One of my favorite Landlord/Owners who I frequent work with to find quality renters for her property asked me if she was required to install window guards on the front windows of her fabulous brownstone.  She hoped not because aesthetically, they are not cute, and besides, the potential tenant that has an 8-year-old child will be living on the first floor.

The fact checker in me went straight to the web even though I was already pretty sure of the answer.  According to New York City law as set out by the Department of Heath and Mental Hygiene, window guards are required if a building has three or more apartments and a child 10 and under lives in that building, even if the child lives on the first floor. Every window in the apartment must have a window guard except windows leading to fire escapes.  Even windows in any public corridors must have window guards.

Beside the fact that it’s the law, window guards save lives.  Every year many children fall from windows in New York City.  Some of them die, many are very badly injured.  I advise all of the landlords and tenants I work with to make sure window guards are in place in their apartments if children of any age will be living there.  Last year in the Bronx a 14-year-old boy fell out of the window from the six floor.  At his age he should have known better, but children will be children.

The standard window guards that you can buy from Home Depot or Lowe’s are indeed ugly, as you can see from the one pictured above, but there a many dressier (which means more expensive) alternatives.

I think aesthetics are important.  Pretty things make us feel good, and a good-looking property has increased value but there’s nothing uglier than the death of a child that could have been easily prevented with window guards.

Whenever I begin to think its time to throw in the towel and give up, I think of Abraham Lincoln the 22 President of the United States.  Known for the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address and many other great speeches and acts as the 16th President of the United States, you might be surprised to find that he was also a failure at a good many things.

Take a look at Abraham Lincoln’s list of failures, defeats and mishaps that led up to what some would say was the ultimate success as one of the greatest American Presidents:

1832  Failed in Business – bankruptcy

1832  Defeated for legislature

1834  Failed in Business – bankruptcy

1835  Fiance died

1836  Nervous breakdown

1838  Defeated in election

1843  Defeated for U.S. Congress

1848  Defeated for U.S. Congress

1855  Defeated for U.S. Senate

1856  Defeated for Vice President

1858  Defeated for U.S. Senate

1860  Elected President of The United States of America

So the next time life has you down, think of Abraham Lincoln, a humble man from humble beginnings who never give up, even after devastating defeats, and became a prominent figure in American history because he didn’t.

I didn’t know the true meaning of fear until that day.  I’d seen horror on the evening news, seen it dramatized in the movies and on television, but it’s indescribably worse when you watch people die in so many terrible ways with your own eyes.  The sights, the smells, the sounds.  Horrible.

My heart goes out to those who lost their lives on that day and the family members who have had to live with their loss since then.  I gained even more respect for New York City’s “Bravest” and “Finest” that day and the days that followed and I wish them all well and thank them wholeheartedly for putting their lives on the line to protect and save mine.

May we never again experience events like the ones that occurred on September 11, 2001.  In a perfect world, my words would come true, but in the world we live in now….Regardless, the human spirit cannot be broken unless we let it.

New York City (and the rest of the nation) has survived.  To live in this city you have to be a little nuts anyway, and we New Yorkers are tough nuts to crack.

No one has to be told that its expensive to live in New York City.  Its even more so when you’re on a fixed income like many retired New Yorkers.  If you’ve worked all your life, and are now over the age of 65, there are benefits that you are entitled to that you may not know about.

New York City’s Department of Aging has put together a wonderful tool called “QuickCheck” that will help you find out about those benefits.   There are three great things about this service, its free, its easily accessed online, and its completely anonymous.

So, if you’ve ever wondered if you qualify for any of the many programs out there for seniors such as EPIC (which allows you to save money on many medications), SCRIE (which provides rent increase exemptions for seniors), or the New York City School Tax Credit (which you can get even if you’re retired) then take a look at QuickCheck.

Once I was out the door, after reading and answering numerous emails, I went to look at a very nice 1 bedroom apartment in Crown Heights that’s for rent for $1,200 a month, dropped keys off for another apartment that has been rented, and showed a co-op apartment to a client.

I then went to the office for a while and met some walk-in clients.  I showed a rental to a very interesting school teacher who is also a painter and a horse trainer (I love my job because I get to meet people like her) and sat and talked with my broker and another agent about real estate related stuff until 8:00 pm.

