Business News in Brighton

The old Brighton Donuts has undergone extensive remodeling and is likely to host a Potbelly Sandwich Shop and perhaps a T-Mobile cellular store, too.  Potbelly began in Chicago in 1977 and there are some stores in the west Detroit suburbs, as well as Ann Arbor.  The new building looks fantastic.

If you remember the florist shop in the newer building with Tim Horton’s and the BP Gas Station at Grand River and St. Paul Street, look for a Domino’s Pizza outlet there soon.

In case you missed it, the Leaf, Barley & Vine building on Grand River and North St (next to Stout Pub) has been taken over by a new mortgage lender, Treadstone Funding.  I got to see the building while work was in process and it is going to be a great addition to downtown. It's wonderful that the building is no longer sitting vacant.

The Grand River Crossing mall (near VG’s, across from the Brighton Bowl) will soon have an old Brighton favorite returning – Big Apple Bagels.

Davis Office Site – at Grand River and Best Buy Drive, the old buildings that held many small medical offices is almost done.  One of the tenants is going to be Panda Express, a “fast, casual Chinese restaurant”.  Current locations include Okemos, Jackson, Ann Arbor, Great Lakes Crossing, Allen Park and the Rochester area.

And if you’ve seen the construction on Challis Rd just west of the newly remodeled and reopened Big Boy, that’s going to be a Hampton Inn.

The City of Brighton continues to try to add more parking to meet demand. The Dairy Mart on Grand River and North Street has been demolished and will be another ‘Transitional Parking Lot’. Walking distance to downtown shops and restaurants, it will be another option for you, but it will be right turn only when exiting because it is so close to the traffic signal at North and Grand River and because of traffic volumes on Grand River.

Information above is believed to be correct, but things can happen! Negotiations fail, problems arise, that’s development.

Time Change Sunday November 1st

Before you retire on Halloween, be sure to set your clocks back an hour.  We have to do this less and less it seems.  My mobile phone and cable box do it automatically.  I have a counter top radio that gets the time signal via a local NPR station and it adjusts on its own, too. Likewise for the laptop and tablet.

I have to change the clock on the range and the microwave, and in my car, but that’s about it.  Here are a few other things that you should do when it’s time change time.

Of course, replace your smoke detector batteries.  This is really important because it’s your first line of defense should a fire break out while you and your family are asleep.  But here’s one you probably haven’t thought about.

Check your water supply hoses to your washing machine.

Last year, I was fishing around the back of the washer for a sock that went flying while I loaded it up.  As I grabbed the sock from the side, I noticed a huge bulge in the hot water hose.  It could have burst at any moment.  And since it was before it went into the washing machine it would have spewed water forever had it broken.

 

These were the old black hoses that you can get anywhere for about $6-$7 each.  I decided to upgrade to the newer red/blue braided hoses that come with a lifetime guaranty.  But guess what?  I still check them on time change day. 

Water damage is not something you want to experience.  Especially if you have a first or second floor laundry. (See this blog post explaining how I learned the hard way.)   So please be sure to change your clocks as needed, check your smoke detector batteries, and give a quick look at the water hoses to your washing machine.

As always, should you have a real estate question or need, feel free to call or contact me by way of the info on the right panel of this blog.

photos courtesy digitalart/freedigitalphotos.net and Robert Smith,Realtor

How To Protect Your Digital Data – Or Else!

What could be worse than losing your tablet or smartphone and having somebody access your social media accounts, business information, and contacts?  Well, OK, identity theft.  And that could happen, too.  But not if you’re a bit proactive.  Here are just a few basic defenses for you.

My first line of defense is a simple one.  My tablet, laptop and smartphone all have a screen lock.  My smartphone auto locks after 2 minutes of inactivity (which admittedly is sometimes a real pain), my tablet locks after 5 minutes, and I manually lock my laptop anytime I step away from it.  Yup, rest room break, out for lunch, meeting with a colleague – it gets locked.  Luckily, you can set the time interval for the auto lock to whatever you prefer.  The important thing is that if you lose your device (or it gets stolen), it will be harder for somebody to access your services and accounts.

