(CBS/AP) Most of us would agree that a mother’s job is priceless.

But the folks at Salary.com take time every year to figure out how much the actual work is worth.

This year, they say the work of a stay-at-home mom would command an annual salary of more than $138,000. That’s up about 3 percent from last year, but not as much of an increase as employers predict for their workers: 3.9 percent.

For working mothers, the amount is put at more than $85,000 this year. That is on top of any money earned in the workplace.

Much of the theoretical salary, by the way, is figured on overtime.

“Mom works multiple jobs and rarely gets a break from the action, working an average of 52 hours of overtime,” said Bill Coleman, senior vice president and chief compensation officer at Salary.com, in a press release.

According to the Salary.com survey, stay-at-home moms work a 92-hour workweek while working mothers logged 49 hours, or nine hours more than their formal workweek.

The Marietta Square Farmers Market is about to open in just a few weeks. Vendors are now being solicited. The market will open May 5th and will take place every Saturday through September 1st. The Marietta Square Farmers Market will be located in the parking lot at the corner of Church and Hansell streets in Marietta.

I’m very excited about having a local farmers market with fresh Georgia grown vegetables, fruits, herbs, flowers, garlic, cheeses, and mushrooms! My hometown of Roanoke Virginia has a farmers market located in the downtown area. I used to work in the middle of Roanokes’ City Market area for several years in a family business. It was a wonderful street on Saturday. It was filled with people that were squeezing, smelling and thumping things they were considering to buy and eat. Most of the farmers would tell you “tats a goodin” then spit tobacco on the ground. I grew up thinking that’s how you bought produce. If they didn’t spit tobacco their produce usually wasn’t worth cow manure. Many of the farmers were characters and very funny people. I liked buying from Mr. Wertz’s stand; he also had pretty daughters that worked on Saturday’s.

My wife Sarah May, loves fresh vegetables. She cooks most of them with fatback her mother hauls across two state lines. She currently goes to a produce stand she found last year in West Cobb. She pulls up front and this gentleman farmer puts her in a golf cart and off they go into the garden to pick what she wants. I think this elder farmer has a crush on my wife as he’s always slipping her an extra tomato all the time.

There’s just something about a farmer that has always interested me. My friends laugh when I tell them I’d love to have a farm. All my farmer friends bend over hysterical when I mention I want a farm. But don’t be surprised if one day I have a stand in the Marietta Square Farmers Market. I couldn’t think of a better life after real estate other than working the land, selling my harvest and slipping pretty girls extra tomatoes.

On March 11 2007 the Marietta City Council voted to ban all Pit Bulls and Rottweilers from city dog parks, including the dog park at Lewis Park at 475 Campbell Street near Sessions and Radium streets. Pit Bulls and Rottweilers are allowed in Cobb County parks as long as they’re on a leash. But they cannot run free any more in designated dog parks.

I personally have friends with Pit Bulls and Rottweilers. They’re all good dogs. I don’t think you can find a person that will tell you I’m not a pet lover. But as we all know not all pet owners are committed to other human or domestic animal safety. I’ve seen these dogs get into fights and many of the owners (men or women) don’t have the strength to bring the animal back under control once a fight or attack begins. When I read in the paper that a child or older person was attacked and no one could even beat the dogs off of them with pipes or bats just horrifies me to think what they went through. When you see the after pictures they’re very traumatic. Most suffer massive skin and tissue damage. Victims are tossed around like a rag dolls during these attaches. And to beat it all, you cannot shoot one of these animals if their attacking a person by law. I think if a dog is attaching a person and no one can stop the attack….I would have to shoot the animal if I had a gun and suffer the consequences of the law later. As I’m writing this blog I thought about the poor woman that was killed in her Manhattan co-op hallway in New York City a few years back. You may remember the dog owners were two pretty strange attorneys. They obtained the dogs from a person they represented that was in jail at the time of the attacks. Bottom line the lady attorney owner just couldn’t bring the dogs under control once they started attaching this helpless woman. These New York attorneys were convicted and sentenced to jail. I’m sure when they took these dogs they never thought anything like this would ever happen. It’s horrible for all parties. I’ve shown homes that potential buyers loved. But if they see neighbors with barking dogs showing aggression the house is never considered again by that buyer! The home is pretty much condemned as long as those dogs are around.