Like I said, it was an ordinary day in the life of a real estate agent, but I enjoyed it.  The weather was fine, I got to see a couple of great apartments (I love that too, what can I say) and I met some really great people and enjoyed some really great conversations.

It was a good day because I chose to enjoy the everyday things, which truthfully is what most of our days are made up of.  Though I didn’t win the lottery or close on a million dollar brownstone, I will lay my head down feeling happy and content because today wasn’t exceptional, but it was good.

Will the Barclays Center draw thousands of fans who will take public transportation to the venue and walk around the area spending their dollars and bring economic plenty, or will drivers clog the area zooming in and then zooming out without contributing anything except air and noise pollution? The proposed reduction of sidewalk widths surrounding the mega complex suggests the latter. Interesting post…

Ironically I was in the exact same place I was on June 23, 2010 when I felt the ground move under my feet for the first time in my life, sitting in front of my computer writing a blog post.  I wasn’t as scared that day as I was yesterday.  This time the shaking and swaying was much more intense and lasted much longer, a full 30 seconds which felt like an eternity.

For about an hour or so afterwards the city of New York (well, at least the part that felt the quake for many didn’t) was in chaos.  I was in chaos. The cell phones system was jammed because of the numerous calls to loved ones, people flooded the streets after fleeing their office buildings, apartment buildings and homes, every television station covered the quake, and my hands shook so badly I couldn’t dial any numbers on my cell phone.

But then, life went back to normal.  No damage was done, the airport runways were safe, no tsunami was on the way, so myself and the rest of my fellow New Yorkers went back to our lives just like we do any other day when something out of the ordinary happens, from a naked woman sashaying down Fifth Avenue with nothing on but pumps and a handbag to a terrorist attack that kills thousands.

As the ten-year anniversary of the September 11th, (a day of happenings that still brings a tremor to my hands and tears to my eyes) draws near, it reminds me of the resilience of New Yorkers, that hard-edged group of people who endure over crowding, noise pollution, regular pollution, snarled traffic, dirty subways, crime, the threat of further terrorist attacks and other adversities to live in the city that they love.

As I sit in the same place I was yesterday glancing out of my window to see the skeleton of the new One World Trade Center starting to scrape the sky, I’m proud to be a resilient New Yorker though I’m a little more shaken than usual.

“Hey, what was that?! Did the wall just move?”  No, just my next door neighbor bumping into the wall with the vacuum cleaner by accident.  I better go do some yoga and shake this off.

The article states that Colby Sambrotto, a founder and former COO of ForSalebyOwner.com, spend six months trying to sell his 2,000 Square Foot 2 bedroom Chelsea condo himself. He used online listings on various FSBO websites and classified ads hoping to get the job done himself before he gave up and turned the listing over to a broker agreeing to pay 6% commission.

His licensed and experienced broker was able to attract multiple offers and ultimately facilitated the sale of Mr. Sambrotto’s apartment for $2.15 million, which was $150,000 more than the original asking price.

Can you sell your property yourself? Sometimes you can, but should you?  As the example above shows, letting a professional do it will get you much better results.

An experienced real estate professional has his or her finger on the pulse of the market and if she’s anything like me, she eats, drinks and sleeps real estate, making herself a fountain of real estate knowledge and know how.  When selling your most valuable asset, it only makes sense to hire someone who has experience.

After all, would you pull your own tooth?

I love my quiet (OK basically quiet) Clinton Hill neighborhood and one of the things I fear will happen when the Barclay Center opens is that throngs of people will flood the neighborhood and the basic quiet will be gone. Traffic coming off the BQE is already a nightmare. Many a morning I hear the trucks barreling down Vanderbilt Avenue at 4:00 in the morning hitting every bump in the road making enough racket to wake the neighborhood (or at least those of us who are light sleepers).  I worry that the traffic will quadruple as Nets fans flood the area, ignoring logic and driving to the arena instead of taking the subway.

But this article in the Post about “Hurt Locker” star Anthony Mackie’s new bar makes me think that Clinton Hill, Fort Greene and Bed Stuy may be in for a lot of new upper scale restaurants, shops and stores, which means an influx of cash that can only help the economies of my favorite nabes.  So perhaps the Barclay Center’s opening won’t be so bad after all.