December 7, 2012

Several years ago, my husband gave me a digital photo frame for Christmas. Who knew how many memories would come to mind as a result of this gift!?! Birthday, holidays, graduations, etc. But some of my favorite pictures, of course, are those of Christmas. Traditional get togethers with friends, celebrations with family, and of course, the annual picture of William running from his room and "sliding into home" (AKA: the foyer by the Christmas tree), as we announce that Santa DID make it to Kathleen, GA the night before, and he did good!

As I always do at the end of the year, I reflect on the events of the year, and yes, we have had a really tough year. The economy, political dis-ease and unrest, natural disasters that have affected families and friends... I could go on. But I won't. My eyes are turned toward what is ahead, not what is behind. It is on being the change I want to see. Each of us need to look at 2013 as a year to get out a make a difference.

But for now, enjoy your family. Give them loads of hugs and tons of kisses. Tell them you love them and what a difference they make in your world. Spend quality time with your kids. But first, turn off the computer, and put down the cell phone. Perform random acts of kindness. Be a blessing to someone that needs a bit of cheer. Simply enjoy the sights, sounds, tastes and scents of the season!

Whatever you are celebrating this season, enjoy it and be blessed!

Peace, love and all things good!

December 1, 2012

Santa Has Been Spotted in Warner Robins!

Santa has been spotted, and he is making the rounds of Houston County in the next couple weeks.  It looks like our community is ready to welcome him with lots of Decked Halls and Jingling Bells! 

This Saturday is the day for parades!  Warner Robins, Perry and Centerville will be marching all day!  The 55th Annual Robins Regional Chamber of Commerce Christmas Parade will be Saturday, December 1, starting at 10 am. The parade will commence at the intersection of Watson Blvd. and Houston Road. Local artist and rising Nashville star Colby Dee will be this year's Grand Marshal. Bundle up and head on out for a fun morning!  Later in the day, bring the family out to Perry to enjoy Christmas at the Square in Downtown Perry on Carroll Street, on Saturday, December 1. The Christmas Parade starts at 4 pm, and runs from Main Street down Gen. C. Hodges Blvd. Centerville will host their Annual Lighted Christmas Parade a bit later at 7:00pm, and should commence close to the new library on Gunn Road.  
The Perry Area Historical Museum will host an "Old Fashioned Christmas" at the museum on Saturday, December 1, from 1:00-3:00. The museum is located at 901 Northside Drive in Perry. Come enjoy a delightful old- fashioned Christmas with friends at the Perry Museum. The event will be hosted by characters from Perry's yesteryears, showcase a special Christmas exhibit, provide carolers for a Christmas sing-a-long, and teach the children how to make Christmas crafts. There is no admission charge and refreshments will be served. For more information, go to their website:  
http://www.perryhistoricalsociety.org. 

The second annual HODAC Christmas Tour of Homes will be held on Sunday, December 2, from 2-6 pm. There will be six beautifully decorated homes in Statham's Landings Subdivision. There are lots of great door prizes and raffle items available again this year. Tickets are $20 in advance, or $25 the day of the Tour. You can purchase your tickets at any of the following locations: Hodac on Watson Blvd., Golden Key Realty on S. Houston Lake Road, SunTrust Bank on Watson Blvd., SunTrust Bank on Hwy 96, SunTrust Bank on Houston Lake Road, Phillip's Furniture on Watson Blvd., and the Landings Golf Club Pro Shop. Tickets are $20.00 before the tour and $25.00 the day of the tour. All proceeds to benefit HODAC, Inc. founded in 1971, which provides education, prevention and intervention programs and services that impact the health and welfare of Georgia citizens locally and throughout the state.

Also on Sunday, December 2, at 6 pm, come back to Perry for the traditional Lighting of the Christmas Tree and storefronts by the Perry Players Lamplighter. Free hot chocolate, free Picture at the Manger, and more.

  Santa will be at Golden Key Realty on Saturday, December 8, from 2-4 pm. Come see what Mrs. Claus and her elves have in store for the kiddos this year!  They have lots of games, activities, and refreshments you won't want to miss!  Great photo opp to include in your Christmas cards this year! Golden Key Realty is located at 526 S. Houston Lake Road, Warner Robins, GA.   

