PURSUING EXCELLENCE
Pursuing Excellence
By: The Prensner Team
Have you ever noticed how we are presented with choices all through the day, everyday, to decide whether we will do something in the best manner possible or just do enough to get by? Is it worth it to do our best, or is the extra effort too costly at the moment? Is excellence a noble goal, or is mediocrity good enough?
I remember as a child that I would come home from school and pre-warn my parents that I had a test that day and I may not have done very well on it. My mom would usually say something like, "Don't worry about it. As long as you did your best, that is all you can do." I hated it when she said that, because it got me to thinking that I probably had not done my best; there was more that I could have done to prepare! In sports, one of the measures of a great coach is that he/she makes sure a team has worked through as many scenarios as possible to be well prepared for the next game's opponent. Their team is then prepared to do their best!
As a scout, we made the promise to "do my best to do my duty ...." When we do our best, we help those around us to do a better job. If our part of the responsibility is done well, it helps the whole effort go better. If we play our best, it helps the team do a better job. To be important to others, we want to treat them as important. One of the best ways to do that is to give them our very best.
"I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end." Abraham Lincoln
"With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it." Nicomachean Ethics
"Many evil men are rich, and good men poor, but we shall not exchange with them our excellence for riches." Fragment
"My potential is God's gift to me. What I do with my potential is my gift to Him." John Maxwell
Let's all strive to do our best in whatever task is set before us!
Have a great week.
The Prensner Team
The Prensner Team strives to do our very best is serving you and helping you accomplish your real estate goals and dreams. Call us or contact us at The Prensner Team or click on www.Homes4UColorado.com
DREAM ON!
Cultivate Those Dreams
By: The Prensner Team
Have you stopped dreaming? Have you given up hope for what was once a driving dream and vision that you had? If so, it's time to revisit those ideas and rekindle that dream inside of you. Or maybe you can help keep someone else's dream alive. Determine to be a dream booster, and you will do those around you a great service.
Dreams are at the center of who we are. It is vital to help turn dreams into reality, whether that be our own dream or the dreams of others. You can help others see their dreams come into fruition by doing a few basic things. Ask others to share their dreams with you; ask them about challenges they see in being able to accomplish their dreams; ask if you can help them; help them to regularly revisit their dream; affirm them as they share their dreams with you. Who knows, you might be the exact catalyst that is needed to bring someone's dream into being!
"Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"There is nothing like a dream to create the future." Victor Hugo
"The poor man is not he who is without cent, but he who is without a dream." Harry Kemp
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." Eleanor Roosevelt
"It's unfulfilled dreams that keep you alive." Robert Schuller
When Harvard University was commemorated in 1865, James Russell Lowell charged the leadership of that university by saying, "And what they dare to dream of, dare to do." May we all dare to act on those dreams that are hidden and stored up inside us all!
The Prensner Team
The Prensner Team is ready to help you realize your dreams in real estate and life. Let us help you see your dream home become a reality! Contact us at The Prensner Team or go to our website at www.Homes4UColorado.com to get started today.
HELPING OTHERS
Taking A Moment To Help Others
By: The Prensner Team
Helping other people is a habit that we can all acquire. It just takes a little time to see what we can do to help someone out in a needed situation. Though we are all busy, we are not that busy that we can not take a moment to lend a hand or listen to another person. If we do stop to help, the return on that time invested will be incredible!
The way to do this on a regular basis is to simply look around and see what the situation is and observe if someone is in need of assistance. If that is happening, we can take the initiative to help them. As a matter of practice we can put this practice high on our list and develop that habit of thinking of others' needs along with our needs. And then we should cultivate the courage to step out and simply ask, "How can I help you?"
"Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day." Sally Koch
"You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." Zig Ziglar
"When a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it!" Edgar Watson Howe
"Better to expose ourselves to ingratitude than fail in assisting the unfortunate." Du Coeur
Today, we will have lots of opportunities to help lift the load off others' shoulders. Let's go for it!