I’m starting to see more communities and subdivisions banning Pits Bulls, Doberman Pinchers, Rottweilers, Mastiffs, venomous animals & insects, large snakes,etc from living in a building, community or subdivision. The liability is huge for a pet owner if their animal attacks. You stand the risk of losing everything. I recently read that many insurance companies aren’t going to cover home owners liability as they have in the past. If a home owner has a dog which the insurance company has listed as dangerous they will not extend liability coverage if the animal attacks. If the animal bites someone it could cost you everthing. Many communities are enforcing laws requiring the removal of certain animals from a home if located in a community governed by covenants or the homeowner’s will be heavily fined or both. I’m very sorry to say that even if the animal is 35, friendly and blind with no teeth, walks on 3 legs with only 2 currently working he’s leaving or you’re moving with him. I truely hate when this situation happens. I hate we have to discriminate against certain breeds. But I understand citizens concerns. Please email me back a solution! Where do you draw the line? It’s very hard to govern sometimes and not discriminated against the helpless caught in the middle. It tears at my heart! Everytime they show a picture on TV of a dog that just killed someone they look so sweet and innocent too me. Something in me wants to give them another chance.

I’m by no means trying to tell people what kind of pets they should have or like. But I do feel communities have the right to say that certain animals with an aggressive or venomous pedigree shouldn’t live in well populated areas. Anything that can catch me and squeeze me to dead shouldn’t live near me either. I once had a friend that liked snakes. One evening he was bathing his Python in his apartment tub. Somehow he got distracted for a while (you know those crazy snake lovers) and when he came back into the bathroom all he saw was the tail of this 6 foot snake going over the lip of the toilet bowl. The drama and inconvenience he put his apartment building though was unbelievable!! I don’t believe they ever found that snake….I think about that snake every time I pass that building. I would hate to meet Herbie the snake reading my morning paper and not having my pants in the correct running position. You know what I mean!! I had a real estate agent friend duck walking under a old home off Bolton Rd in Atlanta with a home inspector and the buyer one day. Now we have three grown men under a home at the very back end of the house away from the small entry door they entered. Guess whats rapped around the top of a hotwater heater? It’s cooper alright, but it isn’t piping….it’s a big Python. Now I know these are two snake stories. But I find it funny that someone will post a picture of their LOST DOG offering a big reward if found. I’ve never seen a picture of a Big Python Snake stapled on a phone pole saying LOST…CALL IF FOUND. Be a good neighborhood. If you lost your snake please tell your neighbor so they can put the kids and the Yorkshire up! It’s the least you can do! For true….Do you remember a few months back when some lady living in Buckhead was feeding what she thought was a big fat cat that showed up at her house? I was totally freaked out when we were told it was a neighbors escaped exotic Lynx. A neighbor that was a licensed big cat breeder. Why in the WORLD OF COKE do we have any large exotic cat breeders in any part of Fulton County much less in the heart of Buckhead? This cat was appoximately 30 lbs or more. I cannot believe someone in their right mind would issue a licenses for an exotic cat breeder in this type if urban density. Listen it’s a free world but to be breeding large exotic cats within a stones throw of the governors mansion isn’t right!! It’s just stupid to take such a chance!

If you plan on getting a questionable pets I wish you the best and hope you get a wonderful loving animal. But do yourself a favor and check with you landlord or covenants committee first. It may save you a lot of hassle you didn’t expect. I know it would be awful to get a new pet only to be told you have to get rid of it! It very emotional! You need to be aware that your living options will get harder and harder to find if you have certain animals as pets. There are now a lot of animals that urban and suburban Metro Atlanta will not tolerant as part of their community any more. I grew up where all the dogs ran free. They very seldom got into a fight. Once in a blue moon a few dogs would gang up on a cat. They never chased the horses or cattle. We had very few dog attacks, nor were we bitten. Most of the time when a kid was bitten it was because they messed with the dogs food or tried to yank their tail off. Only the slow learners were bitten twice! We had Irish Wolf Hounds, Dobermans, German Shepards, Yorkshires, Labs, Huskies, Hounds and tons of Mutts. They all got along. Even some of the cats hung out with the dogs in my old neighborhood. When I was young if a kid had a snake for a pet he caught it. Most of the time they were of garden variety not boxed and shipped from the Amazon.

I soley put the blame for most dogs behavior on their owners. If you treat your dog as if their your body guard then their not going to understand how great it is to be a dog. Remember to error is human, to forgive is canine!

