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If you are buying or selling a home, the chances are good you struggle with the meaning of descriptive real estate terms. Here are explanations and definitions for more terms.

“Shed Dormers”

These are often seen in Dutch colonial style houses and are flat roofed dormers. Sometimes these dormers are single windows, but often they are two or three windows side by side with one flat roof.

“Blind Dormer Window”

Sometimes builders construct fake dormer windows to add architectural interest to new houses. They are at attic level but can’t be seen from the attic because the roof of the house covers access to them.

“Oversize Garage”

Ads often say how many cars a garage will hold. Then they add the word “oversize” as in “oversize 2-car garage.” What is usually meant is that there is room for storage, or a work bench in addition to space for the cars. Occasionally it simply means you can open a car door wide enough to actually get out with both cars in the garage!

“Gourmet Kitchen”

This phrase is intended to convey the idea that a very good cook can happily work here. That may or may not be the case, but it does usually mean that the kitchen is fairly large and attractive.

“Great Room”

I’ve seen this used in two distinctly different ways. The first is to describe a living room, dining room, and kitchen in a very open floor plan. The area typically has a high ceiling. The second way I’ve seen it used is when what we’d normally call a family room has a high, often coffered, ceiling, a fireplace with a dramatically massive mantle, and perhaps an upstairs balcony overlooking it. I think this may stem from the idea of a “great hall” in old English houses.

If you can get the verbiage down, you’ll be way ahead in the real estate game. Look for future articles on this subject or visit our site to read more terms.

Raynor James is with the FSBO site -http://www.fsboamerica.org – FSBO homes for sale by owner. Visit our home buying page – http://www.fsboamerica.org/buyer.cfm – to view and buy homes, houses, condos, land and real estate.

A recent front page article in The New York Times noted that “the devastation from Gulf Coast hurricanes is serving as a strong reminder that possible disasters could lay waste to cities and states across the country.” Fortunately, environmental hazards are not uniformly distributed across America; many attractive locales are relatively safe.

Warren R. Bland, professor of geography at California State University, Northridge and author of Retire in Style: 60 Outstanding Places Across the USA and Canada, has prepared a list of ten U.S. places that are unusually safe in terms of potential exposure to five major environmental hazards. He considered degree of potential exposure to flooding due to hurricanes and tsunamis, as well as threats to life and property from earthquakes, tornadoes, radon gas, and air pollution. All ten places have a zero chance
of catastrophic flooding from hurricanes and tsunamis, and in all ten the dangers from earthquakes, tornadoes and air pollution are in the zero to low threat range. Only radon gas, an often overlooked threat to health, is so widespread across America that it poses a significant risk, if unabated, in five of the ten environmentally safest cities and towns.

Dr. Bland’s top ten environmentally safe places are: Austin, Texas; Fredericksburg-Kerrville, Texas; Pinehurst-Southern Pines, North Carolina; Prescott, Arizona; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Eugene, Oregon; Ithaca, New York; Portland, Oregon; San Antonio, Texas; and Tucson, Arizona.

Barbara Kimmel is an award-winning book publisher, publishing consultant and publicist. She is the publisher of Warren Bland’s book, Retire in Style 60 Outstanding Places Across the USA and Canada. Books are available through all major bookstores, at Amazon.com or direct from the publisher at http://www.nextdecade.com

Spring is the season to start planting seeds for the future. For me, the ultimate Magic Garden would be planted using the Feng Shui bagua as a guideline for the boundaries of the plot and incorporate flowers herbs and plants that correspond to each signifigant direction..

The first thing I would suggest, is to mark off your garden(or balcony full of pots) as a square (or as close to a square as you can get it) and determine the directions — north, south, east and west. Then use the rough guideline below, taking into account your climate and seasons to know what to plant where to bring you health, wealth, peace, guidance, happiness and protection. You don