Western Mass Homes Lesley Lambert

Selling Your Home

Downtown Westfield is under Construction

Westfield, MA has been my home for well over 20 years now and I have found much to love about it. Quiet things have impressed me: The tranquil spaces at Stanley Park, The Fowler Tavern door, the restored Grandmothers’ Garden, the lovely ambiance in the Athenaeum, the highly walkable nature of the downtown areas, the small town atmosphere, the green green green of the trees and open spaces. During the course of my 21 year real estate career, it has been my honor to sell many homeowners their Westfield homes through the years.

Lately, Westfield is experiencing much change in some of these areas as major highway, bridge and city scape projects are undergone. The newest in these projects and the one with a lot of conversation lately is the Town Green project.

Westfield's town green

A bit over a week ago I was set totally aside as I strolled down Elm Street to visit my bank on the Town Green. As I approached the Green there were hoards of construction crews removing all of the trees.

This has opened up a lot of distressed conversation amongst area residents who are saddened by the stark nature of the Green area now. This combined with the traffic frustrations from our bridge project is bringing a lot of concerns to light.

Westfield's Town Green

As a real estate agent in Westfield, I want to share some resources with you that will help to explain the many projects that are being undertaken in our City. I want to help you to find the resources to see that while things are looking a bit torn up right now, the future holds beautiful upgraded spaces.

This blog: Re-Thinking Downtown Westfield has a lot of information on committees and plans.

The District Westfield is a great resource for current news on downtown projects, information on real estate, events, news and updates that impact Downtown Westfield.

This link was suggested to me by Karen Eaton on Twitter and gives good information on the road work details in the City of Westfield.

I hope these pages will help you to keep up to date with the progress of these major improvements to the City of Westfield. If you have a real estate question please feel free to call me anytime: Lesley Lambert, REALTOR, Park Square Realty, Westfield, MA 413-575-3611 or email therealestatenatural@yahoo.com.

I am your proud, grateful and very TIRED Realtor in Western MA!



Headlines with style


Wow, what a year 2010 has been in Western Massachusetts real estate!


Not long into January I started to meet a lot of new first time buyers who found me mostly on the internet. Some were friends that I stay in touch with on Facebook, others I met through social media events and the rest found me through my blog posts and videos. I was soon working with over eight sets of first time home buyers who were trying to take advantage of the tax credit, low interest rates and low purchase prices.

That’s A LOT of showings!

I wish I kept track of how many houses I showed these buyers in total, but I am going to have to guess that it was well over 150 houses between all of them. Five months later six of these buyers are closed or will close this month on their new homes and the others continue to look even with the expiration of the tax credit.

While at the office yesterday my manager handed me a printout with the office standings and was I ever floored! I was listed as the #1 real estate agent at Park Square Realty’s Westfield office for the year to date!



Headlines with style


Too Busy to Notice!


I have been so busy taking care of all of these buyers that I didn’t pay attention to my sales statistics and hadn’t realized exactly where I stood.

Real estate is my career, but I don’t work this hard for the paycheck. I work like this because I want to help my home buyers and sellers realize their real estate dreams and goals. I work this hard because I know that each of these transactions deeply affects their lives and is one of the most important decisions of their life.

That is what makes me so proud…that I have helped so many amazing first time buyers realize their dream of home ownership. The rest is just gravy. Really good, yummy gravy, but still just the top dressing.

Thank you to my clients and customers for your faith in me. Thank you for your trust and for your business. I appreciate you more than you know!



Headlines with style


Now all that door opening has tuckered me out, but I after a little restorative cat nap I will be ready for the next bit of business. Who wants to move?


Selling your Western Ma home? New guidelines for smoke and carbon monoxide detectors

Attention Western Massachusetts home owners. If you are considering selling your home then you will want to be up to date with your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

Effective April 5, 2010 the State of Massachusetts Department of Fire Services has changed the requirements for homeowners who are selling their home.

Once your home is under contract and you have a closing date you should:

-Contact the local fire department to schedule an inspection of your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Fees vary and are assigned by the town or city.

