Cary's Newest Movie Theater

I hate going to movies. It is extremely rare that I go to any movie that does not have the words Harry Potter in the name. It's not that I don't like movies, because I love me some celluloid entertainment. It is the theater part I hate, in particular it is that one person in every movie who talks constantly or plays games on his phone or  eats candy covered in crinkly wrappers. For some reason those people always choose to sit right next to me or behind me. I guess it is the downside of my magnetic personality.

The reason I was willing to go to a movie in the first place.

Yesterday, though, I was so desperate to get away from our box filled home, that I suggested we go to the  Frank Theater's Cinebowl and Grill that recently opened at Parkside Town Commons in West Cary.  After Yankee got over his shock, he jumped at the chance (he is just as sick of boxes as I am).

Let me just tell you, Frank's is not your typical movie going experience. The difference started when I went online to buy tickets. They have assigned seating. The front to rows are the Rockers and the rest of the theater are Dine & Recline. We went for Dine & Recline not because we particularly wanted to dine or recline, but because we did not want to sit in the front two rows. It was a matinee, so Dine & Recline was $10 as opposed to the Rockers which were $8. At night they are $10 & $12 and on the weekend the Dine & Recline shoots up to a stunning $15. If you order your tickets online, there is a $1.25 service charge per ticket, so then you are looking at $16.25 for a movie (a bug-eyed smiley face emoji would be perfect here). Once you get to the theater, you go to machine and swipe your credit card to get your tickets.

Just a word about the building itself. As the name implies, it is not just a movie theater. There is a bar and grill, a bowling alley and an arcade. We did not use any of those options, but they looked nice.  There is a traditional box office where you can buy tickets and concessions. The theater is not huge. The two rows of rockers look like a typical theater, but that is where typical stops. the rest of the theater is made up of sections of big, cushy chairs that almost fully recline. The way the theater is designed you have tons of personal space so talkers/texters just are not an issue. Each chair has a little table that swings into place in front of it with a menu sitting on it. A server comes by to see if you want any food. We ordered sliders, and OMG they were delicious.

So once we scarfed down the sliders, we settled down to watch Straight Out of Compton.  It was a great movie. There was one thing that that was driving me crazy during the whole movie though, and it was not talking or texting. It was the fact that the actor playing Ice Cube looked exactly like Ice Cube. I don't mean he resembled him a little, I mean it was like they went back in time and plucked a young Ice Cube out of the late '80's and brought him back to play himself. It was freaky. I commented on this to Yankee after the movie, and he told me it was because the actor is his son.

I think it would be really weird to play your dad in a movie about his life. First of all, that actress you are snuggling up with is playing your mom. Awkward.  Thank goodness, she was one of the few women in the movie who was not topless. And the scene where there are two little kids playing in the back ground? One of those kids is you and the other is your sibling. Weird.

Anyway, I have to say this was the best movie going experience I have ever had. I think now that I know how fabulous Franks is, I will probably see more than two movies a year. 

Who's Your Agent? Part III

I forgot that I had already written a Buyer's Agent Post, so you should go there to find out all about buyer's agents.

Today, in my final chapter of Who's Your Agent? we will forge ahead to Dual Agency.  Dual occurs when the real estate agent represents both the buyer and the seller. This is different than a seller's agent selling the house to someone she does not represent. That scenario is like my example in Buyer's Agent: Don't Buy a Home Without One.

In Dual Agency, both the seller and buyer agree to be represented by the same agent, and the agent's job changes. She is supposed to become an unbiased facilitator.  She is not supposed to advocate for one side over the other. She does not negotiate but instead basically only communicates the parties' demands without offering an opinion on them. This is why I am not a fan of dual agency. I believe the reason you have a real estate agent is so you have your own personal advocate in the process.

