Curtis
Seltzer

                                                                    Years 2007 - 2009
#1 Buyers need to screen and scope country property
#2 Land buyers need to know their dirt
#3 Tips for hunting hunting land
#4 In a recession, does land offer refuge?
#5 Rural subprime borrowers are hit,but most rural property is not 
#6 Tips on finding country property
#7 Drought imperils second-home markets, prices
#8 Buyers need to know when their price is right
#9 High fossil-fuel prices will impact country real estate
#10 Trespass may be easier to forgive than forget
#11 Tips for making your country place safer
#12 Raising sheep: Good idea or baaaad?
#13 T’is the tail before Christmas
#14 Timberland is a valuable investment in a volatile time
#15 Land buyers need answers to environmental questions
#16 Tips for buying an old farmhouse
#17 Whatever happened to acid rain?
#18 Seven reasons to buy country property in 2008
#19 Stormy weather brings buyers and sellers together
#20 How to buy a country retirement place
#21 Is migrant wealth replacing local work in the countryside?
#22 Real estate: Let us now appraise appraisers and appraisals
#23 Conservation easements on land need to be thought through
#24 Buying land on impulse puts buyers at risk
#25 Land in the country provides sounds and silence
#26 Maple sap runs free, but celebration takes work
#27 How to sell country property in a crummy market
#28 Remodeling and remuddling your place in the country
#29 A dump is a terrible thing to waste
#30 Staged property: Buyers beware
#31 Stocks vs. land: Which is the better investment?
#32 Property sellers can help themselves: Think outside the hole
#33 Why do men buy country property?
#34 Maintenance never ends and never should
#35 Grazing beef cattle: Happy tails to you
#36 Property buyers: Putting the "do"in due diligence
#37 Ginger Kanadoo: Are any real-estate agents really this bad?
#38 Country property is not a buyer's market
#39 Be "choicy" when making buying decisions
#40 Sooner or later, we will change
#41 Hey, Hey. Ho, Ho. Fabulous has got to go!
#42 Property auctions are going, going...going stronger than ever
#43 Floodplain buyout: Maybe its time to stop rebuilding
#44 Obama and McCain on real estate and rural issues
#45 Ponds impound more than water
#46 Oil's up, gas is up: Here's the leasing low down
#47 Americans wanted land 250 years ago, and still do
#48 Looking for land up in Michigan
#49 Real estate is all about negotiation: here's help
#50 Making a living in the country: You're here, now what?
#51 Real-estate deals may involve sticky ethical relationships
#52 Real-estate investing: Don't buy a stinker
#53 Firewood costs more than you think
#54 Carbon, carbon everywhere: Storing for dollars
#55 This land is our land
#56 Sellers: Sticking on price keeps you stuck
#57 How to sell land: A buyer's market begs for seller-financing
#58 Panic reigned: What to do about the hay?
#59 Real-estate tax policies: What would McCain and Obama do?
#60 Here's the scoop: There was a fourth debate
#61 Bub was here: Now what?
#62 Building dirt: Louis Bromfield, a novelist with some novel ideas
#63 Thanksgiving is no turkey
#64 Rethinking stocks: Put land in a real-estate IRA for retirement
#65 The Knight Before Christmas
#66 Land ownership helps rural economic development: Can we Land a Hand?
#67 Consider buying rural land in 2009
#68 Is 2009 the time to buy a second home?
#69 How green is my acre?
#70 Country news: The message is anything but medium
#71 Rural America is ready to stimulate
#72 Your money: Fear is pretty risky
#73 You need a farm truck on your farm team
#74 Back to 1900 is not the way back to the land
#75 Trees and loggers: Television's stab at reality
#76 Is rural America cursed with isolation?
#77 Outbuildings are always good for something
#78 Why do we buy property?
#79 We walk and talk: A Bub in the woods
#80 Vacation-home sales down; land values up
#81 Building a green trophy house: A memoir
#82 The only tax dodge you will ever need
#83 Country roads were never like this
#84 Loss of farmland: What does it mean?
#85 Failure in the walnuts did not build character
#86 Farm hands tell tales
#87 What does a national real-estate bottom really mean?  (not available at this time)
#88 After Memorial Day, what should be remembered?
#89 When sellers need to sell fast, they need to do the buyer's due diligence
#90 What this country needs is a high-quality $20 grease gun
#91 What makes land valuable?
#92 Digging a grave fills a hole with a hole
#93 Here's a simple approach to determining market value: TAV analysis
#94 Rattlesnakes and Kim Jong-il make my Fourth of July
#95 Here's a different view on views
#96 Road rocks don't rock and are hard to remove
#97 Classifieds raise questions, issues and eyebrows
#98 What's the difference between speculating and investing?
#99 Will economic weeds produce the wave of the future?
#100 Dearly Beloved: Have I got a deal for you!!!
#101 Rural America: Not healthy, wealthy or wise
#102 If unhealthy food is bad for us, why do we eat it?
#103 Labor Day labors for meaning
#104 Every harvest deserves to be savored
#105I fall for colors: "Turn! Turn! Turn!"
#106 Rural real-estate markets are stuffed up
#107 Baby Boomer come-heres and been-heres form rural communities
#108 Land matters: Resentful sugar maple attacks The Cluckery
#109 Halloween: No child's been left behind, only tricks
#110 Grass-fed beef is an old story with a new tale
#111 Wheeling and dealing goes country
#112 Thanks should be given for November's noise
#113 Blue Grass negotiates with New York City
#114 Land heals the stress of giving
#115 Santa finds a JOY job
#116 Ghosts of old New Years haunt the land
#117 "The Ponz" tells his side
                                                                            
