Back to Work! Sort of...

I had such a nice holiday, and really enjoyed the days off this week. It was nice to hang out with the family, cook with the kids, and enjoy gifts from each other. We decided to go ahead and open gifts on Christmas Eve instead of waiting for my son to return, and then we'll open gifts with him on Wednesday night.

We're all looking forward to that... and of course, to hitting that all-you-can-eat buffet in Chattanooga again when we make the trip to pick him up ;)

I got a very unexpected surprise on Christmas Day: a phone call from the realtor! She apologize for calling on a holiday, but had just received the paperwork on the house I was looking at, and wanted to let me know the price right away.

$159,900

My jaw dropped! WOW - It is a *steal* for this house!! To refresh you, it's a 3-story log home on 4 acres with a swimming pool. Nice, huh? :) A dream home, for sure.

On my side is the fact that interest rates are at an all time low on property here in Tennessee, and that real estate is just not selling right now. Also that I expressed interest in the property before it went on the market, and asked for an "as is" price.

The price above includes some minor work - they are cleaning the carpets, spot painting and repairing the lattice. It honestly looked brand new on the inside - absolutely gorgeous. I think the home is only around 5 years old.

The price did not include fixing the swimming pool - which needs a new liner. No problem, as I can get that done at cost ;)

It really made my day to get the call... and to hear the price was so low! I'm going to head up to the bank on Monday morning and find out what it will take to qualify for the mortgage. I have no idea what to expect, or what I may need to do in order to qualify, as I've never bought property before - and have virtually no credit. But I'm determined to find out, and to do whatever it takes to put myself in the right position!

Motivation? YES! So while my work week doesnt officially start back until Monday morning, we are putting in a few good hours here this afternoon expanding the affiliate site and researching potential categories to add.

I took a look at the search engines this morning, and was really excited about the results. Yahoo has more than doubled the number of pages they have indexed from the site - and my pages are doing exceptionally well in Yahoo. Not so hot in Google so far, but not bad - and ranking very well for obscure (specific) searches. I am sure they will do even better over time.

As for Yahoo - to give you an example of how well the site is doing there, the main page ranks just over 100 for a VERY general and competitive term. Considering how new the site is, I feel it's just a matter of time before we can rank in the top ten for the main term that relates to this site. And THAT is exciting news!

I've always done very well with Google, and not had a lot of 'luck' with Yahoo - so this is really interesting to me, and I feel a good model to work with to help other sites I manage rank better on Yahoo. My new SSWT template, for example, should do a lot better in Yahoo than it ever has before. Without hurting my rankings in Google, of course - which is the goal ;)

I'm off to do more keyword research, and land a few good Inbound Links - I hope you're having a great weekend, and enjoyed a very nice holiday!