New Orleans Real Estate by Eric

Yesterday the Saints beat the New York Giants in the Big Apple. The Giants did not run one play inside the Saints 50. This is an amazing stat for pro football. After 40 years of lcak luster seasons the Saints are on a roll. The media centers talk about what happened to the Giants. They lost to a better team this week. Hundreds of fans showed up to meet the team on Christmas Eve. Talk about crazy fans. Maybe we could start dreaming?                            

Eric's New Orleans Real Estate

Getting noticed on google is a nice deal. #35 for New Orleans Real Estate is making a nice move. Think I have been blogging since September. Really dont know if it will move any higher or not. My site is on page one in the #3 spot after several years of hard work. Not a lot of folk may get to page 4 but who knows. It is on page one for New Orleans real estate blogs as it should be. While searching I found a lot of other local blogs which I may be able to get noticed a little more. In the near distance future some clients may actually seek out blogs to get a fresh approach to getting information. Just some ideas. How is your real estate blog doing? Lets compare Notes!!!!

                           Wednesday taken at Coliseum Square in the New Orleans Garden District  

A lot of people do live in the New Orleans French Quarter in the present. It was the origional city of New Orleans in the early 1700s as an outpost in the New World as a Spanish and French outpost. Most of the residents live in condos that are of course very old. Parking is hard to find but people enjoy walking and seeing other folks. The French Quarter has it characters all packed into a small space. Many people buy second homes in the area to enjoy or have friends use them. Katrina has made many think about living here,but its been almost 300 years with out a flood. I do not think this area of town has ever flooded even before the Mississippi River Levees were built in the 1920s.

I was trying to cut the photos down, crop them so I could get a feel for the quarter in strips. its an artsy place so why not try some as I did with the partial webpage as featured below. You can take a look at the rest of the page if you would like. New Orleans French Quarter Real Estate . Just wanted to give you some idea of how you can be different. I took many of these photos at sunrise to catch the light at an angel and came back later to get the rest. Always use your own photos as google will store them in their image file and know where they came from. So now you know a little of the French Quarter and some ideas about a neighborhood webpage. I can always go back and add a little text in my own words,much like a blog! The objective is to get people to ask me about French Quarter Condos so you have to show them something they may miss. I will do a separate Bourbon Street page before LSU plays Notre Dame in a couple of weeks as it should be spicy by then.

1. I was born in Pasadena,Ca. Son of a career military family so I got to live a lot of spots when I was growing up like Los Angles, San Francisco, Japan, Iran, South Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, New Mexico, Panama, and Louisiana. Once grown one spot is fine with me. South Louisiana is my home.
2. Can't spell very well so I don't use big words in blogs. So use a lot of photos. Great with numbers. Drew a high number in the 1969 draft and got to stay in college rather than go to Vietnam. Did not like going to class in college so was not a great student.
3. Hobbies include tropical plants, volleyball, tennis, photos, country music, and the stock market. Like to watch college football and college basketball. Went to Alabama and LSU. Was in college with Pistol Pete Maravich and Kenny Stabler. I was better than Kenny in basketball and better than Pistol in football. John Laroquet who played on Night Court went to high school with me.
4. Have 3 grown kids and 3 grandkids. Had a set of twins as sons and have a set twin grandsons which is neat. 
5. Was in supermarket sales for 25 years and traveled from New Orleans to Minneapolis. As far west as Denver and to Virginia. Kind of traveled out. One year I had to fly out of town over 50 times in a year. we worked our tails off in that job. I was too old eventually at 48 and decided to leave the Corp world. Old guys were too hard to work with so the comapny went on a youth kick and let the old timers go. That has helped fuel my success in real estate. What a great chance to start again.  

                                         Taken this morning with grandson Ethan, daughter Lauren and Hibiscus

                                                     Frosty our Favorite Family dog, He gave us 15 great years

                                                                                    Lily in backyard pond

Think back to the things you may have bought from clients who just didnt want to move things to the next house. It may have been an estate sales or the just didnt want to move the item. Some of the things I have bought are neat and some just plain dumb. my wife says not again.

1. 1970s Jube box with about 150 45s records whoic still plays. Have had it for about ten years. My son has it in his game room. He spiffed it up and its in good shape. $350
2. Nice aluminum Conoe for $100 with paddles and equiptment to put it on your truck or car. Used it several times over the 5 years I had it to paddle in the Mississippi River. Just had little place to store it. Sold it to someone else several years later for $100 bucks.
3. Lawn equiptment edger,mower, and blower for $150 . Sold them again for $150 and gave the blower to another client. I was doing them a favor.
4. Washer,Dryer, and Frig for $500 to a client who was moving and had them sold to the buyer. They changed their mind. I bought them. Traded them for a termite treatment on my home. Seemed like everyone was a winner.
5. Estate sales where you can pick up things like hammers, prints, tools, ect for almost nothing. I am a sucker for these things. hammer for a buck, fromed print for $10,ect. I never go looking but come across these when showing homes.

