Interesting STATS about the future of home prices... from MORALES

The dashed black line is where Case Shiller Futures were trading this time last year, January 2010.  Essentially this is what the experts thought, last year, the home price index would look like in the upcoming 3 years (through December 2013). 

The barbed black line below it is what the experts today are thinking those years (and beyond to January 2016) will look like.  See the spread between the two black lines?  At its widest point, the difference between the 2 lines represent over a 19% drop in what the experts predict to be the index to be in the years to come. 

Based on this data, your home is worth more today than it will be again until at least 2015.  Unless you plan to live in your current home into the year 2015, now is the time to sell! 

If you know anyone who is planning to sell in the next 4 to 5 years, tell them now is the time!   Call me today to market your home!... =)

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Discover the Diane Difference...
                
Diane Morales
Thank you for MOVIN' WITH MORALES!!
Keller Williams Fox Valley Realty
(630) 709.9882



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The House that Built Me... MORALES

Ever heard the song "The House that Built Me" by Miranda Lambert?  I listened to it several times before I really heard it.  The song talks about going back to the home where you grew up.  I'm fortunate that my parents still live in the home where I grew up.  Years ago, I had the opportunity to visit an old friend* who lived across the street from "my first home" as an adult.  We got to talking about old times when I lived there and mentioned that my old house looked good.  She told me that she was close friends with the new owners of the home and asked if I wanted to go see "my old home!"  GOSH yes!  I was scared and excited all at the same time.  We knocked on the door and she introduced me to the owners!  I walked in slowly and so many memories came to mind!  I was able to share some of the changes that we had made to the home and complimented them on their changes!  It felt good to know that good people were living in "my old home," taking care of it and loving it!  A home is so much more than just 4 walls. 

A home is where you hang your heart. 
It is about how you feel when you walk through the front door;
the way you can instantly see your life unfolding there.
It is your life and your dreams.  ;)

Regardless of how the Real Estate market is doing right now, a home is still the American Dream.  Having a home is something most of us dream about, whether it be a mansion or a trailer on the back 40.  It's yours.  A home is simply not an investment to most.  It's a place to plant your roots, to grow your family, and to relax and retire.  When you pull into the driveway, open the front (or back) door and toss your keys on the kitchen table... That's home!  

Now IS truly the best time to buy a home!  If you've been thinking about it, please give me a call.  Prices are LOW, interest rates are historically LOW and the choice of homes is abundant.  Owning your own home is a feeling that can't be beat.  

FREE EZ search for 1st time home buyers in the Tri-City Area or the Kaneland Area. 

Discover the Diane Difference...
                
Diane Morales
Thank you for MOVIN' WITH MORALES!!
Keller Williams Fox Valley Realty
(630) 709.9882



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It's Snowing and it's beautiful... with MORALES!

It's a winter wonderland outside today!  Even more amazing is the detail of each flake of snow!  Occasionally, when the snow is falling softly, you can see the perfect outline of a flake as it lands on your coat or mitten.  What's incredible is that if you study snow flakes, you'll see that each snowflake is as truly unique as those snowflake cut-outs you made way-back-when in school.  

Snowflakes and snow crystals are made of ice, and pretty much nothing more.  A snow crystal, as the name implies, is a single crystal of ice.  A snowflake is a more general term; it can mean an individual snow crystal, or a few snow crystals stuck together, or large agglomerations of snow crystals that form "puff-balls" that float down from the clouds.

