3B Limo

Archive for February, 2010

I have a friend who is considers herself an environmentalist; she recycles a lot of her stuff like plastics, and use things that are biodegradable.  At her house she uses rain water barrels to collect and store rainwater specifically rain water runoff from rooftops via rain gutter , this process of collecting and storing rain water is known as rain harvesting.  A rain barrel is also known as a rain tank, it is a popular equipment in rain harvesting used in areas that do not have sufficient water supply, expensive or poor quality water.

Rain harvesting can be done either for economic or environmental reasons.  For my friend however, it is both.  With the use of her rain water barrel, her water bill rapidly decreased, resulting to more savings that can be used in emergencies.  The rain water that was collected and stored by rain barrels, are then later used for watering gardens, flushing her toilet, washing clothes and washing her garage and car.  With proper filtering equipments, and proper storage facilities, rain water can also used for drinking, this is the reason why rain barrels are installed above ground and usually opaque, to prevent exposure to sunlight , thus preventing algal blooms. Water conservation does not only help the environment, but also help our pockets.

In life, accidents and unfortunate events happen all the time, and not knowing when and where it will strike is the scariest part all. Even in our own homes are not a hundred percent accident-proof, accidents and unfortunate events can also happen within its four walls.  Thus, the best and only thing to do is plan ahead and prepare for anything that life has in store for us.

Let’s make our homes as secured and as safe as we can, with an ADT Security System, we can be assured that we are well prepared for anything.  ADT is the number one home security company in America, with years of expertise, continuous innovation, 24/7 customer monitoring and uninterrupted service especially in times of crisis,  you’ll know you’re in good hands.  An ADT Security does not only protect your homes from intruders and burglars, but it can also help protect you, your loved ones, and even your pets against fires.  With ADT protecting our homes and every one in it, there is nothing for us to worry about.

Our bodies are our greatest investment, without a healthy and physically fit body, we wouldn’t be able to a lot of different activities.  If there is one body part that needs constant protection, that would be our feet, since they are most of the time in direct contact with the ground.  And the best to protection  for our feet is by wearing Shoes.

Although the main purpose of shoes is for protection and comfort, people have come up with designs and styles that can serve other purposes as well, like for fashion and for sports.   Wearing the perfect shoes is important for any athlete, since it can affect their performance, there are many kinds of sports shoes like Bike Shoes, Golf Shoes, and Running Shoes, each of these vary in design, style and cut, specifically for the sport they were made for. For that every day protection and comfort, Sneakers are best choice, and for the perfect outfit at your wedding day, only the perfect Wedding Shoes will do. Thus, it is important that we wear the right shoes for the right job.

The allure of casinos has never faded. The possibility of easy money has kept people flocking to casinos. For those that can spare a few or more dollars, casinos offer a chance of thrills and a night of fun. However, the inaccessibility of physical casinos like in Las Vegas, limits its potential.

With the advancement of communication technologies like the internet and the versatility of the credit card, many online casinos have appeared in the internet. They bring the thrills of a gambling right to the home. Many offer easy to understand and play games like poker or blackjack. Some even offer roulette. For people fortunate enough to win, their credit cards are credited with their winnings or kept as a bankroll in the game in case they want to return. However, this is gambling, online or not, with it own share of thrills but also its perils. Like they say, “Don’t bet your lunch money unless you can go hungry.”

Nowadays, there are so many people that are engaged into golf sports.  It became one of the favorite sports of so many people.  That is why during summer, so many people are looking for the best place they could have to play golf like the Myrtle Beach.  As we all know Myrtle Beach is not only known with its resorts and beaches, but also its golf fields.

To know more a lot about Myrtle Beach Golf, I suggest that you visit their site at ttimesonly.com.  This site is the leading Myrtle Beach Golf Vacations that will provide us great golf accommodation.  From the website, we can have various Golf Packages Myrtle Beach.  With one of the Myrtle Beach Golf Package, we will get the opportunity to visit and play on the well-known and first class service golf fields.  We can choose one of the golf fields on the page and make the field as our field next summer.  So what are you waiting for?  Visit the site now and book for Golf Myrtle Beach for the summer vacation.

