Great posts from Vicki my kick ass coach

How Thoughts Become Things – Infographic

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How To Make A Big Transition Without Losing Your Marbles

by Vicki Garcia on August 16, 2012

Notice, I didn’t write, “loosing” your marbles. Anyway, that is a topic for an entirely different blog post that will probably be titled, How To Look Like An Idiot.

Back to the post at hand. I can pretty much call myself an expert on making big transitions. I have a few under my belt. The latest of which, almost made me lose my mind. Almost. I did not lose my mind because I use my coaching techniques on myself. This is what I ultimately want for each of my private coaching clients. Learn the tools and use them!

My family and I just made the move from San Jose, California (large city) to Bothell, Washington (country). It happened very quickly due to my husband taking a new job. We didn’t have time to think. We just had to make it happen fast.

I’ll spare you the details but in a word it was CRAZY!

We are now happily somewhat settled in our temporary housing (yes, round two of the transition is still to come) and I am able to reflect on how things went. I certainly had my moments of crazy that I’m not proud of. Like the day of our first open house when our fabulous realtor very nicely asked me to remove the coffee maker from the kitchen counter for staging purposes. Let’s just say I lost my mind for a moment and got pretty cranky over it. Sorry, Leslie!

Looking back, I came up with some guidelines for making a big transition without losing your shit over a coffee pot. In no particular order:

1. Give yourself a freaking break! Transitions are typically stressful. Don’t make it more stressful by beating yourself up over not being perfect. Cut yourself some slack.
2. Smile
3. Apologize when you screw up. If you, too, have a “coffee pot” moment, just apologize for your behavior and move on. Or write a blog post about it. :0
4. Breathe
5. Keep things in perspective. Look at the big picture and don’t get caught up in the details. There will be time for details later.
6. Stop worrying. Nothing is ever made better by worrying. Do what you CAN do and move on. Don’t obsess over every little thing (see #5).
7. Remember that things ALWAYS work out. This will too. It may not look exactly the way your perfectionist self would like it to, but it WILL work out.
8. Smile
9. Stay healthy. Eat good food, get some exercise, drink wine. Well, I don’t know if the drinking wine is really healthy or not but it certainly helped me.
10. Breathe
11. Laugh with friends. No matter what is going on, you always have laughter. My friends who made me laugh saved my butt. You know who you are and I love you for it.
12. Take time for you. In the middle of a big transition it can be crazy busy. Find a few moments every day to sit quietly with yourself.
13. Think good thoughts. Do not indulge in negative thinking. I know, it’s not easy. I did plenty of it. When you find you’re thinking doom and gloom, give yourself an attitude adjustment and choose to think something good. It works wonders, I swear!
14. Smile
15. Breathe
16. Bonus – celebrate when it’s over!

These are the tools I used to get me through my big move. My transition isn’t over yet. It’s really just started. I’ll be using these tools and many others over the coming weeks and months. Mostly the one about drinking wine but the others are good too.

Need help with a transition? I’m your gal. Give me a call and set up a Bitchin Transition Session. We’ll chat and see if I can help you. You’ll decide if I’m a coach you can work with. We’ll kick some ass together. This first time, 45 minute session will cost you $25 and it could be the best $25 you’ve ever spent. Vicki@mykickasscoach or 408-799-9025

Two from Daniel Pink

Friday on Office Hours: Why do some kids succeed and others fail?

That’s the question at the center of a fascinating new book by New York Times Magazine and This American Life contributor Paul Tough. It’s called How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character (Buy it at Amazon, BN.com, or IndieBound). And Tough will be talking about it, and taking your questions, on the Friday edition of Office Hours, our monthly radio-ish program that we call “Car Talk . . . for the human engine.”
The book takes on what Tough calls the “cognitive hypothesis,” the idea that success hinges on mental processing speed and traditional brainpower. Instead, citing lots of interesting research, Tough shows that “non-cognitive skills” – perseverance, optimism, self-control, and so on – are actually what matter most.
To listen to an interview with Tough – and to ask him any question at all about kids, education, or your own career – tune in this Friday September 14 at 1pm, EDT.
Just dial (703) 344-2171 x203373 at the appointed hour to listen live and participate in a lively back-to-school conversation about preparing our kids and ourselves for the future.
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September 10th, 2012