• Simple Prisms ~ The most basic form of a snow crystal is a hexagonal prism. This structure occurs because certain surfaces of the crystal, the facet surfaces, accumulate material very slowly.   When snow crystals are very small, they are mostly in the form of simple hexagonal prisms.  But as they grow, branches sprout from the corners to make more complex shapes.  Snowflake Branching describes how this happens.
• Stellar Plates ~   These common snowflakes are thin, plate-like crystals with six broad arms that form a star-like shape.  Their faces are often decorated with amazingly elaborate and symmetrical markings.
• Sectored Plates ~  Stellar plates often show distinctive ridges that point to the corners between adjacent prism facets.  When these ridges are especially prominent, the crystals are called sectored plates.
• Stellar Dendrites ~   Dendritic means "tree-like", so stellar dendrites are plate-like snow crystals that have branches and sidebranches.  These are fairly large crystals, typically 2-4 mm in diameter, that are easily seen with the naked eye.
• Fernlike Stellar Dendrites ~   Sometimes the branches of stellar crystals have so many side branches they look a bit like ferns, so we call them fernlike stellar dendrites.  These are the largest snow crystals, often falling to earth with diameters of 5 mm or more.  In spite of their large size, these are single crystals of ice -- the water molecules are lined up from one end to the other.
• Hollow Columns ~ Hexagonal columns often form with conical hollow regions in their ends, and such forms are called hollow columns.  These crystals are small, so you need a good magnifier to see the hollow regions.
• Needles ~ Needles are slender, columnar ice crystals that grow when the temperature is around -5 C (23 F).  On your sleeve these snowflakes look like small bits of white hair.
• Capped Columns ~ These crystals first grow into stubby columns, and then they blow into a region of the clouds where the growth becomes plate-like.  The result is two thin, plate-like crystals growing on the ends of an ice column.  Capped columns don't appear in every snowfall, but you can find them if you look for them.
• Double Plates ~  A double plate is basically a capped column with an especially short central column.  The plates are so close together that inevitably one grows out faster and shields the other from its source of water vapor.  The result is one large plate connected to a much smaller one.  These crystals are common -- many snowflakes that look like ordinary stellar plates are actually double plates if you look closely.
• Split Plates and Stars ~ These are forms of double plates, except that part of one plate grows large along with part of the other plate. Split plates and stars, like double plates, are common but often unnoticed.
• Triangular Crystals ~  Plates sometimes grow as truncated triangles when the temperature is near -2 C (28 F).  If the corners of the plates sprout arms, the result is an odd version of a stellar plate crystal.  These crystals are relatively rare.
• 12-Sided Snowflakes ~ Sometimes capped columns form with a twist, a 30-degree twist to be specific.  The two end-plates are both six-branched crystals, but one is rotated 30 degrees relative to the other.  This is a form of crystal twinning, in which two crystals grow joined in a specific orientation.
• Bullet Rosettes ~  The nucleation of an ice grain sometimes yields multiple crystals all growing together at random orientations.  When the different pieces grow into columns, the result is called a bullet rosette.  These polycrystals often break up to leave isolated bullet-shaped crystals.
• Radiating Dendrites~  When the pieces of a polycrystal grow out into dendrites, the result is called a radiating dendrite (also called a spatial dendrite).
  
• Rimed Crystals ~  Clouds are made of countless water droplets, and sometimes these droplets collide with and stick to snow crystals.  The frozen droplets are called rime.  All the different types of snow crystals can be found decorated with rime.  When the coverage is especially heavy, so that the assembly looks like a tiny snowball, the result is called graupel.
• Irregular Crystals ~  The most common snow crystals by far are the irregular crystals.  These are small, usually clumped together, and show little of the symmetry seen in stellar or columnar crystals.
  
  ~Courtesy of snowcrystals.com

If you're driving, take it easy today!
Otherwise, go outside and have some fun! 
See how many ways you can categorize the snowflakes you find! 

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Discover the Diane Difference...
                
Diane Morales
Thank you for MOVIN' WITH MORALES!!
Keller Williams Fox Valley Realty
(630) 709.9882



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Learn more about me! 

Your Monthly Market Update from MORALES...

15 interesting facts about Flamingos

1. A flamingo’s eye is larger than its brain.
2. Flamingos are pinkish in color due to the intake of carotene present in the food that they eat.
3. The legs of an adult flamingo are longer than its body.
4. They eat with their head upside down, thus helping them to suck water and food in with the front of their bill.
5. They are omnivorous and can filter as many as 20 beakfuls of algae-rich water in a second.
6. A vibrantly colored flamingo is considered to be well-fed and healthy while a white or pale flamingo is usually unhealthy or malnourished.
7. Young flamingos hatch with a grey plumage while the adults range from light pink to bright red.
8. While standing in the water, the flamingos use their webbed feet in the mud to stir up food from the bottom.
9. Flamingos can often be seen standing on one leg, the other tucked beneath the body.
10. The speed of a flock of flamingos can reach 31 to 37 miles per hour.
11. When incubating the egg, both the mother and father take turns in sitting on the egg and nursing the chick when it has hatched.
12. More than a million Lesser flamingos found in Africa is the biggest flock of birds found anywhere in the world.
13. Flamingos can fly 300 miles at a stretch to reach a new habitat.
14. They are sociable and live in colonies to protect themselves from predators.
15. Flamingos sit by extending their legs backwards.

