Obviously, there is a risk associated with all investments but a home is much more than an investment.  If you are buying a home strictly to make money than you need to look at things differently.  However, if part of the reason you are considering a new home is for a better school district for your children, or to be closer to loved ones or for a better overall quality of life then you have to think about the cost of not making the investment.

It is true that you can lose money in real estate – as in almost all investments.  However, it is also true that folks who sit on the sidelines and wait for the perfect day to invest, or the perfect day to take that trip or the perfect day to ask that special someone on a date sometimes find that the perfect day never comes and they spend their lives being spectators – not participants.

I feel pretty strongly that in Ridgewood you can have both – a solid, long-term investment and a place to create some great memories.  Click here to see how Ridgewood Real Estate has fared in the past one, five and ten-year periods.

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About Al Donohue

Snowmen, Sleigh Rides, Hot Chocolate, No Work, No School…

Our Snowman Family

Please consider attending two upcoming local events planned to benefit ten-year-old Haley Tyrrell. Haley was recently diagnosed with osteosarcoma – a rare type of bone cancer. She is undergoing chemotherapy and recently underwent surgery to have her right leg amputated.  Click here to read Haley’s Story in Her Own Words.

Hoops 4 Haley

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the “Hoops for Haley” free-throw fundraiser will be held between 2 and 6 p.m. in the Bethlehem Lutheran Church Gymnasium, located at 155 Linwood Avenue in Ridgewood. The event is open to boys and girls in third through 12th grades.

Registration is required and can be completed by sending an e-mail to merrickbb@yahoo.com with the participant’s name, grade, school, phone number and estimated time of arrival. Please type “Hoops for Haley” in the subject line. Upon registering, request a sponsor form that can be used to collect donations, which may be either a fixed amount or a total based on the number of free throws a participant makes.

More information is available online at www.hope4haley.org or by calling 201-444-2785.

Hope 4 Haley Brunch at Winberie’s to benefit Haley Tyrrell

All net proceeds will go directly to the Tyrrell family to help defray medical costs, including the prosthetics Haley will need as a result of her recent leg amputation. Visit http://hopeforhaleybrunch.myevent.com  to learn more about this event and to make reservations. Tickets will only be sold online and in advance, so please sign up today!

If you cannot attend the event but would like to make a donation, please visit the Web site and select an “Additional Donation” ticket option under “Reservations”

When: January 30, 2010
Where: Winberie’s Restaurant. 30 Oak Street. Ridgewood, NJ

Questions? Contact Doug or Melinda Cronk at (201) 444-5528

According to this very funny video, from The Daily Show, Tim Geithner purchased his home at the 2004 market peak for $1.6 Million and has now listed it for $1.635 million. Even folks without his financial background know that the real estate market has come down considerably in that time. Anyway, check out the video. Pretty funny.

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Ridgewood Real Estate

I wanted to wish everyone a happy and healthy New Year and share a few interesting New Years Quotes.  My personal favorite quote of all time is “Adversity Introduces Us To Ourselves“. 

This is not specifically a New Years quote, but given the difficult times we are all facing, it seems to be an appropriate quote to remember as we head into 2009.  It is very easy to act a certain way during good times but it is during the most troubling and difficult times in our lives that we really find out what we are made off.  I am not sure who to attribute this quote to but the first time I heard it was during a Speech by President Bush right after 9/11 and I will never forget it.

Below are 5 great New Years specific quotes.

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.
–Benjamin Franklin

The only way to spend New Year’s Eve is either quietly with friends or in a brothel. Otherwise when the evening ends and people pair off, someone is bound to be left in tears.
–W.H. Auden

Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you’re forced to.
–Bill Vaughan

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
–Oscar Wilde

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.
–Oprah Winfrey

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I entered a similar contest last year that was associated with Ridgewood Dad’s Night and had mixed results.  In other words, I was a big loser but not the kind of big loser I wanted to be.  This contest has a charity component so I am banking on this aspect to give me some extra motivation.  The winner’s charity will receive the contest pot which currently stands at $2350.

