It’s Time to See Light in the Right Light

New Delhi, February 22, 2008: Jaquar, the name with a brand extends its market presence and product offerings across Decorative Lightings – from entry-level to premium lights. And now Jaquar wants to change the way you look at lights with its Concept Lighting.

In the 4-days exhibition starting today at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, Jaquar is all set to introduce their new brands of world lighting. All in a plan to make wonders in lighting technology, Jaquar Lighting Division has associated with three world-leading lighting brands namely: Strass, Crystals from Swarovski (Austria), Artemide (Italy), and Holtkotter (Germany). In the exhibition, Jaquar is presenting with its ultra-modern designs and amazing aesthetic virtues. Mr. Rajesh Mehra, Director – Marketing, Jaquar & Co. Ltd. has asserted that the company will pay equal attention to this lighting division as was in bath fitting. He said, “As we have been a leader in bath fitting accessories so we will also be a leader in lighting industry.”

According to Mr. Alessandro Paolini, Director, Artemide, the world renowned Light can be gentle, dreamlike, bare, living, misty, clear, spring-like, straight, sensual, calm, limited or soft. Artemide group is one of the world leaders in the sector of high end residential and professional illumination. The group has a structure of different production plants that guarantees the highest quality level.

While, STRASS® has a range of lighting which can scintillate beyond doubt. The brand has a unique outcome of superb design, sturdy frames, perfect pinnings and absolutely the finest crystals. These world-renowned

crystals from Swarovski are a captivating expression of ethereal beauty. Only STRASS® crystals come in as many as eight brilliant colours and in a wide range of sizes and shapes. Perfect in their clarity and radiance, STRASS® crystals catch even the finest ray of light, bringing the magic of brilliant colours into each room.

Apart from these two brands with which Jaquar has partnered, Holtkotter is a renowned and internationally acclaimed lighting products company that has been manufacturing chandeliers and lamps in Germany for more than 45 years. The brand designs its own fixtures and manufacturing from the raw metal to the finished product, resulting in chandeliers and lamps of lasting quality.

How to Avoid Appraisal Problems in the Sale of Your Home

Before you sign a contract to sell your home, check to see if the purchase offer depends on financing. Look for a clause which states that the offer is contingent on your home’s appraisal done by the buyer’s mortgage lender. This clause causes many home sellers to lose the sale or to lower the sales price later.

Appraisers draw on comparable market sales (comps) of local properties sold within the last six months to value your home. With today’s rapidly rising seller’s market, six-month-old information is ancient history. Appraised value does not always equal the true market value, or what the home will sell for on the open market.

Realtors will give you a comparative market analysis, an informal estimate of market value based on comparable sales. Lenders, on the other hand, will use the appraised value to determine a new mortgage amount. Some lenders require that the stated property value covers the mortgage amount plus their selling costs in case of foreclosure. For this reason, a sale may fall through if a home sells on the open market for more than the appraised value, which often happens in bidding wars over hot property.

We learned the importance of securing a sufficiently high appraisal when we sold a rental property in Lake Elsinore, California. We listed the house for $234,700 on Friday. By Monday morning, we had three offers: $245,000, $255,000, and $260,000. We accepted the one for $255,000 because the buyers had $80,000 down, reassuring us that they had sufficient funds.

As usual, the lender sent an appraiser to review the property. This busy appraiser didn’t take the time to view all the upgrades we put into the custom-built home. Even worse, he used only comps from the local one-mile radius. Because this home is close to a shopping district, there were not many homes sold in this limited area during the six-month period.

The appraiser used comps six months old; during this time housing costs in Southern California appreciated around thirty percent. Sales from six months previous should have gone up in value by $30,000 on a $200,000 home. This means that our home should have been worth $250,000 to $260,000, especially since buyers are willing to pay this price on the open market. To increase the value of this home, at the time there was not another three bedroom home listed in the area for under $250,000 (excluding manufactured homes). However, the appraiser valued our home for only $230,000 — and we would have lost the sale if the offer did not include a sufficient down payment.

Because a low appraisal can kill your sale, finding a buyer with a large down payment provides you with a safety net. You may also choose a buyer with strong credit who doesn’t have to put a large percentage down. If you think that your home’s appraisal could become a problem, make sure you don’t include a clause in your sale’s contract which states «subject to appraisal.»