When I was younger and tougher (in other words, broke and ignorant) 1 enjoyed roughing it when I hunted and fished with my friends. Our camps were bare-bones affairs, and 1 still remember my old $2 chicken-feather surplus Army sleeping bag that had no warming properties whatsoever and a canvas tent (also surplus) that leaked like a sieve in a light mist. We preferred the romance of the open fire (we didn’t have a gas stove), so cooking meant impaling channel cats on green sticks and then squatting and coughing over a smoky fire.
Later there was a short-lived minimalist stage where I slept out in the open wrapped in a cheap plastic tarp. On clear nights I marveled at the white smear in the sky we know as the Milky Way; on cloudy nights I learned to fear the first faint drops of rain.
I still have buddies who enjoy backpacking or striking off to a spike camp, and they willingly sacrifice certain creature comforts because of a lack of adequate carrying capacity. Not me. Nowadays I camp out of the back of a big truck. Why? Because my rig lets me indulge myself. I take what I want and treat myself to all the luxuries of a new found five-star hotel.
By big, I mean full-size pickups and sport utilities, vehicles with the necessary room to store all your gear.
You’d be amazed at how even a half-truckload of the right items can move the pleasure needle into the ahh-yes! zone. Oversize captain’s chairs, a camp kitchen, thick airbeds, cots, a folding table, and coolers full of your livorite eats and drinks are some of the extras that are worth their weight (and space) in gold.
The fellow who taught me the virtues of abb-yes camping is Jim Reid, director of public relations for The Coleman Company. I first spoke with him about truck camping after a disastrous three-day outing in which I had elected to sleep in the bed of the pickup because the tent could not accommodate three adults, one of whom snored loud enough to wake the dead. At the time Jim and I were comfortably ensconced in his camp after a long, hard day of quail hunting along the Kansas-oklahoma border. He had just made the appetizer— fresh quail soup—and was preparing the main meal—grilled Kansas City strip steaks—as we enjoyed a libation. I noticed that for the first time in camp I was warm, comfortable, and completely relaxed.
“Yeah,” Jim said. “Basically, the happy camper is the one who sleeps well and eats well. Add convenience and comfort while loafing in camp, a righteous cocktail hour, and a big campfire, and you have all the ingredients for a world-class camp.” ‘So, how can you make sure you get a comfortable camp?” I asked.

