Local Knowledge A real estate agent brokering a Fannie Mae property failed to mention (unintentionally, one supposes) to the client that it was on a lake. Still, it contracted for sale in three days for $176,000, $32,900 over the asking price. A Michigan broker who sold a property for Fannie Mae listed it on Oakland…

Real Estate – Real Recovery? Dust off that real estate license because the real estate industry is on the mend! Or is it? Reports by the National Association of Realtors suggest that a stabilizing process is underway (at least in some areas) borne on the back of a modest second-quarter decline in median existing-home prices…

There appears to be a divide today in the housing market in the aftermath of the subprime crash of 2008, one that has the market going in two directions at once. One side of the divide has the market in the doldrums, with some home prices even diving 30 percent below their peaks in 2007…

Green is hot, even after the subprime meltdown and the natural disasters (hurricane and wildfires) on the East Coast. This according to McGraw-Hill’s 2006 Smart Market report, which predicted that 10 percent of all new commercial construction in 2010 was sustainable (as in green sustainable), and that 5 percent of all new U.S. commercial construction…

This September, Amazon.com and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) became the oddest couple to share the pages of some major news outlets, including the venerable New York Times. The beef? Amazon.com got too hot for its own good. We all know that Amazon.com is a top-dog retailer, what with a whopping market value…

After the catastrophic September wildfires in Texas, some basics to remember, courtesy of the Texas Forest Service, to prevent starting an accidental fire and causing another wildfire disaster in the future: – Don’t do any outdoor burning, especially during the driest times of the year. – If you have to do any burning at all,…

In the movie Fiddler on the Roof, the main character Tevye sings, “If I were a rich man, ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum. All day long I’d biddy biddy bum…” One might imagine that a pharmacist in search of a better practice would be singing (ala Tevye) the same, too. But…

Quick quiz: What do a pharmacy technician and a medical transcriptionist have in common? Aside from the fact that the best preparation for both can be had at Meditec.com, the most experienced resource (it bears repeating that it has 40-plus years in the business) for pharmacy-technician and medical-transcriptionist training, nothing really. But then again, they…

Recently, ISO announced the release of its newest standard, the ISO 11156, Packaging – Accessible design – General requirements. It provides general guidelines—a scaffolding, if you will—for designing packages that will be easier to use for all end users, but especially for the elderly and folks with disabilities. The new standard is chiefly for designers…

Texas, with its huge petrochemical industry, has a vested interest in the ISO standards: they are keeping it productive, efficient, and safe. Standards such as the ISO 14001, which covers the “environmental management” aspects of the ISO 14000 family of standards, or the ISO 9001, which covers the quality-management aspects of the ISO 9000 family…

Live curious, says the National Geographic. Live strong, says Lance Armstrong. Insurance agents—but particularly that curious breed of insurance professional called the insurance adjuster (or claims adjuster)—are bound to say, live curious and strong. If you’re curious to know why, well, consider these what ifs. What if your insurance adjuster isn’t nosey? He’d fail the…

One type of insurance professional agent will be very popular and very busy in the weeks and months following Hurricane Irene and the Texas wildfires: the Property and Casualty Insurance Claims Adjuster Adjuster. He’s the get-to guy when it comes to settling your insurance claim of damage. He investigates the property, assesses the kinds and…

Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Colorado. Can you guess what these places have in common, besides being states of the US of A? Answer: lightning. “Thunder and lightning aren’t so frightening,” may be words that gave you comfort as a child during a thunderstorm, but they’re not much use…

Texas sits atop 8 billion barrels of petroleum deposits or a whopping one-third of the entire known U.S. supply. For that, several major oil companies have headquartered in the Lone Star State:  ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil, Exxon-Mobil, Tesoro, and Valero, among others. It is also home, unfortunately, to several of the world’s biggest petrochem disasters, including…

Sure, Texas wine (even a Llano Estacado) is on the sweet side. But did you know that a swig can save you from food poisoning? Actually, more than a swig—four glasses (at five ounces per glass) to be exact. This according to a Spanish study investigating the protective effect of alcohol versus acute salmonella gastric…