Think about social media. On my smartphone and my tablet, I stay logged in to certain sites unless I specifically click ‘log out’.  Many don’t because they’d be logging in a hundred times a day. Lose the phone and anybody now can post in my name, solicit my friends, and in general cause havoc with my life.

Something that still amazes me is the number of people that do not back up their devices.  Please, back up your data.  With cloud storage this is so easy.  Afraid of the cloud?  Buy an external drive and let it run at night.  Storage has never been cheaper and you won’t go into a cold sweat if your device gets trashed.

Get and use a quality anti-virus software.  These programs have developed so much that they detect bad web sites, dangerous files sent to you anonymously and many other threats that you’ve not heard of yet.  I opt to pay for a well known package that protects three devices for an annual subscription.  That is ‘cheap insurance’ to me.  Some free programs are good, too, but lack all of the features.

Keep your software up to date.  It’s a royal pain when your operating system wants to constantly ‘update’.  Often that requires a reboot, at least on the laptop.  Still, these updates often take care of newly discovered security threats as well as fixing old bugs, so it really is worth it to do the update.  You don’t have to do it immediately if you’re in the middle of something, but do it sooner rather than later.

Be careful of the apps you install and read the installation prompts!   I recently had an alert to update two applications, one needed to let my web browser operate properly, and another program that I use multiple times daily.  On installation, one wanted to change my ‘preferred browser’ to something different and the second one wanted to install web browser ‘tool bar’ that I didn’t need.  Often the tool bar installation changes your web home page and many other preferences.  A simple click on the ‘decline’ box was all it took to not let that happen. Entertainment apps in particular can install unwanted features.

Beware the “crazy good offer’.  Usually it’s something like, “for our 125^th anniversary we’re giving away 125 bottles or cases of ‘x’ totally free”.  Or cartons of cigarettes.  It could be anything.  The link you click on has a similar name but is not the company web site.  These folks are fishing (phishing) for your personal info or for marketing data.  If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  Keep your antennae up! And don’t nibble on the bait.

If you have real estate questions, you can contact me at anytime for straight answers or referrals to somebody that can help better than I.  

image courtesy of Stuart Miles/freedigitalphotos.net

National AMERICAN Beer Day – October 27th

photo credit Robert Smith

Not National Beer Day (April 7^th), but National AMERICAN Beer Day. The USA beer market is $101.5 billion, with the craft beer market at $19.6 billion or 17.6% of all USA beer consumption (2014).  Import beer represents 6.9% of the total.

But I’m in Michigan so let’s talk local.  There were just over 100 breweries in Michigan in 2011, and we we’re at 160 in 2014. Those breweries produced 825,103 barrels (10^th in the USA), with an average of 3.6 gallons consumed per adult (21+ years of age, or 13^th nationally).  I’ve always contended that Michigan’s great, tasty and abundant water made it one of the best places for brewing beer.  Our climate is also great for growing hops and Michigan is starting to get some great, mature hops farms, although our acreage is far below competing States. (Watch out Washington State!)

In 2014, we had 159 craft breweries (6^th in the country). The Michigan State web site listed 198 as of this posting (State rankings not available).

So here’s my deal, and I know it’s not everybody’s mug o’beer.  I would so much rather have 1 or 2 good locally brewed (or even just craft) beers at about $5/mug than to sit in a national, regional or local  franchise at happy hour and drink four or five $3, 22 oz mass produced, colorless and flavorless beers (Bud, Miller, your names shall not be mentioned - oops).

It is not required that you celebrate National American Beer Day today. But I hope you will.  And I hope that you stop in your local brewery to sample their offerings.  Or at least go to a restaurant or lounge that has other great Michigan beers on tap to try something other than the clear, bland mass-produced beers. 