How to Avoid Low Appraisals

Hire your own appraiser before the sale. Then ask your buyer’s or lender’s appraiser to review your appraisal.

Retain the option to approve your buyer’s mortgage lender. Make sure that the buyer doesn’t use a lender with a history of deliberately underestimating property values. A good real estate agent should know which lenders routinely under value homes.

Keep records of repairs and upgrades, including costs. Take «before» and «after» photographs. Create an organized journal with a listing of expenses and include pictures to show to the appraiser during the appraisal appointment. Stage your home for the appraiser like you do for buyers.

Secure your own property comparables to make sure the appraiser uses complete information. Call real estate agents with homes in escrow and get the sales prices. Make a list of these properties with the agent’s phone numbers and give it to the appraiser.

What to Do When Your Selling Appraisal Comes in Too Low:

1. Ask for another appraisal.

2. Protest the appraisal with documentation of your upgraded expenses.

3. Have the buyers make a larger down payment.

When you sell or buy real estate, remember that the certified appraisal is just one person’s opinion of the value of your home. The opinion that counts for you is the buyer’s: you want to be sure the buyer values your home above all others.

Insurance For Business

Whether you are running a multinational corporation or a small business operating from a spare bedroom at home, insuring certain aspects of your business is essential. For a number of years an increasing amount of people have been choosing to work from home. With cheaper IT costs, broadband and a greater accessibility over the internet, running a business from home is now an affordable, realistic option. But before you start thinking of converting that shed in the bottom of your garden to a new office, you should seek some professional advice to make sure you cover your business requirements.

Before you start a new venture you need to address the business insurance cover that may be required. These include:

Professional Indemnity

Professional indemnity insurance indemnifies professionals against third parties claims of negligent acts committed in the course of their professional duties. In many businesses such as accountancy or IT consultancy it is a legal requirement to have PI insurance. There are three main areas of PI insurance cover, firstly against a negligent act, error or omission. Secondly cover against a breach of duty and thirdly cover against civil liability, which include breaches of contract, libel or slander.

Employers Liability

Employer’s liability protects a business from any claims made by the employees, for instance claims for accidents in the workplace or sickness caused by the working environment. There are many different types of claims employees can make on their employers, some of the more common include slips, trips or falls, stress and anxiety or an unsafe workplace, for example falling objects. Even if you work alone and you employ someone on a temporary basis, you will be liable for any injuries that they receive.

Public Liability

Public liability insurance protects against claims of a third party due to damage or injury as a result of your businesses activities. The owner or occupier of a business premises is required to provide a level of care for the general public, there are three main degrees of care. Firstly people who by some form are invited onto your premises they are called ‘invitees’. If this ‘invitee’ spends money on a service, your duty of care and your chance of being liable increases, for example if you run a karting centre and one of your customers is hurt due to faulty machinery, you are liable for their injury. Secondly if people enter the premises with the permission of the occupier (called ‘licensees’) but without any economic advantage to the occupier, then the duty of care is less than in the case of ‘invitees’, for example a travelling salesman. Thirdly if there are ‘trespassers’ who enter the business premises without the permission of the occupier, there is still a degree of care owed but it is slight compared to both ‘invitees’ and ‘licensees’. A good example of this is a child who wanders onto a business premises and injures themselves, without necessarily knowing the dangers associated with the building.

There are many other types of insurance that small businesses might look into getting, including,

Equipment Insurance

Equipment insurance covers the damage or loss of equipment within a business, subject to the terms of agreement. For example if a new PC is damaged or dropped and wasn’t covered in the warranty, a good insurance policy would cover the purchase of new equipment.

Buildings and Contents Cover

Buildings and contents cover insurance protects a business’s property from damage, it also covers the fixtures/fittings within the property. Also if you are storing your stock at home, then contents cover will be essential. You could be left heavily indebted if your products or tools are stolen and you risk losing business and income if new tools cannot be purchased.

Legal Expenses insurance

Legal expenses insurance helps protect a business if legal action is taken against the company, for example legal fees and court costs.

Many self employed workers in small businesses rarely consider the implications of being sick or having an accident, leaving them unable to work for long periods of time. Sickness and accident policies cover these eventualities, as well as some longer term policies such as income replacement insurance. It is generally a good idea when shopping around for the best insurance quotes to compare like for like cover, it is a well used tactic to lower cost by lowering cover. So make sure you understand every aspect of what is included under the proposed insurance deal, it will greatly benefit you when you need to make a claim.