Christmas on Carroll in Perry is Saturday, December 8, with stores and restaurants keeping extended hours.....6-8 pm. This is another chance to Shop Small, supporting and keeping our small businesses thriving in our community.

The Perry Players Community Theater will perform "Southern Hospitality" at the theater located at 909 Main Street in Perry. Shows are December 7-9 and December 12-16 at 7:30 pm. Sunday matinees will be performed at 2:30 on December 9th and 16th. The play is a sequel to last years hilarious show "Christmas Belles" with everyone's beloved characters, and introducing some new ones, too! The favorite Futrelle sisters are back in a whole new mess! This time, their beloved hometown of Fayro, Texas is on the verge of extinction, so the sisters have to band together in a desperate attempt to save it.  Along with all the despaire, add an engagement, full blown mid-life crisis, a Civil War battle reenactment and a dead body.  The combination is sure to be a  hilarious good time! For more information and/or to get tickets, click on the link to the Perry Players website 
www.perryplayers.org. 

Runners and 10k-ers, grab your shoes and come out to Lane Southern Orchards on Sunday, December 9 for The Pecan Tree 10.4K. Start time is 3:04 pm, with registration starting at 2:04 pm. The race will be run through the pecan groves and along smooth, dirt roads. The proceeds from the race go to support GA 4-H and Peach County 4-H.

The Museum of Aviation will host their most popular workshop of the season: Science with Santa. Geared toward kids from pre-K through 5th grade, participants will perform a wide-range of experiments with a holiday theme. Since Santa loves science too, he will also be there to take pictures with each student. Come join Santa, December 20, 9 am to 12 pm. Cost is $30.  To register, go to the Museum of Aviation's websitewww.moaeducation.com and go to the event calendar and educational events to pull up the registration form.
 

November 7, 2012

I have had several people ask lately about the Affordable Care Act that is part of the new health care bill.  The question is: Does the new law impose a 3.8 percent tax on profits from the sale of my home?

The answer is, no, with just a few exceptions. The new 3.8% tax will apply to the “unearned” income of “High Income” taxpayers. “Unearned” income is earnings from capital investments, such as capital gains, rental income, dividends and interest income.  The taxable portion of the unearned income that is subject to both income and the new Medicare tax is the amount of income gained from these sources, minus expenses associated with earning that income.

The sale must net a PROFIT of $250,000 in the sale of your PERSONAL residence, or the first $500,000 for married couples, in order to incur 3.8 percent tax.  Only those with Adjusted Gross Incomes (AGI) over $200,000 per year (or $250,000 for couples filing jointly) will be subject to the tax.   With these high figures, very few people will be affected. But don’t think that those with incomes over $200,000 ($250,000) are automatically taxed:  It still won’t apply unless the PROFITS from the sale of the PRIMARY RESIDENCE are $250,000 or more ($500,000 for married couples).  According to the Internal Revenue Service, in order to qualify for the $250,000 ($500,000) exclusion, you must be the owner of the home, and have lived in it as your primary residence for at least two years out of five years prior to the sale of the property. This exclusion does NOT apply to vacation homes or rental properties.  Using the September 2012 national median sales price of $183,900, as reported by the National Association of Realtors, you can see the vast majority of homeowners will not be affected, since the sale of a $183,900 home couldn’t possibly generate a $250,000 profit.

If you have questions, or would like to discuss the sale of your property, I would be happy to help.  Please give me a call at 478-973-2684 or send me an email at: jpugh@goldenkeyrealty.net. 

November 5, 2012

DON'T FORGET!!!!  Tomorrow is a big day......GET OUT AND VOTE!!!  To see your assigned polling location, check your voter registration card.  You can also click on this link for find polling locations and addresses: http://www.houstoncountyga.com/residents/board-of-elections/polling-locations.aspx   In order to vote, you must show a photo ID when voting in person.