I think I will try to do a ‘trifecta’ in my area, that being #Brewery Becker, #EternityBrewing, and #BlockBrewing.  They have smaller glasses than just the mug, so maybe I’ll do an #IPA tour, or perhaps a #Porter or #Stout tour.  Depends on how I’m feeling. I don’t think I’ll be disappointed, in any case.

If, while drinking your craft beer, you come up with a real estate question, feel free to contact me at your convenience.

Realtor Tours Local Haunted House For Professional Reasons?

A haunted house gets your heart pumping, sharpens your senses and raises your awareness of the surroundings.  And since I’m a full-time real estate professional, I figured I shouldn’t ignore this particular type of house any longer. 

Last night, my wife and I went to the Terrorfied Forest in Pinckney, Michigan with our friends Kelly & Lisa. We also toured Bubbles Fun House.  I should mention that these attractions are not for children.  They are geared for teens and adults.

We started with Bubbles Fun House.  It takes about 20 minutes to get through and there is literally a surprise around every corner.  Sometimes the surprise jumps out at you. Sometimes you’re ‘decoyed’ and distracted. But there’s a lot of suspense in here. I don't think the decor would have much appeal for a home buyer, but you never know.

Both facilities have a few simple rules.  The monsters will not touch you, so please don’t touch them or the props.  No lights or cell phones can be used. Listen to the staff and security that seems to be just a few paces from you, no matter your location (many of them are unseen unless they want to be seen, bwahahaha).  Prices are $20 for the Terrorfied Forest and $10 for the haunted house but a combo is only $25.  It was well worth it, too.

Dress for the weather since the Terrorfied Forest is a lot longer than the haunted house.  They claim it’s about 40 minutes and 1 mile of walking and I believe it.  We spent a good 15-20 minutes trying to exit the ‘maze house’ at the end of the forest tour.  And we had lots of company!

Patrons are spaced out so groups remain fairly small and the staff was very polite while doing their scary, ghoulish tasks.  Weather may affect the forest tour, but the haunted house is open unless there is lightning and/or driving rain.

They’re open Friday-Sunday through October 31^st and located at 145 Swarthout Rd, Pinckney 48169.  It’s just off the NE Corner of Pinckney Rd (D-19).  Call 734-878-3737 for more info.  And they will have a special opening for Friday the 13^th in November, too.  Check out their facebook page and their website.

Oh, and by the way, yes I uttered a few shrieks of surprise at various times.  Just to be safe you should use the rest room before entering. It wasn’t the worst house I’ve ever toured in my real estate career, but it was definitely the scariest. 

I don’t think I’d be of much professional help if you were looking to buy a real haunted house, but if you’re looking to buy or sell any other houses or condos, give me a call.  Those I can handle.

Image courtesy of Terrorfied Forest facebook page.

Seniors - Watch Out For Scams

Watching out for scams really applies to everyone, not just seniors.  But it does seem that folks who have been slow to use computers get hit the hardest.  And scammers like to target people they think might have some money put away, who own their home, and that have great credit - and many seniors fall into this group. Here are a a few tips to hopefully keep you safe when you're online.

First, look at any offer 'out of the blue' with suspicion. Maybe it's for an 'anti-aging' product, discount medications (which turn out to be counterfeit), or 'free' medical devices that will be billed to and paid by your health insurance company.

Emails that request you reset your password or verify your account. It may look like a legitimate email from your bank, or from a social media site that you frequent.  Scammers send these out by the tens of thousands hoping to hit some that actually have an account.  For example, I get emails from a nationally known bank.  It includes their logo and looks very official.  The thing is I don't have an account with that bank.  That's an easy one.

Before you click on a link, position the mouse pointer over the link and wait for a second or two for a box to pop up that shows you the destination. My example below is from a social media site where I do have an account.  But the link is not going there!  These fake links go to places where they try to capture your personal info to use for fraudulent purposes.

You will go to a different location - not where the links says. SCAM!

NEVER open an attachment from somebody that you don't know. These attachments often install a virus or keyboard capture routine on your device and passwords can be stolen.

