Be Cautious Where You Take Your Classic Car or Muscle Car

Classic car owners, including those with muscle cars, street rods, hot rods, antiques and vintage trucks, are facing uncertain times as car thefts are on the rise, and actions from thieves are becoming more bold and brazen.

I recently came across a story written by a man who owned a Daytona Blue 1963 Corvette Coupe with all matching numbers. The all-original classic sport car had an immaculate dark blue interior where only the carpet had ever been replaced. The 327 engine was said to produce a rhythmic loping that not only brought a smile to your face, but got you day dreaming of having this beauty parked in your own garage. Then disaster strikes and you're snapped out of your dream and into his nightmare!

The owner of this beautiful piece of American history took his prized car to what he called a small "backwoods" show that a friend and he decided to go to in the spur of the moment. As owner Jacob Morgan, of Bakersfield, CA described, "The event was an annual but rather unofficial gathering of classic car buffs and I was thrilled to bring my car down. Unfortunately, the part of Florida that the event was being held was extremely dry due to drought. About three or four hours after arriving, a man who owned a red GTO (I could not tell you the year because frankly I did not care afterward) decided to start up his ride for the spectators. It was just one backfire but it was enough to start the dry grass ablaze--and guess where my Corvette was parked?

Nearly thirty classic cars were consumed by the blaze started by that backfiring GTO and my Corvette was one of them. Of course I had the car properly insured but they just aren't making 1963 Corvettes any longer and the only one I could find that was similar cost $10,000 more than my policy's payoff. I guess if there is a moral to my sad tale, it is to avoid backwoods car shows at all costs because they are unregulated, disorganized, and very dangerous to classic cars like my beloved 1963 Corvette Coupe."

This may not be your traditional way of losing your prized classic car, muscle car, street rod, antique car, vintage truck or other collectible old vehicle, but it does drive home the point that we need to exercise care in even the most innocent surroundings like a car show! Freak accidents like Mr. Morgan experienced can and do account for many losses to enthusiasts - not just theft or vandalism.

Sadly though, theft isn't a rare thing and the methods are becoming more bizarre. Guy Algar and I have had pieces stolen off one of our own vehicles that we were towing back to our shop while we stopped for a quick bite to eat! We've had a good number of hubcaps taken over the years. And, we actually had the brake lights ripped off of our car hauler while we were in a parts store one day picking up parts for a customer! We've had one customer tell us the story where he had taken his wife out to dinner and had carefully parked his 1969 Corvette at a local restaurant, under a big bright light, and in what appeared to be a "safe" area, only to come out 45 minutes to an hour later to find all his emblems and trim taken right off the car! Thieves have been known to take the entire car hauler (with the classic sitting on top) right off the tow vehicle's hitch ball and transfer the hauler to their own tow vehicle when people are on the road, at a car show, or some other type of event. These are bold moves by people who do not fear the consequences.

Other thefts that have been reported around the country have included:

Dr. Phil just had his '57 Chevy Belair convertible stolen from the Burbank repair shop he had brought it to for repairs.


A 1937 Buick, valued at over $100,000 was taken from a gated community parking garage in Fort Worth, Texas.


Tom of New Mexico reported the theft of two of his collector cars to Hemming. Tom owns about half a dozen collector cars altogether, and to store them all, he rented out a storage unit. Unfortunately, when he went to check on them recently, for the first time in about six months, he found that two were missing - a 1957 two-door Chevrolet Belair and a 1967 Mercury Cougar GT.


There was also a report of a man from Jefferson City, Missouri, who actually recovered his own stolen car, a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro that had been stolen 16 years before, after seeing it in a Google search!


In a Los Angeles suburb, a woman came home to a garage empty of her prized 1957 Chevy Bel-Air which had been valued at more than $150,000. The beautiful convertible had been featured in several magazines and TV shows and won dozens of awards at car shows around the country. A neighbor's surveillance camera caught the actions of the thieves and revealed that the Bel-Air was pushed down the street by a pickup truck which had pulled into her driveway just minutes after she had left. The thieves likely loaded it onto an awaiting trailer. It's thought that the thieves spotting the car at one of the car shows, followed it home afterwards, then waited for the opportunity to steal it.


A Seattle collector was the victim of a targeted "smash-and grab" from the warehouse where he kept his cars. The thieves apparently ransacked the building and drove off with a 396/425 four-speed 1965 Corvette Stingray; and a 20,000-mile 396/four-speed 1970 Chevelle SS.


A 1959 Chevrolet Impala was stolen during a Cruise Night. The owner got good news-bad news when the police tracked down because while they did recover the classic car, he had put in a claim for the theft with his insurance policy after the theft many months before, so the car went to the insurance company rather than being returned to him. Apparently detectives recovered the Impala from a chop shop nearly eight months after it was stolen, repainted and modified.


Hemmings News also reported of a reader whose 1970 Ford Maverick was stolen from his home in Missouri. The car was found and returned, but the investigation apparently revealed that the thief had been watching the owner for 2 years, with the intention of stealing it and using it to race with. Chilling thing to find out.


A 1979 Buick Electra 225 Limited Edition was stolen out of a grocery store parking lot in suburban Detroit with the thief escaping with an urn inside the trunk that contained the remains of the owner's stepfather!


After saving for over 40 years, a man from Virginia bought the car of his dreams, a 1962 Dodge Lancer. Buying his dream car, he began his restoration project, which was about 60 percent complete when he relocated to Texas. Without a garage to keep it in after his move, he stored it in a 24-foot enclosed trailer along with a 1971 Dodge Colt he planned to turn into a race car, and kept the trailer parked at a storage lot. At the end of July, the trailer and everything in it disappeared.

The last story actually has a happy ending because it was recovered due to alert shop owners being suspicious of person wanting to unload a Lancer for only $1,500 including the many boxes of parts. After some research, the owner was reunited with his car. Guy and I have been approached on numerous occasions by people wanting to sell their vehicles. Some have hardship stories and the callers are willing to unload the car for a real bargain. We've always walked from these offers, primarily because we're not in the business of buying and selling cars (we're not dealers or re-sellers), but also because we're cautious of a "too-good-to-be-true" price. One call in particular did make us very suspicious, as the woman caller insisted that the sale had to be completed by Monday (she called our shop over the weekend) and the price was extremely low for a rather rare model Mustang. Alert shop owners can be instrumental in aiding in the recovery of stolen classic cars.

But not all stories have a happy ending like this. Classic cars, muscle cars and antiques can make their way to chop shops, end up damaged and abandoned, and even being re-sold on Internet sites such as eBay and Craigslist!

Just yesterday, I reported on a 1954 Chevy Pickup truck which was stolen from a woman's driveway in Oklahoma City. (Ironically this article was already written and scheduled for release today when the news hit. I've added her case because, unfortunately, it emphasizes how common thefts have become.) She wisely reached out to the Hemmings community of enthusiasts for help. Hemmings.com has a huge following, referred to as "Hemmings Nation", and appealing for help to a community of enthusiasts like this can be instrumental in helping to give vital information to police and authorities who can help track and recover a stolen classic car. We applaud the work that Hemmings does.

And, the methods that thieves are using, as you can see, are as varied as the types of vehicles! Even seemingly innocent little car shows and gatherings are places you need to exercise a little caution and care. As I reported in a July article, carjackings involving classic cars are even becoming more commonplace.

Surprisingly, in some cases, the Internet has been helpful in aiding in the recovery of classic cars and muscle cars. There have been numerous stories, much like the Camaro owner above, and a man who found his 1949 Ford through a listing on Craigslist (the two men responsible were arrested and charged with disassembling a vehicle after the owner positively identified it as his) where owners have been able to locate their cars in Internet searches.

For those not so fortunate, insurance is the only consolation. We highly recommend classic car or "collector" car insurance. There are a number of companies that provide this specialized insurance, and it is generally well worth the cost. Classic Car News provided an article, Purchasing Classic Car Insurance, containing a list of companies along with links to contact them. I also recommend Hagerty Insurance's publication, Deterring Collector Car Theft, which has tips on theft prevention.

In addition to the quick-strip thefts, thieves usually always alter, remove or forge VIN numbers, which make identification of the car or truck more difficult. Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) are serial numbers for vehicles that are used to differentiate similar makes and models. Much like social security numbers, every vehicle has a different VIN. VIN plates are usually located on the dashboard on newer cars, but are often found in the door jams of older models. VIN plates can be switched with another vehicle for a fast coverup.

The point here is to be aware of your surroundings, including where you park your car. Don't take it for granted that just because you're at an event with fellow enthusiasts that something bad can't happen. Take preventive action by securing your old car or truck. Guy Algar suggests, "Don't forget to take precautions even at home. You may feel safe parking your ride in 'the safety' of your two car garage, but remember, even if you don't have windows where people can peer in and spot your valued car, thieves can also follow you home from work, a cruise, or even the grocery store and plan a theft after surveilling your home and learning your schedule. If you have a ride that catches people's attention, remember that it can also catch the wrong attention!"

RESOURCES:

Hagerty Insurance - Deterring Collector Car Theft

Classic Car News - Purchasing Classic Car Insurance

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

The safety of your classic car or muscle car is extremely important to most owners. Everyone wants to protect their ride with methods that work, and that won't bust the bank. We draw on the experience of experts in Classic Car News' upcoming series entitled "Keep Our Rides Safe", which appear each Wednesday. - Andrea

Andrea L. Algar is co-owner of a classic car performance and restoration design shop in Leesville, Texas. Motorheads Performance specializes in repairs, maintenance, performance upgrades and restorative work on cars and trucks from the 1920's through 1970's. Her husband Guy L. Algar is a Mechanical Engineer with over 25 years experience. He holds 5 ASE Certifications from the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence and has been working on old cars and trucks for over 37 years. Together they share their passion for old cars and trucks with other enthusiasts from around the country.