With the current market conditions real estate agents more and more are being asked to reduce their commission. This is mainly due to the fact homes just aren’t bringing as much as they were a short while back. I totally understand the seller’s position. But on the other side of the coin when the market is good sellers don’t share their profits with agents. Most of the time it’s not a situation where the seller’s home hasn’t appreciated. It’s the fact sellers have taken most or all of the equity out of their homes over the years. Some don’t seem to realize they have made money on their home. This is how they got the 2nd mortgages and equity lines of credit. But for some they’ve simply gone too far and their expectations are based on high appraisals they’ve gotten from refinancing their homes. Very seldom can a real estate professional sell a home for what the refinance appraisal claims its worth. There are several different types of appraisals done in the market and they’re used for different situations. Home equity and refinance appraisals are always higher than what a home could sell for. Don’t ask me why, but it’s the truth!

I cannot tell you how many times sellers say to me that they need ”X” amount of money of their home in order to buy the next home. I think it’s easy to understand what you need…..has nothing to do with what your homes worth. Thus, sellers ask the real estate agent to reduce their commission in order to achieve their desired net at closing. Lets look at this another way. Indulge me for a moment, what if your boss asked you to take a pay cut because he or she is going buy a boat or put a pool in their backyard. What would you think? Doesn’t make sense does it? Are you going to work hard for them under this arrangement?

I know this may sound crazy, but in the current real estate environment this is the time sellers need to pay more in commissions. Yes I said pay more in commissions, not less. Stop taking all the incentive away from selling your home, think for a moment how you would perform in your own personal job if you were financially rewarded for completing a project on time!! Trust me, most real estate agents aren’t knocking it dead as far a pay goes. We have a lot of hidden cost home sellers never see or hear anything about. I suggest sellers focus more on their bottom line and not what the commissions are. I understand you want to walk away with as much cash as possible at the closing table. But that doesn’t always happen by reducing the commission!

OPEN HOUSES – WASTE OF TIME

MSN Real Estate ran an online article March 25 2007 about OPEN HOUSES. For years I’ve personally felt OPEN HOUSES simply don’t work. The MSN article supports my position and even suggest having OPEN HOUSES on multiple weekends can even hurt your homes strength in the market. I know of recent incident where an open house brought in a person that wasn’t interested in buying a home at all. They were just looking (nosey neighbor). This person ended up being someone that gossips a lot and felt she needed to talk about this home that was for sale. She ran into and told several good potential buyers her personal thoughts about the property. This is what we consider bad viral marketing. This is not at all what you want to happen when your selling a home!! With out the open house this would have never happened. OPEN HOUSES open the doors to more problems and security issues than contracts to sell. I feel the same about agent caravans and luncheons. All of these marketing approaches are as old as a dinosaur. They do not work, they only make the seller think the agent is doing something to sell their home. They’re doing something alright….and it’s WRONG!! There’s no question marketing homes for sale has changed for ever. You’ll find very few high volume real estate agents that embrace or support these marketing practices. If they do they’ll send a new agent or an agent that is willing to try anything to get their business going.

Why don’t OPEN HOUSES work any more? The Internet!! Approximately 80% of the home buyers now shop for homes on line, after they see a virtual tour they know if they want to see a house or not. No one seems to have the time anymore to ride around trying to find a home by looking at OPEN HOUSES. It’s just not an efficient way to find a new home. It’s so 90’s!!

With over 80% of the home buyers shopping for their new homes on line I find it totally amazing how many home sellers list with real estate agents without any internet presents. If a real estate agent shows you a template site his or her broker gave them ….that web site is pretty much useless. You couldn’t find that site if you tried for days doing searches on the major internet search engines. Almost all of these broker/agent template sites don’t even have a domain name. They don’t work at all for internet exposure. Why would a seller list with an agent they cannot find on the internet? Agents have to have personal web sites with domain names and content that gets the site ranked high up on the main web pages like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Agents have to invest in web placement. It’s not cheap for internet placement. Technology scares the heck out of most real estate agents and spending any marekting money scares them even more. I find it amazing how many agents don’t add more than one picture to their FMLS listings and other free websites. I’m surprised how many real estate agents don’t even add virtual tours. Yet they will sit for hours in a house on Sunday praying someone will come and buy that house. A Virtual Tour takes 5 minutes to order and reaches tons of people.