Before the inspection date you should:

-Make sure that your street number is posted and visible from the street.

-Check to see that you have the correct detectors and that they are installed in the appropriate areas and are functioning.

For information about the new requirements you can visit The Department of Fire Services consumer information site.

After passing the inspection you will get a certificate that you should provide to your closing attorney.

If you are looking for a real estate agent in Western Massachusetts who goes the extra mile for her sellers, look no further!

QR Code Technology for Real Estate Marketing in Western Massachusetts

Wondering what a QR Code is? Why you need one to help sell your Western Massachusetts home? This video explains how I am using QR Code technology to help home seller’s in Westfield, MA and the surrounding areas find buyers in an innovative way.

The Real Estate For Sale Sign of The Future

Real estate is said to be the second oldest profession in the world (no jokes please) and for much of its history the standard operating procedure didn’t change a whole lot.

When I began my real estate career in 1988 (again, hold the humor) there was no internet. We collected a book of postage stamp sized, grainy, black & white photographs on crappy newsprint paper every two weeks: that was the multiple listing book. You carried that book with you to meet buyers and sellers and tried to fathom which properties might be of interest from these lackluster and teeny tiny descriptions. Fast forward to the advent of the internet. Many real estate agents feared that by making home information available on the internet our function would be obsolete and we would be out of work. I never understood this fear. The very LEAST of what I do as an agent is giving buyer clients lists of homes for sale. I don’t actually sell anything, I facilitate the real estate transaction, but I have no actual goods to sell. For me, I thought the internet was a great way of saving me loads of time driving that stupid MLS book around (I was right).

So, over the years, as technology advances and real estate agents wring their hands in fear and confusion, I step ahead with my adventurous geek girl spirit and try some new “stuff”. Over the last few years I have created blogs, utilized my love of social media to grow my business, learned Search Engine Optimization and even some basic web site coding, all to advance my real estate services (and feed my nerd gene).

Recently I attended PodCamp Western MA 2 where we got t-shirts with this new thingymabob on the front. Called a QR Code, it looked like a square Rorschach test and I was curious as to why it was on our shirts. Event organizer, Morriss Partee explained that our friend Jaclyn Stevenson had added this code to the shirt and with a special application to your smartphone you can scan this code and it will automatically open the website for the event. Cool! Days later I got to thinking…”I think I can use this in my real estate marketing.”

I did some research and found this article by my friend (and editor at Agent Genius) Lani Rosales. I had seen her post this blog, but had no concept what a QR code was at that time. Now I re-read her post with new interest and started plotting out a marketing strategy.

First off: What the Hey Diddle Diddle IS a QR Code?

A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. They are currently used for a wide array of purposes including: drivers licenses, paperless coupons, on bills and other publications. A QR code, when scanned by a smartphone (ie: BlackBerry, iPhone, Android) will take the scanner to a website.

For Example above is the QR Code for one of my listings. This code is placed on a sign rider on the yard sign. Let’s say a potential buyer with a smart phone drives by the house and is curious. They stop to write down information and then notice my sign rider. They take a scan of the QR code and ZIP! they are delivered to a webpage dedicated to information on that property. A website that is rich in information and content like video, photos and important documents…all available instantly by scanning the code. I also include the QR code in my mailings to the neighborhood, on the home flyers and in print advertising. The next door neighbor opens a just listed letter and is curious what the house next door is going for and uses the QR code to get all their questions answered in a minute. I am rolling this new tool out on every listing that I take from now on. I hope that this will be a fun new gadget for people to try at first and later will set me apart as being the area innovator in real estate marketing.

I recognize that this isn’t something that many people are using in their day to day lives (yet), but I have a feeling that this is the for sale sign of the future. A sign that answers the buyers questions, that represents the seller’s property and that demonstrates my skills as a marketing professional. If you have a smartphone you can find a QR Reader application in your application store. Go download the application and give the code above a try….I am holding a contest for a $25 Starbucks giftcard for all the souls brave enough to experience this groovy new tool!