                                                                           Year 2010
#118 How Blue Grass might approach terrorism
#119 No pipe "unthaws" before its time
#120 Was I horsing around? Neigh.
#121 Does the future hold one car per household?
#122 Do rural brains really drain?
#123 I shovel, therefore, I am.
#124 Here are 20 rules for country fashion
#125 I smell spring, though I admit to some ambigitty
#126 Kiddie lit: Where have you gone "Oh, oh, oh."?
#127 Bargaining with tourists is hard work (not available at this time)
#128 Good luck turns up twice
#129 Tweedledee and Twitterdumb: Social notworking in the country
#130 Trout fishing in America is really about trout fishing
#131 Roadside trash presents dilemmas
#132 Beauty might lurk in the heart of the Beast
#133 Goldman Sachs: Why is the SEC trying to pin a tail on this donkey?
#134 Unauthorized immigration needs to be fixed
#135 Every act of choosing is about who we are
#136 Reunions continue conversations and might start others
#137 Rogue Party reveals The Secret Plan
#138 Memorial Day recalls legacies
#139 Power outage generates dimly illuminated thoughts
#140 TruthsRUS cleans up uncertainty spill
#141 Dogs are left, and The Umbrella is posted
#142 It's hard to celebrate independence with a common cold
#143 Savoir faire should be savored when it's real and even when it's not
#144 Has global warming come to Blue Grass?
#145 Ben Lawden wants three million acres
#146 Country weddings are my specialty
#147 Hay there, Hi there, Ho there, you're as welcome as can be—on the wagon
#148 Bub comes to Blue Grass: He vents, I listen
#149 Fairly functional farm family fights for facts
#150 Hay seeds fight over sign
#151 Brooms are nicer than vacuum cleaners
#152 Funerals play to different audiences
#153 Farm fixes require thought and strategic dawdling
#154 Number 47 was a smash
#155 Sociability requires coaching and practice
#156 Old is not new, thank goodness!
#157 Taste is always a matter of taste
#158 I'm asked to run
#159 Sharing space raises issues of war and peace
#160 It's time to share Thanksgiving leftovers
#161 Santa provides aid and comfort to the naughty and nice
#162 Claus was set to write tell-all book
#163 A long day's driving into night
#164 We sing about lost love on December 31st