Have a classic car or muscle car story or question you'd like to share? Visit her blog at http://www.motorheadsperformance.blogspot.com for contact information. Her business website can be viewed at http://www.motorheadsperformance.com.

Where Have You Been, Neon Signs, and Where Are You Going?

Many experts in the lighting field believe that the overall outlook for neon signage seems to be very optimistic. Neon signs have a record of 100 years of successful use in advertising. If there were no neon signs cities and towns would be darker places and the neon sign industry would cease to exist, but that is not likely to occur.

Let's start with some general information about neon such as why it's used, uses other than advertising, where it's used here and in other countries, neon signage around the world, and so much more. Everyone knows its main use is for advertising and that's what keeps the neon sign industry going, but it has many other uses that are beneficial to the public. Enjoy watching TV? Neon is used in in television tubes. Do you have a neon wall clock? Neon lighting is use in the home and in many businesses to enhance and highlight dark areas. It is used in gas lasers is used to remove eye cataracts and for other medical problems. Many people have flown, but did you know this? It has been used in beacons and it has can be seen by pilots have seen it 20 miles away when it was impossible for them to see other kinds of lights. Neon lights can be seen through the fog. Many travelers have found it very helpful when looking for a motel on a foggy night. Neon does all this and more.

However, neon's biggest and most widely-known use is in neon signs. What makes it so useful for signs? There are two reasons for this. First neon is a first-rate conductor of electricity, and secondly it has the amazing ability to give off light that can be seen at great distances. As hard as it may be to believe neon technology started in Europe in 1675. It's not that neon signs were invented then but just the idea that would grow into the modern neon sign. In fact, strange as it may seem electricity was not even discovered yet. These two ideas developed independently because neither was dependent upon the other being in place.

It wasn't until 1910 that in Paris a, man called Georges Claude came up with the idea for neon signs. His first effort was a sign for a barber shop in that city. How and when did they first come to the United States. Earle Anthony, the owner of an auto dealership in Los Angeles, apparently heard about neon signs and visited Paris. The result was two Packard neon signs which he purchased for $1,250. The year was 1923. The idea spread quickly because both businesses and the public took hold of this new concept in advertising. Traditional sign advertising was hit with the brilliant explosion of neon signs. These first signs were called "liquid fire" no doubt because of the bright red light they emitted seem to signify danger.

The first sign that came to Las Vegas was a sign advertising a place called the "Oasis Cafe House". Who realized then that the city would become one of the country's two premiere neon signage showcases? It was a notable event but few people, gave much thought other than that.

When discussing neon signage in America the Las Vegas Strip(or "The Strip" as it is often called) and New Yok City's Times Square are the logical starting points. It is easy to see how they earned their titles. Both receive millions of visitors each year who view neon displays that are almost blinding. Las Vegas may have an edge over Times Square because it receives many more visitors because of its casinos who provide the city's neon display. In comparison Times Square signs are subject to more frequent changes due to the fact that businesses in that city change often while Las Vegas has casinos that are the mainstay of the city's revenues and the casinos are always in business.

The Las Vegas Strip is home to a world famous iconic neon sign that was erected in 1959. The sign was the idea of Betty Willis, who worked for a local sign company. The sign contained the words "WELCOME TO Fabulous LAS VEGAS NEVADA". The sign was never copyrighted because Willis considered it her gift to the city. This sign is synonymous with the City of Las Vegas. The Willis sign is number one on the list of the world's 10 most impressive neon signages. Las Vegas is also home to the world's largest neon sign which carries the name Hilton and is owned by the Hilton Hotel Corporation. This sign was erected in 1996 and covers over 70,000 feet, The Hilton name is 164 feet wide and the letters are 28 feet high. At a price tag of approximately $9 billion it could easily be called the world's most expensive neon sign.

Times Square received its first neon sign in the mid-1920's. The density of illuminated signs in Times Square has reached the point where it's beginning to give the Las Vegas Strip a run for its money. This density is the result of the smaller size of Times Square compared to that of the Las Vegas Strip which runs for miles. In any case both of these locations are filled with thousands of signs.

Turning our attention from these two neon showcases there are other places in the Us that have notable neon signs. However, they are naturally not on the same level as the previously mentioned giants of neon signage. In Elk City, Oklahoma at the National Route 66 Museum proudly exhibits the giant iconic Route 66 neon sign. The city of Saginaw, Michigan claims it has the largest neon sign in the state an d the largest figural sign in the nation. Figural neon signs show humans and animals. This neon sign is 35 feet high and fifty feet long.

The list of the top 10 neon signs in this country has many neon signs that are nationally known. Many of them are long gone. They all once brightened a city street. Number one is Boston which had its Schrafftt's n sign which was a symbol of the company's candy and chocolate business. Second place on the list went to the "Vegas Vic" sign which was standing tall on the city's Fremont Strees from 1951 to about 1995 when it was retired.

In number three position is the Great Grain Belt Bear sign in Minneapolis which was used a great many years since it was installed in 1940, and is now up for sale. Fourth is the Coppertone Girl sign that was erected on Miami's Biscayne Boulevard to advertise the company's product, suntan lotion. It was a city landmark and was there from 1959 to the 1990's. What made the sign so noticeable was the puppy that was tugging on the little girl's bathing suit. Next on the list is the Skipping Girl sign from Abbotsford, Australia. She was called"Little Audrey" and she advertised the Nycander Company's product, sugar. She was gone in 1968 but due to the public's outrage at the loss of this landmark she was replaced by a replica in 1970. Portland, Oregon's "Made in Oregon" sign which advertised sugar was erected in 1941. It was changed over the years and remained in place when the company left the building in the 1950's.

The Westinghouse Company's sign in Pittsburgh to the number seven spot. It had been up since the early 1920's and was taken down in 1998. Taking the number eight place is the Magikist's Company of Chicago with its sign advertising carpets. The 41,400 pound lips on this sign were regarded as a city landmark However, all of the previous neon signs mentioned are gone. The number nine sign, the Reno Arch in Reno, Nevada which was built in 1927 and is still going strong. Last on the list is the Traveler's Insurance umbrella sign which can be found in Des Moines, Iowa. It was built in 1963 and still in operation.

No mention of neon signs would be complete without including a list of the world's 10 most impressive examples of neon signage. It should be of no surprise that number one on the list is the iconic WELCOME TO Fabulous LAS VEGAS, NEVADA neon signage. This is followed by the Times Square display. Third place goes to Hong Kong's 15 minute entire skyline light show, The next spot belongs to Osaka's Dotonbun signage which was the inspiration for the move, "The Blade Runner". Shanghai's Najinj Road takes position number five with Tokyo's Ginza and Shibuya occupying the number six place. The Vegas Boneyard (where old and iconic Las Vegas signs are restored and displayed) is next. This is followed by the signage showing Vintage Times Square neon signs from the 1920's to the 1950's.

As for the last two on the list the Caesar's Palace neon signage is in ninth place and Bankok's soi cowboy road completes the list. It is interesting to note at this point that at an earlier time London's world famous Piccadilly Circus would have most certainly come in near the top of this list. It received what many have called the first neon sign to come to Europe, a popular soft drink sign, which was replaced a new version in 2003. However, today all of the neon signs in Piccadilly Circus are on one building with the names all being large international corporations.

Many organizations have sprung up in all parts of this country. Their purpose to to collect, restore, and exhibit old classic neon and iconic neon signs. One of these is the Neon Museum of Philadelphia which opened in 1983 and shows neon signs from businesses. The Neon Museum in Las Vegas has iconic neon signs from closed casinos and businesses. It has more than 150 historic restored and non-restored neon signs. It is non-profit and was established in 1996. The American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio was founded in 1999 and is asid to have over 2,800 signs of all types including neon. The Los Angeles Neon Museum opened its doors in 1981 with the intention of preserving old neon signs and other forms of neon art. In a related vein a gallery and workshop called Let There Be Light opened up in New York City in 1972 to train artists how to use neon.

After illuminated sign usage started in the United States other cities followed although at a much slower pace. Tokyo seems to be one of the first cities outside of the United States to get them. They were installed in a city park in 1926. Australia's first one appeared in a Melbourne suburb in 1930. Johannesburg, South Africa got its first one in 1935. India didn't get its first one until about 1940. Shanghai, China had to wait until 1982 to get its first one. Puskin Square in Moscow got its first sign in 1989. It was a popular soft drink sign. Stockholm. Sweden received its first one around 1936. On the other hand, Zurich Switzerland is reputed to have no neon signs.

Even so, their are some cities in the world that have banned the use of neon signs within their jurisdictions. The Prime Minister of Pakistan, trying to combat his country;s growing power problem, banned them and brightly-lit billboards. In January 2010 the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, which is the world's fourth largest city, banned them to try and stop its rising pollution problem. In the US in 1996 the town of Avon, Connecticut passed an ordinance banning the use of what they called exposed tubes, but neon signs encased in plastic were alright to use. The town's residents questioned the reasoning behind this ordinance. More recently a ban against the production and sale of illuminated tubes has gone into effect in Vermont and Massachusetts with other states looking to follow suit. Illuminated tubes not using mercury are permitted.