This year alone Re/Max invested over 50 million into REMAX.com. RE/MAX.com is now the 5th largest real estate web site and climbing daily. That’s an amazing accomplishment in one year. RE/MAX is a global company. There simple isn’t anyway for any of Atlanta’s small boutique brokers to compete on a local, national or global level as far a internet marketing goes. Again 80% of the home buyers are looking for homes on the web. Why would sellers ever want and OPEN HOUSE?? If you look at the facts why would anyone put forth the effort when you only stand a 2% chance of being successful. That’s just just a plain waste of time?

I’ve always embraced cutting edge technology. My personal web site will get over 70,000 hits this month. My pro-active internet marketing campaign brings in 10 to 20 prospects a week. My other pro-active marketing campaigns allows me to communicate with 50 to 75 new people a week. These aren’t cold calls. These are people looking to buy or sell real estate. With my internet marketing campaigns my average listings get approximately 300+ people a month taking a virtual tour of any given property. The average suburban OPEN HOUSE gets maybe 3 to 4 people any given Sunday if lucky. Now would rather have 2 to 4 people coming on Sunday or 75+ people a week looking at your home? I think we know the answer here!!

The facts are consumer sentiment about open houses has dropped drastically over the years. So when you decide to sell your home. Ask agents what type of web marketing plan they have. Hire an agent that has a pro-active marketing plans and drip markketing campaigns in place. Oh by the way, make sure the agent even has a marketing plan in place!! The agents with pro active marketing campaigns sell homes faster and for more money everyday of the week! Pro active marketing is not putting a OPEN HOUSE sign with balloons on the street…..not by a long shot!!! Agent luncheon’s, agent caravan’s and open houses are PASSIVE SELLING!! If PASSIVE SELLING methods are the way you want to go then save yourself some money! Hire a cater and a home sitter, not a real estate agent!

The Jonquil City Jog will be held on Saturday April 28th 2007.

The following is the schedule of the events.

Registration and Packet Pick up - 7:00 am
5K Run/Walk - 8:00 am
Fun Run & Fitness Walk - 9:00am
Tot Trot - 9:15am

To register www.acitve.com

On March 8th 2006, I attended the public information open house concerning the proposed improvements to I-285 and Atlanta Rd. This project has been under consideration for some time now. The GA Department of Transportation is now down to two proposed plans for consideration. I personally felt Alternative Plan #2 was the best proposal.

The expansion is needed to handle the amount of traffic the East/West Connector and I-285 is dumping onto Atlanta Rd during peak commute times from all the new construction in the Vinings, Smyrna, Powder Springs and Kennesaw areas. Driving safety in this Smyrna, Vinings area will be greatly increased by easing the traffic flow and street lighting. The state of Georgia DOT plans to add more lanes, expand (widen) the Atlanta Rd bridge, adding large looping or widened on and off ramps. The big plus….they’ll be tearing down the Pilot Truck Stop and the warehouse next to it. Not having all the semi and commercial trucks trying to enter the Pilot Truck Stop will be a huge plus for safety and will help relieve the congestion we now deal with in this immediate area. I’m really looking foward to having the new expansion for the Vinings, Smyrna area. The entire road project will cause the Atlanta Rd exit not to have the industral and trashy appearance it now has!!

From what I gathered this is a 2009 start date for construction. Let’s hope it doesn’t take as long to finish as the Paces Ferry Rd – I-285 project did.

The following link will take you to more information I have posted to the web.

http://www.barrysoldme.com/uploads/files/I285%20-%20Atl%20Rd%20improvements.pdf

If you haven’t taken the time to drive through the new West Vinings Village you should. This has turned out to be a beautiful development. I’m very excited about style and direction this community will bring to the Vinings area. Residential sales have been great for The Flats at Ashton Woods. The first building of condos is sold out and the second building is 56% sold.

I’m proud to say I’ll be helping the 1st homeowner to close the 23rd of February.

The retail area is going to feature the following.
Sports Bar / Steakhouse
Hair Salon
5 Guy Burger
Je Belles’ – Formal Boutique
Japanese / Sushi Bar
Akberet Welde Spa
Meal Makers
McCary’s Irsh Pub
Vantage Staffing
General Denistry
Pashmere’s Ladies Boutique
Nora’s Art Gallery
Blue Moon Pizza
Carr’s Barber Shop
Thai Restaurant
And more to come

Note what you see now is the first phase of the West Vinings Village development. The second phase could have a grocery store concept! The best is yet to come. West Vinings Village will have a very positive impact on the Vinings area!