By Warren McNeil,

Winter is finally here in Kitchener-Waterloo…. My drive in from Elmira today was a slow one.

I was talking to a friend yesterday and he was saying that the difference between all season and snow tires is night and day. Driving with snow tires actually makes you feel bold and cocky because the traction is so good. My problem is I don’t want to buy snow tires without buying steel rims. Steel rims add another cost . I am not being cheap, I just don’t want to buy something that I will only need to use 10 times in a year. Most times the streets have been cleaned really well so I feel snow tires are unnecessary. I know people are going to say that they will save your life if you have them. The same thing can be said that if I don’t drive my car then I will be safer. Maybe if I where and oxygen mask I won’t have to breath in pollution…. Ok now I am stearing away from the main point. My main point is I am not sure if I need to spend the extra money on snow tires when all-seasons should do me just fine.

Anyways, welcome winter! Drive safe everyone…

Warren & Melanie McNeil | Sales Representatives, Team McNeil
Re/Max Twin City Realty, Brokerage ( 519.579.4110 
8 www.TeamMcneil.com, www.LoftStyle.ca, www.ClickThatHouse.com  

By Warren McNeil

It’s amazing how quickly you can get up to speed with this social networking stuff. I have been blogging for over a year now but only recently started to use Facebook.  I think this is really useful for staying in touch with friends and business relationships. So far my experience has been a positive one with my new Facebook page. I like to write blogs on my website and then post them to my Facebook page. That way I can get the word out to more people regarding what I am blogging about. I might even get a Twitter account.

My goal is to provide useful information from time to time about real estate market in Waterloo Region. Whenever I find something useful I plan on publishing it to both my blog and my Facebook page.

Anybody who is a fan of our Real Estate Fan Page will receive the blog updates.

Thanks for reading!

Warren & Melanie McNeil | Sales Representatives, Team McNeil
Re/Max Twin City Realty, Brokerage ( 519.579.4110 
8 www.TeamMcneil.com, www.LoftStyle.ca, www.ClickThatHouse.com  

By Warren McNeil,

This is like cutting off a a hand to a Realtor or any kind of business professional for that matter.  It’s amazing how much we use our phones in the car! Today I really tried not to use the phone while being in motion. I must say it was very difficult. The hunt for a good Bluetooth hands-free device begins. Our one vehicle already has a hands-free system installed which works really well. You just need to be a bit patient when initating phone calls. All the voice prompts take a bit of time to initiate and sometimes you have to repeat the number like 5 times. Voice recognition still has a little way to go.

My Blackberry has hands-free on it but I don’t like the speaker phone. It’s too hollow sounding.

Being a realtor, I rely heavily on my phone. I can’t say that I am thrilled that I can’t use my cellphone while driving but I think it was a necessary law to implement. Safety first! Obviously there must have been accidents due to cellphone usage. I think it is one thing to make a call, but people are text messaging now. I think this is extremely dangerous. I have been cutoff an numerous occasions by people who were texting while driving!

Hands-free, although a bit expesive to implement, is the right way to go. We will get used to this too! After all, we are Canadians!!!

Safe driving!

Warren & Melanie McNeil | Sales Representatives, Team McNeil | Re/Max Twin City Realty, Brokerage
( 519.579.4110 | * Click Here to Email | 8 www.TeamMcneil.com, www.ClickThatBlog.com

By Warren McNeil

This is something I have never blogged about but I thought I would post a blog on our dog Mickey. Those who know Melanie and I, know we love animals. We currently have a dog name Mickey. He is a Jack Russell.

He is a really good dog. He doesn’t really act like a Jack Russell and is more of a suck then anything. He is very lovable and does really well with kids. His favourite game is tug of war and he likes to chew whatever he can get his little chompers on. If you give him a squeeky plush toy, forget about it. His only goal is to remove the squeek.

We lost our other dog earlier this year. Her name was Winnie and she died at the age of 16 1/2 years old. We really miss her. She was a Cocker Spaniel.

Thanks for reading!

Warren & Melanie McNeil | Sales Representatives, Team McNeil | Re/Max Twin City Realty, Brokerage
( 519.579.4110 | * Click Here to Email | 8 www.clickthathouse.com, www.teammcneil.com/blog

By Warren McNeil

What a week we have had. There were several tornadoes that touched down in Vaughan and Durham region. I can imagine this was devastating for the people there. Many home were simply destroyed. I heard on the news that 100s of people had to be evacuated from there homes. Fortunately here in Waterloo region we only suffered severe thunderstorms and no tornadoes that I am aware of. I was in Cambridge showing houses at the time. I was actually a bit concerned when I was out driving during the storm. Our condolences go out to those who had there home damaged.

See http://newsdurhamregion.com/article/133855

Thanks for reading!

Warren & Melanie McNeil | Sales Representatives, Team McNeil | Re/Max Twin City Realty, Brokerage
( 519.579.4110 | * Click Here to Email | 8 www.clickthathouse.com, www.teammcneil.com/blog