I am playing for the Pediatric Epilepsy Center at Beth Israel Medical Center.  Epilepsy is a disease that gets very little publicity and also, unfortunately, very little funding.  Below is a quote taken from noted epilepsy activist and Hollywood director Jim Abraham’s testimony before Congress on the subject of the lack of epilepsy funding and its affect on children.

“I will not burn my time by repeating the inequity you can clearly see, however I will comment on it by saying that until you’ve seen your own child’s eyes go dead and roll back in her head as she drops to the ground, until you’ve watched your own child slowly fade into retardation, one painstaking day at a time, until you’ve seen your child decay from a drug reaction, or, you’ve buried your own child after she drown in her bathtub after a seizure, you can’t possibly appreciate the cruelty of this disparity [in funding for Epilepsy vs other diseases].”

Consider these facts:

• Roughly the same number of people die every year from epilepsy related causes as from Breast Cancer – yet Epilepsy receives a tiny fraction of the funding that is given to Breast Cancer.
• More Americans have epilepsy than muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s Disease combined.
• Of the roughly 181,000 new cases diagnosed each year, 75% will be children.

This is a charity that is near and dear to me because my son Luke has a severe form of Epilepsy called Doose Syndrome. He is one of the lucky ones.  His seizures have been controlled for years due to the help of God and a  brilliant doctor at Beth Israel named Stephen Wolf. I still can’t bring myself to say Luke “had” Doose Syndrome, as in the past tense, even though he has been in remission for years.  I have this irrational fear that saying that the ordeal is over will somehow bring it back.  Luke is doing extremely well but so many children who suffer from Doose Syndrome and other forms of epilepsy are not.  I try to raise awareness of this horrible disease and its pitiful lack of funding whenever I can – but probably not as much as I could or should.

Ok, time to get off my soapbox and onto the scale.  Below is my initial weigh-in number.  On February 1, 2009 whoever has the largest percentage weight loss wins.  Click here to learn more about the contest which was set up by Jay Thompson.

Click Here to Dontate to the Epilepsy Foundation

I read every business, real estate, motivational, self-help and success oriented book I can get my hands on and I take some flak for it from family and friends.  However, there are certain threads that run through almost all self-improvement books and these are the ones we should really pay attention to.  One of the most common themes is that “you become what you focus on”.

If you focus on the positive, and associate with positive people, you will be happy, successful and yes…positive.  And, of course, the opposite is also true.  Every great motivational and self-improvement speaker/writer covers some variation of this theme including some of my favorite authors such as  Dale Carnegie, Stephen R. Covey, Peter Drucker, Brian Tracy, Napoleon Hill and the one name I get the most flak for – Anthony Robbins.  Say what you like, his stuff is excellent.

Anyway, in these challenging times it may be a bit tougher to find positive things to focus on but, believe it or not, wonderful things are happening every day here in Ridgewood and all over thew world.

For example, today is Halloween, and we had a beautiful day here in Ridgewood. The leaves were falling, the weather was beautiful, my two boys had a great time trick-or-treating and it was great to see our little street (Colonial Road) packed with smiling children running around in there scary costumes.  I also got in a car accident this week and my basement flooded last week – but I choose to focus on the great time my boys had today and all the smiling faces that came to my door.  It’s a much better way to live.  I’ll get my car fixed and the basement will be fine – these things are not worth focusing on.

To help you get started focusing on the positive things in life, check out the list of 10 Things That Are Going Right from Kiplinger’s:

No. 1: Oil Loses Its Swagger

With the U.S. and global economy hurting, oil prices have dropped 50% in just three months, from $147 a barrel in July to the $70 range. Remember $80-$100 fill-ups at the pump? The national average for a gallon of gasoline is down to $3.00, from $4.11 in March, and should stay in the $3.00-$3.50 range through next year. Prices for home heating oil and natural gas are also headed lower this winter than last.

No. 2: A Tipping Point For the Auto Industry

After years of talk and false starts, finally, all the major car makers are furiously developing hybrid and alternative-fuel vehicles that could lessen our dependence on foreign oil. Meanwhile, desperate dealers are offering unheard-of incentives on new, gas-fired models. For example, Toyota is offering $1,000 cash back and 0% financing on the 2009 Camry, the most popular car in America. Don’t drive much? If you’ve always wanted an SUV or truck, the discounting on some models is extraordinary.

