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General Douglas MacArthur & Dunkin Donuts what do they have in common?
General Douglas MacArthur and Dunkin Donuts what do they have in common? Before I get into it, let me digress, having live a large portion of my life on the East Coast of the United States, particularly in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. I have grown up with Dunkin Donuts. I can give you the slogans which would age me. I know most of you remember the latest:’ America Runs on Dunkin’ well I remember “Only at Dunkin’ Donuts”J. A bit of history: In 1949 Bill Rosenberg opened his first Dunkin’ Donuts Shoppe in Quincy, MA. Sixty some years later DD was in about 30+ Countries serving their Signature Donuts & Coffee. Fast forward to the late 1990’s Dunkin’ Donuts pulled out of the Southern California Market. You might ask WHY? The answer is clear: Aggressive, hip, cool and trendy Chain from Washington State made Dunkin Donuts too Middle Class, too ordinary, too American. If you wanted to be hip and cool and Trendy, DD coffee was not to cup to have in your hand, instead you needed to have the Green Cup and not coffee rather you needed to have a Latte’ ! We moved to the Greater Los Angeles area in the late 1990’s as we moved in, sadly DD moved out. There was a void, every time Diane went back to Boston, MA she also came back with a few pounds of DD Coffee Beans. Over the past ten years we noticed that Grocery Chain Stores started to sell DD Coffee Beans, we were thrilled. It was always a special treat to buy a pound here and there. Then I noticed it was becoming more and more prevalent. Well, flash back to March 1942 General Douglas MacArthur promised the Philippine Nation “ I shall Return” and two and a half years later the victorious General returned as promised. There is an eerie parallel. There was a huge shift in the economy as well as in the attitude of the American Public even here in Southern California. Sadly this took 17 plus years to achieve. Never the less Dunkin Donuts is returning to the Greater Los Angeles area! Well now if you want to be hip, cool and trendy you need be drinking Dunkin Donuts Coffee or their LatteJ If you are a consumer who is considering buying or selling a home, investment real estate, vacation homes, or beach properties in Southern California, Los Angeles, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Marina Del Rey, Venice or Malibu. Feel Free to give me a call at 310.486.1002 or emails me at homes@endrebarath.com or visit one of my websites at https://www.endrebarath.com Your Pet Friendly Realtor. I contribute a portion of my commission to Local Animal Rescue Organizations. ...
read moreBlogosphere is buzzing about FB’s changes & the ramifications to this
Blogosphere is buzzing about FB’s Changes & what the ramifications will be for FB & Google. There has been so much written I can hardly keep up. What it means, what will this do and everyone has an opinion one way or another. The deluge of the buzz is beyond my comprehension. Needless to say if you are not paying attention, than this will be another one of those moments: What happened? Why did they do it? I liked the old way betterJ Now let’s keep in mind all the buzz is about a Beta Version not all the Billions of FB users are affected by it.( At least not yetJ) FB found a way to create a search experience unmatched by anyone else. It seems to me it is a blend of Pinterest, Yelp & Google meshed together. It makes the search meaningful, or at least puts it in perspective. As you search for something you find out which one of your sphere of influence has seen or searched for the same information with their pictures as well as who is near you. Obviously this is in the beginning stages and just like G+ made changes from the Beta Testing phase to implementation phase. It did not happen overnight let’s also be realistic; Google will not be sleeping while this is happening. They will be working as well. This is not a Battle of two Titans one Winning the other loosing, I believe the End User is the Winner, since both Giants will be creating something better and equally impressive. On the surface observation it is FB vs. Google, now if you look deeper, it is two Giants being very competitive and the winner is the person who uses it. I would recommend for Realtors and Affiliates to continue keeping their profiles on both platforms and remember what the goal is: Creating Relationships that might create long term friendships and long term referral relationships and new business because of Good Content. Anyway that is my take. Let me know where am I going wrong? Or share your thoughts here and do not forget to Plus1 if you read this on Google and if you read it on FB do not forget to LikeJ this. If you are a consumer who is considering buying or selling a home, investment real estate, vacation homes, or beach properties in Southern California, Los Angeles, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Marina Del Rey, Venice or Malibu. Feel Free to give me a call at 310.486.1002 or emails me at homes@endrebarath.com or visit one of my websites at https://www.endrebarath.com Your Pet Friendly Realtor. I contribute a portion of my commission to Local Animal Rescue Organizations. ...
read moreWordless Sunday: what do you think when you see this?