The city of Madrid, Spain, has an ordinance that prohibits all illuminated signs in the city's center so as to reduce contamination, conserve energy, and to make the city more aesthetically pleasant. This ordinance covers all neon used in pharmacies, theater marquees, business signs, and bars. Madrid had had illuminated signs for over 70 years up to this point.The city of Duluth, Georgia prohibits neon signs, and even though these signs are not prohibited in Mesa, Arizona the city's present day ordinances and policies weigh heavily against the survival of illuminated signs.

Starting in the 1960's there was a movement in the United States and Canada against illuminated signs. The city of Vancouver banned the use of these signs on what once were brilliantly-lit streets which then became dark passageways that left the city with a cold, heartless, look.

Since we are talking about neon signs it might be a good thought to get an idea about the neon sign industry. In 2008 neon sign company total revenues were about $2.9 billion. The sign industry, as a whole, had revenues of about $11 billion. At that time there were some 35,00 sign shops, including illuminated sign shops, in this country. These amounts have grown in thw succeeding years.

What is a commercial neon sign worth? That's really hard to say. However, when it comes to prices collectors might pay for them there are some figures available that show what they have paid for highly-prized illuminated signs. In fact, in June of 2006, at a memorabilia sale a Thunderbird Hotel illuminated sign sold for $26,000., while one that said Cloud 9 sold for $21,275., and the star part of a Holiday Inn sign went for $3,220. This shows what people are willing to pay for collectible neon signs. Prices for the commercial kind vary according to size and other factors.

Now it's time to compare neon signs with another form of lighting, LED. Before getting into the advantages and disadvantages of these two methods as they pertain to their commercial use.

Let's start by seeing what LED is and some information about it. The letters LED mean light emitting diodes. LED was first used as a replacement for incandescent indicators and for laboratory equipment displays. Later on it was used in television sets, watches, radios, indicators, and calculators. It isn't only until recently that LED prices have dropped allowing for sales to residential and commercial markets. Outdoor lights and Christmas lights are part of LED home lighting products. With the energy crisis in effect and some foreign countries looking for ways to reduce energy costs LED lighting companies can probably look forward to a profitable future when it comes to their products.

Now that we have a working knowledge of LED lighting is we can make a fairer comparison to neon signs as we mention the good points and the bad points of each. The basis for comparison is the use of the two lighting methods in advertising.

First, with regards to neon sign usage the advantages are as follows - they have a very long life when used properly, neon has a very high operating range and can run on on very high voltages using AC or DC current, they don't always require special power supplies, and these signs have a very low power consumption. A unique advantage, only enjoyed by neon signs, is that they can be made into any shape. This very important advantage, the ability to be bent into shape makes it ideal for use in advertising, wall clocks, and lighting for homes and businesses. Finally, it's inexpensive for small indicators and decorative lights.

Neon signs also have their disadvantages. They have low light output for input power, only produce a small range of the color spectrum, make only one color at a time, require a large surface area to be used for general lighting, and is expensive for use as signs and displays.

The advantages of using LED lights are these - the US Department of Energy expects the cost of producing LEDs to decline below that of compact fluorescent lamps called CELs in about 2013, high level of energy efficiency, more durable, extended product lifetime, and reduced heat load to the space(an added benefit from reduced energy usage).

The disadvantages of using LED lighting include the "warm" lighting generated by LEDs is more expensive than "cold" lighting, LEDs are more expensive than some more traditional lighting concepts, limited selection and options, color quality, and lack of product standardization.

The purpose of this article was to provide on the many topics related to neon signs that are not often known by the general public. What the future holds for each of these kinds of lighting is hard to predict. By just referring to the material presented the most reasonable answer might be that both of them will be in use for some time to come, but that could easily change due to improved designs and advances that either could develop, changes in the economy, or any one of a number of other factors. Both industries have very large financial resources and will do whatever it takes to obtain the greater share of the signage market.

In the final analysis there are two basic factors that will influence the sign industry with regard to profits and investment. Businesses want to employ whatever method that works the most successful for them. Consideration of future advancements in technology with regards to each form of lighting, prices, and many other factors is crucial plus examining the advantages and disadvantages of each. Another idea is which one draws a better response from the buying public. This could well be the deciding factor. Like all industries these two competitors will undoubtedly look to marketing research studies as a reliable guide to their decision making. Each of these two systems has only one goal in common and that is the same as any business or company and that is to try and make the right decisions that bring in the most money and that's the name of the game.

Joseph Tedesco attended schools in New Jersey and Florida and holds degrees in business and education. He has taught in both elementary and high schools. He has been involved in real estate management and sales. Mr. Tedesco has operated summer businesses in New Jersey's summer resorts. He has traveled extensively in the US and other countries. He has worked for several large corporations. He is married and has a son. He likes to travel and exchange ideas with those he meets. Mr. Tedesco belongs to several organizations and is involved with his family in charitable work. He likes to read non-fiction books about the government, government agencies, and early American history. His favorite presidents are George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Where to Live When Moving to Australia

With its stunning landscape, beautiful coastline and desirable way of life; Australia is a popular destination for people to migrate to from afar. Migration has long been associated with the nation and is reflected in Australian way of life and its culturally diverse society. Since the second world war, over six million migrants have settled in Oz from abroad. Being a continent in its own right, Australia is the sixth largest country on Earth, located between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Comprising of six states and two territories, read on for advice in regards to which area could be best suited for your lifestyle when moving to Australia.

Queensland

Often referred to as the Sunshine State, Queensland is an extremely popular destination to settle in due to its stunning weather along the Gold Coast. Being Australia's second largest state by area, the climate of inland Queensland can incur a monsoonal season in the far north and low temperatures further south. To the north of the state is the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest single structure made by living organisms and is a World Heritage site. The majority of this natural beauty is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, an organisation that helps to limit human impact, from fishing to tourism. Born from the Moreton Bay penal colony, Brisbane is currently the state capital for Queensland and has been affectionately named "Bris Vegas" as a tribute to its nightlife.

New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory

New South Wales is renowned for its beachside communities, made famous by a certain television soap. The state is home to over 780 national parks and reserves that range from the bush, outback deserts, rainforests and waterfalls. With eleven universities in the region, New South Wales is a good consideration for further study and education. Being the capital of New South Wales, Sydney is the most popular destination for British inhabitants in the whole of Australia with it being the financial and economic epicentre of the nation. New industries like information technology and the financial services sector have replaced the old with many of multinational corporations having their Australasian headquarters based in the Sydney Central Business District. The Australian capital Territory is home to purpose-built Canberra is also the political centre for the country with the federal government based in the city.

Victoria

Finance, insurance and property services form Victoria's largest income producing sector, while the community, social and personal services sector is the state's biggest employer. Despite the shift towards service industries, the troubled manufacturing sector remains Victoria's single largest employer and income producer. Victoria is seen as the sports capital of Australia. The state is the traditional home of Australia Rules Football with the vast majority of teams that play in the Australian Football League being based in the region. It also stages holds many international sporting events, including the first Grand Slam tennis tournament each season, as well as the Australian Formula One Grand Prix.

South Australia

South Australia is home to the city of churches, Adelaide. The city is renowned for its cultural influence on the country. It was recently been listed in the Top 10 of The Economist's World's Most Liveable Cities in Australia and recognised nationally as the most liveable city by the Property Council of Australia. The city also hosts many art and music festivals throughout the year and is close to the infamous wine region, Barossa Valley. It is worth noting that despite all the cultural sophistication connected to the region, South Australia's economy is based on the manufacturing and defence technology industries. Almost half of cars made in Australia are made in the state at the General Motors Holden plant in Elizabeth.

Western Australia

It is worth noting Western Australia for its wine region and mining community, the main settlement for people from overseas is the city of Perth. The state is know for being home to approximately 540 species of birds and a significantly large number of plant species. Also known as the 'City of Light', Perth is known for being the starting point for many of the Australia's brightest and internationally recognised celebrities; including Hugh Jackman, Heath Ledger and British-based comedian Tim Minchin. Western Australia is steeped in colonial history, hence why the region has an extremely high proportion of British-born residents.

If you are looking for an alternative slice of Australian life away from the normal hotspots to settle, why not consider emigrating to the red deserts of the Northern Territory or the wilderness of Tasmania? So whether you prefer the natural beauty of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, the desirable lifestyle found in New South Wales or sports-mad Victoria; it is vital that you get as much advice on moving to the country as possible.

Submitted by Kirsty Collingwood, Marketing Manager at Crown Relocations. Crown Relocations is an international relocation company and global mobility specialist that manages every step of the journey from visas to property management, finding schools to packing up. More tips on moving to Australia can be found at Crown's website, www.moveoverseas.co.uk

Where Did All The Farmers Go?

Several times a year, I hear someone complain about the development of farm land in our area. These complainers consider it a crime that so much of our farm land has been converted to housing, business, shopping, etc. They seem to consider the farmers and developers to be criminals.

If you want to know why so many farmers have sold out to developers, allowed the land to grow houses instead of crops and left the farm life that their families enjoyed for generations – read on. Do you know why more and more farms are growing houses, stores and filling stations instead of cows, corn and potatoes? Do you know where the farmers went? Well, my father and I are farmers that left the farm. Most of our neighbors have too. Most of us still live in the area; we just don’t farm any more.

Few people understand the farming they espouse as so charming and worthy. It was long hours, hard work and little or no pay. Most farmers had less money at the end of the year, after expenses, than those who clerked in stores. Some years the earnings were less than costs, too many years in fact where even the best farmers lost money and had to sell land to survive.