Most sellers agree to dual agency in their listing contract because it increases the chance of the house's being sold.  Remember that every agent in the listing agency represents the seller, not just the listing agent, so for example, if any agent employed by Fonville Morisey were to sell my listing, they would be a dual agent in the deal. Since we have over 700 agents, the seller would greatly decrease the chance of selling the property if he does not agree to to dual agency.

In order to help solve this problem, there is one more type of agency called Designated Agency. Designated Agency is actually a form of dual agency in which agents from the same agency are assigned to solely represent the buyer or the seller in a particular deal. For example, if I have a buyer who wants to make an offer on a house listed by another Fonville Morisey agent, I can represent him as his designated agent. In this scenario I will represent him just like I would Buyer Client.

I believe this is a fair way to deal with the problem of dual agency. Designated agency is taken very seriously. The designated agent should have no prior confidential knowledge about the property. At our agency we talk about square footage and updates; we do not talk about seller's motivation, in case we get into a designated agency situation.

In North Carolin,a dual agency  must be disclosed to all parties involved. It is mentioned in the Working with Real Estate Agents Brochure, and your agent should discuss it with you.

I hope this series has made agency a little less confusing. Below is a video published buy The North Carolina Real Estate Commission that explains the brochure.

Who's Your Agent? Part II

What is an agent anyway?

The Business Dictionary defines an agent as: Party that has express (oral or written) or implied authority to act for another (the principal) so as to bring the principal into contractual relationships with other parties.  If that cleared everything up for you, I will be back next week with some exciting photos of my new bathroom. If you are more confused than ever, read on.

 Seller's Agent
The most straight forward agency relationship in real estate is that of a seller who has a signed listing agreement with a real estate agent. If Sarah Seller signs a listing agreement with Anton Agent to sell her condo, Sarah is the principal and Anton is her agent. That is simple enough, but since nothing can be that easy, let's say Anton, like most agents, works for a real estate agency.  Even though only Sarah and Anton are sitting in her living room signing the papers, she has actually signed an agreement with Anton's entire agency. Every single agent that works for that company now represents Sarah. If Anton dies in a tragic rhinoplasty gone bad, Sarah is still in a listing agreement with his company, and his broker-in charge will send over a substitute named Gerald to take his place. 

Once you have signed a listing agreement, the listing firm and its agents must • promote your best interests • be loyal to you • follow your lawful instructions • provide you with all material facts that could influence your decisions • use reasonable skill, care and diligence, and • account for all monies they handle for you. The firm and its agents may not give any confidential information about you to prospective buyers or their agents without your permission so long as they represent you. 

Caution: Remember last time when we talked about Anything you say can and will be used against you? This comes into play here because until you have signed the listing agreement, you are not in an agency agreement and the loyalties in the above paragraph do not apply.  If you interview three agents before signing a listing agreement with one, the other two owe you no loyalty at all, so do not mention any confidential information in the interviewing process that can be used against you later. For example do not say I'd be willing to re-sod the entire yard, paint the outside purple and install a swimming pool to get the asking price, because you better believe if one of the agents you did not hire ends up representing a buyer, she will tell him to ask for all of that in the contract. 

It is late and I really need to get back to my binge watching of Fringe (Fauxlivia just found out she is got pregnant with Peter's baby while she was on assignment in our universe).  I will be back tomorrow to talk about buyer's agents.

Who's Your Agent? Part I

Who's your agent? That should be an easy question, right? Most people would answer with, "It's the guy driving me around showing me houses." Maybe. Maybe not.  The rules of agency make a seemingly easy question complicated. But never fear, I am here to clear it all up for you. This will be a multi part series because, well, it is a complicated subject, so those of you who are here to see what colors I'm painting my walls will just have to wait.

The North Carolina Real Estate Commission asks more questions about agency on the real estate exam than anything else, which means not understanding it is the downfall of many REALTOR wanna-be's .  It is ironic then, that they expect real estate agents to explain the rules of agency to any potential client in just a few minutes when only about 40% of the students who have a professional instructor in a 75 hour course can get it.