Wordless Sunday: what do you think when you see this? Wordless from my perspective, but I would be interested in your thoughts:)) If you are a consumer who is considering buying or selling a home, investment real estate, vacation homes, or beach properties in Southern California, Los Angeles, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Marina Del Rey, Venice or Malibu. Feel Free to give me a call at 310.486.1002 or emails me at homes@endrebarath.com or visit one of my websites at https://www.endrebarath.com Your Pet Friendly Realtor. I contribute a portion of my commission to Local Animal Rescue...
read moreHave you heard of the 4th Annual Allstate Life Insurance 13.1mile?
Have you heard of the 4th Annual Allstate Life Insurance 13.1mile Marathon? Well in all fairness I have never heard of it. For the past two days I noticed these signs that were saying that Via Marina (near our home) will be shut down from 07:00am to 10:30am. So I said I wonder why… As I started researching I realized it was not the Los Angeles Marathon, since that is usually in March, hence I wondered what it could be. Turns out The Allstate Life Insurance Los Angeles 13.1 mile run goes from the Venice Boardwalk at Rose Ave and ends at Dockweiler Beach in Playa del Rey. They are anticipating 4,000 runners and of course a post race party, live music, food and refreshments at the finish line. The registration is open unlike the Boston Marathon, where world class runners compete, this sounds like a fun event. So if you went there early you could pay $100 Dollars and participate in the event.( Needless to say I am not leaving the house, marathon in the morning and Golden Globe Awards in the afternoon) In all fairness if I wanted to I could not leave since the road will be shut downJ Please check out: http://www.active.com/running/los-angeles-ca/131-los-angeles-2012 http://www.131marathon.com/losangeles http://www.131losangeles.com Please donate your slightly used running shoes or at the end of the race take your shoes off and it will benefit the Union Rescue Mission, the homeless will get your running shoes! If you are a consumer who is considering buying or selling a home, investment real estate, vacation homes, or beach properties in Southern California, Los Angeles, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Marina Del Rey, Venice or Malibu. Feel Free to give me a call at 310.486.1002 or emails me at homes@endrebarath.com or visit one of my websites at https://www.endrebarath.com Your Pet Friendly Realtor. I contribute a portion of my commission to Local Animal Rescue Organizations....
read moreThe 70th Golden Globe Awards Ceremony will be live in Los Angeles!
The 70th Golden Globe Awards Ceremony will be live in Los Angeles, CA this Sunday January 13th, 2013 Here in the Greater Los Angeles Area, this marks the beginning of the Award Season. The 70th Golden Globe Awards will be held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA. We all wonder who will be going to the Golden Globe Awards. Then we will be wondering who will have the best outfits conversely who will wear the worst outfits for the awards. We will be a nation of Voyeurs for a few hoursJ as well as critics. We will be also wondering who will win the Golden Globes, then for the next few days we can discuss, argue who should have won, rather who actually wonJ Yes this national pastime is fun, because it is the precursor for the next big Award Event the Oscars http://www.nbc.com/golden-globes/ So if you want the full A to Z you need to watch from 4pm (Pacific) the red carpet event and 5pm (Pacific) the actual show. I look forward to the Cecile B DeMille Award Recipient. To me that is so interesting, because only the truly great Actors have been honored with this award. (At least in my opinion) If you would like more history check this link out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Globe_Award Now if you want to go down memory lane and check out some of the Cringe moments then check this link out Jhttp://theweek.com/article/index/238685/watch-7-cringe-inducing-moments-in-golden-globes-history All I can say is, I will be staying away from Century City & Beverly Hills on Sunday afternoon. The Traffic and road closures will create a mini nightmare I do not want to be part ofJ If you are a consumer who is considering buying or selling a home, investment real estate, vacation homes, or beach properties in Southern California, Los Angeles, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Marina Del Rey, Venice or Malibu. Feel Free to give me a call at 310.486.1002 or emails me at homes@endrebarath.com or visit one of my websites at https://www.endrebarath.com Your Pet Friendly Realtor. I contribute a portion of my commission to Local Animal Rescue Organizations....
read moreWho hosts your Website? Who handles your Emails? What is DNS?