The Prensner Team
The Prensner Team wants to help lift the burden of home buying and selling off of your shoulders. Simply click on this link to contact us at The Prensner Team or go online to Homes4UColorado.com and we can help YOU with all of your real estate needs in Colorado Springs!
FRIENDSHIP
Welcome Your New Friends
By: The Prensner Team
In business as well as our personal lives we all desire and need friends ... or, at least a friend. It is so comforting and reassuring to have someone to talk to about our difficulties and our victories. It is great to be able to bounce strategies off of another person, and we all would like to know that someone "has our back." But where do these friendships come from?
Sometimes, a friend comes along as an unexpected gift at just the right time. We may not do anything to create the friendship; it just happens. And sometimes friendship evolve over time; it can take a long season to develop a deep friendship.
At other times, friendships can be born out of the most unusual circumstances. Perhaps we meet someone in an initial clash or strong confrontation in a business matter. Or we may meet someone through a contest in which we are on opposing sides, fighting to the bitter end. Sometimes the strongest of battles can produce the closest of allies.
Or maybe we decide to not wait around for someone to find us, and we take the initiative to befriend another person who is in need. Emerson said that the only way to have a friend is to be a friend. So the ball is always in our court, so to speak, to begin a friendship.
Whatever the case may be, let's look beyond the obvious circumstances of this week to see who is waiting to be a friend. It could change your entire business and your life!
"Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit." Aristotle
"What a delight it is to make friends with someone you have despised!" Colette
"Friendships are often made with an initial clashing which discloses the metal of each to each." David Grayson
"Your friend is the person who knows all about you, and still likes you." Elbert Hubbard
"My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, you've had a great life." Lee Iacocca
Have a wonderful week!
The Prensner Team
The Prensner Team is ready to help you in all of your business and real estate needs in Colorado Springs. Simply contact us at The Prensner Team or go online at Homes4UColorado.com . We've got your back!
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKING AT YOUR DOOR
Seizing The Opportunity
By: The Prensner Team
Isn't it great when a surprise opportunity comes our way? We have a meeting to learn about a pay raise at our job, or we get a call to learn about a huge payoff from an investment. How exhilarating and wonderful those times can be!
Opportunities can come in all kinds of packages, and sometimes it is difficult to see them. It's difficult to see them when they are packaged in the wrapping paper of apparent failure or disappointment. It's hard to envision opportunity in the midst of being fired from your job, or in the midst of experiencing a major loss, or in the midst of a previous dream falling flat. We see those things as anything but opportunities. Yet, such times can produce the biggest rewards ever imagined. Unless that little seed had died and dried up there never would have been that beautiful fruit tree or those garden fresh vegetables! Take heart; wonderful opportunities await YOU today!
"Intentions often melt in the face of unexpected opportunity." Shirley Temple Black
"In great affairs we ought to apply ourselves less to creating chances than to profiting from those that offer." Kenneth Pratt
"Opporchunity knocks at ivry man's dure wanst. On some men's dures it hammers till it breaks down th' dure an' thin it goes in an' wakes him up if he's asleep, an' iver aftherward it wurruks f'r him as a night-watchman." Finley Peter Dunne
"Know thine opportunity." Pittacus
Let's stop and listen. Maybe that special opportunity is knocking at our door today and we are yet unaware. Then let's seize our opportunities!
Have a great week!
The Prensner Team
The Prensner Team is ready to help you with all of your real estate needs and situations. There are absolutely great opportunities out there for you today! Give us a call or contact us at www.Homes4UColorado.com or click on The Prensner Team.
EMBRACING OPPOSITION
Strengthened By Opposition
By: The Prensner Team
Our natural inclination is to eliminate the opposition; we want to crush our foes. If we can only remove the competition from our midst then we win! Similarly, if we encounter difficulties along our project's way, it discourages us and can set us back.
But what if we embraced the opposition and allowed it to strengthen us? What if we became grateful in the midst of setbacks and used them to strengthen our cause?
