Life...Fun and Kentucky Real Estate

I worked on a movie set once in Memphis (The People vs. Larry Flynt) and I remember that the chow wagon did not serve turkey. Why??? They didn't want everyone falling asleep after lunch.

It has that magic chemical that makes you sleepy. I always wondered why everyone fell asleep in the couch or lazy-boy after the Thanksgiving feast!  Wow...how funny is that? 

Lets see how much you really know about turkeys and Thanksgiving. Take my test and post back your score. I thought I knew a lot about turkeys and I scored 10. Actually, I like being a 10!

Here in the south the big thing is deep fried turkeys. Crispy on the outside and juicy meat inside. Seriously they are pretty yummy and it's quite a cooking feat to perform! Learn how to deep fry your bird and amaze all your relatives this year! They will be talking about it for years and you will become a legend!

This year I have been invited over to my brother's house for Thanksgiving. I'm sure it will be  a traditional type of meal. Baking a turkey is really what most people do. Most always it turns out great...but every now and then disaster strikes!

Remember A Christmas Storywhere the dogs get in the back door and eat the turkey off the table? Then the family went to the Chinese restaurant to eat. The waiters try to cheer them up and sing (Faa-Raa-Raa-Raa)! Funny stuff! I love that movie! Seriously, I love some sort of drama during dinner to lighten the somber mood.

Here's something really funny to do to shock relatives. How about baking a pregnant turkey? This is hysterical to pull off on your family. If I was in charge this year, you can bet I would attempt doing this! It would surely go down as something of legend when they talk about me later in the nursing home. "Hey, do you remember when old Aunt Lizette actually baked a pregnant turkey and little Suzy passed out cold in the floor?" Yeah....you need to be remembered fondly when you get old.

Well....all this chatter about turkeys is making me hungry. Coffee only goes so far in the morning. So when I get back in here with my turkey sandwich, entertain me with your wildest Thanksgiving Story. Come on...I know you have one!

HAPPY TURKEY EVERYONE!!!! 

Another Day in Kentucky! Look wahat I get to see while I work... 

Not long after I enjoyed my morning coffee, I loaded up Old Bessie with signs for my new listing. Brrrr....why is it suddenly so cold outside? It feels like a winter day. 

I searched in my closet for a much warmer coat. On second thought better grab one with a hood. A pair of work boots might be good to have on hand too.

The frame for my sign had been freshly coated with a dusting of white paint a few hours before as I stood in the morning frost. Now it too got packed in the trunk for an  upcoming deposit in some rich Kentucky loam.

Last check to see I had everything I would need to take care of my new seller's vacant house. Extra keys...yes I had 2 more cut yesterday when I had a moment to stop in the hardware store. Supra lock for the door, charged key to open it, copies of the listing to leave for the seller in a kitchen drawer...I think I'm ready to roll!

I point Old Bessie toward Berea and off we go. As I head down the road I can't help but think how gorgeous all the trees along the road are. Eye candy is EVERYWHERE! So....I stopped right in the road and took this picture right through my front windshield cause I don't want to forget this moment. November 15, 2007. Another day and all the wind might carry these leaves away and all I will have is just this memory. Now, you get to see it too.

By the time I get to the house the wind is really whipping me around and I am so glad I brought that heavier coat.I pulled up the FSBO signs and found a great spot for my sign. Put my lock on the front door and tested it, adjusted the thermostat. opened cabinets under the sink in case it gets too cold, noted that the smoke alarms were chirping, then went out back to tidy up the pool area and stashed unneeded items in the storage shed.

Whew....so glad that's completed! Would you believe that by the time I got home some fellow called me about the house? He had driven by my sign.  Hmmm..maybe I should have buried St. Joseph while there.  You never know what might help!

Lizette Fitzpatrick - Baby Boomer Real Estate Relocation Specialist with Prudential Don Foster in Richmond, Kentucky.

Rated number #1 featured Kentucky Realtor on Activerain.com and Localism.com. Publisher/Author for the only Central Kentucky email newsletter on local real estate listings and sold properties, Kentucky relocation, local events, homeowner information and fun! For more information on Lizette, Kentucky Horse Farms, Prudential Don Foster, Madison County, Fayette County, Richmond or Lexington, Kentucky click on Lizette.us.

