Community Events & Sales

This is my contribution to the Blog Action Day 2008

After graduating from Cal, I spent a year working for City Year D.C., an AmeriCorps program, in Washington D.C. Our stipend came out to be $2.50 - $3.00 per hour. To make ends meet, I lived with 5 other co-workers (just so happened it was 3 boys and 3 girls, exactly like the Real World house casting), and took a waitress job at Dupont Circle in additions to already working 50-hour weeks.

Granted I wasn’t living in “true” poverty, but all of us in the program were basically living on borderline poverty line. But luckily with 6 of us in the house, we were able to split everything 6 ways. When you split everything 6 ways, well, it didn’t seem that terrible. Still, ramen and cheap groceries were major stock in our house.

Our house was 2 blocks away from where Rockridge park, where Chandra Levy’s body was found (Modesto college student who disappeared, consequently erupted scandal of hometown congressman was having an affair with her). We lived in the vicinity of 4 different liquor stores that had iron bars and bullet proof glass in front of the counters, and a half way house. When I was living in that neighborhood, I was so oblivious that I didn’t even notice the women and their pimps, the drug dealers.

Still, housing condition was bad. Within a week of living in the row house, we came home from work finding a piece of ceiling on the floor in the living room. The real estate management company didn’t bother to give us any attention at all. In comparison, we were small potato clients. We were poor, and they had luxury clients to deal with. We had issues with sewer where the gross stuff came back up from the pipes. Dryer was broken. By the time most of us moved out a year later, the giant hold still lived in the ceiling, with the water pipes exposed. When the weather got warm, we soon found in addition to Jeff, the freeloader who were just “crashing” but never ended up moving out until he found a girlfriend to mooch off, we had mice as our new roommates. And somehow we couldn’t get our full deposit back! What a crazy world?

Living with low wages and working 70-80 hour weeks taught me a lot about living below our means. It was a testy year. Groceries were terrible. We bought the cheapest things which usually contained high fat, grease and all sorts of chemical. I gained a lot of weight because fast food was the cheapest thing. (How can you beat $5 fried chicken that came with all sorts of sides and a giant soda?) Gaining weight made me had less energy and more testy in dealing with tough situations, which we encounter a lot working with DC public school systems. Living with 5 other people (who you also saw at work daily AND on weekends) in a 3 bedroom house was also rough. I ended up living in attic because half way through the fall I realized that there were no insulation in sun room, I would be freezing to death if I continue to live in sun room. Attic had more insulation and my thermal sleeping bag proved to be a fantastic investment.
More importantly, I learned about “the vicious cycle.” It’s very difficult to escape poverty, because while you are trying to make your ends meet, you really can’t afford to think about what is green or eco-friendly for your house since all the eco-friendly stuff costs at least 2-3 times more comparing to drugstore brands. You also can’t think about buying high-quality food, because Whole Foods would really take your entire paycheck of a month for your one-week worth of food. I can’t even imagine people who have families, kids to feed, dress and send to school, and dealing with mortgages and car loans. Or what if you have children who are sick? How are you going to pay for their bills if you don’t have health insurance. Life is much more easier when you only have your own mouth to feed, yet I was working 70-hour weeks.
I obviously survived, and plenty of other AmeriCorps members have similar stories. (I once heard about 15 people living in a 2 bedroom house, now that’s AMAZING.) All of us *chose* to have this job and live on the stipend, but how about people who didn’t choose to? Who didn’t grow up with the means to go to school to receive higher education? Or people who can’t afford afterschool care, or babysitters, but have to work 2 jobs to support their families? They didn’t *choose* to not read to their kids and do their homework with them. They are simply too tired.
So let’s help others to get out of that cycle. There are a lot of ways you can help:

a. You can donate to charities to help people get assistance to gain independence.
b. Support new entrepreneurs through micro-lending organizations and courses
c. Involve your local politicians
and many many others!

Tomorrow is Blog Action Day, a day started by bloggers to raise awareness of an important issue on October 15 every year. Last year was environment, this year we are raising awareness on battling poverty.

So far, 9,014 sites and 9,571,358 RSS subscribers are raising awareness to Poverty, are you? 3 simple ways:

1. Blog about Poverty
2. Donate to micro-lending organizations like kiva.org
3. Promote by getting the word out there!

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

I originally wrote a post on promoting Blog Action Day 08 but wordpress ate it for Sunday brunch but Skellie did such an amazing job I figure I should just point out Skellie’s blog on technology and poverty: [Click here to read Skellie's 30 Simple Ways to Battle Poverty With Technology]

My favorites of Skellie’s 30 are #2, #4, #29.

Hiya, welcome to the Staged4more blog. It’s an honor and pleasure to host CoRE this week. Lots of great submissions this week but I managed to narrow down to the top 3 picks of this week’s Carnival of Real Estate.

=>While CNN is still trying to figure out who Mr. Joe Sixpack is, Ardell DellaLoggia tells us his story in her post Joe Sixpack and the Subprime Crisis.

Photo courtesy of The Daily News

=>This photo highlighted by Trevor of theREIbrain.com in his post Real Estate Agents Are Really Going Green… (you have to see this one) really will make you think differently about “being green.” I will let you see it for yourself on that one…

=>Last but not least, this is something that needs to be said and the folks at Blog the Rockies have said it really well in their post Enhance Your Real Estate And Increase Its Value. In today’s market, there are a lot of things we cannot control, but as professionals, we can control our attitudes and how we present ourselves, represent our clients and market our products. The stronger we make our products to sell, the more likely we can differentiate our products from others.