Once you’ve decided that everything else about the condo is to your liking, how do you decide whether it’s worth what the seller or the developer is asking for it? As with any kind of real estate, the “fair market value” of a condo is whatever a willing buyer will pay a willing seller. But before you open your wallet, remember that there are some objective ways of measuring value. First, look at the prices of comparable units in the same building and in the same and similar neighborhoods. There are publications in some areas that report real-estate transactions on a regular basis, and these are good sources of information on comparable values. You can also obtain such information from the registry of deeds or the town clerk’s office, where all real-estate transactions are recorded. If the seller is asking $100,000 for the unit you’re considering and an identical unit across the hall sold the previous month for $80,000, then you have a serious problem with the price. A look at recent seffing prices of comparable units wifi give you at least a general sense of the market and a basis for deciding whether the price being asked for the unit you’re interested in is reasonable.
One way to compare the price of different condos is to look at the cost per square foot. Just take the selling price and divide it by the total number of square feet in the unit. But make sure you use only the figure for livable square feet, which is not necessarily the same as the total number of square feet. A 1,500- square-foot unit is not as spacious as it sounds if that area includes a 500-square-foot hallway. When you’re looking at condos, it’s not a bad idea to have a tape measure with you, since developers are sometimes imprecise about such distinctions. Suppose you’re looking at two comparably priced condos. Each has 2,000 square feet, but condo A has a 200-square-foot hallway and condo B doesn’t, so you’re getting more living space for your money with condo B. At $100 per square foot, you’re paying $20,000 for that hallway. You have to ask yourself whether it’s worth it.
You also have to consider that size is not the only determinant of value. A 3,000-square-foot unit will not usually cost twice as much as a 1,500-square-foot unit in the same building. This is because some basic costs (the building infrastructure, for example) will be the same for both units. On the other hand, a 1,500-square-foot luxury unit with a water view will undoubtedly cost more than a 3,000-square-foot unit in a renovated warehouse on the wrong side of town.
When you’re comparing one unit with another, you’re obviously going to have to consider factors other than simply the cost per square foot. Don’t mix apples and oranges when weighting the footage values of the dwellings you consider.
If you’re buying a unit in an existing building, you’re also going to want to have some idea of what the resale experience has been for other units in that complex. How rapidly have prices increased? When units go on the market, how quickly do they sell? Remember, you may want to sell your unit one day, so you’ll want to be sure that the appreciation rate for condos in this building has been in line with the general appreciation rate for condos in your market. You can check on recent sales by doing some research at the appropriate registry of deeds or town hail, wherever the property filings are recorded. You can ask other unit owners in the complex for a reading. Or if you’re really concerned, you can hire an appraiser to analyze the market for you. General economic conditions have everything to do with the rate of appreciation of real-estate values, but if condo values are soaring everywhere except in the development you’re considering, you need to wonder why. It’s possible that you’ve stumbled onto a big bargain, but it’s also possible that you’ve stumbled onto big problems.

Financing a condo is similar in most respects to financing a detached single-family home, but it’s more complicated. The secondary-market requirements for condominiums fill several volumes. I can’t go into all those requirements here, but I can tell you that with the number of it’s that have to be dotted and it’s that have to be crossed, you shouldn’t attempt a condo purchase without hiring an attorney to represent you.
The most basic question to ask about any condo you’re considering buying is whether it has obtained the approval of either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, or is capable of being approved. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the two key entities of the secondary market. They purchase many of the mortgages that local lenders originate. Condo developers will often obtain Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac approval before they begin marketing their dwellings. Some existing condos already have the approval; some have not received formal approval but meet all the requirements needed to do so.
If a condo hasn’t been and is not capable of being approved, you may have a hard time finding a lender willing to finance it. And even if you obtain a mortgage now, financing could be a problem for any subsequent buyers you might want to sell to in the future. All in all, it’s easier to buy and sell a unit that meets secondary-market requirements than one that doesn’t.
Among the hundreds of secondary-market requirements that condos have to meet, there are two that are especially critical and that buyers can check out on their own before getting too deeply into the purchase process.
First is the number of units that have been sold in a new development. Typically lenders won’t approve a mortgage on a unit unless at least 25 to 30 percent of the other units in the complex have been presold. That’s an obvious problem in a new development in which sales have just begun. So what often happens is that the lender providing the funds for the construction or the renovation will also agree to issue mortgages to the buyers of individual units. That ensures the availability of financing for early buyers, though those buyers may find the rate available from this lender to be a bit higher than prevailing mortgage rates in the market area.
The second secondary-market rule you should be aware of is that at least 70 percent of the units must be owner-occupied. A development in which more than 30 percent of the units are owned by investors who rent them out to tenants is not likely to pass muster with most secondary-market lenders.