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Don't forget to remember me...
                
Diane Morales
Thank you for MOVIN' WITH MORALES!!
Keller Williams Fox Valley Realty
(630) 709.9882



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Got a Smart Phone?  Check out 311 N. May St.

Diane's Daily Discovery 01.06.11

Can someone please explain this to me?!  I've tried for so long to understand HOW gas companies can get away with this...  No where in our monetary system do we offer a fraction of a cent.  Maybe we do?!  But in my 46 years of life, I've never seen or learned about one.  We've had denominations that have come and gone:  $500, $1000, $5000, $10,000, and $100,000 ~and an 1865 law did allow for a $3 National Bank Note, and designs were engraved for a potential $3 Legal Tender Note around the same time, but in each case no $3 notes were ever actually printed for circulation.  Fractionals were issued in denominations of 3¢, 5¢, 10¢, 15¢, 25¢, and 50¢.  But NO WHERE do I find a 9/10 cent!  (The British "had" a haypenny worth 1/2 cent.  But alas, the coin was demonetized and withdrawn from circulation in December 1984.)  SO tell me HOW can gas companies legally charge $3.15 9 for a gallon of gas?!    Seriously.  IF I pump exactly 1.0 gallons of gas, I should be entitled to 1/10 of a cent change.  Correct?  IF I pump exactly 5.0 gallons of gas, I deserve 5/10 or half a cent back. 
Guess what?  I want my money back...  Let's see, IF you add up all the gallons I've pumped in my lifetime:
30 years of driving x 52 weeks/year = 1560 weeks of lifetime driving.
1560 x 15 (average car gas tank) = 23,400
No matter what the price of gas was at the time, it was always something and 9/10...
So, if I take that 23,400 x .001 = 23.40
I WANT MY $23.40 IN CHANGE!! 
Ok, so it's not a lot... but it's the principle of the matter.  Gas companies should be prohibited from charging in fractional cents.  Who's with me?  I say we should protest and file a class action lawsuit against all the gas companies...  Ok, not really (I'm actually against frivolous law suits) but I do think this practice should be abolished. 

As a Realtor®, I drive a lot. So, the cost of driving is something that I'm seriously aware of.  I kind of chuckle to myself every time someone asks me "where" I do business?  Naively, when I started Real Estate, I thought I'd be working just St. Charles, Geneva, Batavia and Elburn... Boy, was I mistaken!  I go where my clients need me to go (and if it's a bit TOO far, then I can refer you to an agent you can trust!  As we have a huge network of qualified agents all over the US and Canada!). 

Next time you're filling up your tank, "Don't forget to remember me!" Ask the clerk for your proper change (LOL) and let me know if you do get that 1/10¢ back...Until then drive safely.  =)

• Find the cheapest gas prices in your town

Diane Morales
Thank you for MOVIN' WITH MORALES!!
Keller Williams Fox Valley Realty
(630) 709.9882



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Got a Smart Phone?  Check out 311 N. May St.

Diane's Daily Discovery 01.03.11

I'd like to share some of the sights that I see in/around the Tri-Cities and Kaneland areas daily.  My goal is to generate 1 photo each working day.  IF I start to slip on this goal, kindly remind me!  =)

I pass this barn beauty each day on my way to work.  It's located on Route 38 just east of Beith Road.  I'm fascinated with old barns.  I always "think" about stopping to capture their image but never seem to slow down.  Today, as luck would or wouldn't have it, there was an  accident at the intersection ahead of me ~ forcing me to stop right in front of this old farm.  So, I decided that today would be the day that I would start my "barn" collection. 
You know they predict that barns will soon be a thing of the past.  That's sad.  They're so beautiful in their own right.  Don't you wish you could hear them speak?  To tell all the stories they've seen in their lifetime?! 

It is true, there are the innocent pleasures of country life...

- Henry David Thoreau

IF you'd like more information on the area's open spaces, check out this link.   And click on Parks and Open Space.  

IF you're thinking about buying a home with the charm and character of yesteryear, and where neighbors can't see your every move... Call me.  I can help you find it!

Don't forget to remember me...
                
Diane Morales
Thank you for MOVIN' WITH MORALES!!
Keller Williams Fox Valley Realty
(630) 709.9882



Follow MOVIN WITH MORALES on Facebook! 

 
Got a Smart Phone?  Check out 311 N. May St.