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Sep162022
AGING AT HOME IN SANTA BARBARA
6 Ways to Adapt Your Home as Your Needs Change
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Aug242022
WANT A SMART HOUSE? HOW TO MAKE IT HEALTHY AS WELL
Purify · Rejuvenate · Refuel · Recover
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Jul122022
SPOTLIGHT ON: THE SANTA BARBARA UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
Many of my clients ask me about Santa Barbara schools. Often, about the Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD), the main public school district serving Santa Barbara
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Jan122022
Home Maintenance: 20 Tasks for the New Year
Remember when you bought your house? You noted a million and ten things that needed to be done, and the yearly home maintenance you swore to perform or oversee.
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Apr82021
A Practical Guide to Cleaning Out a Garage
The garage is one of those spaces homeowners can easily put off organizing for years or even decades. Many wait for a big move or major life change to force facing the clutter, which by that point may be taking over the space.
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Jan222021
How to Create a Virtual Learning Space in Your Santa Barbara Home
The Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic has created a roller coaster ride for school-age children living in Santa Barbara. So rocky that the Santa Barbara Unified School District has published a plan for the return of in-person instruction.
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Jul172020
Buying a Santa Barbara Home During a Pandemic
As I stated in a previous blog post, the residential real estate luxury segment is leading the way in our economic recovery from COVID-19, especially here in Santa Barbara.
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Jul72020
Preparing Your Santa Barbara Home For Sale
A few minor touch-ups can go a long way toward making a favorable impression on potential buyers — and perhaps cinching a deal.
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Mar112020
Selling a Montecito Home: A Few Things to Consider
If selling a Montecito home is at the top of your to-do list, then this blog is for you. Selling your home is hard. And emotional.
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Feb12020
Luxury Bunkers: Time to Invest in a Private Shelter?
Around the world, affluent folks are paying big bucks to create underground luxury bunkers in preparation for a nuclear disaster, climate catastrophe, or other epic life-threatening events.
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Mar172020
12 Things To Do When You’re Confined to Your Home
What’s a Montecito or Santa Barbara homeowner supposed to do when at home for extended periods for whatever reason, including work, illness, caregiving, and so on? Fortunately, you'll discover plenty of ways to entertain yourself when you consider things to do when you're confined to your home.
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Mar252020
8 Steps to Creating the Minimalist Home Office
For most Montecito homeowners, their home is their castle. Today, your abode can also be the central command post for your business. As the king or queen of your castle, you are free to design and decorate the perfect home office to your exact specifications. But where do you start?
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May212020
Moving During the Pandemic: 7 Steps to Doing it Safely
Are you considering moving during the pandemic? In a recent blog, I shared my expertise about the Santa Barbara and Montecito housing market in the slowdown of COVID-19.
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May222020
California Volunteers: A Vital New Program for Our Time
In a previous blog post, I shared important information regarding Santa Barbara and Montecito's non-profit organizations in need of financial help to continue their life-saving work during the coronavirus pandemic.
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Jul212020
Lettuce Grow: More Than an Appeal from Veggies
Lettuce Grow is an exciting new initiative of The Farm Project, a sustainable produce venture started by actress Zooey Deschanel and her husband, Jacob Pechenik.
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Jul242020
Santa Barbara Day Trips: Convenient, Safe and Sanity Savers
The summer of 2020 might not be the best time to live out your Jack Kerouac road trip fantasy, but locals suffering from cabin fever due to COVID-19 can take a day trip to get away from it all right in their own backyard.
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Aug122020
The Santa Barbara Luxury Real Estate Market is Booming
A limited supply of available properties along the South Coast of Santa Barbara County are keeping home values higher than one might expect in the time of COVID-19.
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Sep92020
The Backyard Shed: Your New Home Office?
Sales of backyard sheds are spiking. It seems more and more homeowners are needing a Santa Barbara home office. After all, the idea of a separate, quiet, office space is top of mind for many folks who used to trudge to an office downtown, or, even in some cases, to LA.
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Sep152020
The Ultimate Guide to Creating an Eco-Friendly Home: Part 1
It’s not surprising that more and more homeowners are going green in their everyday lives. The benefits of creating an eco-friendly home are far-reaching, but many Santa Barbara and Montecito homeowners concerned about minimizing their impact on our fragile ecosystem don’t know where to begin.
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Sep172020
The Ultimate Guide to Creating an Eco-Friendly Home: Part 2
I hope after reading Part 1 of my Going Green series you realize that getting on the right side of things when it comes to the environment is easier than you thought.
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Oct62020
Your Fall Home: Décor Tips and Must-do Chores
With the sunny weather here in Montecito it may not feel like it yet, but it’s that time of year to create and care for what will be your fall home.
