Moving Day

Coordinating a move can sometimes be complicated, trust us, we've coordinated quite a few over the years. In fact, last night we were wondering just how the White House move in/move out process worked. So today while watching inauguration coverage, we were excited to learn how and when they do this and we quickly grabbed the camera to snap this pic.

The moving trucks quietly and quickly move in after the big procession leaves the White House while the focus is turned elsewhere for the inauguration. Very slick indeed! Too bad Cheney hurt his back while doing some packing yesterday.

Blair House: The President's Guest House

Last night the Obama's spent the night at Blair House, across the street from the White House. It's all part of the tradition, protocol and hospitality associated with the Blair House, which for decades has provided a backdrop for diplomacy and the orderly transfer of power.

Every incoming president since Carter, has stayed at the Blair House before inauguration, but it is also used for visiting dignitaries and was decorated to feel more like a house instead of a hotel.

If you would like to learn more about this beautiful but rarely seen home, then be sure to tune into C-SPAN this Saturday at 7pm.

If It Were For Sale . . .

Today is all about the White House and its incoming new president. Now if it were really for sale, we might write an ad like this:

Reflect Your Success

Don't you deserve a home that mirrors your achievements? This late Georgian style mansion on an estate settling in President's Park combines architecture and craftsmanship in a home that whispers "success". With its many state rooms, this spacious 132 room, 35 bathroom home provides over 55,000 square feet for gracious living. You'll love the tennis court, single lane bowling alley, movie theater, jogging track, swimming pool, and putting green as well as the 18 acre impeccably maintained and highly secured grounds that provide an ambiance of quality living. For a very special few [if it were actually for sale] at $308,058,000*.

Now let's see in order to be able to qualify for the home if it really was for sale, assuming we took out a 30 year mortgage at 6% with a 20% down payment [which would only be a mere $62 million], you would need to:

1. Be elected as the president, of course!
2. Be able to pay $1.48 million a month for the mortgage
3. Be making $53.3 million a year in order to afford the $ 1.48 million a month for the mortgage

Fortunately, it's not really for sale so no one needs to worry about how to pay for it. Now it has always been a rather expensive building, the initial construction cost $232,371.83 [$2.4 million in 2005 dollars] and that was for a much smaller White House than we have today with its added wings and bunkers.

Andrew Jacksons Inauguration via Library of Congress

It is a gorgeous house with a long and interesting history. And just like many old buildings, it is said to have ghosts wandering the halls, the most frequent being Lincoln. Other ghosts who have been seen at the White House include an angry Dolley Madison when First Lady Ellen Louise Wilson wanted to remove the Rose Garden, a boisterous Andrew Jackson laughing loudly in his former bed chambers in the Red Room, a busy Abigail Adams going through the motions of doing laundry and finally, a menacing British soldier trying to set a fire with a blazing torch.

We would love to someday take a tour of White House, but until then, if you need a decorating fix, like Becca, you can view pictures and video tours of different rooms in the White House here, here and here.

*White House estimate courtesy of Zillow.

Interior-Decorator-In-Chief

Continuing along with the Presidential real estate theme, we thought we would introduce you to President Obama's official White House designer, the notable Michael S. Smith.

He has won numerous awards over the years and decorates the homes of the rich and famous both here and abroad, so you know the man has talent if the bigwigs are willing to pay him!

His style is usually characterized as "a delicate blend of European tradition and American modernism." Domino magazine describes it as not one particular style, but a filtering of many old-world influences, like English, French, Dutch, and Mediterranean, filtered through with a California sensibility and a laid-back sense of ease, lightness and comfort and a more glamorous layer of Hollywood polish.

In a Jan. 13 article, the Chicago Sun-Times quoted Michelle Obama as saying, "Laura Bush has been a wonderful steward of The White House and created a beautiful residence for her family."

"I look forward to adding our own touch to the East Wing and creating a living space where our family feels comfortable, happy and settled."

She continues, "Michael shares my vision for creating a family friendly feel to our new home and incorporating some new perspectives from some of America’s greatest artists and designers."

The Chicago Sun Times goes on to quote Smith himself as saying, ""The family’s casual style, their interest in bringing 20th Century American artists to the forefront and utilizing affordable brands and products will serve as our guiding principles as we make the residence feel like their home."

Smith’s hiring by Michelle Obama was certainly celebrated by Domino, which recollected that Smith, in an interview last spring, declared, "I would love to redecorate the White House-I am sick of the paint color!"