See for yourself what Lizette's extraordinary clients have to say about their Kentucky real estate experience.

 I have to say that I work with some of the greatest clients in the world!!

They make my job fun each day. Most always we become best friends along the journey. We all have heard so many stories in the media about people losing their homes, foreclosures, slow markets, blah, blah, blah. Well...here's a testimonial that people can still buy houses right now without any problems.

Our market is open for business in Central Kentucky! Here's a home buying experience written By Rose Zukley.

Our First House

Our search for our first house actually started out with spiders.  To understand why this is important dear reader, you must know that I abhor spiders.  Outside, we have a truce... inside, I declare war. 

Now, Daniel and I were living in a very cozy one bedroom apartment in Lexington.  We had just gotten married about six weeks earlier. I was settling into Kentucky having just moved from North Carolina and was just about to start really job hunting.

I moved some furniture around to make the room flow a bit better, and sat down to start searching.  There was a spider on the couch!  Over the next few days, I killed FIVE spiders.  The war was on!  While I was winning the battles, the spiders just kept appearing.

In my mind, they were infiltrating behind enemy lines and deserved much more than the quick killing blows I was delivering. Finally on Thursday evening after Daniel had commuted home from Richmond, I had had enough. 

 We started chatting about houses, as we had been casually looking on-line.  We came up with a list of absolutely necessary, would be nice and No Way items. Being first time home buyers, we tried to keep the first and last lists short: Absolutely Necessary items were character (mine) and a working kitchen (Daniel's), and the No Way items included anything that was not livable. The Would Be Nice items ranged from little to big things: hard wood floors, gas heat, gas stove, two car garage, medium yard, two stories, etc..

We then left a voice mail for Lizette at about 8 pm introducing ourselves. We had met Lizette the winter before at a Christmas Party.  She was a friend of a co-worker of Daniel's.  Since about June, Daniel had been sending me her weekly e-mail newsletters. I felt like I had gotten to know her through these e-mails. 

While we waited for Lizette's call back, we went on-line to our bank and received pre-certification for our mortgage.  This means that we pretty much had applied for the loan and were approved.  We now just needed to find a house.

Lizette called back and we chatted for awhile.  We decided to meet the following Tuesday, to look at two possibilities in Richmond.  While they were not right, they were a good place to start.  On Thursday, Lizette and I went to look at a few more houses while Daniel was at work.  And we found it!  It was so cute and just right.  The only thing missing was Daniel's two car garage. I called Daniel and the three of us arranged to come back that evening.  He liked the house, but as it was older there were a few quirks with the house.  Lizette suggested a circular drive in front of the house.  While the cars would still be outside, they would be off the street.  The idea appealed to Daniel.

Lizette and I arranged to meet up at the start of the next week.  She was going out of town and it would give Daniel and me an opportunity to talk things over.  We did a bit of comparing and Daniel really warmed up to the house (it moved to the top of his list).  So on Sunday, we called Lizette and told her we wanted to make an offer.   On Monday we met at Lizette's office.  She walked us through each step of the process. We then crossed our fingers and waited (please excuse me while I step away for a moment as my cat is trying to help me type).  

The offer was accepted! 

The next month passed pretty much in a blur for Daniel and me: calls to the bank, getting home owners insurance, house and termite inspections, a final walk-through, packing and scheduling movers.  Through it all, there was Lizette.  She stayed in touch with the seller, coordinated the inspections, monitored the completion of the repair list, provided us a list of contacts and ensured the closing went smoothly. 

And the next thing we knew, we were closing on the house.  The smooth, painless process would not have been possible without Lizette. She made our first time purchasing a house, easy. While we hope to stay here for a while, there is no doubt in our mind that when it comes time to sell our house, we will be contacting Lizette.  She easily stayed on top of the whole process while also ensuring all of the details were completed. 