Acceptable IDs are:

Halloween brings out the creepies, ghosts, and goblins!  Haunted houses have us paying to be scared senseless. But as I was driving to a listing appointment yesterday, I had to laugh about a memory of a creepy house that a client wanted to see, years ago, before I moved to Georgia.

As a brand newly licensed Realtor® in the State of Tennessee, I was eager to please my clients, willing to go the extra mile in order to find them a perfect, new home.  Little did I know, the “extra mile” was going to take me on a 10-county house-hunting expedition!

While I was an agent in Tennessee, my keypad gave me access to every lock box in the state---I had no limits to where I could sell properties, as long as I was willing to make the drive.  I lived in Knoxville, but if someone wanted to see a property in Memphis, I could show it to them.  Now, of course, I wouln't go to that extreme-I would simply refer a client to a Memphis agent.  But you get the idea.  The advantage was that if we had clients that wanted to see properties in outlying counties, it wasn’t a problem.

I was working with my second client as a Realtor®, and I was ready to impress them with my knowledge of the area and newly-learned skills I had gotten in the classroom.  I was ready to give them a tour of Knoxville, but they wanted to see properties in remote locations, as well.  They weren’t particular about what county they lived; they just wanted it to be rural, with privacy and acreage.  They were fine with a house that needed some repairs:  They were cash buyers, so my search required no limits as to whether the house was a fixer-upper or not.  I went to work searching for properties in their price-range, with the minimum required acreage and house that was suitable for the needs of their family.  In order to have several properties for them to consider, they asked me not to limit the search by county.  The search ended up with properties expanding across 10-counties:  Knox, Blount, Anderson, Morgan, Sevier, Roane, Grainger, Union, Loudon and Jefferson counties. 

Now, in the life of a real estate professional, you never know what each new day will bring, which is one of the things most appealing about being in the business.  It is also one of the things that causes the most anxiety….but can make for some great stories!  So, here goes:

We traveled through Knox County. We searched high and low in Loudon County, and a few places in Blount County with elevations that made our ears pop. We drove up hills in Sevier County that made my brakes rebel and smoke on the way back down.  In spite of the miles racking up on the odometer, I was still good with it.  I was driving a Ford Expedition that was going through gas like water, but I was bound and determined to make sure my clients were well taken care of.  (I even had a cooler of bottled water and a basket of snacks in the back seat in case anyone needed refreshment!)

The day was coming to an end, and they wanted to see one more…..The one they thought for sure was,  “The One.”  It was located in an unincorporated town in Morgan County called, Petros.  (Pronounced Pee-Tross.)  Petros, at one time, was a coal mining town, and the home of Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary (which closed in 2009).  The movie, October Sky, filmed several coal mine and town scenes in Petros. 

To give you a little history and to set the stage for the showing that night…..Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary is an old prison that opened in 1896.  The original prison was a wooden structure, but was later replaced in the 1920s with a castle-like building constructed from stone mined by prisoners from a rock quarry on the property.  As of 2008 Brushy Mountain was the oldest operating prison in Tennessee.

The prison is almost completely surrounded by rugged wooded terrain in a remote section of the Cumberland Plateau. Escape attempts were infrequent and almost always unsuccessful. The best-known escape attempt occurred on June 10, 1977, when James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr., escaped by climbing over a fence, along with six other inmates.  Ray was captured less than two days later in a rugged mountain terrain less than three miles from the prison.

In its final years of operation, Brushy Mountain had a capacity of 584 inmates, of all custody levels.  It kept a maximum security designation due to the ninety six bed maximum security annex within the prison walls. These ninety six beds were used to house the states most troublesome inmates.

