Guest Author - Katie Murphy

Hi Folks,

Welcome to the BellaOnline home ownership site. I am thrilled you have taken time to view the site because BellaOnline has so much to offer. It’s fantastic to have the opportunity to be a part of this community.

One of the really neat features is the newsletter each department sends out. What a great way to be informed on the subjects of interest to you. Please take a moment to click at the bottom of this newsletter and sign up for “The American Dream”...the home ownership newsletter.

You can expect this newsletter to arrive in your email mail box regularly on a monthly basis. But, as I gather steam and become use to distributing the newsletter, I plan to bump it up to twice monthly.

Topics of interest will include: Financing your home; Selecting the right Realtor®; Professional Home Inspections; First-time home buyers tips; Mortgage rates; and, Choosing a neighborhood that’s right for you.

I encourage you to write to me with specific questions or stories about your own home-buying experience. We can all use learning experiences to save us headaches in the future.

I have a brief story, which makes me laugh each time I think of it. I am a Realtor® in Florida and a few months ago I was showing properties to a customer. Currently, in Florida, we have quite a few vacant homes due to the large number of investors in the real estate market before the market slowed down.


When entering a home, vacant or not, I ring the doorbell and knock. Then I use my keypad to obtain the key and enter the home. As I enter, I call out... “Is anybody home?...anybody home?” Well in this particular case, the house was vacant. The listing agent told me it was vacant and as I peered through the front window I could see the house was empty. I opened the door, after ringing and knocking, and called out before I entered the home. No answer. As I opened the door, my customer stepped through into the home and, as I began to close the door behind me, a naked man went running across the room.

Well, I don’t know if I scared him more or he scared me more, but I grabbed my customer and went running out of the house. We sat in the car for a moment to catch our breath and out comes this very handsome man in only a pair of shorts. It turns out, the owners had moved, but the seller was a trucker and he needed a place to crash on his route. Apparently, he did not hear the doorbell and was very apologetic. The good news is my customer thought he was cute and we went back in to see the house. She didn’t buy it, but will always remember the experience.

Thanks again for visiting and please take a second to subscribe to my newsletter. If you know anyone else who may be interested, I would appreciate you sending it along to them too.