Although entire farms were lost in the great depression of the Thirties; in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, most farmers had to sell of lots and acreage for homes and development, even though they worked to exhaustion every hour they could and applied every possible correct business practice.

Even the most prosperous farms in Delaware, such as the Townsends with all their tens of thousands of acres, have not retained the younger generations of the Townsend family to work in the agribusiness. Farming is hard work. The hours can be even longer today than 50 years ago, with equipment maintenance, constant seminars on chemicals, land use, improved techniques and hours of record keeping, computer work, reading professional publications, etc. Not only do farmers still need to rise before the sun to tend the land and animals, but they must work into the evening hours on the business techniques and applications.

Profit margins are slimming by the year and not nearly worth the risk according to more and more farmers. There is seldom a farmer’s son or daughter who wants the farm life instead of the shorter hours, reduced stress, far lower risk and far higher pay of urban work and life.

More and more farmers are changing farms into recreational, entertainment and tourist attractions to pay the bills that crops won’t pay. Corn mazes bring in more money and far more profit than harvested corn, shelled corn or corn meal. Dairy farming as entertainment for urban tourists is far more profitable than dairy farming as agriculture.

Blueberry farms are not sustainable in most areas, with rising labor costs, unless they become U-Pick entertainment berry farms, with all manner of fruit pies, blueberry muffins and berry twig Christmas wreaths. You will see more and more farms become entertainment, destination, and recreation farms in years to come – or you will see houses grow on the land instead.

Even many cattle and horse farms sustain themselves by charging people hundreds or thousands of dollars to come shovel manure, castrate bulls, brand calves, or do the cowboy roundups that were once the jobs of people who got paid to do the work.

Dad stopped farming twenty years ago and says he should have stopped ten years before that. He was an award winning farmer and a superb businessman. He usually produced as much on each acre as ordinary farmers did on dozens or even a hundred acres. Dad learned to grow healthy corn with stalks just an inch or so apart when others had the corn one, two, or even three feet apart.

Some of our most productive farm land is now better suited for concerts, “Punkin Chunkin” exhibitions, lacrosse camp, baseball training, model airplane flying and other varied recreational uses for the land where I grew up farming, pulling weeds, driving cattle and riding in rodeos in the off season.

Even Dad’s productivity and his prudent management, did not earn the return farming that any other business had to earn to stay viable. Dad has owned and managed a few dozen other businesses and farming is the only one he had to abandon, although he loved it most. The risks of weather, market forces and government capriciousness have been and continue to be incredibly high.

A farmer producing more and more per acre with each decade is a trend that continues; keeping farm products at the cheapest levels in history. Part of the reason for our wonderful prosperity is that food takes such a small part of anyone’s income now. Fifty years ago, food took about 25% of an average family’s income. A hundred years ago, 50% of an average family’s income often went to food, if they were not farmers themselves. And five hundred years ago, many families could barely eat with the earnings they made. Before that most of what a family did was often based on getting enough food to eat. We have come a long way, with plentiful supplies of fruit, vegetables, protein and all manner of healthy food available for even the most poor usually. We should thank the American farmer for that!

Most of Dad’s land is sold and he has neighbors now; folks who have bought lots or acreage and built nice homes. He continues to buy more land today, but not for farming. The developments of Covey Creek, Cave Colony, Cool Spring Farms, Lazy Lake, Overbrook Shores, Eagle Crest and Cripple Creek are on parts of our farm or on property we bought from neighboring farmers and developed. From the age of about 21, I helped with the sales and marketing of those developments.

There are many other farmers who no longer farm, yet we American Farmers grow far more food than we need on the fewer acres. In fact American farmers grow so much food of all kinds that we export our crops to nearly every other country on earth and still drive prices down with oversupply.

American agribusiness needs less and less acreage to support the growing population of the world. This ever increasing supply of agrifood, far outstrips demand.

Farm prices, to the farmer, are tiny fractions of what they were in any past time. Most of the cost of groceries is due to packaging, advertising and distribution. In dollars adjusted for time; the price of food today, and the money to the farmer, is less than 10% of what it was a hundred years ago.

There is more than enough food to feed every person on earth and make them fat like we Americans are. There are substantial problems with transportation, distribution, and political systems but we could feed, clothe and shelter the world on FAR less acreage than we have in production today.

We even have the silly, actually insane, habit of paying farmers to not farm in our country. We take tax money from everyone, including all farmers, and pay thousands of farmers to not grow crops, animals and trees. I’m personally NOT farming about 500 trillion acres of farm land – I wish the federal government would pay me what they owe me… J

In the late 70s our government climaxed decades of federal laws, policies and financial changes aimed at the decimation and destruction of American farming. Whether the aims were intentional or not is debated. There were interest increases on farm loans from 5% to over 23% on loans that were guaranteed to be fixed rates, during the Seventies, and this devastated the farmer. The federal and state governments, during this same time, added highway taxes to fuels for the tractors, combines and irrigation pumps – to help keep the price of automobile gas lower. Diesel fuel to the farmer was 12 cents in early 1976 and was pushed to $1.35 by the end of the year with government taxes and policies.

This sudden increase of roughly a thousand percent in fuel costs was not any concern to our car driving public or the politicians – after all the farmers are not a major power at the polls and are too independent to organize. Interest rates on home mortgages stayed the same, but rates on farms and farmers homes and equipment went up by the week and month. You may remember Willey Nelson’s Farm Aide programs, in the Eighties, which still exist, and that were designed to help keep some family farms from bankruptcy.

As far as the evils of development here in the Delaware beach area: Usually those who are most outspokenly opposed to development are usually those who have greatly gained from it financially. These objectors are enjoying the fruits of our economy as newcomers or they are at times members of the old guard whose properties have multiplied in value as a result of prosperity brought to us by the purchases, expenditures, and contributions made possible by those other newcomers and tourists, who’ve come to visit or join us. Many objectors have retired here with money from urban jobs or have jobs here in some tourist related or supported business or live in homes that are only possible because of the developments they scream against.

Some anti-development folks feel the farmers OWE them the land to use and view freely and without responsibility. I see that all the time. In fact there are some people who trespass on farmer’s land to hunt, exercise their dogs, dig up plants, pick produce, play, or anything else they want to do as though it’s public property.

Some don’t see anything wrong with trespassing, even after being told not to do so. There are many people who want others to NOT use the land they own or use it in a certain way for the public good – while taking only the responsibility to loudly object not usually to help come up with energy, work or money to retain or regain what they love. Some people just demand the free and irresponsible enjoyment of the fruits of others labors and risks.

Requiring a person use his personal property, or not use it according to the wishes of others is a form of trespassing, a form of Communist Theory, everything belongs to everyone thinking. And, yes most of those whose objections are loudest are Marxists in fact or at heart. Most will admit that in private when there is no fear of exposure. Marxism hasn’t worked anywhere. Russia is now a free market while we are taking on the unworkable principles of socialism that decimated her.

Farmers bought land and equipment, most often with borrowed money, to feed the world – feed the world being the cry of the socialistic democracy then and now. However, that contract our government made with the USSR, China and parts of Europe was violated as a political lever, after the farmers had grown the crops and bought new equipment, with long term loans. There was no place to sell the crops and nothing profitable to do with the land. The federal government seemed to purposely push our independent farmers into the abyss of bankruptcy. Then outspoken non-farmers – so called environmentalists, encouraged all sorts of additional actions and policies to bring down the farming community all over this nation, and they still do. These are the same socialist democrats that want to feed the world free and stop the farmers from developing the land into homes and businesses. These same socialist democrats that hate all that farmers can do want the farmers to keep the farms so they can see the pretty rows of crops and spacious expanses of well kept land.

Getting back to the orchestrated annihilation of American farmers; they had to borrow money to stay in business, some of them for the first time and the loans were first emergency government sponsored loans supported by tax dollars at 3-6% for farm credit and production loans. Some loans even began at 1-2% for putting in soybeans, corn and wheat and the purchase of the expensive harvesting and storage equipment. The prices again forced up to sky high levels for these crops on the futures market as we had contracted to feed the world for decades and the world wanted to be fed more than we could produce.

The Feds then stepped in and increased the interest on the fixed interest farm loans a step at a time (just as they were doing the residential loans for homes) very quickly, over less than two years the rates went from less than 7% to 28% -- some even peaked at 32%. Farmers had obtained loans for up to 33 years at rates as low as 2% and they were going up in rate by sometimes 3% per month. The loans had been made at fixed rates. Many of the loans had annual payments tied to crop harvest sales and incomes. The predicted incomes were down to nothing. Many farmers just left the crops in the field as the harvested value was less than the cost of harvest. So as the fixed loan rules where changed and the loans increased by the week at times, in violation of the banking contracts. The farm prices plummeted as a result of the violations of our contracts with other nations to feed them.

Remember the late 60s and then the deadly 70s and the bankrupting of farmers across this country. Remember Willie Nelson and his Farm Aid music concerts to try and help the farmers, in the final days and weeks. Farmers across the country took other jobs, sold the edges of their farms as lots, sold less productive farms to developers or became developers in some cases. In too many cases they just quietly went out of business and the farms went fallow.

Simultaneously, there were no farm jobs to be had, the farms had become mechanized as every farmer was struggling to stay in business, labor was replaced with low-labor crops and we were stuck with the growing of these crops. People who had owned land for generations no longer had any farmers who wanted to rent the land at worthwhile prices. Some went to share cropping and found that half of the proceeds were nothing and didn’t pay the land tax. There went most of the potato, tomato, carrot, beet, sweet corn, pea, lima bean, radish, squash, pumpkin, blueberry, strawberry, fig, peach, apple, cherry, asparagus, beef, goat, dairy, hog and alfalfa farms we knew. There went about 70% of the farmers.

