Festivities begin Aug 30th thru Sept. 9th at the 49th Annual Upper SC State Fair at the Greenville-Pickens Speedway.  $7 Admissions, $3 parking.   Rides,  good eats, pig racing and more. For more info go to Upstate Fair

20,000 people are expected to attend the 38th Annual Labor Day Family Fun Festival on Main St in Downtown Simpsonville Sept 1st – 3rd.   Admission is free.  Carnival Rides open 4pm – 9pm on Saturday, rides begin again from Noon – 8pm on Sunday as well as live music.  Enjoy the Antique and Classic Cars Cruise-in on Monday, Sept 3rd starting at 10a.m.   For more info visit Simpsonville’s Chamber of Commerce  site.

Get ready to jam with a blow out Rock Music Festival featuring 12 bands at the Uproar Festival at the Charter Ampitheater at Heritage Park in Simpsonville on Sept 5.  Gates open on Noon with showtime at 1pm.  Now’s a good time to join LIVE DEAL  so you can take advantage of discounted seating for the Uproar Festival.

The end of September with it’s cooler weather is a perfect time to enjoy the outdoors walking Main St in Greenville for the 18th Annual Art in the Park Festival.  This is a 2-day event, Sept 22nd-23rd starting at 10pm on Sat. Sept 22nd and ending at p.m. on Sunday.   Here you  eyes will be amazed at  the talented creations of artists from the Upstate and surrounding areas.  Downtown Greenville is a great place to stroll while browsing our stores, delighting in our cuisine, feeding the ducks at Reedy River Park, or shopping for fresh produce and home-made delicacies at the Saturday Market.   Don’t be a stranger!    Come spend the weekend with us, there’ll be plenty for you to do.   Learn more here

My favorite garden flowers are not roses because they attract Japanese beetles.  I love peonies, however, they attract ants by the thousands where I live.   I love zinnias and foxglove because they attract bees which are the most effective pollinators on the planet earth.

I wish I could plant azaleas on our property, however, they attract ladybugs.   That wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that I share my home with ladybugs all year long!!  Those small pretty bugs which are wonderful for gardens because they eat aphids and other destructive plant bugs, hatch in our attic and spend their fall and winter days walking along a ceiling or wall inside our home.   Suffice it to say, I don’t need azalea bushes no matter how pretty lady bugs are.

Impatiens is one of my all time favorite flowering plants.  The rich color of the flowers against the dark green leaves makes it a very attractive plant which grows into beautiful mounds if planted in some sun, mostly shade.  And here’s the best reason to plant this in your gardens – the sap inside the stems of impatiens neutralizes the chemical which enters your skin from poison ivy and poison oak.  Imagine that!!  No more Calamine lotion and no more oatmeal baths.  The sap  neutralizes the itching, relieves the discomfort and eradicates the rash.

Black-eyed Susans and marigolds attract song birds and I don’t know any better way to relieve stress than to relax on a chaise listening to the sweet sounds of birds.

Got mosquitos?  Plant plenty of geraniums near to your sitting areas.  Mosquitoes find the geranium scent offensive so you can relax in your mosquito free zone.  You can also crush a geranium leaf and rub it on your skin which will release it’s scent and keep you mosquito free for 1 – 1.5 hours.   Unfortunate for me, I react to geranium leaves and break out in a mild rash when I dead-head the flowers and have too much contact with the leaves.

Hmmm…I wonder if the sap from the impatiens stem can be used on geranium rash instead of the good old stand-by, Calamine lotion.

HAPPY GARDENING!!

If your credit files shows that you have $1000 or more in ongoing credit dispute, the Federal Housing Administration will NOT insure a mortgage for you.  Disputed credit accounts more than 2 yrs old or disputes due to identity theft are not included.

All this is not to say you cannot get an FHA-backed loan as there are a couple of  things you can do to get your loan approved.  You will have to pay the remaining balance of the disputed credit, OR you can set up a documented payment plan and have made 3 payments on the plan.  The documentation can then be submitted to the FHA and will be figured into your debt-to-income ratio for a new mortgage.

Also taking place on April 1st, the FHA mortgage insurance will  be increasing:  a 1.75% upfront fee as well as a 1.2% annual fee paid in monthly installments.

These new rules are being put in place to  protect the FHA’s emergency fund which has fallen below the mandated amount required by Congress.

This is Amazon’s 2nd location in South Carolina. Their first distribution center is located in Lexington County and by year end 2013 it is project that this fulfillment center will have created 2000 jobs.

South Carolina sure is “pro business!”

