Have you ever had a dream? When I was in my early 20’s I had a lot of ideas – things that I thought would be fun to do like starting a business, becoming a writer of children’s books, drawing pictures for fun and profit. But, I never had the courage to actually go after my dream.  There was always this inner voice that said I was being stupid and didn’t have any talent and couldn’t do it and that I would fail.  So I never took the chance.

But I am lucky to have someone in my life that doesn’t let those doubts in.  She isn’t afraid to dream and always insists on squeezing all she can get out of life. My daughter Mallory is fearless!  She had a dream to start an online clothing boutique.  She loves clothes and has amazing style so this is the perfect stage for her.  So she researched it, built a website, got her business licenses and opened and online clothing boutique called @jollys.

She and I have always been close and she has been looking for a career that would allow us to work together.  And she is allowing me to ride along with her by encouraging me to put some of my drawings on her website that she built herself and letting an old fart like me to be a part of something new and fun and exciting and so outside my box I may have morphed into an alien.  It is an incredible ride and I am sure we will be wildly successful.  Especially with your help.  Visit our website www.atjollys.com and see all the fabulous items we have for sale. 

Happy Birthday, Hula Hoop!

Happy Birthday to the Hula Hoop!  It turned 50 today.  The hula hoop actually dates back to the around 1300, when hooping came to Great Britain.  Homemade versions of the toy became very popular. In the early 1800s, British sailors first witnessed hula dancing in the Hawaiian Islands. Hula dancing and hooping look somewhat similar and the name "hula hoop" came together.

The hula hoop was made popular in the US when a couple of gents formed a company called the Wham-O company.  They started the company in their garage in Los Angeles in 1948.  One of their first inventions was the 'wham-o" which was a sling shot used to train falcons and hawks (it slung meat at the birds and the sound it made when it hit the target was "wham-o" so that became the name of their company)  That is just weird and creepy - a marketing nightmare in today's world, I would think.

In 1957, an Australian visiting California told them that in his home country, children twirled bamboo hoops around their wasits in gym class, so they invented a plastic prototype and when they saw how well accepted it was they trademarked the Hula Hoop name and started manufacturing the toy in 1958 and received a patent for it on March 5, 1963.  Twenty-five million Wham-O hula hoops were sold for $1.98 in the first two months of production and 100 million orders followed.  By the end of 1958 the company had made $45 million in profits.  

Still one of the best toys on the market!!!

Woo Hoo!!! March is here and the market is heating up.  Here are 'just the facts' about real estate in Lee's Summit for the month of February.

During the month of February:

    * 95 homes sold in Lees Summit

     *$30,793-$550,085 (lowest to highest)

    *$190,312 average sale price

     *110 days on the market

***588 single family active listings are currently on the market

in LS priced from $30,000 to $2.9 million.

Why February is a great time to list your house.  Lets do a little math:  

 

More houses are “Sold” in May than any other month of the year.   

For a house to be listed as Sold in May, that means it has to have a contract written.

30-60 days before that time- that’s how long it takes to do inspections and get financing ready, etc, so that would be March 1.

But, most houses don’t sell immediately so let’s add 30 days to that and here we are at February 1.

agreat time to list your house!  

And, Lee’s Summit has the lowest inventory of houses for sale in years (it is now officially a sellers

market).

So, what are we waiting for?  Let’s get those houses listed!!!  Give me a call – I can help!  

 

Welcome to my I  Love Lees Summit website.  I built it because I do love Lee’s Summit and, working in Real Estate (Keller Williams Platinum –and a proud member of the Gale Team), I have come into contact with so many people who aren’t familiar with Lee’s Summit.  Granted, there are other sites (Chamber, EDC, Downtown LS where you can get info but I wanted to give folks a chance to find a person!  I’ve lived in Lee’s Summit almost 40 years and watched the population grow from 18,000 to over 100,000,.  I’ve watched the school district blossom, shopping centers sprout up and downtown get revived.  And I have lived on the North side, the east side, the south side and now the Westside (we moved a lot) So, here I am ready to answer any questions or help in any way.  And, if you  happen to be looking to move, I can help with that too.  (Even if it’s not Lee’s Summit – I was born in Kansas City and have my real estate license in Missouri and Kansas.)

Now, back to the website – be sure to check out the newsletter.  I have a lot of fun writing it every month (with the help of my daughter, of course)