If you are looking for something to do this weekend, why not check out the 2010 Saratoga Home and Garden Show. According to the promoters the show features over 100 exhibits including products and services for your home and garden. In addition, there are seminars with a wide variety of topics.

All of the show’s proceed benefit the Saratoga Rotary and are distributed to community organizations, youth scholarships, and international humanitarian projects.

So with spring coming, this is a great event to get ideas for your Saratoga Homes and Gardens.

Dates, Time and Location - 2010
Friday, February 26, 5 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Saturday, February 27, 9 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Sunday, February 28, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Saratoga Springs City Center on Broadway in downtown Saratoga Springs

Admission

Adults $6; kids 5-12 $1; under 5 free

Governor David A. Patterson has announced that Amanda’s Law take effect as of today, Feb 22, 2010. The bill was signed into law in August of last year.

It is named for Amanda Hansen of West Seneca, New York who died while sleeping at a friends house on January 17, 2009 as a result of a carbon monoxide leak from a defective furnace.

The law requires that all homes in New York State that burn fuel which could result in carbon monoxide production must have a carbon monoxide detector.

The alarm must be installed on the lowest floor of the home having a sleeping area, and must be clearly audible from all sleeping areas with the doors closed.

Carbon monoxide is produced when any type of fuel burns incompletely. Depending on the levels in the environment, it can take minutes or hours to become deadly.

Carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless and tasteless making detection of it in a home impossible without a warning device.

Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning can mimic that of the flu. They include fatigue, dizziness, impaired memory and judgment, headache, nausea and vomiting eventually leading to nervous system damage, cardiac trauma, brain damage, coma and death.

By the time someone realizes there is a problem they are frequently too incapacitated to get out of the home safely and get the help they need.

Under the new law homes built before January 1, 2008 can have battery-powered CO alarms. Homes built after this date must have alarm systems hard-wired into the building.

Amanda’s Law also make contractors responsible for installing a CO detector in a home when replacing a furnace or hot water tank if the home is not already equipped.

Governor Patterson and the OFPC would also like to remind homeowners that in addition to installing a CO detector, they should take the following actions to ensure they are reducing their risks and keeping themselves and their families safe.

• Test / replace detectors according to the manufacturer’s instructions
• Have a qualified technician inspect and clean heating systems, chimneys, vents and flues annually
• Examine vents and chimneys regularly. Check for rust, soot and debris as well as improper connections
• Never allow a vehicle to run in an attached garage
• Never run a fuel powered motor indoors
• Never use your homes gas oven as a heat source
• Always use barbecue grills outdoors, not in a garage or house
• Don’t forget to install smoke alarms on every level of the house and near sleeping areas

For hundreds of years in this country huge fortunes have been made in land. You buy a piece of land in a remote area that you believe is headed for growth and expansion and you sit on it. A wealthy developer comes along and offers you many, many times what you paid for it. That is the lure of investing in land.

But before you go out and invest your nest egg on that piece of property you are sure is ripe for profit you may want to consider the following:

1. Land as an investment is hard to monetize. In general land purchases generate no income and at the same time incur ever-increasing property taxes, thus creating a negative cash flow. So while you are waiting for your ship to come in you are losing money every year on your investment.

2. There is no depreciation allowed on raw land for federal income tax benefits.

3. Development of land is regulated by the municipality in which the land is located. Where land subdivision and development used to be not much more than a formality, it has become increasingly arduous to get approval, mainly because of tighter environmental restrictions.

4. Raw land is the most illiquid of all real estate investments. It can literally take years to sell some parcels - others may not be marketable at any price.

5. It is very difficult to get traditional financing or borrow against equity on land.

While opportunities for profit still exist, most financial advisors generally advise against land purchases for almost all independent investors; saying that it is, at best, a place to invest only money that you’re quite sure you won’t be needing anytime soon. As always, it is prudent to consult your professional advisors before making any significant investments.

In an effort to conserve energy and contain the cost of doing business in a tough financial climate, we have decided to shorten our business hours to 10-4, Monday - Friday beginning Nov 3. By instating these cost saving measures, we can avoid raising our rates and keep our services affordable to you our valued customer.

While other companies are opting for a 4 day work week, a 5 day week allows us to best serve our customers. We can be contacted all week should you need to make changes to your ad, update your Open House information, or if you have any questions or concerns that need to be addressed.

If you are calling after hours please leave a message and we will return your call as soon as possible. Customer service is always our top priority. If these winter hours do not work with your schedule, please contact us and we will do our best to accommodate you.

As you may have noticed, we recently completed an entire site re-design. Just to give you a little background, this is the fourth generation of our site which was first launched back in 1998. While the previous version of the website served it’s purpose for nearly 3 years, the design was somewhat limiting. We were looking for a design that would give us the flexibility to expand our offerings to both our home-selling and commercial clients as well as a more enjoyable browsing experience for home buyers.

This new design has many new features that are, in our minds, functionally superior to it’s predecessor. Just to name a few…

• The featured listing on the home page
• The ability to do property search from almost every page on the site
• Learning Center for buyers and sellers
• Paginated listing results with expanded preliminary property information
• Ability to sort listing results by town, BR’s, Baths, or price
• Much larger property photos - more than twice the size of the previous site
• Links to local experts on each home detail page
• Expanded open house directory
• Secure email contact to the sellers.
• Recommend a listing with ‘Email to a Friend’
• And, of course, our Blog where we’ll keep you informed on the latest news, company updates and client success stories.

As this should in no way be considered a finished product, we will strive to add new features and updates to this new platform.

As with any major update, there are many small glitches that we are working through as we find them. We appreciate all of the feedback we have received to date and welcome any comments or suggestions that may help us improve our site. Feel free to comment to this post below or use our contact form to email us privately.