Marty Millner

Archive for April, 2009

Lower Makefield Township Historic Commission Hosts Second Annual Open House

Area residents are invited to enjoy a slice of  Bucks County History this spring, when the Lower Makefield Township  Historic Commission hosts its second annual, self-guided tour of the township’s historic owned properties.  The event will be on Sunday, May 3rd, from 11:00am-4:00pm.

If you are not familiar with Lower Makefield Township, it was actually establised in 1682. Among the first settlers on the land, later to be known as, “Makefield”, were William and Jane Yardley, who were actually friends of William Penn, and were in his inner circle.   In the early 1700’s, most of the Yardley family died of smal pox, with the exception of the wives of the Yardley brothers, Enoch and Thomas.  Thomas Yardley’s wife Hester, later remarried Richard Hough, who is credited with naming Makefield Township.  The name Makefield, is thought to be an Americanization of the name, “Macclesfield”, from Hough’s native home in Cheshire, England.  You can see that the area has a long and rich history.

Visitors on the 3rd, will be able to tour historical sites in the Township, about two old-fasioned trolleys that will carry them to the Satterthwaite  House and Janney/Brown house on the grounds of Patterson Farm, the Slack House at Makefield Highlands, the Elm Lowne property, as well as the Garden of Reflection. 

There will be hearthside cooking, battlefield encampments, re-enactors and crafters. 

All of these locations are historically significant, and very interesting to visit.  Spend a delightful day seeing history, in your own backyard. The cost  is a nominal donation of 5 dollars, or 4 for seniors.  Children are free.  Proceeds go to support the Lower Makefield Township historic preservation. 

If you have any questions, or want more information about any of these township sites, please contact me.

What you need to know about the impact on credit scores, when paying cash.

Recently a mortgage person I have worked with, sent me an article, headlined, “A recession era warning: be careful about your efforts to cut spending – Don’t slice into your credit standing. 

I found this article to be very informative, and insteresting.  Mortgages today, are extremely credit score driven.  Only those who have FICO scores above 720, and in some cases above 740, will be able to get the best financing terms.  700 used to be the benchmark score.  If you are not familiar with what FICO means, click on FICO link.  It is definitely important to understand credit scoring, especially if you will be looking for a mortgage in the near future.

Back to the article.  Did you know that setting your credit cards aside and paying only with cash may be a great way to cut spending, but it can actually hurt your credit scores?  Many consumers are not aware of such a risk, and this typifies the gap in knowledge by the public, about credit scores in general.   Because most of us need access to credit or at least want to have the option of being able to borrow money, we need to be aware of our credit score, and understand steps to take that will help either keep the score high, or if it is not where you want it to be, understand how to increase it.

Credit score tips:

1.  Best way to improve your score quickly, is to pay down your credit card debt.  There is nothing that gives you more bang for the buck, than getting balances down.  If you do pay your balance in full, pay attention to how much of your limit your using at any given part of the month, because typically the balance that’s reported to the credit bureau is the balance on your last statement.  Many belileve that if they pay their credit card balance off monthly, that there credit report will show a zero balance, but that is not necessarily true.

2.  Many experts recommend using only 30% or less of your available credit limit, and less if possible.  The credit scoring system is based on a history of defaults and a person in trouble typically runs up charges to the maximum of their limit.

3.  Be aware that if a lender wants to lower your limit, or raise the rate, you can take your business elsewhere, especially if you have strong credit.  You can call your card issuer, and let them know that.  You may want to check other card offers, at www.CardRatings.com, or www.CreditCards.com, and tell your card issure that if they don’t put your limit back, or revise the rate, you will transfer your business to another card.  If you credit score is below 700, search for other options.  If you can get a personal loan, it might be a better option.  Moving to a personal loan actually will help your credit score becuase debt on installment loans isn’t counted as heavily against you as debt on credit cards.

4.  One of the common misconceptions about credit scores that people have is thinking that if they close an account, it will help their credit score.  That is not necessarily the case, since closing an account that has many years of good payment history, while leaving newly opened accounts in tact, may worsen one’s credit score, because of the loss of the lengthy history of strong payments.  Be careful about accetping the 10 to 20% discounts that departments stores offer for opening charge accounts, especially if you will be needing credit in the near future.  The new account will represent an additional credit line, with no credit history, which is interpreted by the credit scoring system, as a negative.