No. 3: Interest Rates Are Low and Headed Lower

The prime rate is at 4.5%, which is driving down interest rates on home-equity lines of credit and some consumer loans. The interest rate on a traditional 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is averaging 6.5%, the highest it’s been since the summer of ‘07, but still not too far from the historic low of 5.8% reached in ‘03-05 and ‘63-65. And although credit-card companies are cutting personal spending limits, rates are dropping, too. The average rate on credit-card purchases fell to 11.89% in the first week of October, down from 12.13% in September, according to LowCards.com.

No. 4: Homes Are More Affordable

Real estate, which was overpriced during the housing bubble, has returned to earth. That’s especially good news for first-time home buyers who were priced out of the market. While scare stories persist of credit drying up, the reality is more a return to traditional lending standards that had been thrown overboard-recklessly in many cases-by lenders. That means to qualify you usually need a 20% down payment, sufficient annual income, good credit and a tolerable load of debt.

No. 5: Your Bank Savings Have Never Been Safer

The $700-billion federal rescue plan more than doubles the amount of federal deposit insurance on individual bank accounts, to $250,000 from $100,000. Uncle Sam sweetened the pot further on October 14 by providing unlimited FDIC insurance on non-interest-bearing accounts. That will provide more coverage for the nation’s small businesses, which use these accounts. Plus, a new temporary federal insurance program covers the full value if your money-market-fund shares fall below a net asset value of $1.00 (called “breaking the buck”).

No. 6: Stocks on Sale/Many Bonds Offer Yields

The current bear market is approaching the ‘73-74 and ‘00-02 downturns, the two worst retreats since WWII. The good news: individual blue chips are selling at bargain prices. For example, shares of AT&T sell for about eight times estimated ‘09 earnings and yield 6%. Networking giant Cisco Systems sells for only ten times earnings estimates for its July ‘09 fiscal year. Google is going for less than 15 times estimates. Triple-A-rated tax-free bonds, an extraordinarily safe investment, are paying 5%-plus for ten years and 6% for 20. That’s more than the Treasury offers for bonds of the same maturity.

No. 7: Technological Innovation Continues

Been to Best Buy, Sam’s or Costco lately? For $799, you can now buy a 42-inch, high-definition flat-panel TV that will knock your socks off. Throw in another $200, and you can get a surround-sound system to truly transform your den into a home theater. A top-of-the-line PC with more memory than you’ll ever use now costs $1,000; high-end laptops with all the bells and whistles go for $1,200, down from $2,000-$4,000 five years ago. And giant leaps in handheld devices, such as Apple’s new iPhone, have revolutionized the way people interact with the world.

No. 8: Prosperity Reigns In the Heartland

The fall harvest is shaping up as one of the best ever, despite the destructive weather and floods in the Mississippi River corridor since last spring. Exports of U.S. farm products will increase more than 40% by value this year. And recent years of high profits have allowed farmers to pay down debt so low that it accounts for a measly 9% of their assets — providing all the credit they’ll need for 2009 operations. At home, while food prices jumped sharply earlier this year, the weak economy is now expected to slow further price increases.

No. 9: A New Tone and Direction in Washington

Whether it’s Barack Obama or John McCain who enters the White House in January, election of a new chief executive should provide at least 100 days of galvanizing certainty for markets, and a new direction and sense of purpose for the country.

No. 10: Great Gift Buys This Holiday Season

Retailers depend on robust end-of-year sales to turn a profit, but for 2008, the National Federation of Retailers forecasts holiday spending will increase only 2.2% from last year. That won’t even beat inflation. It’s good news for bargain hunters, though. Both brick-and-mortar and online retailers are gearing up to offer huge discounts to boost sales. For example, Deal News predicts a DUAL Core Intel Laptop will go for as low as $299 on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and a Canon PowerShot SD1100 will go for a very low $139.

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