Wasn’t I the happy camper when I found 2 mobile vets in our area.  Vet Gone Mobile is available to residents of Fountain Inn and Laurens M-F from 8:30am to 5:30pm, and for those who live in other parts of the Upstate you can check out Upstate Home Vet.  This vet also offers evening and weekend appts.

It’s a safe assumption that our next Vet appt  will be for a home visit, if only for the sake of momma’s sanity  

Purchasing a home is the most important investment you can make for your family and yourself.  So start the home buying process on the right foot by asking your Realtor to refer you to motivated mortgage lenders who will run your credit and advise you of which mortgage loan programs are a fit for you.    If you are not working with a Realtor, then go to the yellow pages and look for a mortgage broker, or go to your credit union, or the bank where you do your banking.   It’s important that you have your credit checked by a mortgage professional who will be able to determine:  A) your credit scores (they won’t take your word for what the free credit report you ran states);  B) which loan package(s) is available to you;  C) if there are any issues on your reports which are compromising your credit worthiness.

Should you have issues on your credit reports which must get cleared up before you can apply for a loan, the mortgage lender will probably be able to put you touch with a credit restoration company.  If you have not yet been in touch with a lender and know you have credit issues, I suggest contacting  PDQ Credit Restoration to help restore your credit so you can move forward with your goal of home ownership.

If everything is peaches and cream with your credit, then your mortgage lender will be able to advise you and your Realtor how much home you can afford to invest in.  This will make shopping for a home so much less stressful because now your Realtor will be able to focus in on all your criteria including a price point when searching for homes for  you to preview.  When you find the right home, your Realtor will request a pre-approval letter from your lender which your Realtor will send to the listing agent  along with your offer to buy contract.  In South Carolina the Exclusive Right to Buy Contract is always submitted with a pre-approval letter and any other necessary documentation (addenda).

I am always asked by home buyers are “how much will my down payment be?” and “what will my interest rate be?”  These are questions your mortgage lender will gladly answer for you, and yes, the answers will depend on your credit scores.   There is just no escaping the importance of your credit worthiness because in today’s economy a high credit score is no longer an option, it is a necessity if you expect to get mortgage financing.

1st Step: Understand what you NEED in your home
Two things you need to consider here – your NEEDS and your WANTS, and they are two very different things. Your NEEDS are fairly basic: you need 4 bedrooms, you need a 3 car garage because you own 3 vehicles, you need a ranch-style home because you are unable to climb stairs, you need to purchase in a particular school district.

2nd Step: Understand what you WANT in your home
If you are currently living in a home, you should already have a pretty good feel for what you do and don’t like about your home. It could be the kitchen is too far from the garage, or the bedrooms are too small, or maybe you hate the flat roof. On the other hand you love the open floor plan, your formal dining room and your back deck. So here’s what you can do. Make a 2 column list of your likes and dislikes. Even if you live in an apartment, I’m sure you’ve been inside enough homes to have a sense of what you would or would not want in your own home.

Make a list of your WANTS (a bonus room, a pool, hardwood floors, large bedrooms, eat-in kitchen) and rank them by their level of importance.   Keep in mind, most people have more dreams than money. Ranking your wants will allow you to easily eliminate something from the list because of price constraints and allow you to keep high priority features and avoid additional stress.

3rd Step: How much home can you AFFORD to invest in
There is nothing more demotivating to a buyer than to fall in love with a home only to find out you can’t afford to purchase the home.  Do yourself a huge favor and begin the home purchasing process on the right foot.  Get pre-approved for a mortgage before you shop for a home.

There are no General Rules of Thumb when it comes to financing a home. Each case is different and your personal financial circumstances will have impact on how much home you can afford. You will need to contact a motivated mortgage lender, one who represents many different products, and can offer you options for making your loan affordable.  If you need assistance with this, I can refer 3rd party independent lenders to you. When you are pre-approved, the lender will issue a Pre-Approval Letter which I will submit with your purchase contract to the listing agent of the home you are making an offer on.  This letter is a mandatory document when submitting offers to sellers, so this is a step you cannot skip over.

4th Step: Use a Buyer’s Representative
There is a huge difference between a Buyer’s Representative and other agents.  First and foremost, if you don’t have a specific agreement in place to be represented by your Real Estate Agent, chances are your Agent represents the Seller.  In South Carolina, Agency is established by the Exclusive Right to Buy Buyer Agency Contract wherein you appoint a particular brokerage firm and its Agents to represent you in your transaction.   Having that paperwork completed means you are a CLIENT of the Company.  Without this executed contract in place, all Agents represent the sellers of the homes you preview, and you are a CUSTOMER.

