Check out this Easter Egg Tree with 10,000 Ornaments   Volker Kraft lives in Saalfeld, Germany.  He planted an apple tree in his garden in 1965, and the sapling was only able to hold the weight of 18 decorated eggs the first year. As the tree grew bigger and stronger, Kraft added more eggs every year. Each plastic egg is hand-decorated by Kraft and his family with everything from paint and sequins to tiny seashells.  His Easter Egg Tree is decorated with 10,000 hand decorated Easter eggs and takes their entire family two weeks to hang them all! The Kraft family does not plan on adding any more ornaments as they have run out of room; 10,000 is the limit.    Each ornament looks like little egg masterpieces.  This finished product is spectacular.   If you are looking for a professional age... 04/08/2012

  ♪∫….Hummingbirds and Nectar Recipe for Hummingbird Feeder ….∫zz    To find a lot of interesting facts about Hummingbirds, check out this web site at Hummingbirds. z       Here is the recipe for the Artificial Nectar.   Use one part ordinary white cane sugar to four parts water.   It's not necessary to boil the water. The microorganisms that cause fermentation don't come from the water; they are transported to the feeder on hummingbird bills. Store unused syrup in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.       This mixture approximates the average sucrose content (about 21%) of the flowers favored by North American hummingbirds, without being so sweet it attracts too many insects.       Please, do not put honey, Jell-O, brown sugar, fruit, or red food coloring in your feeder! Honey fermen... 04/01/2012

  30 Items for Sellers to Prepare Their Home for Sale         1.     De-Clutter you house. This is #1. Pack away all your videos, (you know the 300 sitting on a  book shelf that you have been buying for 10 years now), Books (all the books you have bought and read for the past 20 years), Antique Dolls or Plates, Hummel’s, Souvenir Planes, etc. You get the idea as you need to pack this all up.   2.     Remove Unnecessary Furniture- Put any excess furniture in storage. If you have 5 TVs in your house, get rid of most of them and I bet some of them do not work. Take the TV out of the living room and put it in the family room. Take the TV out of the Master Bedroom too. Make it more romantic. This is a room that usually has a lot of clutter in the corners. Clean it up and move it out.   3.   ... 04/01/2012

  Stop and Smell the Flowers     I have heard this phrase all my life and never thought much about it.   But in our busy lives juggling files, driving from property to property, appointments, plus working late and early mornings, sometimes we need to just  stop for a second…..and smell the flowers!  But be careful as those flowers could be thorny. Ouch! These pictures taken in Loma Linda, CA. If you are looking for a professional agent, I am just a click away. Google me at Kristin Hamilton-Real Estate. Homeowners and Buyers both will find my services top notch and successful.   03/31/2012

  DON'T PUT YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND!!! If You're Having Trouble Paying Your Highland, California Mortgage... SHORT SELL IT!!!!   Is your Highland CA house "upside-down"? Do you owe more than it’s worth? Are you having trouble paying your Highland CA mortgage, or are you already behind? Are you wondering if a Highland Short Sale is right for you?   Losing control of your mortgage can be devastating and embarrassing, but don't let your emotions keep you from exploring your options!!   One of those options is a Highland Short Sale. Short Sales have become the viable option to foreclosure. It can help you ease the massive credit damage a Foreclosure can cause. Foreclosure can keep you from buying another home for five years or longer. Short Selling can reduce this time to a couple of years. A... 03/28/2012

  March 23rd is National Puppy Day   I woke up this morning and the local television network said today is National Puppy Day. They were talking about real estate, local news, what I call the Enquirer news, and then they mentioned National Puppy Day! Oh, happy day as I love my puppies. This celebration National Puppy Day started on March 23, 2006. Please go to the web site and check it out.  I just wanted to take a moment to be thankful for all the dogs and cats I have had in the past and the wonderful pets I have now. Please stop by and comment and leave a picture of your dog, cat or even bird. 03/23/2012

Highland, CA Market Report Active Listings Jan-March 15, 2012   Highland, CA Market Report Active Listings Jan-March 15, 2012   Please let me introduce myself for anyone who does not know me. My name is Kristin Hamilton and I am an local, experienced Realtor from Keller Williams Realty in Redlands. I am also involved in many community programs to better this area. I sit on the board of several organizations and I work 24X7 for my real estate clients. Call me at 909-557-6966 to list your home!     I have prepared a chart showing how many ACTIVE listings there are in the city of Highland, CA, for the past 45 days.. I have broken it down by the type of listing; Standard Sale, Short Sale and Real Estate Owned Sale (REO). Summary- As you can see, this is a marketing report of Homes and Condo... 03/20/2012