So this is where the house was that my clients wanted to see:  In Petros, TN. They were ready to buy, and I was ready to write an offer!  So setting aside all sense fear and anxiety and putting on a confident face, we headed up to Morgan County to find that the house had no electricity turned on, and the sun was well on its way down behind the hills.  We were soon to be in the dark…..In Morgan County…..Where James Earl Ray had escaped from the pen back in the day.  No problem. I can do this. These being my earlier, less experienced days, I didn’t have a “tool kit” put together that held all the tools of the trade I now keep in my car, such as a flashlight.  But since it was dusk, we could still see a bit from the outside.  The INSIDE of the house was another story.  For some reason, all the windows in the house were covered with wrapping paper, so no light was able to come through the windows.  The walls were paneled throughout the house, adding to the darkness of the building.  We pretty much had to feel our way through the house as our eyes adjusted to the lack of light.  I kept telling myself, “It’s fine…What are you expecting to find?  A dead body? Perhaps an escaped convict?”  Come on!  I can DO this!  We headed to the back of the house to check out the last bedroom at the end of the hall.  Ready to point out the closet features of the home, I opened the closet door and had to jump out of the way of SOMETHING falling out of the attic space in the top of the closet!  I turned around and bolted out of the house, most likely screaming some absurd, high-pitched squeal that did nothing to add to the professional image I was trying so hard to maintain! 

Back in the car, heart pounding, and sure a dead body had just fallen through the ceiling, I realized I had left my clients in the house.  Catching my breath and trying to get my heart rate back to a comfortable pace, I looked up to see that they were on the way out of the house and headed toward the car.  They got in the car with a chuckle (and I am sure a big eye-roll), and stated, “Now THAT was one deadly foam mattress pad!”

I didn’t get nominated for Realtor of the Year that year.

But, I did sell them a house.  Just not in Petros.

Since it is football season, let’s take a look at the game.  Football, or baseball, both of which are big in my family, provide some great lessons. The rules of the game have been the same since the first ball was thrown.  The results are fairly predictable:  You show up for practices, you focus, you play as a team, you work hard, you play hard, and you might win the game.   Although the effort is not easy, the concept certainly is.  No perks without the works.  You work hard, you play hard, you win, you are rewarded and you get to celebrate. Are amazing athletes just born that way?  Did he/she just show up for the game and play like a pro?  Of course not!  You have to crawl before you can walk, practice before you play to win, start where you are and go from there.  In real estate terms, your first home is going to be a starting point for eventually moving up to the big “dream home” you are creating on a "pin-board"!  Realistic expectations are critical to know the difference between a good real estate opportunity and avoiding biting off more house than you can chew.  First-time home buyers, especially, need to understand this. 

On a visit back to my hometown one weekend for a football game,  I stayed at my parent’s house.  I was sitting at my mom’s vanity in the bathroom putting on my makeup, and saw a tray of colognes and after shave that belonged to her and dad.  Although my dad has traveled all over the world during his career, picking up exotic perfumes as gifts for mom, and awesome colognes for himself, none of them took me back to a favorite memory from the past than one small bottle with the little red ship.  The scent took me back to when I was a four-year old, and dad and I would pile into the old, green “woody wagon” after breakfast.  (And breakfast, by the way, was always hot and on the table at the same time every morning.  Lucky me!)  He would drop me off at nursery school on his way to the office...And he always wore that scent with the little red ship on the bottle.  Expensive?  Nope.  Memorable?  Absolutely!  Every time I smell that scent, it takes me back to the 1960's in Columbia, MO.  So is there a big, expensive price tag that makes the best memories?  Is it the house they now live in and have worked for their entire lives what makes my most cherished memories?  Of course not-it is the journey and the memories we made over the years to get to where they are now that are most important.  My parents raising four kids, getting us to after-school events, practices and activities (and attending every game, recital or competition), sending all of us to college with mom staying home to coordinate and make sure it all happened as it should:  Was it easy?  Heck, no!  I know how much time, effort, money and energy it takes to get that all done, now that I am an adult and have done much of the same for my three kids.  I know they made their MORE than fair share of sacrifices.  But those memories are the foundation for which I build my own adult life.  Those memories make me the wife, mother, friend, and professional that I am.  It is the most simple things that have taught me the best, most important lessons and that take me back and make me smile. 

So when I watch the “Real Housewives”, and I laugh and smile, it is not because of the quality or content of the show.  It is more of a "smug" smile, because I am content and happy with all that I have and know, and that I am rich beyond belief with amazing memories, family, friends, clients and colleagues that add value to my life every day.