Larger farmers became hyper-productive, specialized in one low labor crop or two, became more mechanized, cleared the trees from every available acre, planted the crops closer together, used more fertilizer and insecticides and got into other businesses to try to get more productivity from every acre and raise outside income. Migrant laborers to help on the farms disappeared. Some stayed for a while in the canneries and then the canneries were closed. The ones that stayed open till the last did so by not paying the bills even if the cannery was inherited debt free.

Some farmers became insurance agents, bankers, liquor store owners, Amway salesmen, mechanics, tractor salesmen, stock brokers, politicians, teachers, etc. to help support the farm. Many signed the criminally one-sided chicken contracts with Perdue – there was nothing else they could do and keep the farm. They had to make changes whether they liked it or not. Farm kids went to the city for jobs. Little stores and in some cases little towns closed as less people lived on the few farms that remained.

Some places stayed alive such as this area. Muskrat trapping on the thousands of acres between Rehoboth and Fenwick Island that Phil and Ruddy had trapped for years was no longer profitable. The farms on Rt. One were no longer possible as the huge new equipment gradually couldn’t be moved easily on the ever more crowded roads.

More city folks, many of whom had grown up in rural areas and had to move to the city for jobs and income, needed some space, to get away from it all, and many chose this area. They still do. Some wanted to stay here, they still do. I have sold real estate in areas where development did not occur. I’ve seen towns closed, several of them, in western Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, etc. I’ve seen millions of acres of farm and pasture land go unkept and grow up in first weeds and briars and then volunteer juniper and cedar; some of it on Rt. One.

I’ve seen land values for farm land go from auction sales of $7,000 per acre in large farms right before the grain embargo to China and Russia to less than $1,400 a couple of years later. Some farmers, many farmers sold off lots or entire farms to stay afloat. I’ve seen 686 acres of rich river bed, bottom land, fertile ground that was sold for $300 an acre just after the Civil War, be sold again in the late 70s for $700 an acre – the loss in real dollars as they say, about 90% of value. The reason, farming the bottom lands of riverbed soil in West Virginia was no longer profitable. And no farmer would buy the land. I sold it to a city fellow as a retreat. He sold it again as there was no way he could leave the city and come to his retreat and earn a living anywhere near there. Another fellow bought it and developed it for those who wanted smaller acreage, along the river to vacation, hunt and fish.

You see, no one could make a living here in farming. Remember all the dairy farms that used to dot the county? Remember the vegetable farms and orchards and hay farms? You may know the owners. Most of them had to become developers or sell off the land. There are few farms left here for economic reasons. The Hopkins still have the dairy farm because tax dollars paid them top development value price for the farms and let them keep them for dairy operation, so tourists can drive by a dairy farm.

The Townsend’s are selling off the hundreds of thousands of acres they have a few thousand at a time, because no one in the family is willing to take the risks and threats of being a farmer anymore. They sold the chicken plant because of similar risks and threats. Chicken farms, that last hope of farmers, are failing by the day. If they are close enough to where people want to live they are being developed too. If not, they are being abandoned. It won’t be long and the chicken farms will join the dairy farms as abandoned property.

Now a lot of people want to stop the development of land. Some want to have a quiet peaceful place to live with no tourists. There are places like that and there is no one there. No one is coming there. No one is going to go there. There are no messy commercial establishments. There are no establishments at all. There are no newcomers, in fact, as one man told me. We had a guy who came here and didn’t get along well with others. We fed him to the hogs. Want some bacon, it’s tasty. And they smile a toothless grin. They had no money for dentistry either.

We finally found, over the years since farming came at risk, a multi-position income base. We have tourism, entertainment such as dining, listening to music, drinking and socializing with others for dating reasons -- and retirement. They, who come here, want to be here. The farmers don’t want to fight the urban viewpoints and can’t fight the economics for the most part.

If you want to fight development; then there are ways to prevent it. There are some GREAT deals in Ghana, Slovakia and Guiana right now. Great open spaces. Cheap properties abound. Often there are lots of trees with no one wanting to cut them. There is not likely a Wal-Mart there or an Outlet Center. There are great rural people with rural lifestyles still there and many want American Dollars to come and will sell out cheap. If you own a home that has gone up in value from $5,000 or so during the early 60s to a couple of hundred thousand now, or your family does; now is a great time to sell out, move out and recapture the life and lifestyle of our youth. But, that takes risk, management, hard work, long hours, investment, income to pay for the investments, and all those nasty things. Slovakia is ready. And they sometimes speak better American and are more well educated than most of us. Doctors are cheap; many make only $400 a month. So health care is cheap. Meat is cheap – you just have to hunt or buy from a hunter. Vegetable products are cheap too, some are even farmed, many are just growing wild and ready for the harvesting. And they are rife with nice healthy bugs and mold and fungus – not messed up with chemicals. Wanna go?

There are several dozen Slovaks living here for another few weeks and all but one I’ve spoken to are planning to come back as soon as they can get here. They are making more money than they’ve ever seen before – spraying vegetables and opening boxes at Food Lion here on Rt. 24. The bounty of that dirty capitalist super market, Food Lion, in that Edgehill Shopping Center commercial development that Stan fought the anti-developers to put there, is intoxicating to them. They’ll never be the same. They ride bikes from Milton where they room together to the Food Lion to work. They are happy for the opportunity we have here and hope to be able to return in most cases. Some hope to go back to Slovakia and do what they’ve learned here. So hurry, some of them may become developers in Slovakia. They all have commented to me that they can save lots of money while here because food takes so little of what they earn, compared to what it takes back home! And all that in an area where “all the farms are gone and developers have taken over.” J

Take care,

Copyright www.JodyHudson.com

Physical Therapy And Reimbursement - Where Are We Heading?

The professions of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation have always been professions of healing, caring and educating. In the past 10 years, we have had to adapt and advance our professional therapeutic skills to include a dual specialty of therapist and reimbursement coordinator and manager. We enter the profession of therapeutic rehabilitation to heal our clients and provide education. We are now experiencing an ever-increasing demand on our time to complete extensive documentation required by multiple insurance companies.

The amount of reimbursement received for Physical Therapy services has remained largely flat over the past several years. In the same amount of time, the amount of required documentation has exponentially increased in volume as well as in complexity. The increase in documentation requirements, with a relatively flat level of reimbursement, does not keep pace with inflation. This effectively lowers the cost of reimbursement even further. These factors combine to produce lower levels of professional productivity due to extensive documentation time, and increased cost for additional office staff to support claims processing. The end result is working harder for less profit.

The National APTA Medicare Fee Schedule Calculator provides average reimbursements for CPT codes from 2000 to present. For a PT evaluation (97001) in upstate New York reimbursement rates have ranged from a low of $60.79 in 2000 to a high of $73.19 in 2005 and have continued to fall since that time. With reimbursement rates decreasing, paperwork increasing and increasing costs of malpractice, unemployment, disability, and workers compensation insurance for private practices, where do we go to improve the efficiency of our practices and get back to what we were trained to do? Treat patients!

Many organizations and data management companies have designed software programs for the end user offering electronic medical records and scheduling. Others offer evaluation forms and Billing/Claims/Account management systems. What becomes evident while researching these software systems is two things:

a. Software packages are aimed at improving the workflow within an office or office system that must then be managed by the provider. The full responsibility of the success of the system is placed back on the Physical Therapy Practice owner and/or the office staff, which must be hired to manage, support and facilitate the system.

b. Each software system is only as up to date as the date it was published or downloaded. With insurance regulations changing on a regular basis, the practice owner must again manage processes to update EOB's, CCI edits and new memorandums released by multiple insurance companies to assure complete and timely payments.

An internet based system with real time integrated billing management, claims processing, automated coding and reimbursement regulations is a necessary tool in getting the therapist back in the clinic and getting paid in a timely, efficient and effective manner. This process must be a shared, long-term relationship allowing the therapist to do what we are trained to do; treat patients and let the practice management solution do what it is designed to do:

o process claims faster than the national average

o provide quick access to AR and claims processing and management

o facilitate documentation to assure clean claims processing

o reduce the risk of audits with streamlined documentation

As Physical Therapists we must seek practice management systems which provide expert web based billing, coding and reimbursement solutions with an electronic medical record and scheduling capabilities. As Practice owners this will allow us to focus our efforts and expertise on improved professional staff productivity, decreased documentation time, reduced complexity and ambiguity which has existed in the PT billing and reimbursement process for years, and get back to doing what we do as Physical Therapists...client care and rehabilitation.

Gerilyn M. Gault, BSPT, is co-owner of the rehabilitation company http://www.gandetherapies.com and Account Specialist for Billing Dynamix. Gerilyn is an advanced neurological clinician with years of experience in professional staffing, contract and fiscal management. She invites you to visit http://www.billingdynamix.com/ Service and Practice Management Software for Physical Therapy and Rehab Offices to learn more about responsible billing and reimbursement practices.

SSON Roundtable Debate - UK Public Sector Shared Services - Where Now and Where Next?

Sharing services has risen up the agendas of the UK's national and local governments in recent years, propelled by political and financial trends as well as by more concrete factors such as Sir Peter Gershon's 2004-5 Efficiency Review and Sir David Varney's report on transformational government. In an attempt to throw some light on recent developments and to examine where shared services may be headed in future, SSON convened a roundtable debate involving a group of practitioners and advisors at local and national level, chaired by SSON's online editor Jamie Liddell. The results were, indeed, illuminating...

