Harris Teeter just opened!
And, they're open 24 hours.
Hoadly Road Retail Center - #316
12745 Galveston Ct
Woodbridge, VA 22192
Sunday, September 30, 2007
CatKlaw, Inc. & Lou-Evil Psycles present The 2nd Annual 'Bottles & Throttles' Charity Event
On October 20th, the 2nd Annual Bottles and Throttles (formerly Caring for Kids) Benefit will be held in Vienna, VA. This is a benefit to raise money and awareness for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The NCMEC is most commonly identified with their initiatives to protect and educate children and parents against the threats and dangers that exist in our world today. The Center has been responsible for development of many major child safety measures, including the Amber Alert system. Their site, www.missingkids.com includes a vast amount of literature and online education to help children and parents stay educated and safe.The center is headquartered locally at The Charles B Wang International Building, located at 699 Prince Street in Alexandria, VA. Parties can contact the Center by phone at 1-800-THE-LOST.
CatKlaw, Inc. and the Lou-Evil Psycles motorcycle club are excited to have the opportunity to benefit the National Center through this unique event. On October 20th, the event will begin with a Charity Motorcycle Ride, ending at Jammin' Java in Vienna, VA. Food and drinks will be available at the hall, which will host the remainder of the day’s events.
Friday night, October 19th, there will be an unofficial Meet n' Greet at The Queen's Gambit, located on Black Forest Drive in Manassas, VA from 9pm - ???.
Motorcycle staging witll take place at Motorcycle Factory, Inc in Woodbridge, VA. Bikes will stage there from 9am-11am on Saturday, Oct 20th. From there, the motorcyclists will follow a route among some of the scenic western Prince William and Fairfax counties.
From 12- 4pm, there will be presenters, and a matinee' concert featuring Just Wanna Play. There will be photographers, vendors and other entertainment provided during the afternoon events. During the events, a raffle will be held to raise money for the Center, and to give away prizes donated by interested parties.
Throughout the event, cash and check donations will be accepted on behalf of the National Center.
The event coordinators are currently seeking donations. 100% of cash and check donations will go directly to the NCMEC. We are also looking for prizes for the raffle.
NCMEC is exempt from federal taxes under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and has received a ruling that it is a publicly supported organization as described in sections 509(a)(1) and 170(b)(1)(A)(vi) of the Internal Revenue Code. All donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Our Goal:$3000 to benefit the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
Contract negoitations are still in progress....arrrgh. :) On the flip side, I managed to get some marketing pieces done tonight. What do you think?
I've spent the last few hours of my evening, other than trying to get a toddler to sleep on his own, working on a newsletter for our local neighborhood.
We're doing our Adopt-A-Highway road clean up on Sunday this weekend and I wanted to put a mini newsletter out to our neighbors letting them know why we were doing this and how to get in contact for future events. Plus, a little bit of marketing never hurts. I added in the 4 houses listed in our neighborhood too. I would really love to take care of our neighborhood for listings, but there is a scattering of agents here.
Either way...it is the journey of creation and keeping my neighbors informed that is the purpose. If it nets me some work, great. If it doesn't, then at least, they know some of the information.
I should be working on networking, but I figure, this IS networking, in my immediate neighborhood! Plus, my business cards came in today! Shew. Now I have official ones to leave out for people.
Well, I'm not in my office this week, technology, or so the way I have it set up, never lets you know where I am, as I can always answer the phone, fax and email, I am just THAT connected to my clients! I did it that way on purpose. I hate being unconnected and unreachable. It's just rude this day in age. I am there for my clients, and by there, I really mean easily accessible and working.
So go figure...I'm not IN my office, and I've got contracts to negotiate and forms to get signed and faxed hither and yon, yes, I said hither and yon ;) Deal. It's the author in me.
My client's got a full price offer on their condo in the District. The Universe aligned and went with them. Now, I've just got to get the Home Sale Contingency removed for the offer on the house they want to buy, and we're probably going to get to move forward! WHOOOOOO! What a week!