This brings us to the North Carolina Working with Real Estate Agents brochure.  This page turner must be presented and explained to any potential client at the first substantial meeting. What the heck does first substantial meeting mean? Basically this means that it should be presented before personal details concerning the buying or selling of real estate are discussed. Personal details include salary, motivations for buying or selling, the amount you are willing to pay for a property you want to buy or the amount you are willing to take for a property you are selling.

So it is okay to say, "I'd like to buy a house between $150,000 and $200,000." But you should not say to a real estate agent you do not have an agency agreement with,"OMG! This is the best house ever! I would pay $10,000 over asking price if that's what I have to do to get it."

Think of this brochure as your Miranda Rights. As we all know - hopefully from watching countless police shows and not personal experience - the first thing a police officer does after arresting a suspect is read him his Miranda Rights. The first of those rights is your right to remain silent, which you should do because anything you say can and will be used against you. The same holds true of any personal information you give to someone who is not your agent. When it comes to real estate, you should always assume anyone you are talking to is not your agent until you have made an agency agreement with him.

After an agent goes over the brochure with you, she will ask you to sign it. THIS IS NOT A CONTRACT! Your signature just shows the Real Estate Commission that the agent went over the brochure, so sign away.

In the next post we will start to talk about the forms of agency, but I want to say one other thing about the brochure. Personally, I think you can judge to quality of real estate agent by when she presents this brochure to you. She should go over it with you at the beginning of your relationship. I believe if she waits until you are about to sign a listing contract or an offer to purchase, she has not done her job correctly, and she may not have your best interests at heart.

A Cook's Paradise

I grew up in a small town in Mississippi. Some of my family and friends still live there and for the most part they love their home, but there is one complaint I hear over and over from them - the lack of a decent grocery store.

They have basically three choices: A poorly stocked Kroger; the Walmart Super Center; and a small grocery store called Sunflower. If you are lucky enough to be active duty or retired military you can also shop at the air force base commissary. And that's it. This is a really big issue for the fabulous cooks living there like my mom, Sister III,  Brother-in-Law, BFF and her her youngest child.

One day BFF was complaining she could not find shallots anywhere in Small Town Mississippi . In my continuing effort to get her to uproot her family and move up here, I pointed out that the only problem you would have in Cary is choosing between multitude of grocery stores from which to procure your shallots.

She could pick up her shallots at one of North Carolina's own Harris Teeter's. If she wanted organic shallots she could try Whole Foods, Trader Joe's or Earth Fare. For a friendly shallot, she could go to the brand new Publix. I have never been Lowe's Supermarkets or Food Lion, but I bet they have shallots too. I'm not sure if there are Indian, Asian or Hispanic shallots, but if there are, she can pick them up at one of our many specialty grocery stores.
 
So here I am in Cary with at least ten different shallot buying opportunities, and would like to know how many times I have actually bought shallots or anything more difficult to find than organic milk? None. Zip. Zero. Why? Well it is a two fold answer. First and most importantly, I hate to cook. Absolutely loath it. People tell me it's a shame because I am a pretty good cook (I learned from the best - my mom).

The second answer is that I hate going to the grocery store even worse than cooking. No matter how spectacular they are, and let me tell you, we have the most fabulous grocery stores I have ever been in, I just hate going. Luckily for me, Yankee does not mind going at all. He says it reminds him of shopping with his dad when he was a kid, so he does pretty much all the food shopping (that's what he calls it) around here.

It is sad that I have an abundance of food choices and yet do not take advantage of them at all, while the great cooks from home have almost no choice at all. I guess they are just all move up to Cary AKA Cook's Paradise.

California Dreaming

Number One Son and me at the Santa Monica Pier

The last time I saw Number One Son was right before he moved to Los Angeles in April seeking fame and fortune or something like that. So when I had the chance to fly out for his birthday, I jumped on it.