Attending were:

Tony Isaacs

Programme Manager

Warwickshire Direct Partnership

The Warwickshire Direct Partnership is a shared services programme comprising all six local authorities in the county of Warwickshire: North Warwickshire Borough Council; Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council; Rugby Borough Council; Stratford District Council; Warwick District Council; Warwickshire County Council; and three private-sector partners in Steria, MacFarlane Telesystems and Northgate Information Systems.

Dominic Swift

Head of Shared Services

Browne Jacobson

Browne Jacobson is one of the largest law firms in the Midlands with offices in Nottingham, Birmingham and London. The firm acts for over 100 local authorities, either directly or through their insurers. It recently published its Shared Services Survey '08, one of the most comprehensive surveys ever carried out into shared services in the UK.

Peter Telford

Chief Executive Officer

Research Councils UK Shared Services Centre

Research Councils UK (RCUK) is a strategic partnership between the seven UK Research Councils. RCUK was established in 2002 to enable the Councils to work together more effectively to enhance the overall impact and effectiveness of their research, training and innovation activities, contributing to the delivery of the Government's objectives for science and innovation.

Ray Tomkinson

Local Government Improvement Specialist and Shared Services Author

Ray Tomkinson is the author of Shared Services in Local Government: Improving Service Delivery (Gower, 2007). Ray managed the Welland Partnership shared services project and currently operates as a consultant.

SSON: Peter, you're at the head of one of the more prominent national shared services centres [SSCs]. Can you explain a little about the drivers behind the move in your organisation?

Peter Telford: Behind the Research Council's business case are benefits focusing on what are seen as financial gains which will be passed back to research and the research community, but probably more importantly in the early stages is the feeling that we can secure better effectiveness in business support to that research community by aggregating the seven Research Councils' services onto one common platform, and transforming them. The business case started with an outline about two years ago. There was a lot of work done on certain parts of the shared service model even before that, but the activity's really come together in the last two years. The full business case was accepted by the Research Councils in line with CSR07 [Comprehensive Spending Review 2007] in August last year, and the intention at the moment is that we will go live on the platform at the beginning of next year. We already have some services live in the IT and strategic sourcing areas.

SSON: Tony, your project's been going for rather longer than that. Would you say that the drivers behind the Warwickshire Direct Partnership are similar?

Tony Isaacs: I think ours were slightly different in that when we started off in 2002/3 the driver behind that was, basically, to capitalise on the money that was available from central government at the time. We made a bid as the Warwickshire Online Partnership, and set up that particular group specifically to bid for that money: a total of £2m. We identified a number of different projects that we would attempt to procure and implement with that money, not least of which was the joint procurement by all six authorities in Warwickshire of a CRM [citizen-relationship management] system and associated telephony systems. We got the full £2m and since then we have actually implemented it; we jointly went to procurement and we've ended up with the Northgate front office CRM system.

Now I don't think the goalposts have changed, but the drivers have. I think the drivers have changed in that there is no money available now; it's exactly the opposite insofar as before there was money splashing about, if you will, from central government, and now it's the opposite insofar as with CSR07, with all the efficiencies and demands that there are on local authorities to save, there is an overriding need to make things more effective and more efficient, and shared services is seen as being one key method of doing that - with the consequence that we are in a position now where our chief executives, our leaders, are very keen in looking at what can be done. And based upon that - or around all this - is the whole area of the two-tier structure within Warwickshire, and the drive that the government may want to push - and seems to be pushing - with regards to unitaries. But Warwickshire is very clear that it wants to retain its two-tier organisational structure and will do so by sharing services.

Dominic Swift: Tony, I just want to follow something through on that, because it's a theme that emerged when we did our research on shared services [Browne Jacobson's Shared Services Survey '08] that certainly efficiency savings and improvements in the way services are delivered are key drivers, but what you've identified as a lack of money was one of the real inhibitors, because in order to deliver shared services there is a considerable cost: You've already mentioned telephony which was obviously put in as part of the grant, and one of the problems that people seemed to face was the immediate increase in costs to deliver a shared services stream before any efficiency savings could actually be delivered.

Tony Isaacs: You're absolutely right insofar as there's a need to spend in order to deliver efficiencies, and what we're seeking to do is to build up good, strong, powerful business cases that maybe looking over a five-year spread, so that while there is a recognition that to begin with you may need to spend money, over the period following that it's anticipated that there will be savings. And Warwickshire may be different, but we don't necessarily regard it just as pounds saved: it could be efficiencies. So it's non-financial benefits as well as financial ones.

SSON: Ray, do you see many differences between the drivers for local and national shared services?

Ray Tomkinson: Yes I think there's one big difference, which is the issue of government compulsion, as it were. There's no doubt about it: central government departments recognise that they really don't have much alternative at the moment to creating some element of shared services - because the Treasury makes sure that they do, because the Treasury controls the purse strings. It's less clear that in local government every council is going to have to go down the shared services road.

As was being made abundantly clear a minute or two ago, local authorities have different ways of approaching their financial restrictions or their political considerations, one of which is the unitary agenda - or the two-tier agenda in other councils. So some councils are going to have to go down the shared services route because it's the only way organisationally that they're going to function. Other councils don't have that imperative at the moment and I'm working with one group of four councils which are looking at sharing services but not because of financial pressures. They're looking at it because they want to make service improvements, to improve resilience of services, and also give opportunities to create new services. So it's a very different agenda between the two.

SSON: Peter, from a national perspective are you seeing an increased pressure from government to implement?

Peter Telford: Yes. Historically I've been in shared services in the private sector, local authority and now central government so I suppose I can absolutely empathise with the previous comments. I think the compulsion from central government is largely fiscal although there is a feeling that the transformational agenda that sits behind it is also very prominent. I think the other difference in central government is it is easier to identify and reach a critical mass where you can actually effect a transformation and deliver efficiency and effectiveness. At the local government level, it is more difficult to create critical mass - which then makes the funding routes and the benefits probably more difficult to determine in the early stages.

SSON: OK. There's been a lot of talk about what advantages other than cost savings can be delivered through shared services. And this brings us on to the issue of benchmarking. When it comes to savings you can obviously benchmark against what you're saving and how much you've saved against previous budgets, for example. But when it comes to service-delivery, how can one establish exactly what you're benchmarking, and against what and against whom? Is there a common thread here in terms of where you go for benchmarking?

Dominic Swift: I think benchmarking's so different, for different projects, is the long and the short of it. What we've seen through our research is that there's a very wide range of different projects - we've already talked about the drivers, and it really depends on what you want out of your project. One of the frustrations that we heard at the national launches that we did of our review, was that there wasn't enough benchmarking of the actual outcomes. And a lot of people said to me "how do we judge whether this has been a success?"

One of the problems is that if you produce a much more efficient service, which is more attractive to the general public (if it is a front-facing service, which more and more are) is that it will actually be used more. And as a result you're getting better value, in terms of hits, but the cost of the service may actually go up. So it is quite a complicated job to benchmark and I think it requires some very clear outputs to be identified at the outset, and to look for comparable projects.

SSON: Tony, you've got a wide variety of services you need to benchmark...

Tony Isaacs: Yes, that's right. I can concentrate really around the CRM system, because all the information we've got is via customer services, and improvements we've made to that around the CRM system. What we've done is take benchmarking as a very serious exercise in its own right, and what we've sought to do is to get customer insight by using different databases, information from the CRM, information from MacFarlane - the telephony system - and pool all that information among all the partners. And what we've done then is to say "ok, concentrate on the areas that we want to concentrate on" and to make sure that we do improve the services that we are seeking to improve. We have got what we call an Improvement Forum, which is a relatively recent creation and which is proving to be very successful as well. And that's looking at the way in which the CRM in particular can add value to the whole process of improving customer services.

We are concentrating as well on a variety of different access channels, so we've got the CRM system, we've got telephone contact obviously, face-to-face via our one-stop-shops - we've got eight of them at the moment, with another eight planned for next year. We've got kiosks as well. But also I think most significantly, in the next few months or so what we're looking to do is drive ourselves forward with web self-serve, and look to try to move people more towards that means of accessing services. And I think that will be a double win because the customer will benefit greatly from that in terms of speed of service, but also we will, because we'll drive down the unit costs, and that quite clearly is a key method of making savings.

SSON: In the private sector a great deal of benchmarking goes on between individual companies and organisations, and as a result you have the idea of world-class et cetera. Is it a pipedream to suggest you might be able to get similar systems set up in the public sector, in which every region and every locality has its own pressures?

Peter Telford: I don't think it is and I think the benefit of the public sector is, by and large we're not competing with each other, and therefore people are much more willing to share information and the assumptions that sit under that information to try to help each other along. And I'm quite heartened by that kind of culture. I think the difficulty with the private sector is that it's usually wrapped in commercial connotations and costings as well, which makes it very difficult to unpick to ensure you are comparing like with like. Albeit that said, the difference is that there is much more evidence when you can find it and it's much more prescriptive in terms of service levels than I would suggest you would find in the public sector.

Dominic Swift: I'm very interested to see whether there can be some sort of worldwide benching or benchmarking which really does define the success of projects. I'd be very interested in understanding more of what Tony's doing and how the measurement takes place, capture of information and then the dissemination of that, to actually judge how that service is being delivered and where the successes are - and where perhaps the challenges are. And also what sort of services you're comparing that with. Because as I see it, shared services range across such a vast array of the different public sector areas - we were talking earlier on about this being local authorities but clearly it goes to health and other public sector bodies as well - and from that point of view the real problem you'll have it seems to me is comparing apples with apples.

