Leslie's Blog

I have been interested in saving for college since my children were about 12 years old.  At that time, I started buying savings bonds.  I was glad I did.  Now, I am putting money away in a 529 Plan for my grandson (he just turned one).

I was looking at finance under Yahoo.com and found an article "What Are the Advantages Of a 529 College Savings Plan?"   They have a very good College Savings Calculator for the 529 plan.  You can insert numbers in the boxes to see what the impact would be for saving different amounts of money over various lengths of time. 

I really like these things.  You can also find this type of calculator on different websites that show how you are doing towards saving for retirement.

I realize that buying a rental property is also a great way to save for college but most folks cannot afford to do so.

Please visit my site for information and support.  Seattle, Bellevue, Wallingford and Redmond, Washington Real Estate Property Listings 

I was checking out CNNMoney.com and came upon their article “Latest home prices, 149 markets tracked for the fourth quarter of 2006.”  The article was quoting statistics from the NAR (National Associations of Realtors) and said "As part of its quarterly survey, the National Association of Realtors reported a 2.7 percent decline in prices in the fourth quarter compared to the fourth quarter of a year earlier. That's the biggest year-over-year drop on record."

Here in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue market for the one year period the prices have come up 11.3%.  Homes are taking longer to sell here but, as I have been telling my clients, prices are still going up.

Please visit my site for information and support.  Seattle, Bellevue, Wallingford and Redmond, Washington Real Estate Property Listings 

Good Morning All,

My son-in-law (John) posted photos like these on the baby blog he has set up for my grandson.  This is in the home mom and I just traded with them so that they would have more room and be in the school district they wanted.  It is a great craftsman home in the Wallingford area of Seattle (it is almost 100 years old).  My mom and dad were the second owners.

I told John that those fish eye photos are a pet peeve of mine when I see them on the MLS.  I feel that they distort the rooms so badly and that they do more harm than good to help sell a home.  When I am looking at listings and I see these kinds of pictures I feel like just passing on the home.

Luckily, John only rented this lens.  What do you think?

Please visit my site for information and support.  Seattle, Bellevue, Wallingford and Redmond, Washington Real Estate Property Listings 

If my  home buying clients have children, I usually hear from them that "a good school is the most important factor in deciding where to buy a home."  One of the reasons my mother and I traded homes with my daughter, son-in-law and grandson was so that my grandson would be able to attend the John Stanford International School.  This is a wonderful school and teachers are clamoring to teach there.   It is a dual-language immersion school.  It averages 19 students per classroom teacher and is very diverse.

This following are some things I found on their website:

John Stanford International School is an award-winning Seattle public elementary school (K-5) in the Wallingford neighborhood. We are the only Seattle public school to offer a dual-language immersion program to all students. We offer:

• Spanish, since the 2000-2001 school year. The first Spanish immersion class entered the JSIS program as first graders and graduated in 2005.
• Japanese, since the 2001-2002 school year. The first Japanese immersion class will graduate in 2007.
• Why Spanish and Japanese? These languages were chosen based on a survey of 5,000 parents and 1,200 business leaders.
• We're located just west of the University of Washington in the newly renovated Latona School building, featuring modern classrooms, high-speed Internet connections, a library with books in many languages and interior design elements reflecting a world culture.
• We are also one of the district's Bilingual Orientation Centers (BOC), serving English Language Learners (ELL) students who are new to the United States.

	There's a new issue of Our World just out. If you missed the hard copy you can get the entire issue online here. Highlights include: Student Intervention Team: What Is It?; Building and operations levys; Pacifica Children's Chorus
	<!-- <td valign="top"><img src="images/mlk_small1.jpg" alt="" width="80" height="66" border="0"> </td> --> Principal Karen Kodama will be leaving John Stanford International at the end of this school year. She will be helping to create more international schools for the Seattle School district. Therefore we are searching for a new principal. If you are interested in applying, please go to the district website jobline. Please also let us know so we can send you specific information about this position. The contact person at JSIS is Chris Nielsen: 252-6080 or cnielsen@seattleschools.org Principal Candidate Info Principal Characteristics

If you are interested in a great school in the Seattle area, I suggest you think about Wallingford and the John Stanford International School. 

Please visit my site for information and support.  Seattle, Bellevue, Wallingford and Redmond, Washington Real Estate Property Listings

I have always had to check my junk mailbox because sometimes mail from clients would end up there that I wanted to receive.  These days, it is so hard to know what to open.  With emails coming from Postmaster, MAILER-DAEMON, Delivery Subsystem and System Administrator one would think these are legitimate.

I also get Automatic Reply and Auto of Office Reply that I feel I should open to see who I had sent it to.  Lately, it will be a reply to some bogus name in front of my own website address.

These emails are not just going to my junk mail box; some are not getting filtered at all.

I am probably getting 50 - 60 emails a day of this kind.  What do you suggest?

Please visit my site for information and support.  Seattle, Bellevue, Wallingford and Redmond, Washington Real Estate Property Listings 

I am putting out this blog in case you hadn't read my previous blog about my check fraud problem.  I received some very good information that I wanted to pass on.  I had thrown out the question of "what more can I do now that I have closed my bank accounts to avoid any more damage.  I was concerned about maybe someone may have gotten my social security number and I wanted to nip a problem in the bud. 

Danny Smith suggested I enroll in Pre-Paid Legal Services, which is an excellent idea.  I don't know how I had forgotten about them because I have seen two presentations by them and there is a contact I know at the Kent, Washington Chamber of Commerce.  If you don't know about this service, check out the link.  It is very inexpensive, and I was going to enroll before.

Debi Braulik suggested I call the credit bureaus and have them put on a fraud alert.

If you don't know who they are or want information, here you go:

Free Annual Credit Report:

The Federal Trade Commission provides an excellent report on how to obtain your free annual credit report. The report is titled "How to Access to Free Credit Reports."

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/freereports.htm

To order your free annual report - You can now request a free credit file disclosure, commonly called a credit report, once every 12 months from each of the nationwide consumer credit reporting companies: Equifax, TransUnion and Experian.

Please visit my site for information and support.  Seattle, Bellevue, Wallingford and Redmond, Washington Real Estate Property Listings  

I am working with a web designer on a new format for my web page.  I have a question about my logo.  I had it designed by an artist when I just had Manny.  Now, I have Velvet and need to add her to the picture if I am going to continue to use this.  I am wondering if it is too complicated for a logo?

I have had several comments from people saying they liked it but I don't know if enough people like it.  Does it look too much like Christmas (I never thought of that until the designer brought it up).  Does it give a good impression?

The style of the door is sort of "Craftsman" which is big in the Seattle area and that is why that was selected.   I wanted something friendly and non threatening (like me).  What do you think?

Please visit my site for information and support.  Seattle, Bellevue, Wallingford and Redmond, Washington Real Estate Property Listings