A condo is insured differently from a single-family detached dwelling. If you’re insuring a single-family home, you buy a policy that covers the structure as well as its contents. In a condo, you need two separate policies — one to cover your unit and its contents (known in many areas as an H. 0. -6 policy) and another, the master policy, to cover the condo’s common areas.
The most important thing for prospective unit buyers to find out is exactly what is covered by the master policy and what is not. You want above all to avoid a situation in which the master policy coverage and your unit policy coverage fail to come together, leaving you potentially vulnerable to serious damage claims. The nature and extent of the condo insurance already in place are two of the things your attorney should be able to tell you after reviewing the condo documents.
Some condos have what is known as a “bare-walls’ policy. It covers only the building’s shell and the areas — the lobby, the grounds, the pipes, the roof, the electrical master wiring, and so on. Unit owners have to buy coverage for structural elements within their units (bathroom fixtures, built-in cabinets, etc.) as well as for their personal property. If a condo you’re considering has bare-walls coverage, then be sure to determine precisely where the master policy ends and where the unit owner’s policy must begin. One way to avoid any question about whether or not something is insured is to obtMn your unit policy from the same firm that issues the master policy.
Some condos have opted for what is known as “single-entity” coverage. This covers essentially everything that’s a fixed part of the building, regardless of whether it is in the common areas or inside the units themselves. With this approach, the walls, cabinets, fixtures, and so on inside individual units are covered by the master policy. Unit owners need only insure their personal property.
If you encounter single-entity insurance in a condo you’re interested in, be sure to find out what happens if individual owners make improvements to their units. These improvements raise the value of the whole complex and thus increase its insurance costs. You want to make sure that this increase will be paid by the particular owners responsible for it. It’s not an expense that should be shared.
These are the most basic issues you have to consider under the heading of condo insurance, but there are many other aspects that vary with local conditions and state law. Because it’s so important to be adequately insured, and because the whole area of condo insurance is so complicated, you shouldn’t buy a condo without the advice of a competent and trustworthy insurance agent.

A big question to ask about any condominium is, are its finances in good order? And one way to answer this question is to look at the condo’s budget. You don’t have to be a financial expert; all you’re looking for is evidence that the condo association collects its fees, pays its bills, and regularly sets aside funds for reserves to cover unforeseeable common-area expenses. If it’s a new development, you’ll have to rely on the developer’s estimates for maintenance costs and other common-area expenses. But you can compare these estimates with the costs you see in other, similar condos to ascertain whether they appear reasonable.
Look with particular interest at the monthly maintenance figure. Some developers establish the base fee far below what it should be in order to attract buyers. Once they’ve bought in, the new owners are faced almost immediately with the need to increase the fee to a more realistic level. Be wary if the developer quotes a monthly fee that seems too good to be true; it probably is. The range of variance is wide, so once again, the best advice on condo fees is to look at the fees charged for comparable developments in the same market area.
If you’re looking at an existing condo, you’ll want to find out how frequently the condo fee has been raised in the past. If it’s gone up 50 percent a year for the past five years, that’s a bad sign. On the other hand, if the fee has never been raised, that could be an even worse sign, since it may indicate that the necessary maintenance is not being done and that a huge increase in the fee, or a special assessment to cover emergency renovations, is likeLy in the near future.
One indication of how well or how badly a condo is being managed is the size of its reserve fund. The monthly maintenance fee covers regular maintenance and operations; the purpose of the reserves is to finance major capital expenditures — replacing a roof, for example, or paying for common- area damages that aren’t entirely covered by insurance. Every condominium should have a regular program through which owners contribute to its reserve fund, but the Community Associations Institute estimates that 10 percent of the condos in the country don’t have any reserves at all, and that another 30 percent have reserve programs on paper but don’t follow through on them every year.
Why should you be concerned about the reserves? Because if the roof caves in or the heating plant has to be replaced, the unit owners are going to have to cover the costs. Such special assessments can amount to several thousand dollars per owner. It’s far better to be in a condo that saves for rainy days than in one that has to soak the owners when the inevitable crisis occurs. One final point about reserve funds: secondary-market regulations require that condos have “adequate” reserves in place. What constitutes “adequate” is left undefined, but attorneys I know who handle real-estate transactions say they base their assessment on the individual condo. An older condo, where more things are more likely to go wrong, needs a larger reserve fund than a newer one, which in theory should face fewer problems involving expensive replacement and renovation.
In any case, if the reserve fund seems low, find out why. It might be because the condo association has not made a contribution to it in five years. This would be a bad sign. It also might be because the association just drew on the fund to finance a needed repair. This would be a sign that the condo is being responsibly managed.