Tony Isaacs: I can give you a fairly high-level description of what we're doing, and that is that we're using some software you may be familiar with - Mosaic Data - and we've populated a lot of databases according to the information that we've gleaned from there, and that's proving to be very much the benchmarking process that we're going to go through. And there are certain authorities out of the partnership that are leading on this.

For each of the projects that we have, we have lead authorities who volunteer to lead on particular projects. We've got Nuneaton for example to lead on one, as well as the county, and the county has information that it uses from its observatory, and there's a pooling of information, and there's an agreement via the Improvement Forum for example whereby they do concentrate on specific areas with the data they've accumulated - whether it's county-wide or just individual authority-wide. But basically they work together as best they can to provide these benchmarking criteria. It's not a quick process by any means. But over time we build up that data and then we can use it from year to year to do comparisons to see how things are improving.

In addition to that I don't know if you're familiar with NI14, the latest government key indicator which has just come out, which is to do with avoidable contact with clients - customers - with local authorities. And we'll be using the CRM to glean quite a lot of information via the CRM system. But it is a corporate-wide key indicator, so you will have other services, other departments, feeding in this information as well. That information is supposed to be started in October of this year and it will be used year-on-year to gauge how we're doing, in terms of avoiding avoidable contact, and looking to improve that.

Peter Telford: I think it's fair to say whilst we have not yet built the longevity of data that Tony describes - and I absolutely agree with him that building a profile and a trajectory is invaluable as a benchmark - we haven't really got to the point yet where we are able to benchmark our service delivery over a period of time; what we are doing is assessing our performance as we transfer services. We've got a baseline against some services from the Research Councils and from my own experience and from talking with others in the public sector we will then aggregate what we believe will be appropriate targets for the Research Councils against their baseline. But I'm with Dominic: initially it is very difficult to compare apples with apples and ensure you've got a representative benchmark.

Dominic Swift: Peter, it's very interesting from my point of view. I quite agree with you about the "apples with apples" thing. I think what's been said about the public sector is very true: it's much more transparent, there's much more desire to learn from each other. One of the things I'm doing tomorrow actually is go down to sit in in Kettering where they've been running a shared services project for many years - well, well before Gershon and Varney and the rest. And that's very interesting because people are open about what's happening in shared services and happy to learn from each other. The difficulty seems to be that they range over such a wide area, the danger is that unless people come to some common terminology about what outputs are going to be defined for particular services it may be possible to benchmark over time as Tony's doing, but actually benchmarking across different projects will be very difficult.

Ray Tomkinson: I think that's very valid. One of the issues is that there is no commonality across authorities as to what constitutes a service. So what you tend to find is that people dive for a process - and even when they dive for a process it doesn't tell you an awful lot about the service that you're trying to share. And there's often a real difficulty in stopping trying to find the trees when you're trying to fight your way through the forest. So from that point of view I think benchmarking has on occasion got a very bad name because people use it as an excuse for not doing anything; and it's only in the past couple of years where I think people have been much more prepared to be open about the fact they need to consider sharing as an option and sometimes benchmarking isn't used as a blockage.

SSON: Let's move on from benchmarking. We were talking a little about the private sector a minute ago - are we of the opinion that the private sector is an absolute necessity within UK public sector shared services, and to what extent is it a foregone conclusion that this is going to result in a degree of privatisation of services?

Dominic Swift: This is a question we asked in our survey: the sort of view that we had was that of course the private sector is an important potential partner in shared services, but there were just as many opportunities for the public sector to work together without the private sector. So, yes, it's part of the picture but it certainly isn't necessarily the whole of it. And I don't think that privatisation is an inevitability from shared services: where we saw the private sector coming in, and the survey really highlighted this, links back to the funding issues we discussed earlier on.

Where you needed some sort of IT facility and commonality across a number of authorities and participants, quite often the private sector partner was someone who could deliver that in order to relieve some of the initial cost difficulties of setting up a shared service which frankly couldn't be borne by some of the participating authorities.

SSON: Tony, that's certainly what you were saying about the initial start-up of Warwickshire, isn't it?

Tony Isaacs: Yes certainly: and it's ongoing because we've just finished the renewal of the CRM contract and the telephony contract, so from the beginning of next year we will actually be embarking on new five-year contracts replacing the existing ones. And that's the position of the CRM, the telephony, the ICT systems around it - so yes, it's inevitable that we have to go down that route. We've had good - very good - negotiations with the private sector on this and I'd like to think that all of us have come to a very good, fair new contract.

Ray Tomkinson: I think actually the point that was made about investment is a very good one. There is actually no reason why local authorities can't do sharing on their own without the private sector, and there are lots of examples around now where groups of councils are trying to do public-public partnerships. But I do agree: where there is a real need for investment - particularly around IT - then that's where the problems start for local authorities, and that's why they often do resort to the private sector.

But I do think that it's worthwhile pointing out that as much as there are needs for investment, particularly in IT, there are lots of services which do not need that investment, and I'm thinking of professional services like planning, or building controls are another good example, or environmental health is another good example, where simply you're dealing with people. One of the problems though that local authorities do find in that area is the scarcity of professional planners, environmental health officers, building control officers. And often they have to partner with the private sector simply for that reason.

Peter Telford: We need to get back to the point that I think Dominic made earlier which is in analysing what you're trying to achieve with your SSC you then start to look at how you're going to do it. And how you're going to do it may or may not include the private sector. If you do seek investment from the private sector, they will seek a return on that investment; you just have to recognise that. They may indeed want a profit which may erode the efficiency savings you seek to make.

I think another thing that the private sector brings is experience and expertise in the sorts of change and benchmarking data which you may need. That said, I think the blend of public and private sector in trying to get to a shared service centre is the right one and the transfer of risk to the private sector through doing this is always pretty key in terms of what you want to get out against your project.

Tony Isaacs: I was just going to pick up on the point that if you can go for joint procurement as opposed to individual authority procurement, you can really reap the benefits, and the bottom line will be that you do make considerable savings - not so much a profit will result, but it will produce efficiencies in savings. We found that with our negotiations latterly with Northgate and MacFarlane, and also more significantly during the course of the contract that we've just had, when we as a partnership stuck together and wanted to get individual things out of Northgate, and/or MacFarlane, by standing firm we could really apply the screws to them, and they were forthcoming; so we could really achieve quite significant savings on different aspects of procurement that we did during the course of the four years we've had the system.

In terms of profit, I'm not sure whether profit's the right word as I just mentioned; what we're looking for are savings and efficiencies and I choose to use those terms rather than profit. In essence we can justify what we're doing now: adding value, making sure we are getting the market rate or better, and we can quite happily and justifiably tell our chief officers and members based on the business cases that we've produced that we are getting best value, we are making savings and efficiencies on the basis of this joint procurement exercise.

SSON: Moving on: the future form and structure of shared services in the UK is, it appears, going to be determined in large part by competition between authorities, in a lot of areas. How do you see local shared services existing in the UK in, say, two or three governments' time?

Ray Tomkinson: Two or three governments' time, that's interesting. So that'll be two Conservative and one Labour... I suppose my thinking goes like this: I think that in 15 to 20 years' time you will see a patchwork quilt across - certainly the local government sector; I'm not quite so sure about the central government sector. And what I mean by that is you will have a group of statutory authorities that are all geographically based - whether that's a county or a district - there will be differences across the country.

Secondly they will have different types of shared services in different areas. There will be some that will be public-public; some that will be public-private; and some that will be public-public in terms of different sectors: health will have joined in; the police will have joined in. Because the pressures of the CAA regime coming from the Audit Commission mean that all public sector organisations in geographical areas have got to think whether it's better to work together than to work separately. And as a result of that I think you'll get a really different appreciation across, and in some areas there will be very heavy private involvement and in other areas probably none.

Dominic Swift: Basically I think it'll depend a little bit on the nature of the shared service, to be honest. Sorry - I keep coming back to that point really. It struck us during the course of the work we did that there are two different forms of shared service: the ones which perhaps have been more prevalent to date, which have been the sort of back-office, IT function - ICT-reliant functions - and then the front-office function. Now they have very different possibilities in terms of partners. If you look at the front office it is a locally-delivered service and therefore your partners are chosen by geography, and geography alone: they can't be chosen by much else, other than if you go to some sort of call-centre arrangement. But the other services can actually be amalgamated a lot more and with less sensitivity to geography.

So I think there are going to be some quite different groupings and possibly some legal authorities who particularly drive the delivery of a good service who perhaps sell to a very wide range of local authorities: health, via police, all of these are potential customers for them. And then on the local basis it's going to be a lot more down to politics and the dynamics between the politicians as to how well their shared services are going to be run, and I think some of the political difficulties we have in Nottinghamshire, where I'm based, may make it quite challenging to get some of those local shared services off the ground.

SSON: Tony, I know this is something you've been thinking about, and obviously as quite a successful service provider it must be on the agenda. So let's put you on the spot: do you think you will be at the forefront of a successful selling of services in the next couple of years?

Tony Isaacs: Yes I think I do in the next couple of years, but if you're talking longer-term than that I think - and I hasten to add that this is my own personal view - the likelihood is that there will be an increase in unitaries. And there could well be in Warwickshire as well. I can put forward a very rosy picture in some ways - but at the same time you've got nagging at the back of your mind all the time the difficulty that there is in actually creating successful shared services - and I think that's from a political point of view as well as the straightforward business-case point of view.