Obama and Romney in a word

In a survey last week, the Pew Research Center asked a question whose form I’ve come to find interesting and useful: “What one word best describes Barack Obama/Mitt Romney/Joe Biden/Paul Ryan?” (As it happens, in my upcoming book, I use this type of question to show what people really think of sales.)
The answers to these questions are revealing in a way that other types of polling often are not. For instance, a quick look at the responses for Obama (below) and Romney (below that) reveals the amount of vitriol coursing through the election of 2012. ”Socialist,” “loser,” and “sh**” for the incumbent; “liar,” “jerk,” and “crook” for the challenger. And the responses for Biden and Ryan show that the former has an image problem and the latter, at least in my opinion, has gotten an easy ride so far in the campaign.

Prediction: The one-word method will become more prevalent, especially as data meisters collect truckloads of linguistic information from social networks.

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I would lock if I were you

Now is the time to lock in a rate

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the U.S.-owned mortgage finance companies will raise the fees they charge lenders to guarantee loans (“g-fees”), the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) said in a statement.
This guarantee-fee increase will take effect between November 1 and December 1 depending on the investor. Most mortgage bankers expect to see this increase passed along to borrowers in the form of higher interest rates offered by investors.
The good news is that it shouldn’t stall mortgage lending, as many lenders have been anticipating this since FHFA were seized by regulators in 2008.
Per BusinessWeek’s article recently, David Stevens, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association, stated that the lack of private capital in the housing market isn’t driven only by competition from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but also by uncertainty about prices and other concerns.
Bloomberg’s article on the subject states that FHFA Acting Director Edward J. DeMarco sought the fee increase to boost fiscal stability at the government-sponsored enterprises and shrink their footprint in the mortgage market, where they own or guarantee about 60 percent of U.S. home loans. Additionally, the last g-fee increase took effect in April after Congress boosted them to fund a payroll tax cut. The net result was a slight increase in interest rates.
So the reality is that it will have some impact on pricing, so now would be the time to contact your mortgage consultant to look into whether refinancing or buying now is the right move for your current fianancial situation and goals

Fed moves on rates smooth as silk

Fed pulls trigger to buy mortgages in effort to lower rates

Yahoo! Finance has posted this article from CNBC analyzing the breaking announcement that the Federal Reserve will buy $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities per month in an attempt to push down the interest rates that the banks use to sell their loans through the government-controlled Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae securitization programs.
Per the Wall Street Journal, some 90% of the U.S. home loans are affected by these government-controlled programs.
CNBC has the Federal Reserve Statement here.

What is going on this week?

This Week’s Market Commentary

 

This week brings us the release of only three monthly economic reports that have the potential to influence mortgage rates. None of them are considered to be highly important, so look for the stock markets to be in the forefront of bond trading a good part of the week. I would not be surprised to see stocks pull back from current levels in the near future, probably leading to funds shifting back into bonds as a result. If that is the case and it happens this week, we should see mortgage rates move a little lower on the week despite the lack of any key economic releases.
There is nothing of concern scheduled for release Monday, so look for the stock markets to be the biggest influence on bond trading and mortgage rates. If the stock markets extend last week’s gains, we may see pressure in the bond market and small upward changes to mortgage pricing tomorrow. However, if the week starts off with a weak opening in stocks, bonds and mortgage borrowers should benefit.
August’s Housing Starts will kick-off the week’s data early Wednesday morning. This report will probably not have much of an impact on the bond market or mortgage rates. It gives us a measurement of housing sector strength and mortgage credit demand by tracking construction starts of new homes, but is usually considered to be of low importance to the financial and mortgage markets. It is expected to show an increase in new home starts between July and August. I believe we need to see a significant surprise in this data for it to have a noticeable impact on Wednesday’s mortgage rates.
Wednesday morning also brings us the release of August’s Existing Home Sales report at 10:00 AM ET. The National Association of Realtors posts this data, giving us an indication of housing sector strength by tracking home resales. It is expected to show a small increase from July’s sales, however, this data probably will be neutral towards mortgage pricing unless its results vary greatly from forecasts.
The Conference Board will post its Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) for August late Thursday morning. The LEI index attempts to measure economic activity over the next three to six months. It is expected to show no change from July’s reading, meaning that it is predicting no growth in economic activity over the next several months. An unexpected increase would be considered negative news for bonds and could lead to a minor increase in mortgage rates Thursday.
Overall, there really isn’t a specific report or particular day that stands out as the most important of the week. I don’t believe any of this week’s economic data has the potential to move the markets or mortgage rates heavily. There are many individual speaking engagements by different Fed members, which can cause some fluctuations in the markets if anything unexpected is said. With those and the potential for sizable moves in stocks, we still may see some changes in rates several days this week.