It is important to seek specialist advice when looking into insurance and it is important that you request quotes for your specific needs.

Jobs In The Aviation Industry

The airline industry till the time before the recession had been booming, and is yet one of the least affected business sectors in the economic slowdown. Hence, aviation industry jobs are still aplenty for the talented professional waiting on the sidelines. But what comes before getting employed is to find that ideal aviation job for yourself. Locating the best aviation job that suits your profile as well as pays you well is not at all a stroke of luck or achievable by mere fluke.

One should first and foremost have the bare necessities ready before one jumps headlong into the job search. These are – the resume, pilot or flight attendant training and proper licensing that is up-to-date and valid. Once you have these basic elements, review your resume and identify your strengths and weaknesses. Thereafter, post your resumes in aviation job search portals as well as regular jobseekers’ portals. Do not ignore job postings that are less than a couple of months old, as many employers prefer to take time to select the perfect candidate.

Most people think that prestigious aviation industry jobs only include the cabin crew vacancies, flight attendant jobs private piloting or helicopter pilot jobs. However, there is a plethora of other job postings that pay well and garner as much respect as the former. One can always look for aviation vacancies at the beginning level such as baggage handling or even handling luggage freights etc. If teaching has been a passion for you, you can vie for a flying instructor’s position, though this vacancy requires the contending individual to have fantastic expertise in the subject he is supposed to teach.

Professionals going in for the conventional aviation job search for flight attendant jobs or as pilots in private or corporate flights are comparatively easier to locate, but harder to qualify for. Flight attendant wannabes can train within the airline itself, which would then absorb the best of the trainees as permanent employees. Private jets and corporate flights often employ freshmen as pilots as well as ex-pilots of government flights, depending on the size of the budget and the nature or frequency of the flights. One can also work as ground staff, such as food managers, ticketing personnel or logistics and air traffic controllers.

Those who are interested in the managerial segment of the aviation industry jobs, vacancies within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or other government aviation agencies are ideal job positions. Therefore, as one can very rightly observe, the aviation industry is a vast platform that can accommodate a huge potential of talents, both diverse in nature as well as providing for a good amount of monetary compensation. Whatever may come in the forthcoming future, aviation industry jobs are one of the most secure and well-compensated career options for those who seek fulfillment in life – both from the point of money as well as the thrill of living life king size!

How to use IT technologies to improve your business

In order to make clear, how you can use technologies – you have to pace three steps. First one is to define the way you create value – whether your business model is value creation chain, value atelier, or value production net. Then, choose of the possible ways of improving your business the most important In the end, choose the software you need.

Step 1 – define type of value creation for your business:

Examples of value creation chain are all kinds of manufactures, illustrations of value atelier are legal consultation, clinic, government structures, samples of value production net are mobile operators, financial, insurance establishments, job- , date-, freelance- portals.

Model of value chain implies, that product value is added consequently, on following stages – supply logistics, manufacture, distribution logistics, sales and marketing, maintenance. Product value depends on expenses on each stage. IT technologies  are used to reduce costs, as well as to manage customers’ information and for marketing. Technologies can also serve to make the product more technological and more up-to-date.

Value atelier , plans the operations and allocates the resources according to customers’ concerns The main resources of the company are knowledge and reputation. Technologies are implied to increase the value of decision created – through usage of past experience, computer modeling, decision support systems. Technologies can be used to verify the decision and for documental support.

Value production net is typical for the company, which creates value through integration of the customers. Unlike first two models, the value is added not by stages, but through parallel processes. The more clients have access to the company, the higher is the company’s value for the clients. Technologies are used to mange clients relationships, to realize certain services for the clients, to protect the clients’ data.

Regarding  the way that company creates value of the product, IT technologies can be used the different way. For value creation chain, they help increase rationality and effectiveness of manufacture, for the value atelier technologies add value for knowledge processing, for the value production net technologies are implied to create and support infrastructure.

 However, the decision, what kind of software is best for a certain business, is strictly individual. This decision should be based on the specific of the company’s activity, company’s issues and goals. Often IT companies are consulting their clients, using their past experience.