5.  Probably the most common mistake people make involving their credit, is simply skipping a payment on a bill.  Even one skipped payment can cost you 100 points on your credit score.  It is really important to be sure that all of your bills are paid on time, every month.

6.  Each of the 3 credit reporting bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, will provide a free credit report, once a year.  You can also buy your FICO report at sites like www.MyFico.com, for 15.95.  It is especially important to check your report at least once a year, so that you can report any mistakes, quickly.

I hope that this information and the tips have been helpful.  If you have any other questions about credit scores, or want to understand whether you are able to qualify for a mortgage, please contact me.

What a great new listing in Yardley

I recently listed a fabulous home, in Lower Makefield Township, just minutes from 95, and other major commuting locations.  The address is 1784  Jockey’s Way, in a neighborhood called Devonshire.

The house is an absolutely stunning, bright, neutral and elegant, brick front home.  It is over 5,000 sq. ft, and includes a state of the art, gourmet kitchen, gorgeous hardwood floors, a sun room, conservatory and first floor library.  There are 3 1/2 bathrooms, custom moldings and trim.  The colors are soft and warm, and the home shows like a model.  It is perfect for a relocating buyer, who wants to upack and move in, without having to do anything.

Be sure to check out the photo gallery, for great pictures of this amazing home, which is priced at $916,000.  If you would like more information about this house, or any other home currently on the market, please don’t hesitiate to contact me.

Bucks County area Calender of Events added to blog.

.I am very excited to announce a new feature, that I recently added to my blog, that I hope you will find useful.  

I just added an interactive calendar, and I will be updating it regularly, with area events, festivals, open houses, concerts, etc.  

If you click on the calendar, on the right sidebar of the blog, it will link you to the calendar.   

I hope this will help keep people informed about all kinds of interesting events taking place in the area.

If  you have an event that you would like included in the calender, please feel free to email me, and I will make sure that your event gets posted.

Fun time in New York.

One of the great things about living in Yardley, in Bucks County, is how close we are to both New York and Philadelphia.  As an example of this, on Friday night, my wife,  Jane and I, took our 3 kids, to see the revival of the musical, Hair, in New York. 

Our kids are 31, 27 & 24, and had never seen Hair before.  When the show first came out, in 1967, I was a senior in high school.  I saw it some time around 1970 0r 1971, with my parents.  Jane got an email offer, about a month ago, for half price tickets, and we thought it would be really fun to see it with our kids.  We took a train that left from the Hamilton Station, which is about 20 minutes or so from Yardley, at 4:30, and were back in Yardley around 1:00 AM.  The train from Hamilton, takes just over an hour into New York.  It is really easy to do.

We had so much fun, explaining what it was like when Hair was first performed.  It was almost scary, thinking about how long ago that was, although it seemed like yesterday, to us.  The music is still great, and the show is still full of energy, and fun. 

As the show ended, the cast encouraged people in the audience to join them on stage, to dance to the final musical numbers.   Up we went, to make our Broadway debut!  Somewhere there is a photo of us, which, hopefully will never been seen in public.  I can only say that the lights on a Broadway stage are unbelievably hot!

It was a really fun night for all of us, and its one of those things that makes me appreciate even more, where we live. 

If you have any questions about other area activities, or want to know how easy it is to get into either Philadelphia or New York, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Presentation you should hear, from Jim Gillespie CEO of Coldwell Banker

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Viddler video.This morning was our companies awards presentation breakfast.  My team was honored with a wonderful production award, we were one of the top 5 teams in our Coldwell Banker Hearthside network of companies.  There are way too many awards in real estate, so not many consumers really care too much about them, it seems.

Being one of the top teams in the company, does offer perks.  I was thrilled to have had the opportunity, for the second year in a row, to have dinner with Jim Gillespie, who is the CEO of Coldwell Banker.  You can see Jim frequently, on the national news, speaking about real estate issues.  Jim and I have something that neither of us will ever forget, and that is that we both are Chicago White Sox fans! 

Anyway, more importantly, Jim spoke this morning, and I highly recommend that you listen to his remarks.  This video is much longer than what I would normally post, but his advice and suggestions, both for real estate and the country, could  not be more appropriate and necessary.    As you will see, he talks about important initiatives that are being presented to Congress, to further help the real estate industry lead our country out of its current economic troubles. He also touches on the financial strength of the Reology brand.  I think you will find his remarks extremely interesting. 

Please let me know what you think.