Welcome back!

The Smyrna Business Association is excited to announce Alive After Five for the month of February. This will be held at the Atkins Park Tavern, which is in the Smyrna Market Village.

This networking event will be held on Thursday, February 25th, 2010 from 5:30-7:30 pm.

Admission is free. Enjoy an evening of networking with industry professionals in a comfortable, upscale and entertaining atmosphere.

Don’t miss out on this fun event! Appetizers, door prizes and a cash bar.

Location:

Atkins Park Tavern, 2840 Atlanta Road, Smyrna, GA 30080.

Be sure to bring plenty of business cards.

Don’t miss it!

Technorati Tags: Smyrna Market Village, Atkins Park Tavern, Smyrna Vinings Events

[where: 30080]

Still making plans for Valentine’s Day? What better place than the restaurant voted Atlanta’s Best Restaurant for a First Date. Consider having dinner with your sweetheart at The Real Chow Baby.

The Real Chow Baby offers an unmatched experience where visitors get to create their own stir-fry meals choosing from a variety of fresh vegetables, meats, sauces and spices. With meats like chicken, beef, sausage, tilapia, calamari, and scallops you can create a masterpiece as elegant as you wish. If you’re looking for a unique, fun, and engaging experience The Real Chow Baby is the place to be!

Join The Real Chow Bay for a special $19.99 4-course prix frixe menu. Reservations will be accepted reservations for parties of all sizes at both locations.

• Tuna Sashimi
• Ginger Salad
• Unlimited Stir-Fry (upgrades extra charge)
• Midnight Torte

Locations

Howell Mill
1016 Howell Mill Road, Suite A | Atlanta, GA 30318
Ph: 404.815.4900 | Fx: 404.815.4901 | email: info@therealchowbaby.com

Cobb Galleria
One Galleria Parkway, Suite 1B1 | Atlanta, GA 30339
Ph: 770.405.2464 | Fx: 770.405.2465 | email: cobbgalleria@therealchowbaby.com

Upward Softball and T-ball

First Baptist Church of Smyrna offers an exciting girls softball and boys T-ball league for children and youth where Every Child is a Winner.

Registration is open for the 2010 Upward Softball and T-ball league.

Evaluations are Thursday, March 4 from 6pm-8pm and Saturday, March 6 from 9am-3pm at the First Baptist Church Smyrna athletic field.

There are leagues for pre-k through 8th grade girls softball, and pre-k through 1st grade boys T-ball. Practices are 1 hour, 1 night per week with games on Saturdays. All practices and games are at the FBC Smyrna athletic field

Practices start March 15th and league play on March 27.

Early registration is $95. To register, go to www.smyrnafirst.org.

For more information visit the church office at 1275 Church Street, Smyrna, GA or call (770) 435-3231.

OK, so I’ve tried to stay away from the Bad MLS Photos of the Week for awhile. In fact, I think it’s been over a year since we ran this feature. There are always bad photos that I run across and then there are really bad photos.

This week I ran across this Smyrna home and pictures. Which also gave me an idea that I need to do a piece on The Top 10 Reasons Your Home won’t Sell in 2010. I’ll think about that one for awhile, so stay tuned.

But on to this week’s winner. I came across it because of the first picture. The following is the primary picture on the multiple listing service.

Generally, we show a great shot of the front of the home. Show off the curb appeal of a home and also to help the buyer identify with the home when they drive by. Apparently, this great side shot of the deck and house is as good as it gets.

Now the beautiful thing about the multiple listing service is that you can put up to 16 photos of a home and add a virtual tour. In this case, they decided 5 photos in total is all that it would take to sell the home. Here are the others. (Editor’s note: these pictures are small and very hard to see, but we have made no alterations to the original pictures.)

And my favorite picture (keep in mind there are only five, so the last one better be great to really woo the buyers).

There you have it. A nice shot of a washer and dryer. Now this may come as a surprise, but this Smyrna home for sale is priced at $499,000. It’s been on the market since September 12, 2009 and with these pictures, it will probably still be there on September 12, 2010.

The Week in Review:

Good News/Bad News. The Fed announced last week that they will keep “rates low for an extended period of time”. However, they also announced that they will not be extending the mortgage-backed security purchase program scheduled to end in March.

Home loan rates experienced quite a bit of mid-week volatility but ended unchanged from the previous week.

What to expect:

What does the Fed announcement mean? The Fed maintains the ability to keep short-term rates low. However, their primary method of keeping long-term rates (ie. 30 year fixed mortgages) low was the mortgage-back security program. With this program ending, we have to believe that long-term rates will increase.

Breg-ometer:

Next 7 Days: Same range

Next 30 Days: Same range

Next 90 Days: Increasing rates

Courtesy of:

Bob Bregitzer

Southeast Mortgage