Hi, Friends. April showers bring May home buyers! It lacks a perfect rhyme, but it's a perfect description of the real estate season. Call me to get your move on. ~Mardin
ARG FRONT PORCH NEWS
Mardin Amiri ● (408) 210-2073 Amiri Realty Group | DRE No. 01899449 We serve you better & save you money...
April is National Poetry Month, so I dug up some fun house-related
poetry for you. These are Haiku, which is a type of non-rhyming poem
that contains 3 lines with a total of 17 syllables. (The first line
contains 5, the second 7, and the third 5, although that's not set in
stone.) Try creating one of your own...it's a fun mental exercise.
PLANNING AHEAD
Dream house - we see our
children climbing the pear tree
that's not yet planted
HOME FROM WORK
Good neighbors all 'round;
Coming home is a joy from
car door to front door
THE HARD PART'S DONE
These clouds overhead
where I bought my house today
will give way to sun
Or my personal favorite:
Time to sell your house,
but so much complexity!
Call your Realtor now
HOME IMPROVEMENT IN 15 MINUTES A DAY
We all have a tendency to go "house blind" to things we live with day in
and day out. We stop noticing stains on the carpet or dated light
switch covers. We hardly see the crumpled and threadbare couch cushions.
We tolerate the mismatched lamp. If you suspect you've gone "house
blind" to these kinds of details, here's a fun exercise for a fresh perspective:
STEP 1
Start by sitting in any room and simply noticing all those tolerations
with a fresh eye. Maybe you notice that your colors look faded, or your
curtains look dated, or your paintings are crooked. Your list might be
short, or long. It doesn't matter. What does matter is what you do
next...
STEP 2
Once you have a list, prioritize it. Start with the items that
you can change in 15 minutes or less. Then order the remainder of
your list by time or cost involved.
STEP 3
Decide if any of those larger projects can be broken into smaller
chunks. Group those chunks into one project, but you don't have to do
the chunks all at once.
STEP 4
Finally, post the list where you can see it (not buried in
your phone where you can forget it exists), and start knocking off items
one after another when you can.
If your best home improvement strategy is to find a new home, call me for an appointment to get started. Mardin (408) 210-2073
WIN A $5 GIFT CARD
It's easy to play! Just send your answer to the question below. Correct entries are entered into a monthly drawing.
What is seen in the middle of April that can't be seen at the beginning or end?
Last month's Q&A: Which word in the dictionary is always spelled incorrectly? Incorrectly
HOW TO RECOVER YOUR SENSE OF SMELL
Whether due to COVID or another reason, if you’ve lost your sense of smell, smell training can help you recover.
You will need four different strong fragrances, ideally Lemon, Rose,
Cloves, and Eucalyptus to activate different smell senses. This is your
smell training kit. These are usually essential oils, but there are
other ways to create your own strong odors. Investigate these on Google.
To do smell training, sniff the four fragrances, each in turn every day.
Just lots of short, light, little inhales - bunny sniffs, not hard
snorts - just taking air into your nose. Spend about 20 seconds on each
smell.
Improvement may be slow or hit and miss. But give it time and you will likely recover all or most of your sense of smell. Here's a video that explains more. I recommend starting the video at mark 2:15.
You can't always tell what will delight a
home buyer. Often it's some small detail, like the crown molding
around your living room ceiling, your red front door, or the delightful
container garden you've staged your front entry with.
What? You don't have a delightful container garden staging your entry?
You can, and it will add a fun detail that could be the thing to put
home buyers in a buying mood. Or it's just fun for your family to enjoy.
Here are 4 quick tips.
Use Google to look up container arrangements and ideas.
You
don't need to buy expensive pots; a thrift or second hand store will
have pots you can use. Make sure there's a drainage hole. Select a
variety of sizes and shapes.
Use good potting soil from the garden center.
Visit your garden center and choose a variety of bloom shapes and colors, stem heights and leaf sizes.
FUN GREEN TEA BUBBLE RECIPE
It's oddly satisfying to suck up chewy tapioca balls through a fat straw. Here's a quick & easy recipe.
"I
am traveling around Ireland. Decided to take a funny photo with a sheep
wearing my glasses. So if you meet a sheep in Ray-Ban shades..."
"4 days before our wedding, my bride broke her left ring finger."
"I
asked a trainee to make 150 copies. She made only 50. When I told her
about it, she threw the already-made copies into a garbage bin... and
went to make new ones."
"Today
in the park, I met my classmate that I hadn't seen since school ended.
She was with her husband and 2 kids and I was catching Pokémon with my
friends."
"I
fell asleep on a train and slept for only several minutes. When I woke
up, everyone in the wagon was looking at me with strange smiles. I still
don't know what I did."
"Today
I got a strong urge to buy my wife flowers. She accepted them with
tears in her eyes saying, 'Darling, you didn't forget.' I still don't
know what she was talking about, but at least I dodged that bullet!"