  Find a Short Sale Listing Agent in Highland CA / Highland Short Sale Real Estate Agent / Short Sale REALTOR Highland CA   It is easy for Highland CA home sellers to find many listing real estate agents to list their Highland CA home, but if you need to find a Highland short sale listing agent, the task will be more difficult. A short sale real estate agent does much more than take pictures and put your Highland home in the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) and put a sign in the yard.   The Highland CA short sale agent also handles negotiations with your bank or banks. If your Highland real estate agent has no experience dealing with short sales, loss mitigation and bank negotiators, you, the seller, may suffer. Most of our real estate home listings and sales in Riverside and San Bernardi... 03/16/2012

Market Report: Highland, CA- Sold Homes/Condos in Jan-Feb 2012   Please let me introduce myself for anyone who does not know me. My name is Kristin Hamilton. I am an experienced and local Realtor from Keller Williams Realty in Redlands. I am also involved in many community programs to better this area. I sit on the board of several organizations and I work 24X7 for my real estate clients. Call me at 909-557-6966 to list your home!    I have prepared a chart showing how many homes/condos have sold in the city of Highland, CA, for the first two months of 2012. I have broken it down by the type of listing; Standard Sale, Short Sale (owner sells home for less than the mortgage amount) and Bank Owned Sale (REO). As you can see, the number of short sales and standard sales has increased and t... 03/11/2012

Sunset on the Beach…a Huge Fireball in the Sky.   Yesterday we went to Los Angeles County and ended up at Manhattan Beach for an early dinner. I took some pictures on the beach at Sunset.   The pier was full of visitors and lots of excitement. This is the lifeguard stand. I take pictures of any building with the American flag on top. We then drove down to Palos Verdes as the sun was starting to set. Here the sun glowed like a fireball. The colors were so beautiful reflecting off the water that it was almost blinding.   These pictures taken in Palos Verdes and Manhattan Beach, CA. The Inland Empire is 40 miles from the beach area. If you are interested in living in an area near to the mountain, the desert or the beach, you will find San Bernardino/Riverside Counties more affordable but c... 03/10/2012

Here is my weekly created at www.wordle.net. Each week I am going to have a theme and make a wonderful Wordle. Tonight, my theme is “Cats” and next week I am doing “Birds” as I adore them both and every week I will have a new theme. Last week it was all about Dogs. Here is my Wednesday Wordles and I think it came out very nice. I edited it in Picknik to added a frame, Titled it, and added my signature. So what do you think? You ask how? This is how I did it. I just typed in some words all relating to my theme on a word document. Plus I changed a few words color, added quotation marks and tilde(~) mark between two works I wanted to keep together, and made some capitalized and others lower case.  Type in www.wordle.net. Go to Create. I then highlighted the words (my theme) on my word docu... 03/07/2012

Follow the Leader...He's the One with the Green Head While taking photos at the East Highland Ranch’s lake in Highland, CA., I noticed all the ducks seemed to be following the guy with the green head. This picture taken at the East Highland Ranch in Highland, CA. If you are looking for a professional agent, I am just a click away. Google me at Kristin Hamilton-Real Estate. Homeowners and Buyers both will find my services top notch and successful. 03/04/2012

Highland CA Real Estate House Sales and Home Listings - Short Sales, Foreclosures and Standard Sales - January 2012 Market Report News   This is a market activity report of closed house sales and active home listings in the city of Highland California, for January 2012. According to the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), there were 45 closed Highland home sales from January 1st to January 31st, 2012. 19 were Highland Foreclosures 14 were Highland Short Sales / Short Pay 12 were Highland Standard Sales 0 were Highland Probate or "Other" Sales And according to the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), there are 35 Highland active listings from January 1st to January 31st, 2012. 5 are Highland Foreclosures 14 are Highland Short Sales / Short Pay 15 are Highland Standard Listings 1 is a Highland Pro... 02/29/2012

    I have to be totally honest, I had never heard of Mourning Doves until I posted pictures of what I thought was a shaggy Pigeon. But Gloria Todor of ActiveRain's “Birds” group told me she thought these birds were Mourning Doves. Of course, after researching it, I found Gloria was right!     I found this species of doves is very popular and prevalent across the nation. Who would have known?     These birds seem to be frequent squatters in the Inland Empire but I see them all over in Loma Linda, Highland and Redlands.   Interesting Facts: ü  The doves are primarily monogamous and have 2 eggs per brood and 6 broods per year. ü  Both parents take care of their young. Diet is primarily of seeds on the ground. ü  They tend to find areas of water and stay forever………..I have a pool. Voila! ü... 02/25/2012

