Price Change Alert!

3631 Semloh Ave, Cincinnati, Ohio.  

The asking price has just been reduced to $159,900.  Looking around the Cheviot or White Oak area?  Come see this home!  Great no-outlet street, updated kitchen and baths. Finished basement.  Covered parking for two cars in the detached rear carport.  A nice patio area just off the kitchen and a wonderful backyard that has room for everything:  Kids, pets, gardening…. this backyard is spacious enough for anything (and everything) you might enjoy.   Awesome price to get this amount of house and this location.  $159,900.  Follow this link for photos, map and more details: 3631 Semloh
 

3631 Semloh Ave – New to Market today

This house is charming inside and out.  Surprisingly large inside with three bedrooms and an office. First floor family room with decorative fireplace and Basement level Family Room with kitchenette & half bath. Updated kitchen and baths and an expansive backyard you’ll just have to see to believe.  See more photos and information by clicking here to postlets: 3631 Semloh

Rain. Barrel. Win.

Yeah!!   When I installed this rain barrel Monday afternoon I wondered if I was going to collect rain… or inspire an end to the month-long downpours.  Today I got my answer – it rained for a solid twenty minutes.      I was so anxious to get home and check the results!  I ran over to the side of the house and water was gushing out the downspout.  It made me a little sad to see how much was dumping out the gutter and worried that I was going to open the lid and find it empty.   Nope, it was completely full – all 57 gallons worth.  Wow.  I am so impressed with the system.   This is a Fiskars brand and the barrel is made in USA.   I researched them online and found that Home Depot sells this model in stores – important because I wanted to really see it before buying.    What was most appealing about it is the design that allows the water to continue through the downspout normally once the barrel is full.  Other models attach directly to the downspout and then overflow water escapes out an open valve at the top once the barrel is full.  Either way though you are sure to be making a difference.     Here is a photo of it in action.

Just Listed in Westwood – Immaculate, Tax Abated Cincinnati Citirama home.

Highly recommend you check out this house in Westwood this weekend! It will be open Sunday May 23 from 1-3pm.

This is in a Citirama neighborhood that brought a community of new construction homes to Westwood about six years ago. This house offers a property tax abatement through 2019 which means the monthly payment will be comparable to a smaller older home you might find for $165,000. Buy more house with your money instead of higher taxes!

2488 Oaktree Place is just 6 years old and you just might think it’s brand new when you walk in the door. It has hardwood floors throughout the first level. There is a formal dining room, a bright eat-in kitchen and a 2-story living room with a gas fireplace. The living room walk out takes you to a large deck with a wooded view. You’ll have the same view from the large master suite with walk-in closet and attached bath. This unique floor plan offers a finished lower level media room (prewired for sound and TV) and still a full basement below. The second floor is similarly divided where the Master Bedroom is halfway up the staircase and the kids or guest bedrooms are still few stairs higher. It is a cool floor plan that allows for family cohesiveness and yet affords great privacy inside and out. There is also an attached two car garage. You can be downtown or to Clifton in under 15 minutes via Queen City Ave. Here is a link to check out photos on Postlets : Click Here

Mobo Bicycle Coop Bike & Plant Sale May 8, 2010

There is a bicycle co-op in Northside right beside The Village Green community gardens.  This Saturday they will host a Bike & Plant sale between 10am -4pm.    Here’s the link for information about the program.

So now your Saturday can start by picking up a compost bin at Cincinnati State, then as Ludlow becomes Hamilton Ave stop in for a visit to Mobo and pick up some plants and a bicycle and then continue on up the hill (Hamilton Ave) to North Bend Ave and grab lunch at Bacall’s or College Hill Coffee Co. and finish off with some art -and wine!- with Marty’s Hops & Vines. Kudos you, look at the good you do. ; )

Saturday: Art Show behind College Hill Coffee / Marty’s Hops & Vines

Grabbing this directly from the College Hill eNewsletter:

Spring Fling Arts Show & Sale Saturday
Local artists will line the perimeter of the big Gen Kress parking lot behind the College Hill Coffee Co., Schwartz Jewelers, Bacall’s and Marty’s Hops & Vines. Fiber art, jewelry, pottery, photography, bird baths, paintings, mixed media art, drawings,  tile work — even hand-crafted guitars showcasing beautiful woodworking and design. 