If you went to court, would you use the opposing side’s attorney to represent you as well?  Of course you wouldn’t!  Creating a “buyer’s representation” with your Agent not only puts the Agent in the position of protecting your interests, but it doesn’t cost you an extra nickel to have your own representative.    Buyer Agents are paid in the same fashion as other Agents -  out of the standard commission which is a component  of a home’s list price.   A written Buyer’s Agency Agreement requires the Company and its associated licensees to act as an Agent on your behalf, and you can expect the following client-level services:  Obedience, Loyalty, Disclosure, Confidentiality, Accounting, and Reasonable care and skill as well as advice, counsel, and assistance in negotiations.

YOU CAN NOW START SHOPPING FOR YOUR HOME!

Purchasing a home is all about paperwork and here in South Carolina, Realtors write the contracts.   Every transaction is unique, so  I monitor all the details very closely and keep you well informed every step of the way.  I am fully aware that Real Estate is a service industry, therefore, I never lose sight of the fact that as your Realtor I am here to serve you.  It is my job to get you through the home buying process as smoothly as possible with no last minute surprises.

There’s a difference between agents who simply sell real estate, and those who COMMIT to whatever it takes to serve clients beyond their expectations.   Make sure the real estate agent you decide to work with is committed to helping you reach your goals!

Scio Diamond Technology Corp has a patented process for a technology that doesn’t exist elsewhere in the world, creating diamonds in a laboratory.  Scio diamonds will not only be sold as gemstones, but will be used in electronics for power and heat transfer as well as in medical advances.  These diamonds will be the cutting edge to making scalpels.   Over the next 5 years this new facility is expected to hire on 70 employees in hi-tech, high level, high paying jobs.

I grew up in an apartment for the first 13.5 years of my life in a 5 story building in the Bronx, NY.  Back then I thought everyone lived in apartment bldgs. and only the rich owned homes.  What did I know as a kid.   I recall many winter days with no heat and no hot water.  Mom would heat water in large pots on the kitchen stove and then pour the water into the bathroom sink so my brother and I could wash up and brush our teeth before school.  And there were times, when we’d come home from school, still no heat or hot water, and mom would reheat water in pots on the stove to pour into the bath tub so everyone could take a bath.  Waiting for the landlord to get the boiler repaired would sometimes take days.   I don’t remember hearing footsteps overhead from the neighbors who lived above us, though I do recall overhearing conversations in the outer hallways, and the loud tv or hi-fi in the next door neighbors apartment blaring through the walls into our apartment.   On any day of the week walking up the stairs to our apartment I could tell you what foods were being cooked in apartment 1E, or whose mom was yelling at which kid on the 3rd floor, or whose clothes line just broke with their clothes hanging down alongside the bricks of the building on the 5th floor.  Very little was a secret when you lived in an apartment building.

In 1967 my parents purchased a home in Monmouth County, NJ thanks to my dad’s VA eligibility.   No longer did I have to share a bedroom with my brother though I honestly never minded sharing a room with him.  The only music I heard was coming from the stereo in our own home.  I didn’t hear neighbors next door or footsteps overhead.  I no longer had the smell of stuffed cabbage or Irish stew  in my nose.  Thanks to the  VA mortgage loan program  my parents had the opportunity to own their own home and become a part of a community of other first time home owners who had all relocated to the same community.  Pride of homeownership was blooming throughout the community.

When I got married in 1979, my husband and I both worked in Manhattan but didn’t want to move back to the city to live so we rented a 1BR apartment in Essex County, NJ.  Living room, bedroom, bathroom, tiny kitchen and small dining area was our $600/month aparment.  Laundry facilities were on the ground floor of our building, but I wasn’t excited about washing and drying my clothes in units used by others.  I was spoiled by having lived in a home!  The guy who lived above us worked the 4-12 shift so it was normal for him to have the tv blasting at 2AM.   The Property Manager (landlord) was a bear of a woman.  I dreaded having to knock on her door when an appliance broke down to request she advise her husband so he could fix it.  By year two, I wanted out of an apartment and into my own home.  I was annoyed that the rent was increased yearly and I began to view rent as a waste of my money.   Convincing my husband was a different story.  He had never owned his own home and whenever I mentioned “let’s go look at homes,” he saw nothing but dollar signs popping up in his mind.  Every night for 6 weeks straight we would sit with pencil and paper going over our expenses, savings, what money we needed to save for a down payment.   Finally, and I think only because he couldn’t deal with another day of my nagging,  he agreed it was time for us to find a house to call home.  Hallelujah!!   In a flash I set out to find a Realtor and every weekend thereafter we did nothing but preview homes until we found the one for us.   Fortunately, my husband was a Veteran and in 1983 when interest rates were through the roof (13.5%), we purchased our first home  for approximately 3% less  in interest thanks to the VA Loan.   This time I had no problem knocking on the property manager’s door to say, “it’s been great and we’re vacating the apartment in 2 months.”   We had to repaint all the rooms in the apartment back to a neutral color as per our lease, and we had to repair all the holes in the walls made from mirrors and pictures we had hung up.  That was a small price to pay to get out of our lease and into our new home.