The Most Important Short Sale Do’s and Don’ts | Short Sale Tips for Highland CA Home Sellers   ·        Do educate yourself. This is THE most important thing you can do. Highland CA Short sales can be complicated. You need every bit of information you can get when you jump into the short sale process.   ·        Don’t wait until it’s too late. If you drag your feet and hide from the fact that you’ve stopped making mortgage payments, it will cost your credit rating and it will put any chances of a Highland short sale in risk.   ·        Do be diligent. There have been very closable Highland California short sales that fail because the Highland homeowners either stop responding to their agents, stop returning paperwork, stop returning phone calls, stop caring, etc. It can be a difficult p... 02/08/2012

Recently I noticed the pigeons in my backyard seem pretty large. I see them eating the bird seed all the time. Here is a cute couple up on the top of my roof.   This pigeon is huge. He is on the fireplace grill. I took his picture as I thought it was a hawk or an eagle from the house.   Look at this shaggy bird. He is so big!  I had never seen such a huge pigeon with all these feathers before? He has a chest like a raptor.  Call Kristin Hamilton at 909-557-6966 to list your home. Inland Empire Homeowners, please call me for a Comprehensive Market Analysis to assist you with marketing your home for sale and getting the best price possible. Buyers, if you are planning to purchase real estate, let me assist you in finding the right home.  Google me at Kristin Hamilton, Keller Williams Real... 02/03/2012

WORDLE.NET Yesterday, while teaching an IGNITE class at my office at Keller Williams, 301 W. Redlands Blvd, Redlands, CA 92373, a new agent asked me if I knew what Wordle was. I hated to say I did not but would find out after I was through teaching for the day. At first I could not find it but then realized it was net and not com. Here it is and how interesting it seems. Here is the link Wordle.net. See for yourself how interesting it is. I took one of my blogs and loaded it into the link and here are the results. Apparently if you change the font and size it can make a dramatic difference. This is so neat!!!   Check it out for yourself and put one of your blog links into the site and presto……. Whether you happen to be the instructor or the student, there is always new things to learn a... 02/01/2012

Highland Real Estate Market Report 4th Quarter 2011       Please let me introduce myself for anyone who does not know me. I, Kristin Hamilton, experienced and local Realtor® who is also involved in community programs to better this area. I sit on the board of several organizations and I work 24X7 for my real estate clients. My office, Keller Williams Realty is located in Redlands, CA. Call me at 909-557-6966 to list your home!   I have prepared a chart showing 3 Categories: Active Listings, Pending Listings, and Sold Listings in the city of Highland, CA from July 2011 – Dec.31, 2011. I have included condos in with the single family homes. Summary- This chart shows very good news for Highland. The number of listings, pending sales and closed sales has improved over the last 6 months and ... 01/22/2012

The Weltanschauung Theory of Homeownership…The American Dream As a Realtor, I sell real estate to all people who contact me. That could be a homeowner who wants to sell their home, a buyer looking for a place to live, or a buyer who is looking for investment property or many other scenarios. Our job as real estate agents is to help all types of buyers and sellers. I strive to do my job professionally and make my clients happy. I really like to help buyers find a home to purchase. Whether it is their first home or not, it is so exciting and rewarding to help buyers fulfill their needs. The excitement on their face when I hand them the key and they walk inside is absolutely wonderful. What a exuberant time for all! Homeownership is the way to stabilize the neighborhoods in America. Owners... 01/20/2012

ActiveRain University Webinar - Farming with Facebook I believe in the ABC’s of farming to get known and build up a farm. There are many types of farming: Door Hangers, Door Knocking, Newsletters, Freebies, Postcards, Letters, Note Cards…….and now there is farming on FACEBOOK.   Yes, I know that sounds funny but it is true. You never have to leave your office to generate leads. What you need is the buyers or sellers email address right? So if I told you there is a way to pay for leads vs. throwing money away on bus stops, magazine and newspaper ads, mailers etc.   On September 8, 2011, Chris Alston, Keller Williams Broker, Cupertino, CA presented a webinar on Facebook Farming. It was amazing!   By listing to the video, you will learn how to grow your fan pages by the thousands, and how... 01/18/2012