The Home Page: Getting Comfy, Crafty, and Collaborative

Real Estate Market Hotter Than Ever

This edition of The Home Page was originally emailed to subscribers on March 27, 2022. To receive Sarah Sinclair’s real estate newsletter in your inbox each Sunday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.

FRIENDLY COMPETITION

*Credit: Michelle E Lauren and Ashley Taylor Henning*

I’m a big fan of board games. Backgammon, scrabble, aggravation; we even had family cribbage tournaments going on throughout this past Christmas holiday season. I love to win, and yes, I’ve been known to get a bit overly competitive at times, but all in the name of fun. In the spirit of fun competition, Sara Caputo recently profiled two leaders in the local real estate community for her Simply 805 column. Sara interviewed Austin Lampson of Homeowners Financial Group and Kelly Marsh of Cornerstone Home Lending about their shift from competing against one another to collaborating with one another, while still remaining professional rivals. It’s a great read, especially as we wind up International Women’s Month. As Lampson reminds us: “If each person brings their best, isn’t that what the community receives? And aren’t we on this planet to help everyone the best we can?

INSPIRED BY AWKWARD

Wow! I think I’m going to reconfigure my living room after reading this article by Ajai Guyot over on the Emily Henderson blog. She takes us on a walk-through of her process as she designed her self-professedly awkward living room space. But rather than be constrained by rules, she includes options – with photos – that could work for different lifestyles. As Guyot concludes: “There are a variety of ways to design a home, keeping in mind the people living in it. None of them are wrong or right. They are simply the way we choose to live, with our values in mind, while making ourselves comfortable at home.” Comfy is key.

YOU CANE DO IT

Back in October, Christine Cowles, our Style Specialist, showed us her DIY trick for framing fabric to create a gallery wall. This turned out to be one of her most popular columns yet. Well get ready, because Christine is taking us behind the scenes once again this coming Thursday, when she’ll take us step-by-step through her process to add cane webbing to an existing piece of furniture. Christine’s end result is the awesome sideboard shown above. You won’t want to miss it!

RECORD-SETTING HOT MARKET

This week’s Q&A With Marsha Gray column has Marsha responding to the question of essentially “Hey, I thought you said the market was cooling down?” While the market might have appeared to be slowing down a few weeks back, it’s hotter than ever out there right now. Just one recent example: my friend Lesley Hall of The Hall Team shared that their listing at 400 East Pedregosa Street, shown above, closed escrow this week in seven days for $2.1 million. This 2 bedroom 2 bath home was listed for $1,625,000.

Make sure you pick up a copy of this week’s Independent: there’s tons of awards news in real estate, and lots of great music news and more throughout the issue. Enjoy your Sunday!

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