One of my high school friends, Beth, recently sent me a note on Facebook asking why I wasn't on Pinterest.  She said she went looking for my boards to see what I liked. FLATTERING! I hadn't heard of this site -- this was about five short weeks ago. She said that I would love it and it could be addictive, and my invitation to join arrived shortly after that via email. Addictive? Check. Love it? Check. As a person deeply involved in the visuals of life, not only as a photographer myself, but art collector, seamstress and former art gallery owner (and cook!), this place was for made for me (you'll feel the same about yourself). It's a glorious collection of beautiful images and though...

Real estate on TV is giving us all a chance to see how much property costs in different parts of the country. My all time favorite is Selling New York, which to me is a lesson in real estate every time it's on. My second favorite is House Hunters International, only because it's so baffling! Why is everyone dying to get out of this country to buy in another country? And why do they all want it furnished? I have seen the furniture that goes with the purchases and it seems a bit, ahem, unsavory. So I watch this show to wonder how these buyers got enough money to burn on an international vacation home. The show Million Dollar Listing (Los Angeles version; the New York version...

New from San Diego, California: San Diego Association of REALTORS selects Kimberly Dotseth as its 2011 Broker of the Year. On Saturday, January 12, 2012, I was named the 2011 Broker of the Year by the San Diego Association of REALTORS, a tremendous honor considering our chapter of the National Association of REALTORS has over 11,000 members in San Diego County. We are also the largest branch of NAR in the state of California. If interested, the press release is here: And if I can help you when selling or buying your home, you know that I am right here for you ~ let's get to work on your behalf! ~Kimberly

Welcome to the latest list of my favorite San Diego County houses for sale under $500,000. You already know that's not the entire criteria.  It's rather tough to make the list and it's not just about price. Let me tell you what I did to get to 13 houses. First, I searched our San Diego (Sandicor) Multiple Listing Service for detached homes in San Diego County currently for sale at $500,000 and under. None can be a short sale or bank owned. Take out thousands right there! The reason I remove these is because in my humble opinion 1) short sales are not necessarily "truly" for sale, therefore a waste of time; and 2) bank owned homes (also known as REOs or "real estate owned" by the...

They say you're supposed to blog weekly, then work got in the way. The majority of my deals for 2011 came in the second half of the year, then totally piled on in December. All but one are closed as of Thursday. So I missed a few weeks of writing, but for reasons that make me happy and feeling satisfied when it comes to my career. It's the end of the year now, about 2 PM on New Year's Eve Day, and I am home for the day until we go to dinner tonight. Kerry is taking me to Cafe Chloe, one of our all time favorite restaurants in San Diego. We'll finish the evening at home with a bottle of French Champagne, already chilling. There are so many things to be grateful for. Taking stock of...

This email arrived today from a client who recently closed escrow, completely unsolicited and unedited. I will protect the writer's identity so I took it out.  As you can imagine, it made my day. This career has made me endlessly happy and all the other things I did prior to selling residential real estate and owning a real estate brokerage lead me here.  I dreamed of moments like this.  Thanks to the writer of course, and all those who get us to the points in our lives where we are blessed with this kind of communication: Hi Kim, I feel so bad that it has taken me so long to sit down and write you a note, but I wanted to be sure I had the time to genuinely express how grateful we...

Several sites have popped up to help those like me who blog to gauge whether our posts, or our sites for that matter, have impact. Who judges? It seems algorithms within the blog grading sites do the judging, and that's fine with me. Like a lot of "social media" grading, I take it all very much with a grain of salt. But when you get a good grade, even if you don't understand HTML and I don't, it feels good! Arbitrary and random it's not, if it tells you why you got a low score. Two sites get routine check-ins from me so I can check the very blog you're reading, greenboxhomes.com. One is WebsiteGrader.com and the other is Blog.Grader.com. These sites are both managed by a company...

It's now Year 7 of using Shutterfly.com for our annual Christmas card and their designs keep getting better.  While cheaper photo cards are out there, the quality at Shutterfly is completely unsurpassed. We also created wedding books for our families using Shutterfly in 2004, and last year created canvas photos for family holiday gifts. It's also fun to go back into my account year after year and see all the accumulating finished "projects" that get stored. So in a way it's a memory bank too. This year's card is done. What do you think? It will be a matte finish, high premium (heavy) paper -- can't wait to get them!

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.