Mari's World
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Womanonics – the new buzz word for women

Reading an article in Woman and Home for February 2010, Fiona Wright contacted future forecast agencies and asked them what can women expect in 2010?

Very interesting as apparently we will come into our own at long last. No more juggling family, career and all the various sectors that make up our busy multi tasking lives but women friendly work environments.

Also we can finally expect to become more respected in the workplace and no longer play second place to our male colleagues. (Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it?) But it looks like managers worldwide (well UK and USA that’s a good start) are finally accepting that we are important resources and our needs are better listened to rather than ignored or brushed under the carpet with a like it or lose your job attuitude.

To quote Dorothy Mackenzie co founder of Dragon Rouge and regular speaker on consumer trends, forecasting and marketing strategy. ‘The 45 plus group of women is the fastest growing in the population and therefore, in terms of consumer marketing. They have a large contribution to make in the workplace and money to spend. Retailers are starting to direct fashion and products to the grown up woman.

Good news!

The article goes on to mention Soft Skilling – Tom Savigar, Strategy and Insight director at The Future Laboraory uses the expression and says women will dominate the corporate structure, so decision making will change. Collaboration and social neworks will be key, and men will have to learn a different way of thinking to make sense of this new world.  He also warns us to get ready for the Women’s Web as, although a male invention, it’s rapidly becoming very feminised, empathetic and intuitive. Even  technologies and search engine techniques are increasingly using female right brain attitudes.

Yippee, having been made redundant from my last job in a publishing company on finding out I was pregnant with twins I feel very strongly about this topic. Although my ex boss managed to cover up the redundancy under a cost and performance issue it was blatantly obvious that he wanted rid of me to avoid paying maternity. The moment my colleague whispered to him my situation I was out… Lesson learnt – NEVER trust a colleague, especially the office bitch. What was I thinking?

Anyway, very inspiring as I am in that particular age bracket, I’m ready to return to the world of work once again and I’m going it alone, so bring it on!

Dreams – hidden messages

sky sunset

I had a vivid dream last night that woke me up and made me question if and what was the message behind it all?

I dreamt that our house had been broken into which is a frightening thought.

Paul and I were carrying a twin each from the car, both were asleep in our arms and to get to the house we had to step over a lot of luggage and belongings strewn all over the grass and walkways  of a family who had just returned from their holiday and were unloading their car. A right mess!

Once inside the house I found the back door unlocked, the kitchen window open and found my jacket in a place I would never leave it. The bathroom window had been pushed out of the frame and on inspecting it I got glass splinters in my hand. The feeling of violation was immense and the dread of what else we would find was incredibly strong.

Funny how in a dream it’s never your ‘real’ house but you know it’s yours?

I lay awake for quite some time afterwards thinking and worrying as back in the autumn, we had put an offer on a lovely 4 bed house where we’d ideally like to move to and I had the same dream of having the house broken into but nothing stolen. Strangely enough that very same day I received a call from the estate agents to say they’d put forward another like for like offer on the property from another customer which had been accepted and they were in a position to move immediately. So that house was gone and there was the meaning of my dream translated into the every day world!

So is this a repeat message? We have had an offer on a 5 bed house since late November and so far haven’t been beaten, but it’s a lovely property and I’m sure if we don’t sell soon we will lose it.

The strangest thing is, should my dream once again point to an outcome as mentioned above, I would be strangely happy that my dreams were hidden messages and at the same time devastated with the news.

Selling your house in a recession

house

This has been our family home now for the past two years and having finally received the settlement for my divorce back in October we wanted to invest it and move to a bigger home.

We would like a house with its’ own garage and driveway and four bedrooms, a downstairs loo would be good but not compulsory and I would like a nice big kitchen so I can cook and follow homework at the same time when the time comes. A garden bigger than our present one would also be very welcome. (I quite like the idea of starting a small vegetable plot…)

But lucky old us, we’re in the middle of a recession – the worst since the second world war. And the property market is veeerrrryyy slooooooww.

We had the property valued in October ’09 by 4 different local estate agents and all but one came up with a figure between £180 – 185k. Another agent quoted £175k and I crossed him off the list there and then, well – if I can get more I’ll try…right?

Their fees ranged quite a bit the most expensive was £3000 and the lowest ended up at £2000 incl VAT. So it made sense for us to go with the lowest. A second agent came by and asked what would it take for us to go with them and on mentioning the fees, he said he’d match them. They were the better known agent and so I was tempted. The next day I phoned the 1st agents, to inform them of our decision to go with the second agency and the guy was very upset, I felt dreadful so I told him I’d stay with them and phoned the second agents to say I couldn’t do it to him. C’est la vie.

We were placed as Property of the Week in the local rag and listed as a premium property on rightmove.com so with all in place we sat back for the punters to come rolling in….and they didn’t!

In the first 5 weeks only one viewer came by and that was the owner of the property we had placed an offer on. She had two teenage boys and was downsizing after her marriage breakdown and our property was too small for her.

At the beginning of December, we were contacted by the second agents again as in order to process our offer on one of their properties we had to have a sale. With a bit of persuasion we managed to get out of our 10 week contract and move on to a joint contract where both agents would represent us. I had the feeling that there was a bit of animosity between them, covered up as ‘friendly competition’ in front of the client ie. me.

Both promised the New Year would bring many buyers and so far we have had two viewings booked with one, today’s, being cancelled due to the snow and train connections being affected (the lady is coming from London)

We had a visit a couple of weeks ago from the manager of the second agents himself! He looked around the house and advised lowering the price by £10,000. Why? I asked,’ You and 2 other agents gave us a quote of £180 – 185k’…

‘Yeah that may have been to get the business…’ He rambled on about getting more for your money on Riverview Park (an area close by) but I wasn’t getting it. We told him we weren’t ready to drop so soon and would revise the situation in February.

Last weekends’ viewing was unproductive as they found the house too dark and too small. For the small there’s not a lot I can do but for the dark I shall be turning all the lights on and leaving them on until they leave the house.

Now I have this project in mind I want to see it move along quickly and after a quick look on rightmove.com I have noticed another 3 properties go up in our area all priced around the same mark. So confidence rebuilt I hope to have news soon of many potential buyers.

Fingers crossed