Honorable Mention:

=>Have you seen a house built by water bottles? Will, now you will, thanks to International Listings‘ post 10 Amazing, Beautiful Houses Built From Trash. You can see 9 other amazing homes on the site

Photo courtesy of antydiluvian

=>As always, Drew stirs up some good conversational topic in his post Want a job in Real Estate? Start blogging. It’s true, your online brand identity now becomes your resume. I have certainly booked jobs through my blogs, and I now screen new hires via facebook.

=>The last honorable mention goes to Dan Green at The Mortgage Reports on how long you can trust today’s mortgage rates: For How Long Is Your Mortgage Rate Quote “Good”? Try 3 Hours and 51 Minutes.

### ### ###

The carnival will make its next appearance on Monday, October 6 at Minneapolis Luxury Real Estate. Please submit your best post by Sunday October 20 to be considered. Are you a real estate blogger and would you like to host a future edition or take a more active role in administration of the CoRE? If so, get instructions on how to do so here. Please check the complete FAQ list if you have other questions as to how to participate.

Stage It Forward: San Francisco Bay Area Stagers’ Get Together

LET’S GET TOGETHER TO MEET, GREET, MINGLE AND CHAT!

RSVP HERE

Thursday, November 13, 2008 from 12:00 PM - 03:00 PM (PT)

Event Details

November is Home Staging Awareness Month

Professional Home Stagers Gather to Discuss Industry News and Promote Home Staging

The Real Estate Staging Association (RESA) the Trade Association for Professional Home Stagers has announced that November is Home Staging Awareness Month.

RESA along with IRIS and ASHSR is proud to announce that we are National Co-Sponsors of Home Staging Awareness Month.

During Home Staging Awareness Month the popular “Stage it Forward” (SIF) Round Table Meetings will be taking place all over North America. SIF originated from a powerful internet blogging community that is hosted by Real Estate Blogging website called Active Rain.

The meetings will focus on the Staging Industry, creating standards, ethics and the wants and needs of the Professional Stager. You ALL can have a voice in creating standards and choosing the direction you want your industry to take.

Keeping with the tradition of SIF and RESA ALL Stagers are welcome to attend or facilitate/moderate a meeting. You do not have to be a member of RESA to attend or facilitate the meeting nor do you have to hold any particular designation.

LIGHT LUNCH WILL BE SERVED. RSVP HERE

When
Thursday, November 13, 2008 from 12:00 PM - 03:00 PM (PT)

Where
Staged4more Warehouse
390 Swift Avenue #6
South San Francisco, CA 94080

Hosted By
Real Estate Staging Association

The Real Estate Staging Association (RESA) the Trade Association for Professional Home Stagers has announced that November is Home Staging Awareness Month.

RSVP HERE

Hello ladies & gents

I know this has nothing to do with staging But many of you who read my blogs know I am passionate about technology and its application to small businesses. My business certainly has benefited from technology tremendously and I would not have found the success that I have without using technology to streamline processes and lower my overheads.

With that said, I am one of the co-organizers for BizTechDay and I just found out we have booked Tim Ferriss of 4-hour Work Week for our keynote!

Here are the details:
BizTechDay – Technology Bootcamp for Entrepreneurs and Business Owners Saturday October 25 All Day Event
BiztechDay is the only conference that puts your business first before technology. Come meet Timothy Ferriss, best selling author of 4-Hour Work Week and George Wright (Marketing Genius behind the continue

Hello ladies & gents,

I am one of the co-organizers for BizTechDay, a fabulous all-day event packed with information that is 200% devoted to growing your business with efficiency and cutting-edge technologies (that are easy to learn!)

A lot of you know I am passionate about technology and using it to make my business smoother and my life easier. I have had great successes with utilizing online media for Staged4more, to the point I am now coaching other small business owners how to do it. I used a lot of the social media and web tools (that are mostly free) to get to #1 on Google in my home base for FREE in 6 months.

A lot of the stuff we are planning are exactly about that. You will learn about using social media that are FREE TOOLS for you, such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp, e-commerce platforms, email marketing tools, Search Engine Optimization strategies and much more). The schedule offers 2 tracks with more than 10 workshops to choose from as well as keynote speakers, networking and a Genius Bar! The workshops will all be led by industry-leading experts.

SIGN UP FOR BIZTECHDAY NOW! After 9/15, the price goes up $100! Use discount code BIZSCY148

Cost: $149 before September 15th, $249 after September 15th
Location: Downtown San Francisco Hilton

BizTechDay is sponsored by the Small Business Administration (SBA), Ladies Who Launch, American Express OPEN, EventBrite, IBM, Craig’s List, Constant Contact and Meetup.

This is a tremendous opportunity to spend a Saturday with great people and get some great information to build your business! You can access the early bird special ($149 per person) by using the following link:

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/141023806/BIZTECH/101793602

TO YOUR SUCCESS!

Cheers,
Cindy

SEPTEMBER 13-14, 2008

HOME TOURS TICKETS ON SALE NOW!
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE
VIP WEEKEND PACKAGE ON SALE NOW!

L-R:Terry and Terry Architecture, Choy Residence; Walker Warner Architects, Wurster Renovation/Addition; Kwan Henmi Architecture/Planning, Arterra

AIA San Francisco’s popular San Francisco Living: Home Tours weekend is the first tour series of its kind in the Bay Area to promote a wide variety of architectural styles, neighborhoods, and residences—all from the architect’s point of view.

The annual program provides design enthusiasts and the general public with an inside look into the world of distinctive residences in San Francisco. Projects are showcased with the designer(s) via an open house format, and tour participants have the opportunity to see continue