Who is your Website Host? Who handles your Emails? What is a DNS? What is good Customer Service? Many questions are running through my head. As your read this, you are probably wondering what prompted these questions? Since the beginning of the New Year I have had been hampered with tech issues. It started out on January 1st, I received an email from an old client who wanted me to make me aware that my website https://www.endrebarath.com was down. She was gracious enough to send me an email from France that she thinks the problem is with my Domain being expired. She discovered it as she tried to read my monthly Newsletter and decided to click on my web link. Needless to say it was at 11:30pm here in Marina Del Rey and a phone call to GoDaddy.com turned into an unusual authentication drama and by about 1:00am we finally got it sorted out. For the past two days I have been having problems with my E-mails. Logging in has been difficult, then when I log in, the emails do not want to load up or they move at an extremely slow and frustrating way. I have been stressing about this now for two business days. This brought up the question, what can I do? Do I have options? What are my options? Being a Realtor, I understand that when clients are not satisfied they can and will go to someone who can provide them with good service. That brings up another point: What is good service? My take is simply clear communication, fast response and correcting the problem as expeditiously as possible and keep the client informed. So I am just thinking out loud, let me know where I am going wrong. When a web site is down it would be nice to be notified at least a few days before via email that if you do not renew you will not be on the World Wide Web. Seems to me it would be in the best interest of the company to make sure I will renew. After all it translates to revenue to them. When my listing is about to expire, I try to reach out to my sellers and discuss extending the listing. In other words I would be salvaging the listing with the hopes of ultimately selling the property. Why would it be different for big company like GoDaddy.com? So when they are aware that there are issues with the Email Servers, why not send out a quick note: we are aware that there is a problem as soon as we identify it we will give you and update and let you know how fast we anticipate the issues to be resolved Why wait until thousands of disgruntled clients start calling and jamming the phone lines which takes away resources from other areas to calm down the clients? Why does it come to this? All could have been avoided. So a multitude of questions were running through my head and I figured the best place to turn to and ask is this Community for answers! So with that said: who is your E-mail Carrier? Who hosts your website? How satisfied are you with their service? Please share with me when you have a moment!...
read moreLos Angeles Homes for Sale are at an all time low. Why is that?
Los Angeles homes for sale are at an all time low. Why is that, you ask? Great Climate, Land of Opportunity is that the reason? Los Angeles Homes for Sale are at an all time low. Critical shortage of home inventory is a problem for buyers, their agents and the sellers as well, if they are considering buying up. Only sellers who move out of area are not affected, since they decided to move out of the Los Angeles area and have somewhere to go. What are the causes of the shortage? This shortage of inventory is caused by a multitude of factors: 1. Of course is that interest rates have been artificially kept low to an almost unbelievable sixty (60) year low and buyers can get great deals when it comes to loans, 2. Buyers have realized that “the bottom” has been reached, 3. The elections are over no matter who you were supporting and it does not matter if your candidate lost or one. The important fact it is that the uncertainty is over and done with, 4. The Media is now writing positive news about Real Estate, hence fueling the buying surge. As an example this was in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-harney-20130106,0,6997483.story ) 5. The most important reason for the shortage is “underwater home owners” as long as sellers have little or no Equity in their home, they cannot sell and become move up buyers. Why are sellers not listing their homes for sale you might ask? The answer is not a mystery; Lenders have tightened up the ability to get a Home Loan. Buyers need to have real down payments to buy a home. Let’s be realistic most of the current home owners who are upside down came and bought a home with little or no money down. Let me clarify it, at least in the Greater Los Angeles the majority of the potential sellers fall into this category. Hence even if they become “Standard Sellers” vs.” Short Sale” or as some people call them “Distressed Sales” they are in no position to buy. They only have two options: 1. to stay in their home or 2. Become Renters again. So you ask: what is the solution? Well stay tuned that is another blog post for a future date. If you are a consumer who is considering buying or selling a home, investment real estate, vacation homes, or beach properties in Southern California, Los Angeles, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Marina Del Rey, Venice or Malibu. Feel Free to give me a call at 310.486.1002 or emails me at homes@endrebarath.com or visit one of my websites at https://www.endrebarath.com Your Pet Friendly Realtor. I contribute a portion of my commission to Local Animal Rescue Organizations. ...
read moreThe Greek Theater is the most intimate outdoor Theater in Los Angeles!