Stay tuned as I take you through the process of getting the contract to Closing! Namaste
Ok, everyone, cross your fingers and your toes, we've gotten the contract completely written...so tonight it's a special trip downtown for signatures and then faxing off to the Listing Agent! I think it's a total of 26 pages.
Now, I know I'm a little nit-picky about the signatures, thus the special trip downtown to get them. Could I have just emailed the contract over to my clients? Well, yes,...and I did, but I want the cleanest copy possible going to the seller's so there won't be any misunderstandings and thus make the process go smoother. Since I'm a technology diva, I prefer to have my clients sign ON the computer, then I can just fax directly from my laptop and email a copy to both my clients and the other agent. This reduces the number of trees we kill and keeps the files neat and legible. And, if you've seen a document after a few times of faxing it back and forth...you know why I'm doing this.
I did the research. I know the current sales prices and subsidy offerings...I know the area, so there shouldn't be much going back and forth on this...either they like it...or they say no thank you.
We want them to like it! ;)
After that, tomorrow is a meeting to look at commercial rentals! That'll be an interesting trip :)
After a sleepless night, due to one small child with a cough that never wanted to go away, I raced off to a PWAR meeting at Old Hickory Golf Club. (And while the morning drive over was cloudy and gray, the afternoon drive home was all sunshine and balmy weather, of course, my camera was home on my desk.)
I spent four hours learning about ALL the planned changes for Prince William County, West to East and wow, I'm almost on information overload. Even more so if I think about how things were when I was growing up here with horse farms, airports, roller rinks and not much else.
Now, I know where the roads are going, where they should have been going, what restaurants are tentatively scheduled to go in on what corners and why. I know about who has approvals to continue to build, who's stalled on their projects, where the VRE stations are planned to go and that our Marine Museum has their land, but needs state funding and some private investors to keep moving forward.
I've seen which intersections are going to be worked on, which ones are nearing completion and WHICH year they were approved. The road improvements approved by voters in 1998, are just being completed NOW. That should tell you a lot about the cycle between approval and completion on such large and involved projects.
Anyway, it's a wealth of information to absorb and I can only share a portion of it, mostly because, well things change and even though there's a long lead time on projects such as these, who knows what next year will hold. I can only speak to what was shared today. I do know that I'll be visiting a few of the places over the next week or so just to get a feel for the projects and the housing nearby and those things, I'll share as I do them!
If you have any questions about your area or potential area you're looking, just ask and I'll share what I know!
Today was the way a home search is supposed to go for my clients! Our goal: see 4-5 homes in the target area of Springfield, VA. Requirements:
Close to Metro or major road to make commuting easier,
Few steps leading into the house to make entry easier for elderly guests (and those of us who's hips just hate us ;))
Minimal fixing up to make house liveable
From the lists I sent for them to choose from, which I'd already narrowed down (no home too close to the train tracks, too loud and could potentially wake a new born) - no obvious foreclosures, etc., they narrowed the lists down even further. I spent about an hour or two last night, pulling up the information, pictures and tax records, and then mapped out our route from the center point. An hour before heading out, I called and made sure each home on our travel route would be available about the time we wanted to see them.
Off we went to see four homes on our list. The first was a bust. Obviously a foreclosure once we were on the property. The directions on the listing were inaccurate and the listing itself inaccurate. While disappointed with our first selection, off we went to the second.
And that one we ALL fell in love with. Everything they needed, a few items to fix, but all in all, even the paint schemes were liveable.
We continued on, saw a random Open House around the corner from the Lovely House, and chatted with a nice agent who was happy to show us around. Then off to the last two...which we quickly ALL crossed off the list.
Results: Keep the Lovely House on the list, make plans to see 4 homes in Alexandria, near the metro as well.
This just illustrates to me what a good agent does for a client: Preparation, understanding the market AND their needs. On average, those buyers using an agent, travel out to see actual houses only 2x, often finding the house they really love in the first trip. You just know the minute you walk in. Sure, there are things that need to be fixed, things you can overlook, but you really do just KNOW when you walk into the house.
You can find great local Virginia real estate information on Localism.com Stacia Kelly is a proud member of the ActiveRain Real Estate Network, a free online community to help real estate professionals grow their business.
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