                                                                            Year 2011
#165 Finally, New Year resolutions that are guaranteed
#166 The Swami is asked to serve
#167 Winter sets in, and the loonies arrive
#168 We are about to do big things, if you only knew
#169 I hope for a semi-dwarf, fruited plain
#170 Romance is not my middle name
#171 Losing is not a lost art
#172 The promise of promise is hard to keep
#173 Columns support both past and present opinions
#174 A bite for a bite leaves everyone bitten
#175 Give them guns—and doughnuts, too
#176 King Quad is me 
#177 Colonel Mo needs help
#178 It’s easier to assume guilt than innocence
#179 Bad fences bring out good neighbors
#180 It’s not the money; it’s the time
#181 It’s dangerous to be parenting under the influence…of certain books
#182 Mom deserves her “somewhere” this Sunday
#183 A trial would have been bad, but better
#184 The end of the world might be here, or not
#185 To quit or not to quit, that is sometimes the question
#186 Reading is fundamental, and writing is too
#187 Undeserved annoyances merit remembrance
#188 Fathers try to rise above themselves
#189 An unsteady hand rests on an unready tiller
#190 No end is easy
#191 What should I bid for another’s past?
#192 Dig and doze is not about grooving and sleeping  
#193 We need more than a paint job
#194 I join the tea party
#195 I create no jobs. so far
#196 We can learn from a bear market
#197 Summer camp glues the blues
#198 Grownups do cleanups
#199 Snooki is no bridge
#200 Dry grass provides limited security in a risky world
#201 His desk was his castle
#202 You never know about reconnecting
#203 Here are a few minutes with another Andy Rooney

#204 Nobody knows you when you're down and out
#205 Sometimes you catch a break and then don't
#206 Every bunch needs to think about one bad apple
#207 Why is The WSJ making fun of David A. Siegel?
#208 Pound cake politics win elections
#209 Building an electoral platform takes time
#210 Thanksgiving requires a (turkey) wing and a prayer
#211 Charity starts with a nickel
#212 Santa says,"I'm running."
#213 Don't jeer at cheer
#214 Time should be spent wisely
#215 Suggesting works

                                                                    Year 2012
#216 Cold facts don't warm the heart
#217 When is enough enough?
#218 Not everybody must get stoned
#219 Free labor gets no free lunch
#220 Big decisions are hard to make in the dark
#221 I mean no regression on Valentine's Day
#222 I won't rail against the past
#223 They made me an offer I could refuse
#224 King Santo discusses his biggest issue
#225 Trip and Trap lower road rage
#226 Breaks -- good and bad -- happen
#227 The American Dream is alive but under the weather
#228 Take comfort in sour grapes
#229 I avoid winning the lottery
#230 English nanny and French parents do a good job
#231 Ghosts haunt the farm
#232 Public speaking needs a coach
#233 A two-dog night comes, but doesn't go
#234 Stall no more on Mother's Day
#235 Look the same, be the same
#236 We remember Memorial Day
#237 Finding a pot to peeve in
#238 Rumors are stranger than fiction
#239 Some fathers may need forgiving children
#240 Doggy bags the buns
$241 Vacations - Bah Humbug!
#242 Heat brings up evil
#243 Here a veep; there a veep; everywhere a veep, veep
#244 Life is a Frisbee, thrown
#245 The Olympics don't win gold, which is silver
#246 Jim and Josie Fensittzer consider temptation
#247 Trees prefer falling on roads
#248 Keep on trucking' Momma
#249 Am I a Trot?
#250 Obama and Romney give joint interview in Blue Grass
#251 Can we have our cake and eat it, too?
#252 We celebrate a post-birthday
#253 Rage against age
#254 She has a song to sing
#255 When is a house a home?
#256 My kidney is stonewalled
#257 Moments: Take 'em and make 'em
#258 I voted but...
#259 I'm not prepared for Doomsday
#260 Bloomingdale's brings out the best in me
#261 And you don't tug on Superman's cape
#262 Why is life not fair?
#263 We are Newtown

                                                                         Year 2013
#264 Wring out the old ; ring in the new
#265 Warm feet cost a lot
#266 The Trail is no longer ahead of me
#267 Sic semper tyrannis, or something like that
#268 I provide aid and comfort to the World Economic Forum
#269 A friend's story continues
#270 Homesteading can be either steady or unsteady
#271 Is there a Cinderfella story at Butner prison?
#272 Small choices produce big consequences
#273 Worm casting: News you should not abuse
#274 The name game is a blame game
#275 Information is contained herein
#276 Planks need to be fitted but not too tight
#277 I remember a friend and an inkwell
#278 Venting gets rid of unwanted gasses
#279 Being alone can be lonely, or not
#280 You don't need a Weatherman...to ruin the Boston Marathon
#281 Muskrats pose moral dilemma
#282 Mother's Day misses missed opportunities
#283 Farm projects stress farmhand
#284 White House tape reveals scandal
#285 Selling is not fun
#286 Life's a ditch
#287 Does our butter stinketh?
#288 I confess under duress
#289 Thinking inside the box
#290 Grass stains my imagination
#291 Russo re-rumbles out eighth-grade rumbles
#292 Less is less, which is not more
#293 Dodging is more luck than art
#294 Make hay when the sun shines, which it hasn't
#295 The Frisbee King returns to high school
#296 Neither a tenant nor a landlord be
#297 The only constant in the world is change
#298 I have a beginning, middle and end - now I need to finish
#299 My proposal worked as planned
#300 We ring in number 30
#301 Spa spawns sprain in the neck
#302 Low grain makes for good brain
#303 Leaving the woods on a pretty day
#304 Parents trick and treat their children
#305 I need more hair and less trim
#306 I didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel
#307 How much is enough?
#308 I've been milling and mulling
#309 Stuff your memoir in a stocking
#310 Therapy saves Santa and Christmas, too
 
