Clay Lee
Broker/Realtor®
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Archive for June, 2008
The Mistakes that Luxury Home Builders and Owners Make
June 27th, 2008 Categories: Buying Real Estate, Home Improvement & Design, Market Trends, Miramont, Pebble Creek, Selling Real Estate
I see it every day, and it’s really sad. A home builder or even a buyer will construct a high priced “luxury” property and try to sell it immediately or within a couple of years of its completion. I use the term “luxury” in quotes because in this case I’m calling it an interpretation of what a luxury property really is.
A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that a luxury home qualifies as a luxury home merely based on the properties square footage or land size. However, a luxury home can be a 1500 square foot town-home or a 20,000 square foot ocean front compound. It’s the features of a property that make a luxury home a luxury home, especially in College Station, TX.
The following are the biggest places that mistakes are made.
Master Suites
A Big Shower and Walk-in Closets are just not enough. Buyers expect a Spa in their own home today. You have to have multiple shower heads, rain showers, body sprays and if possible a steam shower. Closets have to be totally custom with built-in packing centers, extensive shoe storage, tons of drawers, adjustable hanging space, full-length mirrors, and good lighting. The sleeping area has to be well designed with plenty of room for a bed and a nice sitting area. High end quality flooring of wool, stone, or wood is expected in this space as well. Buyers also want separate closets if the home is larger and even more popular are separate master bathrooms. Read the rest of this entry »
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Real Estate That Changes and Moves as You Wish: Coming Soon to Dubai, Moscow, and New York City!
June 26th, 2008 Categories: Buying Real Estate, Home Improvement & Design, Market Trends, Real Estate News, Real Estate True Tales
When you were a child, you probably had or played with a slinky. You probably remember how you could twist and spin a slinky in a million different ways to create some crazy looking tubular shapes. Well now you may be able to do the same thing with your home! Today in Dubai, a new building was unveiled called the Dynamic Tower which will be 80 stories tall and be able to adjust its shape at any given moment. Each floor will be able to spin independently to change that floors view or to change the shape of the entire building! The picture to the left shows different configurations that the tower might have. I guess that if you wake up and decide you don’t like the ocean view of your bedroom that you can twist it around for a desert or city view! A part of me wonders what it will sound like when the entire building is rotating. Will clients feel it rotate?
The building is truly a new study in the way that high Read the rest of this entry »
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5 Star Hotel Bedrooms – In Your Own Home!
June 25th, 2008 Categories: Buying Real Estate, Home Improvement & Design, Kids, Family & Personal Stuff, Market Trends, Real Estate News
If you’ve ever stayed in a great hotel and when it came time to check out you didn’t want to leave, you are not alone. Today’s 5 star hotels and many 4 star hotels are making their beds and bathrooms more luxurious all the time. It’s almost as if it’s a competition between them to see who can top the other. The bathrooms keep getting larger and the beds keep getting fluffier with even higher and higher thread count sheets.
But going home doesn’t have to be the end of your stay at your favorite hotel! Due to an enormous amount of client demand, many of the 5 and 4 star hotels are now selling almost everything you need to recreate your hotel experience at home. If you had to pull all the materials together yourself, it would take extensive travel and weeks of internet searching to find all the bedding, accessories, towels, and plumbing products. Now with just a simple phone call you can have almost everything you see!
For example, W Hotels has a retail store in Read the rest of this entry »
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Someone Always Needs Your Help. This Week It’s The Brazos Valley Food Bank!
June 24th, 2008 Categories: Kids, Family & Personal Stuff
I will never know why things happen to me the way that they do. However, as I get older, I have come to the realization that EVERYTHING happens for a reason. Last week was a prime example of this.I was standing in line at the pharmacy to pick up my epi pen so that I could start a new allergy treatment program that would not be covered by my insurance. When I signed up for the program, I justified the $1200 a year with the hopes of not suffering through another allergy season ever again! So there I stood in line waiting to pick up my pen. In front of me was a dad with three kids in the shopping cart. The kids were not happy go lucky, they were not clean, and one of them had a horrible rash creeping up out of the back of his shirt onto his neck. There were not any groceries in their cart either. I smiled and started up a conversation with the dad who told me his son had swimmers ear which had then gotten infected and started to bleed. They had finally made it to the doctor a few days before, but their car broke down so they had to take the “trolley” to get there and get home.
Something came over me that instant. I’ve been very fortunate in my life and especially this year. I was standing there in a few thousand dollars of clothes, shoes, sunglasses, a watch, and untold amounts of facial care products. There they stood just trying to make it to tomorrow. While they were at the counter, I thought I would run to the ATM and take out a few hundred dollars and offer it to them to hopefully get them out of their rut a little bit. I had a new bank card, and stupid me had forgotten to set up the PIN number. I WAS FURIOUS. When I got back to the Read the rest of this entry »
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What is Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI)? Not Everyone Can Get It!
June 23rd, 2008 Categories: Buying Real Estate, Foreclosures, Market Trends, Mortgage Help
PMI has been a mystery to home buyers for as long as it has been in existence. It’s that insurance that almost every home buyer has to get in order to buy a home with less than a twenty percent down payment. It is essentially insurance for the lender that covers the amount between what you put down and eighty percent of the value of your home. The larger your down payment, the less PMI you need. As your home increases in value or you pay down your mortgage, it’s important to keep an eye on how much you owe on your home compared to what it is worth. Once your owe eighty percent or less of your homes value, you need to contact your mortgage company about having the PMI coverage removed from your payment. This could save you a significant amount every month. The bank will require an appraisal and the process may take a month or so, but it’s well worth it.