"Many a person's strength is in opposition, and when that faileth, he groweth out of use." Francis Bacon
"Men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them." Thucydides
"He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper." Edmund Burke
"The person who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it." Woodrow Wilson
Today, let's resolve to let those opposing forces serve to strengthen us and help us develop a better product or improved service.
Bring it on!
The Prensner Team
The Prensner Team is ready to help you with all of your real estate needs and wants ... no matter how big the opposition seems to be! Contact us at The Prensner Team or go to our website at www.Homes4UColorado.com
BUSINESS PERSEVERANCE
Persevering in Trying Times
By: The Prensner Team
Tough times, pressure, opposition, injuries and intense competition define an athlete and a team. The winners persevere and "play through" such times. So it is in business. In these tough economic times, circumstances can drive us to better efficiencies, more focused marketing efforts, improved customer care ... things we should be doing in the good times. Life is not easy, but the payoffs of perseverance can be very gratifying.
"The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly." Cecil B. De Mille
"To persevere, trusting in what hopes he has, is courage in a person. A coward merely despairs." William Arrowsmith
"Many strokes overthrow the tallest oaks!" John Lyly
"Even after a bad harvest there must be sowing." E. Phillips Barker
Intense heat refines the silver and tough times refine our business practices. Now is the time to encourage one another to persevere in the midst of trying circumstances. There is reward around the corner.
The Prensner Team stands with you to help you through all of your real estate needs. We are here to help you excel in seeing your dreams be fulfilled. Contact us at The Prensner Team or Homes4UColorado.com for all of your real estate matters in Colorado Springs.
THE RIGHT MINDSET
Good Morning!
Here are some thoughts to ponder for the week. It's always fun to read what others have quoted and laugh ... or cry ... or use them to focus our day! It's amazing how our attitude toward something can drive us accordingly. Two people can have the same experience, but each may have a totally different application depending on how they interpret that experience. We do have the ability to choose how we will interpret and work with what we have before us.
"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." Ken Dooley
"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute." Scott Levitt quoting Gil Stern
"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails." William Ward
"Coming together is a beginning; staying together is progress; and working together is success." Henry Ford
Have a great week!
The Prensner Team
Visit The Prensner Team at www.Homes4UColorado.com We are here to help you solve your problems, move in a new direction, seize your opportunities, and realize your dreams!
SHORT SALE VS. FORECLOSURE
IS A SHORT SALE OR A FORECLOSURE THE BEST WAY TO GO?
People wonder which one is best to pursue. Which one gives the best return? KRISTA FRANKS BROCK has written some excellent thoughts to consider on this topic, and here is her explanation from research done by one particular realty company.
"The real estate professionals at Massachusetts-basedMcGeough Lamacchia Realty have been proponents of short sales for quite some time, insisting that everyone comes out ahead when a short sale is achieved as opposed to a foreclosure. Now they’re sharing the facts that back up their claim.
On average a home sold through short sale brings a 24 percent greater return than a foreclosed property, according to recent findings from McGeough Lamacchia Realty.
“This means the banks are losing an average of $43,000 for every foreclosure sale compared to what they would have made in a short sale,” said a blog post on the company’s website.
The firm reviewed prices for short sale and foreclosure sale properties in 2010 and 2011 in Boston, Phoenix, Tuscon, Southern California, and Southwest Florida.
While banks often offer incentives to homeowners who pursue a short sale, “more needs to be done to promote short sales,” McGeough Lamacchia said.
Specifically, the firm points out that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not offering the cash incentives for short sales that are now standard through the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives program.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need to do more to promote short sales and make it easier for distressed homeowners to do a short sale and avoid foreclosure,” McGeough Lamacchia said in their blog post."
PERHAPS you have questions about pursuing short sales or foreclosure properties in Colorado, or you may have questions about investment properties in general. Contact The Prensner Team. They are Certified Investment Property Advisors, and they are Certified in REO Properties and they are Certified BPO Advisors. The Prensner Team stands ready to assist you in all of your real estate questions and dreams. Connect with Steve and Melanie Prensner at www.Homes4UColorado or go to The Prensner Team directly.