Have you guys ever done these transactions? Think I have been cured for a while,but will bite again soon.

I recently read an article in Forbes that made a lot of sense. If the housing prices out pace peoples income then homes are going to stop selling at a high rate until things become balanced again. Household income has gone up 25% over the past 5-6 yareas but housing prices in many hot markets has gone up over 50%. Some have gone up more than that. Its only natural to stall in these hot markets unless you have a high demand area and the demand is just less. Second homes and speculation also contributed to the numbers that proved to be unstainable. I am not a believer in 100% mortgages but some parts of the country that this was great. There is no equity left for these people. They cannot print money like our federal govt.

I also think the baby boomers getting ready to retire and downsize will also have an effect. Who will be there to but these large homes at high prices?The lifestyles of the young may not match with the sellers. Their incomes may not match the prices. Just food for thought? People act in a herd mentality? 

Real Estate is slower this time of year so it gives me a change to do some new neighborhood pages for my websites and to also begin to blog about them. People all want to know some general ideas about the area and also some specific ones. Here are some tips These are just my ideas! Both Pages are still under construction, you guys may have tips for me. Ormond Estates and St. Rose Subdivisions

1. I use to put price ranges but they soon became outdated, Now I have gone to size and age ranges plus a lot of my own photos
2. Use different photos for your blogs and for your pages. Make sure they are good.
3. Many people will just look at the photos so put some descriptions that are general to homes in the area
4. People want to know about schools,you can have them here or on a town page. Here each school publishes it scores yearly. People want to know these facts.
5. Commute times are important as out of towners have no concept
6. Taxes rates are useful to know, flood zones and insurance issues
7. Maps are useful to give clients where the subdivisions are
8. Link to other useful info on your site if you are blogging about a subdivision
9. The blog should focus on a couple of points where your site can be more comprehensive. You can blog about the same area several times so as to break up the subjects. 
10. Ask cleints you have sold to see if you have left things off, you may even invite their testiments.
11. E-mail your new pages or blogs fwhen completed to your past cleints. Another reason to contact them. 
12. Include some local info about the area that is non real estate but lifestyle related. Parks, shopping, recreations, commute to malls, business parks ect.

Ormond Estates Entrance from River Road and  Mississippi River Levee

When you think about Destrehan Real Estate, you often think of Ormond.  Ormond was the site of the Ormond Plantation on River Road

This is higher ground along the Mississippi River with clay soils and large oak trees

Started a new page for one of my areas today. These were my first and last shots of the Destrehan and St. Rose area. It was getting late in the day and wasnt sure what kind of shots I would get. They came out well and my battery went dead on the Mississippi River shot. Cropping your photos can give you a much better look and focus on the home. Having the light at your back is best for homes. Take the home from different  angles as you will get a different look. Many of the people that look at your site are not that familiar with the area. Throw in a couple of area shots to give them a feel. You will never get all the shots to come out especially those you try to take while driving. Must have been a good omen since the Saints smiled on us tonite. Both of these were with a telephoto lense from a distance before I cropped them. This is where a 8 mega pixel comes in handy.            

Wikipedia is a valuable source of  Information for your City. I am thinks of writting an artice and linking one of my neighborhood pages to it. It takes a little bit of work and study? Has anyone one here written an article?

This is Laura Plantation which is only about 30 minutes from my home. It is a creole sugar plantation on the Mississippi River near Vacherie, La. It is a West Indes desigh suited for the warm tropical climates. Before Louisiana was part of the USA the Mississppi River was lined with these small cities. Plantations were self contained large tracts of land that were businesses run by families. Some odd things you amy not know was that many of these were run by women. The leader of the family would choose the most capable of his heirs to run these large investments. A lot of the times it was the creole woman. The sons would be sent to Europe or New Orleans on extended vacations. Everything was made or grown on the Plantation. 

The owners would have visitors and they would stay for weeks rather than a few days. Slaves provided most of the labor and were highly valued by the Creole families. Most came from Senegal and many still live in the area. It was not an easy life with yellow fever a major killer. The family would head to New Orleans after the Harvest season where they would have a townhome. Being European in nature Opera, Plays, and the Arts were of importance when they visited New Orleans between seasons. I will read the book because it is never what you think and was much different Before English speakers came down. It was a culture of its own. The present owner is a great guide and show it with passion and a great story teller. Louisiana is known for that. Alceee Fortier  who recorded Africain Folk Stories like Braer Rabbit visited here and wrote these stories in French "Compair Lapin" while Joel Chandler Harris wrote these same stories in English at a later date. A little bit of history while doing real estate never hurts.