With his wish coming true, it will be interesting and fun to see what he comes up with for the White House's newest history making family.

~~~

You can see examples of some of his work here and here.

Presidential Real Estate

With the presidential inauguration less than a week away, we thought it would be fun to throw in some presidential real estate. While just about everybody knows who lives in the White House, we wondered where exactly does the Vice President get to live?

He doesn't get his own wing of the White House and he certainly doesn't have to sleep on the couch either. Vice president elect, Joe Biden will get to live about 2.8 miles from the White House at Number One Observatory Circle on the corner of 34th Street and Massachusetts Avenue in Washington DC located on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory.

Originally built in 1893 for the superintendent of the observatory, it later became the official residence of the Chief of the Naval Observatory in 1928 and because of this it is sometimes still referred to as the "Admiral's House".

In 1974, Congress designated the house as the official temporary residence for vice presidents. Before this, the vice president lived in temporary houses and hotels but the cost of providing security for these private residences had become quite prohibitive.

We think this brick walled Queen Anne Victorian style home is much more fitting for the vice president.

The 9150 square foot, three story home consists of:

• Ground floor -- a reception hall, living room, sitting room, sun porch, dining room and small pantry
  
• Second floor -- two bedrooms, a study, and a den.


• Third floor -- the attic which was originally servants' quarters and storage space.


• Basement -- kitchen, laundry room and other storage rooms

The home has undergone many changes throughout the years. It was originally a terracotta brick colored Victorian with warm putty gray wood trim, window frames and mullions. The wooden porch was painted in a combination of the same putty gray color and white while the shutters were painted a contrasting olive green.

The home in 1895.

Historically when Victorian style architecture began to fall out of fashion, many attempts to update the homes were made by trying to simplify them with white paint both inside and out. Many homes of this period had their beautiful wood millwork painted white to lighten them up. In 1961, the exterior of the house was painted white and remains white to this day while each vice presidential family has put their own stamp on the interior decorations.

Home Sweet (Smelling) Home

Scents have a powerful effect on our psyches. They can transport us back in time or create good memories. They can also have quite the opposite effect by creating negative feelings, which I think we can all agree that we definitely don't want associated with our homes (so be sure to empty the garbages and dump the kitty litter).

This last week while showing houses, a darling seller just happened to be baking bread and gave some to us and to our prospective buyer. It sure was delicious.

Did it sell the house? Well . . . the buyer IS making an offer on it. But I think more because the floorplan and location worked for them not because of the bread.

I don't think scents will necessarily sell your home. But it CAN enhance the experience and help create a nice cozy ambiance that can in turn help create good feelings towards the home. We are sensory creatures after all.

But don't feel like you have to bake bread for every single showing. A nice sparkly clean smelling home works well too. But if you don't want that in your face cleaning smell, the Method brand cleaners at Target smell absolutely eat off the floor delicious!

Or you can always opt for candles or candle warmers. In fact, this morning I had someone out to fix an appliance and I threw a blueberry cheesecake scent into my Scentsy warmer to make the house smell like I baked blueberry muffins this morning. Pretty sneaky, eh? They have so many different scents to choose from that you can pretty much find one to fit the mood or time of day and switch them out easily at whim.

Some people are sensitive to smells however, so whatever you choose to do I think it's best to keep it subtle and not go completely overboard. Or in other words, just practice safe scents! Now if I could just get that seller to share their bread recipe with me!

The Proverbial Crystal Ball

Many clients want us to be able to predict the future for them as it relates to their homes. This is a hard task to do. Who would have guessed the subprime market tumble would happen when it did? We had been concerned about it for quite a while, in fact Becca had even blogged about it on her personal blog back in 2005. But who knew it would happen exactly when it did. It could have been sooner, it might have been later, thats hard to tell.

Now people want us to be able to predict when the housing market will stabilize again, or when will we hit the bottom? Well, Forbes Magazine and Moody's Economy.com together are attempting to answer that.

By analyzing the country's "Census-defined metro areas--including metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas--with populations over 500,000" they prepared forecasts through 2011. Then they compared them with prices in the second quarter of 2008, which were the latest figures available, to calculate how far prices will likely fall before reaching bottom or how far away they are before reaching a recovery.

Utah showed up in the report twice in the 25 Weakest Housing Markets. Provo ranked in the top 5 with a projected mid 2011 recovery and a drop of -33.9% in housing prices. Salt Lake City was also named with a projected early 2011 recovery date and a drop of 29.3% in housing prices.

While 2011 may seem surprising and still far away, especially considering that Moody's is predicting on average, the nation to recover by the end of this year it is important to remember that Utah typically lags behind the national trends. While the rest of the country had already begun their decline in home prices, Utah was still on the rise.

That being said, we believe this article is a little bit on the doom and gloom side of the equation. Even though Utah DOES lag behind the rest of the country we don't feel that the correction will be as drastic as it has been for some of the rest of the country. In Utah the brakes were put on earlier than a lot of the other markets who had several years of crazy appreciation.

In addition, Utah has had a strong economy and is projected to continue it's population growth. We do believe there is an over supply in homes priced above $250,000 and the greatest demand will be for homes near the $200,000 price point. In the past year we have already seen drops of 20-30% in the homes that are priced over $300,000. We feel that this is due to the fact that Utah Incomes don't currently support the number of properties available in this price range. Without the creative financing of 2006-2008 these homes just are not affordable.

The best advice in this market, is to make your decisions based on what you can afford and with a long term outlook. Don't purchase a home planning on selling it in 2-3 years and making a profit.


You can read the report and see who else was on the list here.

Utah Is Nation's Fastest Growing State

According to the latest report in Forbes of America's 10 Fastest Growing States, Utah takes the top as the fastest growing state in the nation with an increase of 2.53% from 2007 for a population of 2.6 million.

While state increases have different reasons in different states, like immigration and booming economies, Utah's increase is mostly attributed to a baby boom, with an estimated 40,000 births with an additional 20,000 people who moved into the state from other places.

Other states in the Top 10 include:

1. Utah 2.53%
2. Arizona 2.31%
3. Texas 2.03%
4. North Carolina 2%
5. Colorado 2%
6. Idaho 1.85%
7. Wyoming 1.8%
8. Nevada 1.79%
9. Georgia 1.71%
10. South Carolina 1.7%

How the results were determined: Results were taken from census population estimates from 2007 and 2008 and compared against each other. Those with the biggest year-over-year percentage increase grew the fastest.