                                                                       Year 2014
#311 Attachments come and go
#312 Good neighbors make good fences
#313 John Edgar Wiseman is a lonely writer
#314 Moose and I share a flaw
#315 Tending is required
#316 Fiction is no stranger to truth
#317 The Frisbee King throws to the future
#318 Maple syrup is not enough
#319 Annoyances increase with surveillance
#320 Digging a post hole is no gag
#321 Club membership is unwanted
#322 A small man pings in the darkness
#323 Hang ups are related to ignorance
#324 Strange encounters of the wildlife kind
#325 Local dummy hates being Microsoft fool
#326 Cattails win first round
#327 Melissa wins the lottery
#328 Fight night: Melissa goes 15 rounds
#329 Humor lightens the load
#330 Work is for the dogs, and me
#331 Color me beautiful; I dare you
#332 Truth is no stranger to fiction
#333 Breakdowns wad up, here and abroad
#334 How much is too much?
#335 Hard choices can be easy
#336 A writer needs to be enhanced, less
#337 Justice suffers when judgement is rushed
#338 Shane's answers raise questions
#339 Balance is needed
#340 Murder, I write
#341 Suspicion is suspect
#342 Beheadings bedevil us
#343 Books for sale
#344 Global warming ruins October
#345 A treatise on tricks is offered
#346 Driving Missed Crazy
#347 Socket to me?
#348 No thanks Thanksgiving
#349 Penny wise and pound foolish
#350 Barnyard caches need to be moved
#351 Santa saved in daring deli rescue
#352 A square point may be good enough

                                                                          Year 2015

#353 "Knock. Knock." "Go Away! No one's home!"
#354 "'Sorry Charlie'"
#355  I advise the primary candidates
#356  When you stick, you're stuck
#357  He rang
#358  The pack smells
#359  Taken with a grain of salt
#360  February is a draggable load
#361  Hemails from Hillary
#362  Plans are better laid than not
#363  The hole is the thing
#364 Good advise - neither sought nor heeded
#365  Furrows trap water
#366  Sling, slang, slung
#367 Will the ring accept my hat?
#368  A window is neither door nor mirror
#369  A bridge over muddy water
#370  Writer attacked by sex-crazed bird
#371  The end of commencement...and things
#372  Who robbed Max Scherzer?
#373  How was July 4th made?
#374  Bye Bye Bubba
#375  Getting clipped

Abour Curtis           Consulting            DIRT-SMART             Resources             Contact

  Curtis Seltzer is not a real estate broker or a real estate salesperson in the Commonwealth of Virginia
and does not offer to provide those services

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          These original columns may be reprinted or posted on websites under the following payment schedule and terms.  Editing for length is permitted. Copyright remains with Curtis Seltzer and applies to a column’s use.

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          Author credit should be included at the end of each column.: 

         Curtis Seltzer is a land consultant who works with buyers and helps sellers with marketing plans. He is author of  How To Be a DIRT-SMART Buyer of Country Property, Land Matters, Blue Grass Notes , Snowy Mountain Breakdown and  Maple-leaf Rags available at  www.curtis-seltzer.com .

         Send checks to: Curtis Seltzer, 1467 Wimer Mountain Road, Blue Grass, VA 24413.

          Archived columns may be purchased for $10 each, 60 days after the release date. They are posted at www.curtis-seltzer.com , click on Country Real Estate. Contact me for orders, and I will provide them by email. 

          
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Contact:  Curtis Seltzer, Ph.D.
                Land Consultant
                1467 Wimer Mountant Road
                Blue Grass, VA 24413-2307
                540-474-3297               
               curtisseltzer@htcnet.org
                www.curtis-seltzer.com

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