2007 August | Luxury Home Digest

I am developing a severe case of phone envy as I watch friends caress and tickle their iphone screens.

Their voicemail is visual and at a glance, they can see who has left messages and can prioritize the return of those calls. Their web surfing is real, and reading glasses aren’t required because text and pictures can be enlarged with the slide of a finger. The iPhone takes decent photos, stores music (of course) and has a large screen that seems to resist scratching. The iPhone comes closest to being that ultimate personal computer and personal electronic assistant.

The downside? Service for the iPhone is not available outside of the AT&T/Cingular network. (Was Verizon alseep at the wheel???)
Other top luxury gadgets might include:

1. Portable Video with the Archos 7704 WiFi. For those who just can’t handle watching everything on an iPhone screen, there is Archos 7-inch touch screen that has a massive 80-gigabyte hard drive that will allow for 100 hours of video storage. This amazing gadget also has a Web Browser that connects wirelessly to allow for surfing the net. The cost for this device is around $550 and for only $100 more, it can be turned into a portable TiVo type of gadget.

2. Slingbox Pro: Talk about new flexibility for television viewing!

Hook this gadget up to your home entertainment center, and you will be able to watch your favorite TV show from any broadband-enabled device. Add the SlingPlayer Mobile, and you can watch your favorite shows via the Palm Treo or Windows Mobile-Based Smartphones. The cost? Around $250 for the Slingbox Pro and about $280 for the Slingplayer Mobile.

3. The Garmen Nuvi 670 gps device will truly prevent this direction-disabled writer from being lost again. The maps for both North America and Europe are up to date (yippee!). The 4.5-inch screen offers very sharp resolution with clear graphics. The Nuvi 670 also doubles as an MP3 player and a speakerphone for your bluetooth enabled cell phone. The price? Around $1100.

4. The camcorder champ would have to be the Sony HDR_SRI AVC HD with a massive 30-gigabyte hard drive that allows for about 4 hours of video–with no tapes or CD’s to bother with. Just download the video and continue shooting. It also helps that this Sony camcorder has an amazing resolution of 1080i, which matches high-definition television. Bid farewell to those grainy family and vacation videos. The price? Around $1500.

5. Digital cameras? I love my slim new Kodak v705 with its amazing wide angle capabilities, but for those who demand photographic perfection and don’t mind a little more bulk, the Leica-V-Lux-1 might be worth consideration. It’s 12x optical zoom works well, especially with this camera’s image stabilization feature that allows for amazingly crisp shots. And with 10 megapixels, this camera works well for portrait and professional photography. The price? A relative bargain at around $850.

6. Sound systems? Several months ago I wrote an article about the amazing Sonos Sound System that still tops my list of favorite gadgets. This expandable system allows you to wirelessly play your MP3 Music, your Rhapsody or Pandora subscriptions–along with those of i-Tune and Napster. That means you can wirelessly control music from any room in your home with your Sonos color screen remote– and no PC is required. You can now tap into thousands and thousands of songs the moment you turn on your Sonos whether from your own music files or that of the Rhapsody service. The basic Sonos bundle starts at around $1000 and can be ordered online.

For other cool gadgets and luxurious technologies, read:

Wireless Home of the Future

Luxurious Intuitive Homes

Gotta-Haves for Luxury Homes

The Cooktop That Cannot be Ignored

Totally Hide the Bedroom TV

Switchable Mirror Glass Windows

Haute Refrigerators for Cool Kitchens

Ultimate Phone for the Luxury Bath

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by Roberta Murphy

Whenever I go to shop for technology of any sort, I head over to CNet to check out editorial and user reviews. Whether I am shopping digital cameras, tablet pc’s or cell phones, I know I can trust what they have to say.