Saturday, May 8 from 10 am to 2 pm.
 
Food and drinks will be available for purchase.
 
Rain date May 15 same time, same place.

Here is the location :

Hamilton Ave & North Bend Rd in College Hill

Low Cost Compost Bins Available for Hamilton Co Residents

This weekend Hamilton County has two locations that will sell large capacity composting bins for a discounted price.  This is great news for me and sad news for my dogs who love love love to come in the house reminding with their smells that they can get into my makeshift compost collection. Currently I toss all kitchen fruit & veggie scraps in to an old garbage can that has a crack in one of it’s bottom corners.   I thought it would be good for ventilation.  The pups have taught me that actually it’s great for dispensing fermenting bits like a candy machine.  Thankfully with this sale Saturday I’m just a few days and dollars away from having a proper system.

Between 9am and 2 pm this Saturday May 8th Cincinnati State College & Princeton High School will each have 1,000 Earth Machine Compost Bins available for $35 each.  Regular retail cost would be $100 according to the Hamilton County Waste Management companion site www.hcdoes.org

New one in Oakley

http://www.postlets.com/res/3638157

Match Day

If you’ve participated in a Match Day ceremony then you know the feeling of turning your future over to the contents of an envelope.  My partner & I  took a collective deep breath and our turn at it on this day in 2004.  

Match day is the culmination of what has to be the most nerve assulting process in the final year of medical school for a future physician.   In between completing final rotations of their schooling, the students interview with hospitals throughout the year, then rank the programs that they would like to join after graduation.  The various residency programs also rank the students who have interviewed with them.  Then some massive computer in some remote location takes all the lists of all the students and all of the programs and.. starts making matches.  On Match Day graduating classes gather in auditoriums all across the country.  One by one, with nervous hands, they open envelopes and find out where the next two or three or five years will take them. If you know someone finishing med school this year, check in with them this week.  They may really appreciate a congratulatory high-five or hug of condolence today.  Thats the nature of the Match. You just don’t know.

On this day six years ago my partner held an envelope in one hand and a microphone in the other while standing in front of her entire class.   That envelope could send us to St. Louis or Denver or..Columbus or..I can’t even remember all the possible places we ranked.   To be a medical spouse is quite a lesson in letting go. I look at the photo of us from breakfast that morning and feel all the tension in my neck below my smile for the camera. To allow an envelope to tell you where to go next is sort of adventuresome – like a task on the Amazing Race.  Except your next mission is going to be a few years long.  We’ll be okay wherever we go.  It’s hardly a military assignment. It’s just another city.  Any city.  Where? Where?  For us, it turned out to be kind of an easy one.  The paper said Cincinnati Childrens’ Hospital & Medical Center.  Ahh. Staying in Cincinnati.   We would be moving that summer, but only from our apartment into our first house.  A task we jokingly called our second-most-important Residency selection.

To all those soon to be M.D.s & D.O.s and their families: Congratulations on Match Day 2010. You’ve worked very hard to work incredibly harder.  Enjoy today.

Two offers in ten days.

Go ahead and call it a comeback.  The Deer Park house that I listed Feb 8th is already under contract!  We had two offers within the first ten days on market and an accepted offer within 12 days.  Wooo! Price your house right the first time, sellers.  It makes all the difference.  The buyers are out there looking! The first step is to showcase your home.  It must be clean, polished and convey to those looking that the house has been well cared for.  Step Two: price it right for this market.  You WILL have buyers excited about the house and ready to make that offer to buy.

If high commissions have you feeling that you can’t afford to price your house right – call or email me now.  I have four commission plans for you to choose from -all including Full Service. This is not discount DIY real estate.  In this market you can’t always afford to absorb 6-7% for commission.   And fortunately, you do not have to anymore.  Contact me to find out more about the way WebMLS is changing the way real estate is sold.