In the past PMI seemed to be available to Read the rest of this entry »
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Scotty’s House: On It’s Way To A New Home
June 20th, 2008 Categories: Community Events, Kids, Family & Personal Stuff
Hopefully, you’ll never need the wonderful and caring services Scotty’s House of Bryan/College Station provides. However, for those that do, it’s truly a miracle in of itself. Scotty’s house is a non-profit organization that provides services to abused children and their families in a healthy environment that promotes healing in order to lay the foundation for a healthy future. They work with law enforcement and state agencies to evaluate, help, and rehabilitate abused children and their non-offending family members. They make sure they get the help they need to move on with their life at a time when they need it most.For years they have operated out of a small frame house on a tree lined street. However, soon they will start construction on their much larger and more modern facility so they can expand their services to more children in an even more comfortable and loving facility. This multi-million dollar facility is still in need of funds to pay for this construction, but it’s over halfway there and getting closer all the time!If you would like to help Scotty’s house by volunteering, donating to their building fund, or donating to their general fund, please CLICK HERE or go to www.ScottysHouse.org.
Luxury living is more than our surroundings, it’s the tingle we feel each time we do good for someone else.
For more information on living the Luxury Lifestyle, please feel free to email me @ rclaylee@yahoo.com
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Lick Creek Park, A Rural Escape for College Station
June 19th, 2008 Categories: Buying Real Estate, Community Events, Kids, Family & Personal Stuff, Pebble Creek, Restaurants & Fun
Did you know that the City of College Station owns a single park that is 515 acres? It does, and it’s called Lick Creek Park. It’s open to the public year round and is located off of Rock Prairie Road in South College Station. If you haven’t been there yet, you are missing out on one of the coolest and FREE things to do in Bryan/College Station. Now one of the most well known park’s in the country is Central Park in New York City that has 843 acres. At 515 acres, Lick Creek isn’t that far off in comparison!
There are equestrian, bike, and pedestrian trails that run for man miles throughout the heavily wooded park. It’s comprised of some swampland which makes the terrain very interesting and a lot of fun for exploring. A lot of people take their dogs with them and go for a long walk to just enjoy nature. Some people venture off the trails and make a true hike through the unexplored wilderness! The coolest thing is when you come up on someone riding a horse! You have to have a permit to ride your horse there, and I think they even have stables available for boarding. It’s a great place to go to just get away from everything without having to drive too far. With all the trees, it’s not as hot as being in the open sun which makes it a great place to go in the summer.
Don’t waste another Saturday playing in the backyard, head over to Lick Creek Park. To get there, take Highway 6 South and exit Hwy 40/William D. Fitch Parkway. Go East on William D. Fitch Parkway past Pebble Creek to Rock Prairie Road. Turn right on Rock Prairie Road and go about a mile. You will come to the Equestrian Center first, but go a little bit further and you’ll be to the public entrance of the Park! For more information on Lick Creek Park, CLICK HERE.
For more information on Luxury Living in Bryan/College Station, feel free to email me anytime @ rclaylee@yahoo.com
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A Cowboy Wedding
June 18th, 2008 Categories: Community Events
So, I have an older brother. I love him very much, but we honestly are nothing alike! He recently got married and below is a link to another blog post from the photographer from the wedding. It’s not like any other wedding you’ve been to, but I thought most might enjoy. These boots were custom made for my sister in law! What’s the strangest wedding you’ve been to?
Hope you enjoy the pictures!
Clay Lee, Broker/REALTOR, Selling the Luxury Lifestyle in College Station, TX
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Thinking of Buying or Building? Make a Book First
June 18th, 2008 Categories: Buying Real Estate, Home Improvement & Design, Market Trends
How many times have you looked through a magazine and spotted something you would love to have in your next home? Have you ever driven by a house and taken a picture of the outside because it was exactly what you wanted? We have all done it, but how many times do we actually rip those articles out and organize them in one place?
A house book is one of the best ideas I’ve ever used to help clients decide what they really wanted in a house. If you are thinking of buying or building, how do you plan on telling your REALTOR, architect, builder, or interior designer what you want? Pictures are worth a thousand words, and having those ideas in one place makes it a snap.
To get started, you will need a large 3 ring binder, several tabbed dividers, some blank plain paper, a 3 ring hole punch, a glue stick, and some clear sleeves that fit in a binder. Label the dividers with different headings like floor-plan, kitchen, exterior, pool, master bath, home theater, audio-video, and others that suit your taste, you can always add more tabs. However, the tabs just help keep it separated. You don’t have to have them Read the rest of this entry »
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How Many Acres Makes a Ranch? Online Poll
June 17th, 2008 Categories: The Realtor's Life
Have you ever been to a ranch? Are you sure it was a ranch? Across the country, people call different sized parcels of land ranches. Dictionary.com says that a ranch is a place where livestock or crops are raised. If that is the case, a lot of people are using the wrong term when describing their land.
In Southern California where land is scare, people call parcels over 20 acres a ranch! In most of the populated parts of Texas, people usually …
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