Amy Raines, Realtor with Empire Realty Group, LLC.

09/26/2026

My husband can attest!!

Poker face.

09/22/2026

A house of lies! Not really. Just the standardization of lumber made the common size for all lumber pieces shrink slightly. What other fun facts about houses do you want to learn?

09/19/2026

You know I had to represent the Empire at The Craft House at the Star Wars Trivia night!!

09/16/2026

Mandatory Evacuations issued for Meridian. Please check on your friends and loved ones! Here is a list of shelters for both individual and livestock!

09/15/2026

Am I splitting hairs here? Maybe🤷🏻‍♀️. But even if you have brick or stone on the outside of your house, you likely do not have a masonry construction home. What you have is likely brick cladding or a brick veneer. The primary structure of your home is most likely wood. . The brick is highly durable, potentially fire resistant, weather resistant, and is still often highly sought after by buyers in Texas.

09/11/2026

On this day 25 years ago, our lives changed forever. As we remember the nearly 3000 lost that day, the close to 10,000 lost due to illness related to the attacks and aftermath, let us also remember those who came to our side in our darkest hour.

The first responders who worked tirelessly, the boat captains and owners who answered the call for volunteers to evacuate half a million civilians off of lower manhattan, our Canadian neighbors who allowed 224 aircraft to land at their airports and then proceeded to provide safe harbor for up to five days after the attack, to the unknown number of individuals who guided the survivors to safety.

Thank you for showing us not only what it means to be American, but human.

Never Forget

09/09/2026

This isn’t to say that lower interest rates wouldn’t be more affordable, but we can take a lot of lessons from the COVID times.

When interest rates dropped in an attempt to help bolster small and medium businesses, we saw a sharp uptick in pricing locally due to so many people entering the buyer pool. Granted, it wasn’t the only reason people were moving here, but the low interest caused many people who otherwise would not have considered moving a reason to at least look.

So lower interest rates increased competition more so than just the jobs in the Metroplex and the exodus to smaller communities would have on their own. And when there are more buyers than houses available, that drives pricing up and gives tremendous negotiating power to the seller.

09/08/2026

I couldn’t find my prosthetic ears 🤣 🤓

Happy Star Trek Day and don’t show my broker 😅😬

09/07/2026

As-Is doesn’t automatically mean no inspections or repairs. Sellers will often think that stating it’s “as-is” will curb buyers’ requests, but it can very well turn off those same buyers from even looking at the property in person.

99.9999% of home sales are technically “as-is” anyway, so stating it blatantly in the listing description can make it seem that you as the seller are going to be difficult to work with or that there is something wrong with the property. If there are financial reasons that you as the seller are not able to help with potential repairs, that can be stated privately on the mls with blasting on all available channels.

And, stating a property is as-is cannot stop a buyer from trying to negotiate repairs. That kind of negotiation can practically happen at any point while you are under contract, but it’s most likely to happen after an inspection or after appraisal.

08/31/2026

There are many reasons why the transaction isn’t complete until funds have been distributed. Many an agent can tell you horror stories about funding taking longer than expected and sellers coming back to the house only to find the buyers already moving in 🤦🏻‍♀️

If you are the buyer in a transaction, it’s important to ask your loan officer how long it typically takes for them to fund once paperwork is complete and whether or not a table fund is possible.