Today, the cost of borrowing mortgage money is at an ALL TIME LOW.   If ever there was a time to consider purchasing a home, it is now.   The great part about home ownership is just that….You Own The Home.  No Landlord.  You make all the decisions.  You can decorate your home any which way you choose, paint the walls whatever color strikes your fancy.  Play your music as loud as you want.  You can  own  1 dog, 2 cats and 6 birds if you want to.

When you own your own home, any money you put into it is an investment in yourself.  Whether you renovate your home by adding an extra room, install new kitchen cabinets, or remodel a bathroom you are spending the money you worked hard to earn on yourself, and at the same time you are building equity in your home.

You don’t have to settle for where you live.  You can select the right home for you from different communities, home styles and price ranges.  When you become a part of a community, you will take pride in the neighborhood you live in and together with your neighbors you will help build a safe and friendly community.

You won’t have to guess at how much the next yearly rent increase will be because you will be paying a fixed mortgage payment each and every month for the term of your loan whether it is a 15 yr loan, 20 yr loan or a 30 yr loan.  No surprise expense there!  At tax time you can deduct mortgage interest, property taxes and some other costs involved in the purchase of your home.   There are no federal income tax deductions when you rent.

Unlike rent payments which bring you no benefit,  your monthly mortgage payments will build equity in your home.   The more you pay down your mortgage, the more equity you will have in your home.  When it’s time to sell you can make up to $250,000 in cash without having to pay any federal taxes on the profit.  Owning a home can be a great savings plan!  No savings plan exists in renting.

So again, the question needs to be asked.  Should you continue to rent OR should you buy a home?  There’s only one way to find out.  Contact a local Realtor who will guide you through the home buying process and who can put you in touch with local mortgage lenders who will run your credit to determine 1) how much home you can afford to invest in and 2) which loan program is the best fit for you.   Stop tossing your money out the window on rent, and take the first step to owning a home.   With the large number of homes for sale and the low interest rates, no doubt there’s a home sitting there waiting for you to make it a home.

If you’re like me, your email accounts have junk mail folders which are always full of  unwanted information.  Yet every now and then an advertisement comes through the filters.  I usually take the time to quickly scan these emails to make sure they are of non-importance to me, then I manually set a filter to junk it from there on out.    I was doing this the other day when an advertisement caught my attention, so I visited the site and liked what I read.

Deal Chicken “hatched” in 2010 and is already in 29 states.  It offers you free sign-up to receive email alerts of excellent deals (50%-90% off) from local top neighborhood businesses.  I like that!   There are only 2 cities listed in my state of South Carolina so I selected the one nearest to me, Greenville.   Sure enough, I started to receive alerts on “hatched deals” with the latest one for 50% off Tony’s Pizza and Subs.  Expires 4/20/12.  Works for me!!    Once a deal is “hatched” you have to purchase it within the timeframe shown on the clock  which is running on the Deal of the Day page.  The Certificates can be redeemed the following day (unless appts need to be made), or at any time up until the date of expiration.

Yes, we now have another social commerce site where we can find great deals!!  Check out these recently closed deals in the Greenville SC area:  half off on men’s and women’s cuts at All The Rave Salon & Boutique;  50% off Bubble Tea, Desserts & More at O-Cha Bar;  50% off 4 yoga classes at Greenville Yoga; 50% off  frozen yogurt at blueberryfrog; 54% off a 1 hour massage by John Bowman at Solar Tan; 50% off 8 baseball training sessions at West End Baseball Academy (that right there is a $112 savings!); 50% off fine cigars, accessories and unique gifts at The Cigar Boxx; 50% off fresh seafood, steaks, chicken and more at The Placid Pelican.

I don’t know about you, but I’m all for saving money.  Five dollars here, twenty dollars there, it all adds up!  Deal certificates are a great a way to say “thank you” to the UPS/FedEx delivery person, your mail carrier or newspaper delivery person, or the neighborhood kid who has helped you with some chores.  You will need to check the fine print on deal certificates regardless which social commerce site you purchase them from.  Some deals may not allow you to pass the certificate to a friend as a gift so be sure do double-check what the merchant will or will not allow.

Now the next time someone asks you, “Do you Deal Chicken“  you can reply ”yes, I do Deal Chicken!”   But please, don’t do the chicken dance to prove your point.  Just tell them about the savings you enjoy:)