While the war against spiders is still on-going (they currently have the basement), I have won in the living space.  While I am sure the war will continue, in the mean time, several things have happened: we bought our first house (and LOVE it) and I made my first friend in Kentucky.

Rose & Daniel Zukley

Richmond,KY

Lizette Fitzpatrick - Baby Boomer Real Estate Relocation Specialist with Prudential Don Foster in Richmond, Kentucky.

Rated number #1 featured Kentucky Realtor on Activerain.com and Localism.com. Publisher/Author for the only Central Kentucky email newsletter on local real estate listings and sold properties, Kentucky relocation, local events, homeowner information and fun! For more information on Lizette, Kentucky Horse Farms, Prudential Don Foster, Madison County, Fayette County, Richmond or Lexington, Kentucky click on Lizette.us.

See for yourself what Lizette's extraordinary clients have to say about their Kentucky real estate experience.

  Did

you know that

we have FREE roadside service for KENTUCKY that is  funded by our taxes?

They will change your tire, help with battery or

anything needed for an emergency.

They do not want money at all, not even a tip.

Keep this number handy in your car

and you can phone them 365 days a year,

24 hours a day.

1-877-367-5982

                                                                     Pic is Ralphie from The Christmas Story holding the lugnuts!

Lizette Fitzpatrick - Baby Boomer Real Estate Relocation Specialist with Prudential Don Foster in Richmond, Kentucky.

Rated number #1 featured Kentucky Realtor on Activerain.com and Localism.com. Publisher/Author for the only Central Kentucky email newsletter on local real estate listings and sold properties, Kentucky relocation, local events, homeowner information and fun! For more information on Lizette, Kentucky Horse Farms, Prudential Don Foster, Madison County, Fayette County, Richmond or Lexington, Kentucky click on Lizette.us.

See for yourself what Lizette's extraordinary clients have to say about their Kentucky real estate experience.

 Do you have Real Estate in Central Kentucky that needs be SOLD?

While talking to a potential seller the other day, I had a brainstorm. We are always wondering just what sets us apart from other agents.

What would be a deciding factor that a client might pick one agent from another?

It might not be that I could stick a sign in the front yard, I could have an open house or that I could put a picture in a newspaper or magazine. That's old school marketing. We all can do that.

What sells your property these days is complete Internet presence and social media marketing.

I'm not talking about just the local MLS board.

That's a start, but now I can tell clients that they will be listed on over 30 websites. I add more each day. I spend hours and hours researching how to best sell a property on the Internet and use social media like Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook to market listings. 

Also, I am a member of TWO MLS boards. Twice the coverage.

I use my blog and weekly newsletter to obtain buyers to your listing. The average is over 15,000 views a month on my blog and over 500 views a week on the newsletter. No other brokerage does this locally.

I now tell them"Google My Name"!I know that when they do they will see me on over 12 pages or more. These connections market YOUR listings.

Next, they can Google whatever agent they were thinking about using. Need I say more?

These days it's ALL about the Internet.

Make sure you aren't wasting any time in marketing your Central Kentucky property.

Google for the best broker!!!  

Lizette Fitzpatrick - Principal Broker of Lizette Realty specializing in residential homes and Kentucky horse farms.

Rated number #1 featured Kentucky Real Estate Broker on Activerain.com and Localism.com. Publisher/Author for the only Central Kentucky email newsletter on local real estate listings and sold properties, Kentucky relocation, local events, homeowner information and fun!

For more information on Kentucky Horse Farms, Madison County, Fayette County, Richmond or Lexington, Kentucky click on Lizette.us.

See for yourself what Lizette's extraordinary clients have to say about their Kentucky real estate experience.

People that know me know that I love my real estate career.

I often think that the best part of my job is that I meet people that I become friends with for life! I recently had a referral that everything went absolutely perfect. A first-time home buyer. I love it when my team of professionals (Lender, home inspectors, title attorney, appraiser, underwriters,etc.) get everything right and a successful closing happens exactly as it is supposed to.

My goal with every client is to troubleshoot potential obstacles and refer the best professionals to get the job done correctly. I don't refer to just friends because they are friends...I refer to top-notch professionals that have become friends with because they are the best of the best at what they do. If they don't perform to my standards I find someone who does.  The story below is from a referred client from another satisfied client.

