Peace of Mind While You're Out.

Seeing as how I am "all about McKinney", I'm going to start doing small features on local businesses. I have this vision of being able to justify eating out so much by starting a "trying to stay Skinny in McKinney" blog that gives restaurant ratings. Lately though, I'm not sure how much of a service I'd be providing since we all pretty well know a Big Mac is a Big Mac is a Big Mac.

Anyway, the service I'd like to feature today is Rachel's Pet Sitting. It's a bit of a shameless plug since she's my daughter but it's a neat little business. While there are plenty of wonderful veterinarians, kennels and dog day cares here in McKinney they can get expensive when you have two 80 pound labs to board. Even for a couple of nights, I have wound up paying more for the dog's lodging than I do for my own!

The best thing about pet sitting is your pet gets to stay in their own environment. It's definitely cheaper than boarding with prices starting at $8/visit. As a bonus you get somebody looking after your house, picking up the mail/paper and changing around the lights. In most cases, she already knows a neighbor and probably your vet too. Rachel has been taking care of animals for the past couple of years but decided to formalize it into a "real" business when her mom told her she had to get a "real" job or she would lose her cell phone.

Okay, so I'm cheap....and a mean mom!

Selling's "Secret" Formula.

You hear a lot about "location, location, location" when people describe a house. True, location is a pretty important part of the formula but the big picture is still a formula.

Price - The property needs to be priced in accordance with the competitive properties based on current market conditions. I like to ask the seller to take the out of area's buyer perspective and pretend that they are here looking for a house with their home's similar criteria. This pulls up all the similar houses in the area including those outside of their immediate neighborhood. If they have a special feature like a swimming pool, creek lot, media room, etc, we can see how many of the competitive properties have those features. It's important to look at current actives as well as pendings and solds for the past six months. The pendings tell us how about the immediate activity of that product and the solds tell us what "worked".

Location - This element has several layers to consider. The outer layer would be the school district or city. McKinney is a well regarded city with great schools but those two don't always go together. Up the road, the town of Westminster went bankrupt and that could be an expensive thing for people living (and paying taxes) in that area. Wilmer Hutchins, south of Dallas, closed it's schools all together. The second layer would be neighborhood or area of town. Within every city there are sub areas where different demographics naturally accumulate. Stonebridge Ranch on McKinney's west side is a 5000+ master planned community with loads of amenities including the only swimming pool with a beach in North Texas. It's made up of dozens of neighborhoods subdivided by size and price. The third layer would be the lot itself. Creek lots, lake views, green belts, golf course, cul-de-sac and those all so precious "treed" lots are all highly desirable. I've had two couples recently that would literally walked straight through a house to look at the back yard. If the back yard made the cut, then they looked at the house. I call it "sex appeal" because it seems like lots with special characteristics sell for a bit more and a bit more quickly because they create emotion in the prospective buyer. That's a good thing!

Condition - While this does encompass the yard and the outside of the house, it has a lot to do with the inside. I can't decide whether updating or cleanliness is more important. Let's say you have a absolutely spotless $350,000 home with the absolute latest finish out trends as established in 1991. You know, completely white kitchen with laminate countertops, 4" shiny white tile flooring with black grout and white appliances with beige builder grade pile throughout the rest of the house, and don't forget those gold doorknobs and light fixtures. Even in the same house, picture granite counter tops, wood or stone flooring throughout the major living areas, brushed finish lighting, hardware and plumbing fixtures...but the carpet needs cleaning and it shows cluttered. See what I mean? The outside of the property should be in good repair with fresh paint. Drive up appeal depends heavily on the upkeep of the yard and flower beds and that "mandatory" pot of flowers on the porch.

Now that you have the elements of the formula you tweak each element to find the correct formula to get it sold. In our current market:

Good condition + good location = average comparable square foot price.
Poor condition + poor location = below average price.
Great condition + poor location = below average price.
Poor condition + great location = average comparable price.

Would you like a market analysis on your home? Call/email me or you can sign up for Market Snapshot along the right side of this page.

Graduate from A&M and never leave McKinney?

It could happen...McKinney recently beat out Frisco and Allen for the new Collin Higher Education Center to be built in the northeast corner of US 75 and Highway 121. While Collin County Community College District is already a well respected community college where you can get an Associate's Degree or continue your education in a variety of fields, Collin County residents have needed to commute to Dallas, Denton, Sherman or Ft. Worth for their higher education needs. The new concept will allow easy transition from an Associate's Degree to a four year degree. Right now eight universities including Texas A&M, SMU, Baylor, TWU, UNT, Texas Tech, Texas A&M Commerce and UTD are in the running as potential partners. Upon graduation with either a bachelor's or master's degree, the diploma will bear the name of the university partner.

One of the primary benefits to attending a community college is cost. The credit hours are less expensive and there are addition opportunities for scholarships and financial aid. This concept is part of a growing trend nationwide. McKinney is on the leading edge in Texas.

Ground breaking is planned for February with a target start date of spring semester 2010. The campus will also be home to administration departments and possibly a research center. Colleges are shown to be a large contributor to the economic development of their city.

Painting The Town Green.

McKinney is about more than just recycling residential garbage. McKinney is the home to several unique projects with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ as set forth by the U.S. Green Building Council. The rating is the national standard for the design, construction and operation of green buildings.

According to the the USGBC, commercial and residential buildings use a full two thirds of electricity and 40% of all energy used. With 136 million tons of construction and demolition waste annually, these buildings contribute 40% of the green houses gases. Many U.S. cities are joining in to require builders to use more energy efficient practices and materials, especially in Texas.