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sellers market??

Sellers are getting a few breaks

 

Sellers are getting a few breaks

If you’re looking at selling your home, you’re in luck. Right now, more people are looking to buy homes then sell them for the seventh straight month, per the Wall Street Journal. Average days on the market have gone from 96 days one year ago to 69 days in July, 2012.
Housing prices are rising due to the limited supply, and interest rates are staying low.
From the WSJ:

With buyers acting more quickly, sellers have been able to boost their listing prices. Asking prices were up by 2.3% in August compared with the same month last year, according to real-estate website Trulia. It was the seventh straight month in which sellers hiked their asking prices, and 68 out of the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas reported asking price increases.
With housing demand recovering and home construction lagging, buyers are getting impatient for fear that they have missed the bottom of the housing market, said Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist. However, sellers may be still holding off putting their homes up for sale in hopes that they can get a better price in the future as the housing market gradually climbs back.

While some homeowners are struggling, Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the National Association of REALTORS®, has stated that “Homes that are correctly priced tend to sell quickly, while those that aren’t often languish on the market.”
So to get the best price, remember four important things:
1. Find a REALTOR® with the experience in your neighborhood, and the drive to advertise, negotiate, and be your advocate for all facets of the sale.
2. Price your property competitively. Your real estate agent can make a competitive market analysis (CMA), considering prices and features of recently sold homes in your area. He or she will help you zero in on the best asking price.
3. As the seller, you need to do your part by presenting a home that is attractive, clean and uncluttered. Make any necessary repairs so the home is in “move-in” condition.
4. Consider your home’s curb appeal. Cut the grass, place pots of flowers by the door and make sure the windows shine.
And when you receive multiple bids, work with your REALTOR® to find the best all-around offer.

when you replace a roof- decisions need to be made

Decisions When Replacing a Roof

 

The National Roofing Contractors Association says if you’ve already fixed a few leaks and replaced missing shingles in recent years, it’s probably time to put on a new roof. If the shingles are bare, curling, cracking or mossy, start now.
Get estimates, check references
Since you’ll be spending $5,000 to $10,000 or more, be sure to hire the right person or company. Get three estimates and check references.
Have the roofer agree to remove only as much roofing at one time as he can replace during that day.
What about tear-off?
If you already have two or three layers of old roofing, building codes require you to strip them off, adding $1,000 or more to the job. If a single layer has been on the roof for many years, it can be worth what it costs to remove it so the roofer can repair decking and worn flashing.
A rubber membrane called ice and water shield can be installed to prevent leaks when gutters freeze up.
Rent a dumpster
Unless you want the labor and expense of covering the entire area around your home with tarps and plywood, you’ll need a roll-off dumpster. As a rule of thumb, 8-10 squares of shingles weigh about 1 ton. Shingles from a single residential roof will fit in a 10 cubic yard roll-off dumpster.
As the roofer tears off shingles, the old decking and nails, they all go to a dumpster beside the house.
Selecting shingles
You’ll pay more for 50-year shingles than for 25-year, but they last longer. Architectural shingles cost a little more, but they add beauty to any building, say advisors at Money magazine.