NEVER, EVER fall for the "you have won money", or "I need your help to get millions of U.S. Dollars out of my African country".  I know it sounds absurd, but people do fall for these.  Many of these are written in poor English and they almost always invoke god in some way.

And let's not forget the good old telephone call, either. Many offers come in as a "free prize", except that you have to pay tax and shipping and handling.  Watch out! A legitimate company will not pressure you to make a quick decision.

NEVER pay in advance for services.  That guy working out of his pickup truck might say he needs a couple of thousand dollars to buy materials, but you may never see him again. Of course, his prices are so much cheaper you'll be tempted to jump on his offer.  That is a major red flag.  Ask to see his construction license.  In Michigan, legitimate vendors get a 'pocket card' that indicates they are either a licensed builder, or a 'maintenance and alteration' contractor.  The M and A companies are for specific things like gutters, siding, roofing, painting.  You can check on a company or an individual at this link:  https://www.lara.michigan.gov/colaLicVerify/lSearch.jsp

Go to 'Search By License Type' then 'Profession', then 'Residential Builder'.  If you want to review a previous blog post that I wrote about builder licensing, you can find it here:
http://livingstonre.blogspot.com/2015/07/is-your-contractor-licensed-does-he.html

Remember - if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!  Stay safe out there.

I am a full-time residential real estate professional and a senior real estate specialist.  If you have real estate questions, you can always contact me through this blog or my office phone number on the sidebar.

Extreme Property Line Disputes

Ever had a neighbor that insisted that the property line was different than your belief?  Did he sue you?  Make life miserable in other ways? Well, here’s a rather extreme story.

A Norwegian man believed that his neighbor’s outhouse (which had been converted to a shed) was encroaching on his property.  While his neighbors were vacationing, he hired two workers to cut the offending piece of the building off, then he dumped the debris in their garden.

Turns out he was wrong.  You saw that coming, didn’t you? 

After a year of legal proceedings, he was charged with aggravated vandalism. No word on the sentence, but this same man has had other property disputes with other neighbors where he was also wrong and had destroyed property.

At what point do you think it’s not wise to get a survey?  Read the full story here.

And if you have real estate questions, feel free to call me - preferably before you destroy your neighbor's shed.  At least I'll recommend you talk to an attorney first!

image courtesy of imagerymajestic/freedigitalphotos.net

Support Your Local Residents And Great Causes, Too

No, not like local businesses, although I feel strongly that we should be doing that, too.  I’m talking about people that get involved in really good causes for other organizations.

Most of us have at one time or another done some fundraising for a group. Maybe a church, a PTA, Boy or Girl Scouts, a youth sports team, or perhaps a cause that struck us personally, like a foundation for a disease that afflicted a family member or friend.

Here’s one (I could probably write pages worth) from a great local runner that deserves consideration.

Team World Vision is a great cause. They are dedicated to providing fresh, clean water to areas in Africa where water is scarce.  They drill wells, install pipelines and construct water purification stations as well as teach the inhabitants how to operate and maintain them.

Here, in Michigan, we can take safe and abundant water for granted. After all, we’re surrounded by the largest group of freshwater lakes in the world, containing 21% of the world’s fresh water by volume. Not many think of how fortunate we are every time we use the faucet or take a few extra minutes in that nice, hot shower.

My friend Mark Van Netten is raising money for this cause along with his running of the 2015 Detroit Free Press/Talmer Bank Marathon on October 18^th.  If you think this is a good cause, you can donate via Mark’s page below.  He’s running the full marathon, by the way. It sounds funny to say ‘full marathon’ but since there’s a half marathon I thought I’d make that distinction for non-runners. A marathon is 26.2 miles, in case you didn’t know.   Every dollar helps this great cause, so please consider donating at 

http://www.teamworldvision.org/participant/Markruns4h2o.

Team World Vision is a legitimate group with good reviews on Guidestar.com. That's is an information service that specializes in providing non-profit information. You can check Team World Vision’s status here. I donated and I hope you will, too.