Wal-Mart chose McKinney to build their only two environmentally sustainable stores. They will be prototypes for future stores nationally. There are some really cool features like used cooking and motor oil for heating fuel, 12'' shorter buildings that reduce the energy usage and "optically efficient" lighting in the main shopping areas. As I read the list of sustainability features they seemed amazingly simple.

The McKinney Green Building has received a lot of press. The 61,000 sqft. blends well into the area made up primarily of residential rooftops. As a tenant here, you have guidelines to encourage sustainability in your office. The large white tanks on either end of the building (the white, vertical tubes in the picture) are holding tanks for rainwater to help maintain the hearty, native landscape. One of the unique features to this building is the raised floors that promote air distribution and improve indoor air quality.

All of the top builders in the area build Energy Star qualified homes. I wasn't surprised to see the H Homes group of Horizon, Highland, Huntington and Sanders on the list as 100% committed to building all of their homes to these standards. I have one client that runs their new 4,300+ square foot Huntington with lower energy bills than their previous 1991 built 3,000 square foot home. Radiant barriers, low-e windows, and air conditioning units with higher SEER ratings, are all amazingly effective at saving the planet and saving you money.

I'm proud of the green initiatives that McKinney is leading with. While it's debatable that the global warming is our imminent doom, reducing waste and increasing efficiency is always a good thing.

To find out more buying an energy efficient home, call/email me.

Did you know about our Farmers Market?

I love fresh produce. While our wonderful United Market Street grocery store has amazing fruits, vegetables and meats, I like to support local farmers and enjoy the farm fresh bounty of the season. Last year McKinney started a farmers market on Saturday mornings between April and October just east of the square. I was driving to downtown Dallas before I read that my favorite grass-feed meat guy, Robert Hutchins of Rehoboth Farms was going to be set up in McKinney too. He's got a place right outside Greenville that is supposed to be heaven on earth. I keep missing the open house he has but am committed to getting there this year. It's best to email him the order ahead of time if you need any quantities or have your mouth set on one of his juicy, flavorful steaks. My personal favorite is his pork chops. I put them in a brine all day and then cooked them on the grill with some dry rib rub...oh my goodness, they were delish!

Robert also brings dairy products from Wagon Creek Creamery in Oklahoma. I originally met Ron (again, family owned and operated farm) at the downtown Dallas Farmers Market. He has butter and cream but this yogurt cheese that is to die for! It's like a combination between cream cheese and sour cream and I've substituted it as both. The original, which is honestly the only one I've had because I love it so much, has a mildly tart flavor like cream cheese. People haven't really discovered it yet so there's usually enough that you don't have to pre-order.

There's a man and his wife that set up with vegetables and they usually look pretty good. This is where our little farmers market gets a bit weak compared to the mammoth Dallas farmers market but with gas at $2.50 per gallon, close is good.

There are a variety of other vendors that sell dried pasta, gourmet dog treats, local honey and jams. They round out the cute market feel in what is usually a vacant lot. Parking is easy and I try to walk and get a cup of coffee or grab breakfast at Spoons.

McKinney is such a dichotomy of old and new. I enjoy being able to drive 15 minutes and walk around an area that has been operating for 150 years.

(I'll try to get a picture this weekend)

No Fat Cats at MISD.

The McKinney ISD school board recently voted to reduce the 2007-08 tax rate of $1.517 per $100 assessed value, down from $1.84 for the 2006-07 school year. The 2005-06, taxes were assessed at a rate of $2 per $100 assessed value. That's our second tax decrease in as many years. Board member Mark Rude said, “Historically, our financial staff has done a good job of keeping us three to five percent below budget. In fact, last year, we generated a surplus for the district”.

While Texas has long been one of the few states with no personal income tax and no corporate income tax, our local tax rates have always felt high. McKinney hovered around $3.00/$100 of assessed value for sometime as did most of the growing suburbs. Frisco and Little Elm with Frisco schools were always the lowest in the area due to the large commercial tax base Frisco has. There's a list of all the rates listed on the Collin County Appraisal District website. The local rate is based on city rate, Collin County Community College District, Collin County, and the school district rate. The maximum school tax rate in Texas is $1.50 which most cities in Collin County spent the last several years maxed out. It appears that McKinney is leading a trend to lower taxes without cranking up the tax base value.

McKinney is Smokin! Well, not for long.

Our City Council recently voted in a ban on cigarette smoking similar to Plano, Allen and Frisco. According to the McKinney Courier-Gazette, "The ordinance prohibits smoking in restaurants, parks, and private clubs, such as country clubs or fraternal clubs. Smoking is allowed in parking lots of parks, public sidewalks, homes that are not used as childcare facilities, tobacco shops, cars, and designated hotel and motel rooms. No more than 10 percent of hotel and motel rooms can be designated smoking rooms. All smoking rooms must be on the same floor, adjacent to the other smoking rooms and must require separate ventilation systems to prevent comingling of air in non-smoking rooms."

The first thing I thought when I read the article was, "Is there any way we can ban smoking inside people's houses?" I'm all for an individual's rights but as a Realtor, a smoked in house has a limited pool of prospective buyers. It is so difficult to get that smoke smell out of everything even when nobody has smoked in there for a while. Carpet can be replaced and walls can be repainted but I swear the sheet rock absorbs a ton of odor. I found a cool website that has some great suggestions on how to get smoke odor out of everything. They have a process for washing the sheet rock!

I've sometimes wondered, with all the niche marketing that's popular today, could a Realtor target market smokers? Could "Camel Puffing Cathy" or "McKinney's Marlboro Man, Mike" make find an audience?