy the White House for another four years.
'BIBI'S BOMB'
Iran rejects Western allegations that it is developing the capability to produce atomic bombs - it says its nuclear program is for peaceful energy and medical purposes - and refuses to comply with Security Council demands to halt nuclear enrichment.
This has led to increasingly harsh U.N. and Western sanctions, which have caused the value of Iran's currency to plummet.
Israel sees a nuclear-armed Iran as a threat to its existence.
In his speech to the General Assembly on Thursday, Netanyahu held up a cartoonish diagram of a bomb with a fuse to illustrate the threat of Iran's nuclear program. He used a red marker to draw a line at the point where Iran would be close to producing an atomic bomb.
Images of "Bibi's bomb" - referring to Netanyahu's nickname - with its graphic "red line" representing the moment Iran can no longer be stopped from getting a nuclear weapon will likely be the defining image of this year's assembly.
It may also join other memorable moments when visual aids were used in U.N. speeches. These include: U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson's unveiling of U-2 spy plane photos of Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's flawed intelligence briefing seeking to make the case for war with Iraq before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Netanyahu praised Obama for telling the General Assembly that the United States will "do what we must" to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and acknowledged that there was still room for diplomacy. Harsh sanctions, Netanyahu said, could probably persuade Tehran not to build a nuclear weapon.
But the Israeli leader also hinted at war. He said Iran's enrichment plants were visible and vulnerable to attack and suggested that a decision on force could come by next spring. Tehran's U.N. mission responded by saying Iran has the means and right to retaliate with full force against any attack.
Israel, presumed to be the region's only nuclear power, has twice destroyed sites it feared could be used to develop atomic weapons - in 1981 in Iraq and in 2007 in Syria.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem was among the last speakers to address the General Assembly. On the final day of the session on Monday, he accused the United States, France, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia of hijacking what was a domestic crisis by supporting rebels with arms and money.
Russia, an ally of Syria, and China have vetoed three Security Council resolutions condemning Assad's government. Both made clear they still oppose U.N. sanctions against Syria or new measures against Iran, which Western nations accuse of propping up Assad's government.
One Western ambassador, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters: "If I were a member of Assad's government, I'd be very happy Syria's getting short shrift at the U.N. If I were a rebel, I'd be pretty disappointed with the U.N. right now."
The Palestinians, whose aspirations for their own state are now taking a back seat at the United Nations to Iran, Syria and the Arab Spring, were probably also disappointed by the General Assembly.
A year ago in New York, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced his bid for full U.N. membership for a Palestinian state, sparking excitement at the General Assembly and the West Bank. The request wilted in the face of U.S. opposition.
This year, Abbas announced he was looking for a less-ambitious status upgrade at the world body that would make it a "non-member state" like the Vatican, instead of an "entity." There was no excitement at the General Assembly or the West Bank.
(Editing by Will Dunham)
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