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Oct92020
Do You Have a Household or Family Disaster Plan?
Santa Barbara homeowners, along with the rest of the world, are experiencing a heightened awareness of natural disasters these days. According to the American Red Cross in Santa Barbara, this awareness has brought with it new ways every household member can be better prepared in an emergency.
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Oct142020
Moving to a New Home: 6 Considerations for Families
Moving to a new home can be a fun and exciting time for a family. Whether you’re moving with children or aging parents, there are some important things to consider before you begin your search.
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Oct32019
Real Estate Investing: Still the Best Choice Anyone Can Make
Over the last two centuries, about 90% of the world’s millionaires have created their wealth through real estate investing. That statistic was first cited by Billionaire Andrew Carnegie.
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Jan182019
The Junk Drawer: A Montecito Tradition?
I’m going to take a bold step here and assume that literally every Montecito residence – including my own – has at least one junk drawer.
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Jan252019
6 Ways to Build Wealth Without Touching the Stock Market
There are so many ways to build wealth without relying on one of the most common wealth-building platforms: the stock market. To some, investing in the stock market might feel a bit risky today since we are at near-record highs.
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Feb192019
Sick Building Syndrome: Could Your Home be Making You Ill?
Office buildings are not the only places that come down with sick building syndrome (SBS). You might mistakenly self-diagnose yourself with a cold or flu when in reality, you could be suffering from SBS’s residential form: sick house syndrome.
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Feb132019
Private Firefighters: Help For Montecito Homeowners?
You may have heard that private firefighters saved the $60 million home of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West when the California Woolsey Fire ravaged Ventura County.
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Feb262019
Technology and Privacy: Are They Mutually Exclusive?
By now, we all know the benefits of home technology. But, are your smart devices invading your privacy? National and international laws have not yet caught up with privacy challenges that come with the creation of new digital technologies designed to make our lives easier.
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Apr182019
Is Information on Real Estate TV Shows Believable?
The HGTV effect in the real estate industry is real, but don’t kid yourself into believing all of what you see and hear on your favorite real estate TV shows is necessarily valid.
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Feb222019
Tidying Up with Marie Kondo: It's All About Choosing Joy
Are you aware of the Marie Kondo cleaning craze sweeping the Netflix-watching nation? For those who haven’t heard of her yet, Marie Kondo is a Japanese organizing consultant and star of the Netflix hit, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.
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May92019
Baby Checklist: 10 Things to Do to Prepare Your Home for a Newborn
In honor of Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Markle’s royal bundle of joy, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, I thought I’d offer some important ways to prepare for a newborn.
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Aug202019
Luxury Home Products for Montecito Homeowners
As technology advances, so do luxury home products. While product launches are nothing new, many of the latest products and gadgets to hit the market today are designed specifically to make everyday chores more manageable and pleasant.
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Oct152019
A Luxury Realtor’s Guide to Home Security Systems
We are all aware of the importance of home security systems these days. Every 14.5 seconds, a robbery is reported. While having a home security system installed can be costly, not installing one could cost Santa Barbara and Montecito homeowners even more.
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Nov292019
Downsizing Your Home: 5 Signs It Might Be Time
Is it time for downsizing your home? I recently posted a guest blog, “Downsizing for Seniors,” explaining how to make it as stress-free as possible. But when I thought about the topic, I realized that downsizing is not reserved for seniors only.
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Jun292018
Buyer's Remorse Keeping You Awake?
Sleep, or lack of it, is such an important topic that I’ve blogged about it before, but I’ve never looked at how buyer’s remorse or second-guessing the sale of your home can trigger sleep problems.
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Jul242018
Top 4 “Real Estate Facts” Debunked
We’ve all heard them, and everyone assumes these nuggets of wisdom are true, but should we rely on what are often considered real estate facts? Experts say absolutely not.
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Aug22018
7 Things You Can Do to Conserve Water: The California Drought is not over!
Remember all the good water conservation habits you instituted due to the California drought? New data from the State Water Resources Control board shows that in the last eight months, those efforts to save water have declined.
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Dec182018
Survey Finds More People Are Working From Home Today
Recent data compiled by a consortium of economists, data scientists, designers, researchers, and business executives compiled a comprehensive report, Data USA, that revealed approximately 20% of Montecito residents work from home.
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Categories
- Buying (61)
- Celebrity Homes (9)
- Financial Matters (12)
- Home Design (20)
- Home Maintenance (9)
- Home Technology (11)
- Home Values (5)
- Housing Market (18)
- Interior Design (32)
- Just for Fun (42)
- Lifestyle (59)
- Local Happenings (63)
- Moving (7)
- Outside (17)
- Practical Advice (39)
- Real Estate Law (4)
- Realtor Tips (19)
- Remodeling (4)
- Selling (71)