The Greek Theater is one of the most intimate outdoor Theater in Los Angeles and probably the world. The Greek Theater is located inside Griffith Park and there seems to be some controversy about how many people it seats. According to Wikipedia about 5700, according to Los Angeles A-Z Encyclopedia the Greek seats 4600 people and according to the Nederlander Website who are managing it today say that it holds 5900, either way you can see that it is great for a small venue. (They are accurate because in 2006 there was a huge renovation project to make the Greek look like the Original Façade in 1929 when it opened) The land was donated by Griffith J Griffith in 1896 to the City of Los Angeles (the person after whom Griffith Park was named). Griffith had a great vision to preserve certain parts of Los Angeles in its natural state, hence the five square mile land is preserved for future generations and the Theater sits in a natural bowl inside the park and is ideal for small intimate concerts. As you drive on Franklin Ave unless you are familiar you could miss it. The Theater is nestled inside Griffith Park. Hence you have to drive through a very nice Old Hollywood Style upscale micro pocket of homes, which we call Los Feliz. Many famous entertainers have performed in the Theater. I will mention a few: Sting, Elton John, Paul Simon, Pink Martini and many more, but most of you will agree with me that one person has made the Greek Theater a household name and that person is: Neil Diamond with his Album of his iconic performance at the Greek Theater named ‘Love at the Greek’. I have written a few blogs about the performances of Pink Martini http://actvra.in/HCK as well as the return performance of Neil Diamond to the Greek celebrating his 40th Anniversary of his original performance http://actvra.in/GSM now if you would like to learn more about the Greek Theater & its history check out this link http://www.greektheatrela.com/about/the_greek.asp If you are a consumer who is considering buying or selling a home, investment real estate, vacation homes, or beach properties in Southern California, Los Angeles, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Marina Del Rey, Venice or Malibu. Feel Free to give me a call at 310.486.1002 or emails me at homes@endrebarath.com or visit one of my websites at https://www.endrebarath.com Your Pet Friendly Realtor. I contribute a portion of my commission to Local Animal Rescue Organizations. ...
read moreHow is the Marina Del Rey, CA 90292 Luxury Condominium Market?
How is the Marina Del Rey, CA Luxury Condominiums Market? It has been refreshing to go out to a function this evening and be asked: how is the Real Estate Market. Have not heard this type of questions in a positive frame in years, hence it was fun to say”… The market is fast. ..Inventory is short, more buyers than sellers hence prices are increasing…” Then to be asked how is the Luxury Condominium Market now that was even more interesting. I was happy to report that the high end market is moving and confidence is back. The key points to remember are that the property needs to be well priced, and properly staged for the current market. In English that means that well priced and properly marketed Condominiums do sell. Condominiums that are overpriced or have something intermittently wrong will sit on the market and sellers need to be patient to find the right buyer. Today’s Buyers still want a Deal, in other words a good value. If a Seller & the Listing Agent cannot demonstrate the Value the buyers will move on! If you are looking for a knowledgeable, internet savvy agent to sell your home please reach out to me! If you are a consumer who is considering buying or selling a home, investment real estate, vacation homes, or beach properties in Southern California, Los Angeles, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Marina Del Rey, Venice or Malibu. Feel Free to give me a call at 310.486.1002 or emails me at homes@endrebarath.com or visit one of my websites at https://www.endrebarath.com Your Pet Friendly Realtor. I contribute a portion of my commission to Local Animal Rescue Organizations....
read moreWordless Wednesday: Lange Foundation Graduates reunite !
Wordless Wednesday: Lange Foundation Graduates reunite for Volunteer Appreciation Day! These two happy graduates of the Lange Foundation share a moment together. These photos were taken at the Volunteer Appreciation Afternoon in December and two happy, successfully placed adoptees get to see and meet each other again! If you are a consumer who is considering buying or selling a home, investment real estate, vacation homes, or beach properties in Southern California, Los Angeles, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Marina Del Rey, Venice or Malibu. Feel Free to give me a call at 310.486.1002 or emails me at homes@endrebarath.com or visit one of my websites at https://www.endrebarath.com Your Pet Friendly Realtor. I contribute a portion of my commission to Local Animal Rescue Organizations....
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