I think there will be more and more unitary authorities, to be honest. And I wouldn't be surprised if even Warwickshire eventually ended up with two unitary authorities rather than the six authorities we've got now. I think it's almost inevitable, and I think the government will continue to apply the screws, demand more and more savings year upon year, and the consequences will be that it'll almost be inevitable that there will be more.

Peter Telford: I think this is too early in our development path to consider and I think building a stable service with reference-ability is key before we could go there. The wider central government agenda is pretty clear in terms of convergence of effort and activity onto some of the core shared services in the bigger departments. That's already starting to come because of the requirements laid down by the Cabinet Office. And you can see the agenda already moving to: how do you ensure that there's a commonality of solution and agreement on service levels that are given to customers? How do you allocate customer benefit across a broader-based shared service? How do you prioritise how you would offer services to customers? Those are debates which I think are becoming more prevalent and therefore indicative of activities and departments coming together on shared service platforms.

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Where Does Your Real Estate Commission Fee Go - Why is The Commission so HIGH?

Many who have bought and sold properties through Realtors numerous times; even many real estate agents themselves, don't know where the commission money goes. After all, when a property sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars and the commission is tens of thousands of dollars, it seems like there is a terrific amount of money charged as commission -- and there is.

Even many attorneys, who have spent a decade or more in expensive colleges, fought to get through the Bar exam, and then spent years in their profession -- seem concerned that the commission fee is far larger than the attorney fee when all the fees are paid at settlement.

Let's start with the part that few real estate agents understand. It costs the real estate company they work for, between $19,000 and $45,000 per year for each agent to have a license, desk, and the use of company building, parking, real estate, taxes, insurance, utilities and professional support services -- whether they sell anything or not. Since the real estate brokerage commission is split between the company and the agent, an agent must make three to six thousand dollars every month in commissions for the company to break even on that agent with the company share of the fee. And, most importantly, the less productive agents in the office raise the cost for everyone. The other agents therefore, must each earn more to carry the share of the less productive. Many agencies will ONLY allow high quality, top producing agents to work at the company, so that the less successful agents don't pull down the average income of the company investment.

The total commission is split between the listing company and the listing agent ; and the selling company and the selling agent. Usually the commission is split four ways, sometimes it is more. Splits are arranged within each company and for each agent; sometimes there are numerous different percentages and split arrangements in each office.

The company part of the commission is spent on office rent or mortgage, taxes, property insurance, maintenance, signs, radio and TV advertising, bill boards, magazine and newspaper ads, cleaning, supplies, phones, paper, desks, utilities, legal fees and legal insurances, management and support staff as well as numerous memberships, dues, legal fees and expert professionals. Many companies also pay a fee to a franchise company or home office for the right to use the company name. Fees are also paid to regional and national home offices to defray national and regional advertising, management, staff, etc.

In the final analysis, an office that has 10 licensed agents must require those agents to bring in at least forty to seventy thousand dollars in commissions every month to keep the office bills paid!!! I don't know any real estate agents who actually understand or believe this, unless they have personally been responsible for office expenses for a year or more. Responsible, meaning writing the checks out of an account that costs THEM money. Even then it's hard to understand how it all adds up to such a huge figure, but it does. Offices that earn less than these amounts per agent are disappearing fast, few remain as it is.

Computer purchase, maintenance, training and software expenses are now one of the larger expenses. Many offices feel squashed financially, by the financial pressure of adding the purchase of computers, printers, digital cameras, and the maintenance, networking, repair, software and constant management of computers to the already high cost of doing business. In fact, there are even a few of the larger companies who specialize in purchasing other real estate companies who can't keep up with the expense and responsibility of this digital age. Any company or agent who is not keeping pace with digital realty and digital real estate, is not likely to be around much longer.

More and more people rely on the Internet to pre-shop for real estate. You know that. You are one of them and we welcome you to our site.

The purpose of our Web Site is to allow you to educate yourself and pre-shop for real estate before you call us. Let us know if you want us to have anything else on our site for you. We'll listen! As the Internet becomes the favored tool it is also the most important tool for buyers -- radio, print and sign ads become less workable. Smart sellers now want to see what a Realtor is doing on the web before they choose which Realtor to list their property for sale with.

Advertising and marketing expenses have grown tremendously over the years. For instance, when I first got into the business, thirty years ago, I started out helping to manage a real estate, building and developing company. At that time, over 60% of our phone calls came from signs on the property. Also at that time, bulk mail cost an average of thirty cents a piece to create, print, post and send and our response rate was often 3% or more!!! Now less than 10% of our calls come from signs on the property. Bulk mail averages over a dollar a piece and mail response is far less than half of one percent. In fact according to one national Realtor's marketing research team, real estate mailings now range in response from one in a thousand to one in three hundred. The best results costing the most to obtain because of expensive mailing pieces with full color, pictures, etc. One recent survey showed that average cost per resonse to a mailing was $2,000 - whether it was a lot of cheap postcards or fewer nicely printed color pieces.

Since 1971, I have studied and researched marketing and sales via schooling, reading and keeping good records of expenses and results. Thirty years ago the average cost of newspaper advertising to get a phone call was seven dollars. One in every ten calls coming to a top agent, resulted in an appointment. One in five appointments resulted (for a top agent) in a sale! Of course these were averages based on the best advertising, telephone and selling techniques that were available. Often the averages were not as good in other companies or for other agents. So the average cost of a sale using just print ads was about $350 thirty years ago. For my office of 50 agents in 1979, the average print, signage and bulk mail advertising cost had risen to $500 per call.

Now the average cost of one phone call from a print ad is from two thousand to five thousand dollars and that is growing by the month! So even if one could get one in ten calls to result in an appointment, and one in five appointments to result in a sale, the cost of advertising per contract would be phenomenal.

The nicer the property, the more attractively priced it is or the better it is located the more response the ad will get. Luckily for print ad salespeople and newspapers, few Realtors keep records of what advertising costs and results are. Singage is still a factor in obtaining calls and used to be the most cost effective. Therefore many Realtors will seek to get a listing in a hot area, no matter what the listed price, just to get a sign on the property! Can you blame them?

Print ads are done mostly to please the seller. After all the seller wants to see something tangible as proof that the Realtor is spending some money before that big commission is paid out at settlement. We certainly can't fault them for that either, can we? Interestingly enough, those sellers who price their property highest for what it is and who are located farthest from where the most buyers want such a property, are quite often the ones who most want to see their property advertised expensively!!! In the case of an overpriced property that is not well located -- thousands of dollars can be spent in advertising with not one phone call resulting! It's just part of our business and always has been. Ironically those sellers who have property priced the highest for it's location and want the most advertising, are often the ones who want to pay the least commission too.

You may find this all unbelievable! It is! I've been doing this business all my adult life, going to courses every year, working in the business in many parts of the country as a property specialist -- and I still can't believe the costs and conditions of this business. I am amazed every day by all this!

Each company pays their agents differently but the overall or gross commission as it is called is split in some fashion between the company and the agents. The expenses are split too. The most productive agents usually get a larger split of the commission, relative to the company. Some companies offer top agents the right to rent office space, usually at least twenty thousand dollars a year, and keep all the commission! And, top agents almost always spend a far larger percentage of what they earn for advertising, marketing, education and other business expenses that are designed to bring them future sales and income.

The best agents, the best ones for the seller to have, are those who do everything possible to let all the rest of the Realtors in the area know everything possible about the property they have for sale so that other Realtors can try to sell it too. When two Realtors from different offices are involved in the sale the commissions are split in half again. Typically each of the two companies involved would split the commission and then each of them would split with the agents involved. Often there are other commission splits payable as well to a referring agents; an agent who referred the listing or one who referred the buyer. To give you an idea of what all this means, when I averaged all the commissions I made over the last several years I averaged three quarters of one percent of the sales price for the properties I sold - BEFORE expenses! Now you can see why we all try to sell millions of dollars of property each year!

In most areas there is another expensive service that the companies and the agents use -- the Multiple Listing Service or MLS. This is where all the agents have agreed to put everything they have on a centralized and searchable computer so that all agents can have access to all properties. Once you choose your Realtor that person can access everything in the central computer files if they are a member of the MLS. Some of the smaller companies are not members because of the cost.

From the proceeds of commissions earned by the sales and listing agents, they then pay for their auto expenses, MLS fees, annual county, state and national Realtor dues, commercial licensing fees, business licenses, electronic lockbox keys, advertising, insurance, legal fees, computer related expenses, phone bills, etc. In the final analysis a Realtor who sells two million dollars in real estate a year is usually working diligently and effectively for his clients for only average earnings in area where she lives after all these expenses. And there are others; client gifts, professional dinners and luncheons, Chamber of Commerce dues, and numerous charities who consider that Realtors are the most likely to donate heavily to all the charities... since they have so much money.

Selling Real Estate is a life style and profession most of us would not trade for anything. And there are some of us who have made a nice living over the years at this wonderful job. It's all about helping others. If we do it well, we are paid well, and if we do it very well we are paid very well! Happily I have been working as a Realtor since 1972 and I LOVE it.

We know that for us we have the best job on earth and we do it our way. We use primarily the modern tools of the Net, Multiple Web sites, all the latest devices and techniques, MLS, several computers, as well as selected traditional mailings, some print ads and several professional assistants all to help our clients better and faster!

May we help YOU? We hope so! And, we hope to get paid when we do!

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