Here is first time home-buyer Rob's story:

 Buying a new home can be quite a difficult task; at least, that's what I've always been told. My first trip to Richmond, KY was for a job interview that went great in more ways than I realized at the time. Not only did I get offered the job, but handed to me from a future co-worker was business card for a Lizette Fitzpatrick, "Prudential Don Foster Realtor." Included in that exchange was a word of advice, "...if you're thinking about buying a home, go with Lizette."

Well, I was thinking about buying a home & just wasn't sure where to start as it was something I never experienced before. Upon returning to St. Louis, MO, my point of origin, I knew I had some thinking to do. Well, it didn't take long to make a decision; after all, with 3 cats, 2 dogs, & a bird, renting anywhere seemed a bit ridiculous; the apartment manager in St. Louis thought I only had 1 dog! Oops! Also, I came to the decision that why should I pay for something that isn't mine?

So, I took out Lizette's business card from my wallet and gave her a call. Lizette was informative, very friendly, & being that this is my first ever home buying experience, gave me much needed advice to get me going in the right direction. From St. Louis, I was able to start looking at homes in the Richmond / Lexington area, as I was now being included in Lizette's great weekly newsletters, via e-mail. In the newsletters contained links to view homes with pictures, prices, footage, age of the home, etc. Basically, everything you would want to know about a house before even stepping a foot inside one.

So, from St. Louis, I sent Lizette an e-mail with some of my favorite homes picked out from the weekly newsletter for us to look at upon my arrival to Richmond. When I arrived to Richmond, I met with Lizette; she took me around Richmond to see the homes I picked out & a few more that she had picked out as well. Well, wouldn't you know it; the house I really wanted to get wasn't even one that I had picked out! Lizette showed me a beautiful ranch style, 3 bedrooms, 2 bath home right in the heart of downtown Richmond.

I really couldn't let this one go buy (no pun intended), so I made an offer that very day. The seller agreed to my offer, & the rest is history; I am now the proud owner of a home! Lizette was there every step of the way for me & the whole Prudential Don Fosters' team couldn't have been any nicer.

I know I got really spoiled being that this is my first home buying experience; I'm not sure if I'll ever get it this good again. Lizette Fitzpatrick is a dedicated, professional & friendly person who also happens to be a Realtor!

Rob & Lindsey

Lizette Fitzpatrick - Broker of Lizette Realty in Richmond, Kentucky.

Rated number #1 featured Kentucky Realtor on Activerain.com and Localism.com. Publisher/Author for the only Central Kentucky email newsletter on local real estate listings and sold properties, Kentucky relocation, local events, homeowner information and fun! For more information on Lizette, Kentucky Horse Farms, Prudential Don Foster, Madison County, Fayette County, Richmond or Lexington, Kentucky click on Lizette.us.

See for yourself what Lizette's extraordinary clients have to say about their Kentucky real estate experience. 

$274,000

Mini-farm w/ 8.077 acres

VIRTUAL TOUR

Zoned for Industry

Farmhouse, 4 stall barn, storage shed, fenced pasture, 4 bedrooms, 2 updated baths, upstairs has separate living quarters w/kitchen, heat pump, wood boiler, water distiller, 400 amp svc, barn on separate meter, road to be widened. It is presently a farm but zoned industry.

Less than 1/2 mile to new Berea Bypass.

Lizette Fitzpatrick - Baby Boomer Real Estate Relocation Specialist with Prudential Don Foster in Richmond, Kentucky.

Rated number #1 featured Kentucky Realtor on Activerain.com and Localism.com. Publisher/Author for the only Central Kentucky email newsletter on local real estate listings and sold properties, Kentucky relocation, local events, homeowner information and fun! For more information on Lizette, Kentucky Horse Farms, Prudential Don Foster, Madison County, Fayette County, Richmond or Lexington, Kentucky click on Lizette.us.

See for yourself what Lizette's extraordinary clients have to say about their Kentucky real estate experience.