It came as a recent wonderful surprise that they have also taken to rating blogs–or at least those that focus on technology. Luxury Home Digest of course did not make the cut, but that should come as no surprise. Luxury real estate blogs aren’t exactly at the top of tech blog lists.
Regardless, I thought readers might be interested in their 100 choices because they could end up providing valuable information for owners of luxurous residences:

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by Roberta Murphy

I must be crazed to write a title like that because we are courted almost daily by San Diego mortgage lenders and brokers who want our real estate business. We deal with a number of home buyers and feel an enormous responsibility to recommend the best mortgage professionals in the business.

I am convinced that the San Diego real estate and mortgage market has far too many loan hacks and sharks; otherwise, how could so many area homeowners be in default? Our clients are doing fine, but way too much of our time is spent cleaning up the real estate messes created by greedy loan brokers and real estate agents.

But that is another article for another time.

The intent here is to clearly communicate what we seek in a mortgage originator. And now when San Diego mortgage professionals call to solicit business, I can refer them to this post.

Non-readers need not apply.

The committed mortgage professional will:
1. Communicate. Be available and return my phone calls–within at least a couple of hours. Can’t talk? How about text messaging? Email works, too.

2. Return my client’s calls even faster. There is nothing more painful than to recommend a mortgage lender who turns out to be non-responsive or unavailable to answer questions.

3. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Anything that even comes close to mortgage “bait and switch” is a kiss of death.

4. Communicate. Give us email updates. Email our clients, too. We love transparency and knowing what is going on.

5. Be athletic. How about moving really quickly. We sometimes have real estate clients who want to close in ten days–and certainly have clients who do not want to pay additional seller-imposed fees because the lender cannot close on time. Time is truly of the essence.

6. Be imaginative. Be creative. Be legal. Our job is to solve real estate problems and keep our clients safe. This can be a very difficult task at times and is one that requires keen intelligence and integrity. Fools need not apply.

7. Communicate. We don’t ever want to hear from a client that a lender we recommend does not return phone calls–in a very timely fashion. Better yet, how about answering the phone when you are free to do so? We fume at those messages: “I return all calls between 12 and 1 and again between 4 and 5.” And I don’t care what Joe Stumpf or Brian Buffini have to say about that. They’re not dealing with our clients either. Also, when we meet in person, never hesitate to look me in the eye. Enough said.

8. Be honest. Don’t gouge our real estate clients. You are entitled to make a fair profit from the mortgage loan, but we watch closing statements like hawks and know how to spot garbage fees. Our clients trust us for a reason.

9. Be smart. If our real estate clients found you on their own, please take advantage of the opportunity to impress us with your professional skills. Stay in close touch with both the agents and the clients. You just might have the opportunity to earn more mortgage business.

10. Communicate. Answer your phone. Respond to text messages. Reply to emails. We value each client, each real estate transaction and demand an open and timely flow of information between the mortgage lender, the real estate broker, attorneys, insurance agents, escrow and title. A non-responsive link in this chain can endanger an entire transaction.

11. Know how to delegate. If you are going to be out of town or unavailable for any reason, please make sure you have left someone in charge of your mortgage operations who can get things done. I have had lenders take off for a week with no warning. Read numbers 1, 4, 7 and 10 again.

12. Know the mortgage business and stay up to date (and sometimes up-to-the-minute) on local San Diego market conditions. More than ever, it is incumbent upon us to protect the financial interests of our clients.
I see my job as something far more than simply being a San Diego real estate broker. I am a real estate and financial advisor who wants independence in recommendations. We don’t do loans for that very reason (read #8), which leaves us free to scout out the best San Diego mortgage professionals in the business.

Our clients deserve no less.

And if you are interested in knowing who our San Diego mortgage finalists might be, email through this site or call 760-942-9100 or 760-402-9101. Phone solicitors will get the click.

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Archive for August, 2007

6 Luxury Gadgets and iPhone Envy

100 Hot Tech Blogs (with Few Related to Luxury Lifestyles)

Busy San Diego Realtor Seeks Committed Mortgage Professional