Maureen Mengel Blog

Is a Mutual Consent Divorce Right for Me? If you have decided to file for mutual consent divorce without the help of a lawyer, there are many important factors to consider. Mutual consent divorce is a “no fault” for absolute divorce and there are certain requirements and criteria you must meet if you plan to take this huge task on by yourself. Many people often choose this option because it is a money saver. However, you must also ask yourself whether you have the time and patience to handle everything that is involved in a divorce proceeding. Determine If You Qualify Each state has different requirements and you should know if you meet them before attempting to file a mutual consent divorce by yourself. You may be able to file yourself if: Your spouse is in full agreement to include custody, support, and division of property You believe the settlement is fair and reasonable If children are involved, you are comfortable with the arrangement for your children in terms of suppor...

Exterior of The Synagogue in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. FLATS Cedar Street Recently opened in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood,  The Synagogue ( 5029 N. Kenmore Ave.) marks one of the latest adaptive reuse projects from Chicago-based FLATS® , a Cedar Street Company . The award-winning FLATS Chicago first made a name for itself as a leader in developing stylish micro units.*  Over the past ten years, FLATS has evolved into what founding partner Alex Samoylovich refers to as "a lifestyle brand focused on finding new uses in historic preservation."  Historic details of The Synagogue exterior FLATS Chicago Samoylovich states that FLATS has "found a niche in adaptive reuse, taking obsolete structures and adapting them into our brand." In regard to The Synagogue project, the FLATS team was initially approached by a Chicago-based rabbi looking to preserve the century-old abandoned structure; the FLATS team also saw a means for reenergizing what...

Real estate brokerages are constantly evolving to better meet the needs of their clients and to differentiate themselves from the competition. Some are even changing their entire business model, offering homebuyers and sellers alternative ways to conduct transactions in hopes of becoming disruptive forces in the industry. But when it comes to buying and selling a home — typically the largest financial transaction of most people’s lives — clients are often better served by working with a brokerage that retains tried-and-true business practices. This isn’t the time to be risky. It’s just as important to know when to be smart and strategic. Here are four top examples of current industry trends and how resisting these can actually improve a brokerage’s reputation and help cultivate a better relationship with buyers and sellers: 1. Consolidation A number of national brokerage firms are actively seeking to increase market share through both consolidation (buying the competition) and t...

Phoenix, Ariz. is looking more and more like a buyer's market.  Getty All signs are pointing towards a shift away from the tight sellers' market we have been in for years towards one that gives buyers a little more negotiating power. Price growth has started to stall , inventory is on the increase  and if you look at data from a variety of real estate tech firms, their data start to reflect similar trends.  Redfin agents saw a large decrease in bidding wars for their clients, going from 61 percent in March of 2018 to only 16 percent for March of 2019; the ShowingIndex by the home showing booking firm ShowingTime indicates a slowdown ; and according to Zillow, March 2019 was the 7th straight month of inventory gains which hasn't happened since 2014. The biggest question on everyone's mind is where the markets are slowing down the most so the good deals begin to surface before any of the other cities. There are two places to look first to get a sense ...

Your kitchen is one of the busiest rooms in your house, and often a key determinant of its resale value. When building or remodeling, what you put into it matters. Over-invest and you’ll lose the excess investment and may not use all of the fancy features you installed. Under-invest and your space will fall short of competitive properties and may not meet your performance expectations. Regret is a somewhat regular feature of remodels, according to the Research Institute for Cooking & Kitchen Intelligence and its executive director, Brenda Bryan. Knowing in advance what to splurge (and skimp) on could be instructive for your home, or your clients’ homes if you’re in the construction or real estate fields. “The kitchen items clients splurge on most in a remodel, from a list of 14 tested, are countertops, cabinetry, refrigerators, cooking appliances, and flooring, according to professional kitchen designers,” Bryan notes. Of these, countertops are the most frequent splurge item,...

Historic RCA Victor Recording Studios on Music Row in Nashville. Elvis Presley,  Dolly Parton and many others recorded here at one time. Getty You don’t have to be a statistician to know that Nashville, Tennessee is booming. Cranes dominate the skyline and, every day, about 100 people move to the region. Visitors to the city have swelled from 2 million a year in 1998 to 15.2 million visitors in 2018. Not long ago, the city’s Department of Public Works commissioned a study to measure the foot traffic along Lower Broadway and on First Avenue on a typical Thursday and Saturday. Planners were shocked to discover that the number of pedestrians using those streets was comparable to foot traffic in Times Square. If those statistics don’t paint a crowded enough picture, just try to negotiate traffic on I-40 at rush hour. The supreme irony of Nashville’s mushrooming growth is that it endangers the historic center of the city’s music industry. “Music Row,” a one square mile neigh...