I left early Sunday morning. My love for something or someone can be accurately judged by how early I am willing to get up for it. In this case it was 4:45am which equals much love. Because of the time change, I arrived early Sunday morning. In all of my travels, I have never been to LA, so I made Number One Son show me everything. We literally covered the entire city in one day.

We started in Santa Monica and drove through Malibu, some of the canyons outside of the city, back into the valley, through Beverly Hills and down Sunset Boulevard. I experienced the famous LA traffic first hand. A side note here - you know your child has become a Californian when he spends as much time discussing his planned route for his trip to Northern California as he does the vacation itself. 'I want to take the One all the way up but I'll probably take the Five to the 101 to the One so I can skip this traffic.'
 

What half a million bucks will buy you in LA

As a mom and a REALTOR, I needed to see his house. This boy grew up in a very affluent, very white suburb of Atlanta. He now lives in a working class neighborhood made up of primarily of  Hispanic families. Because it's LA, the house he lives in, which is a 2300 square foot, rather old, slightly rundown, craftsman cottage, sold for almost half a million dollars in January. That makes much pricier than the typical McMansion in the Atlanta suburb. You know what they say about real estate though. Location, location, location.

He shares this house with five other people, but at least he has his room. It is slightly larger than my walk in closet. With no A/C and one tiny window, I imagine it is similar to sleeping in an oven. The entire postage-stamp sized back yard is cemented over. One of the weirdnesses of living in Southern California is they keep their washer and dryer in the back yard. It is fine there since it never rains. I guess you can do some grilling and a load of whites at the same time.

The view of downtown LA from our hotel window

We met up with Yankee downtown. Noah wanted to have steak for his birthday so we went to this great place called Frank's. It's been in it's location since 1953. I am not sure what the neighborhood was like then, but now it is part of Korea Town. The clientele was a fabulous mix of people from the neighborhood and people who looked like they had been eating there since the '60's.

After dinner we were all pretty pooped, so Number One Son dropped us off at our hotel. Yankee and I flew back home on Monday. It was a whirlwind of a trip, but I was so happy to have made it. It was nice to see the boy settling down in his new, way different environment. I am still sad he is so far away, but I am happy that he is happy. 

Painter's Block

When we bought our first house, we were coming from living in those bastions of  builder's beige walls - apartments and military housing. I could hardly wait to put color onto my new walls. I had  the paint picked out before we even moved in. I painted our dining room midnight blue, the living room forest green, and our bedroom burgundy. Trust me, in the early nineties this was the palette.

We moved to our second house in 1999, and I took a break from all that partying to paint my foyer eggplant and my dining room chili pepper. The family room was spring green and the sunroom had yellow walls and a blue ceiling. There was not a wall in that house that I did not make colorful. I was very sad to paint everything the same color when we put it up for sale.

We closed on our new house last Monday. One of things I so looked forward to about moving out of the rental was getting away from the taupe that covers every single wall. The New House has off white walls which is a nice, blank canvas to work with.

Here is the surprising thing - I just cannot get started. I have taken a tree's worth of paint samples from Lowe's and Home Depot. They are taped all over the house, but I have not been able to make a decision. I have owned this house for a week now and have not bought a single gallon of paint.

I clearly have painter's block. As a writer, I know how hard writer's block is to overcome. The only real cure for it is to write which does not really make sense, but it does work. I just sit down and start typing out anything that comes to mind. I often have to resort to writing blah, blah, blah when I am really stuck. Then I come back to that part later and replace the blahs with real words.

I think this what I am going to have to do in the new house. I want to paint my sewing room first because I am very anxious to get it set up, but since I cannot choose between the multitude of color samples taped on the wall, I am going to pick out a nice creamy white and just paint. If you know me, you know how bizarre this is. I have never willingly painted a wall white in my life, but I am pretty sure it is the only way to get my color flow back. The white will be my painter's version of blah, blah, blah. Hopefully I will be able to come back later with a real color.