Holiday decorations are a wonderful thing and frankly they help property values. Residents in Northampton and The Woodlands have been delighting kids and families for 40 years during every holiday, and residents of the newer sections of those communities and of Auburn Lakes, Wimbledon Falls, Augusta Pines, Gleannloch Farms, Magnolia, you name it -- the residents and associations and many clubs and organizations go all out, especially for these big holidays like Halloween, which are a total hoot to watch every year. Having spent a number of years living in Manhattan, which is supposed to be the Halloween capital of the world, I can confidently say I'd rather be around these parts any Halloween than in those truly ghoulish streets on Halloween night... This is good clean fun.

For those with their properties on the market, just be sure to take down the decorations tomorrow. When the festivities are over, we humans can be funny creatures about forgetting the parties and just plain forging ahead and "moving on" in our heads. I think it's an instinct that serves us well. We just have to take care not to let that other too-often-human instinct of procrastination get the better of us. We'll be doing ourselves a service in so doing because our buyers will be looking ahead to their futures when they come looking - and it's great weather to get out and look, especially now that the first time home buyer tax credit has been extended into the spring!

Happy Halloween and enjoy the extra hour of sleep in the morning!