Confidence in business, and basically any interaction in life, is absolutely essential and a key component in building any successful relationship. Just like other skills, it takes learning, practice and execution to effectively use that confidence on a daily basis. Here’s how to get started. 3 ways to unleash your inner confidence curated from Inman

The practice of real estate is expensive right out of the gate, so why waste even more money on fancy tech toys you don’t need or don’t have time to learn about? Here’s how to stop being wasteful and start taking advantage of the free tools you didn’t know you had. Article image credited to Emily Campbell, Sharon McCutcheon How to tighten your belt and cut unneeded expenses curated from Inman

Everyone has received a generic birthday card from the dentist or insurance agent. It’s nice to be recognized, but it doesn’t make a lasting impact. Here are three business-building activities that are memorable, personal and keep the agent at the top of the client’s mind. Over sending birthday cards? Try these 7 unforgettable ways to connect with past clients curated from Inman

The basics of securing a home after an open house might seem obvious enough: After you’re sure the last buyer has walked out the front door, lock it! But so often we become complacent, and we can’t afford to. Here are a few helpful steps you can take to ensure a property is fully secure before leaving. 4 tips for locking up after an open house curated from Inman

We spend all day answering questions from clients. Turn those queries into your next blog post, YouTube video or Facebook Live segment. Here are more than 50 ideas for content related to buyers to help them get off the sidelines and become homeowners. 50+ content marketing ideas that’ll reel in buyers curated from Inman

Since New York City required residential buildings to set smoking policies, real estate agents and landlords say they have seen no impact on sales. Getty Since last summer, all New York City multi-family properties have been required by city law to create smoking policies for their buildings, leaving landlords, co-op boards and property managers debating whether preventing residents from lighting up -- even in their own apartments -- will help or hurt sales in an uncertain market. Agents say that buildings that have enacted smoking-free policies, which can be enforced once they're placed in a building's proprietary lease and bylaws, have seen either a favorable bump in interest or no change, as New Yorkers have adjusted to restrictions in lighting up since the Bloomberg administration banned smoking from bars in 2003. The view from The Rio Condominium and Spa at 304 East 65th St., which is smoke free. Warburg Realty Becki Danchik of Warburg Realty has repres...

Post-transaction service company MoveEasy on Tuesday announced the upcoming launch of “Concierge for Life,” an Amazon Alexa skill that enables consumers using MoveEasy’s platform to receive on-demand assistance for scheduling home repair services, setting up utilities, moving company recommendations, and reminders for other tasks. “MoveEasy’s entire platform is now powered by Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa,” said MoveEasy co-founder Ven Ganapathy in a press release. “Any moving service or home services assistance that can be requested online or in a conversation with a concierge can be done with Alexa.” “We’re taking MoveEasy to the next level by combining online technology with human assistance and automation, allowing brokerages to give every one of their clients a free ‘concierge for life,’” he added. MoveEasy will rollout “Concierge for Life” in early May, starting with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Professional Realty, an Ohio-based brokerage with a team of 550 ag...

Buying a home is one of the biggest purchases you'll ever make, so there's no question that you should make an effort to spend your money wisely. That said, especially when you're unfamiliar with the process, it's easy to make mistakes that can have a big impact on your wallet. With that in mind, I asked agents to open up about the biggest money mistakes they've seen buyers make. Read them over so that you can avoid following in their footsteps. Forgetting to shop around for a lender: Buyers need to remember to shop around when it comes to obtaining a mortgage. You might meet a lender who, on paper, offers the most competitive rate, but don't forget to take into account other factors, as well. Some banks may have special programs for first time home buyers, or they may put money toward closing costs, or toward your downpayment. Your goal should be to find the loan that makes the most sense for you, overall. -  Fiona Dogan , Realtor, Julia B. Fee Sotheby’s ...

Make your home an allergy-free zone. Molekule If it feels like it's the worst allergy season yet, it’s because it is. A recent study in the journal Lancet Planetary Health found that both airborne pollen counts and pollen season duration have increased as temperatures have climbed over the past 20 years. While controlling the atmosphere is impossible, there are many efforts we can make to live in a home that is less triggering of allergies and easier on our respiratory systems. According to  Dr. Lakiea Wright , who is a board-certified allergist with Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Medical Director at Thermo Fisher Scientific, there are three big peaks in pollen production throughout the year. “Trees like oak, ash, birch, and maple see pollen spikes in the spring. Pollen from timothy grass, bluegrass, and orchard grass peaks over the summer, and ragweed pollen surges in the fall. Many people are sensitive to multiple types of pollen and if the seasons are getting longe...

Cartoon Man jumping Over a Banana Peel Getty In the first few episodes of this series, we focused on PropTech founders’ motivations when choosing the #StartupLife. It’s not an easy path to follow, especially in real estate. We’ve seen the good and the bad… and today we will explore the ugly. I asked several startups to share the biggest barriers they faced in building and scaling their businesses. Unsurprisingly, many pointed to resistance to change within a very conservative industry as the single biggest obstacle. Read on to find out what these founders are doing to break the mold and disrupt the world of property! Mike Bristow, Founder of CrowdProperty : On the lender side - building a trusted brand. We needed to build an online proposition from scratch that retail lenders would invest their money in. On the borrower side - landing disintermediation. In a brokered market, we disrupted the value chain, uniquely sourcing projects directly, thereby minimizing the value chai...

Technologies shaping estate agency 123rf.com For at least 20 years, technology has been building momentum in the property industry. Office technologies, like email, ushered in a dramatic boost in productivity and allowed agents to take on many more instructions. With the internet, exchange of information for both agents and customers dramatically accelerated. The location of that information also changed for good: what customers used to see only in window displays or in the local newspaper, can now be accessed through portals, estate agent websites and other online sources. There’s no denying that technology has made an indelible mark on estate agency, and in the continued rush for digital capabilities, most agents recognize that the impact of tech on the market is far from over. But as businesses in the sector pursue digital prowess, it’s important to pause for a moment to consider what’s on the horizon. Big data Big data is hardly new to the estate agency industry; it’s...

Toronto-based Constellation Real Estate Group has added another star to its portfolio of SaaS (software as a service) companies for real estate. The company on Tuesday announced it would be acquiring TORCHx , a cloud-based marketing solutions company from Web.com for an undisclosed sum. Constellation owns a dozen brands that offer real estate software services, including Market Leader, Sharper Agent, Zurple, Z57, Diverse Solutions and Birdview. The company’s most recent purchases include IDX website and marketing company Baynet World and mortgage tech provider Mortgage Builder . Constellation Real Estate Group President Scott Smith says the acquisition of TORCHx aligns with the company’s strategy of investing in vertical market solutions that would benefit the more than 500,000 agents, brokerages, franchises and banks that use the company’s products. TORCHx provides IDX websites with paid SEO and PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns, a CRM solution with drip campaigns and lead generat...

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Crawley, UK - May 1, 2018: Sainsbury's is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom The logo is prominent above the glass fronted store-front. People also discernible inside. Getty Realty Income (O), perhaps better known as The Monthly Dividend Company,® made a significant announcement today. The company has decided to expand internationally through a 12-property sale-leaseback transaction with Sainsbury's (LSE: SBRY), a UK-based grocery and convenience chain with over 1,400 locations. With its own portfolio full of over 5,000 free-standing net lease properties throughout 49 states, Realty Income is the largest net lease REIT in the U.S. Though this latest deal is its first official venture outside of the U.S. Considering what a major move the real estate investment trust (REIT) is making, CEO Sumit Roy weighed in to say, "We are excited to announce this strategic transaction, which supplements our robust domestic investment pipeline and re...

A spectacular Georgian-style 19,000-square-foot mansion on 86 acres in Chappaqua in Westchester County, New York will be sold at auction on May 18th Courtesy of Elite Auctions A spectacular Georgian-style mansion in Westchester County, New York, will be sold at auction on May 18 th . The expansive home is more than 19,000-square-feet in size and is situated on 86 wooded acres with its own lake. The home is located in Chappaqua, a wealthy enclave that is approximately 35 miles north of Manhattan. Called Rosewood, the stone manor is richly appointed with a slate roof and enveloped in custom artisan-crafted stonework and millwork. Courtesy of Elite Auctions The home was custom-built in 2004 for Stewart Dauman, former CEO of Vision Financial Corporation and chairman of Customer Speaks and his wife, Debra. It was featured in an article entitled “A Timeless New York Mansion” that appeared in The Wall Street Journal in November 2014. The home has a two-story wood-paneled...