Caroline Ruhl, President, and Eric Schlutz, Muscatine Sales Manager, welcomed community members to their new home at 226 E. 2^nd Street, in historic downtown Muscatine on Wednesday, September 23, 2009.

The festivities started at 4:15pm as The Greater Muscatine Chamber of Commerce & Industry held a ribbon cutting ceremony commemorating the grand opening of the new, high tech office, designed to accommodate significant expansion by Ruhl&Ruhl – enabling the office to hold 35 sales associates and 3 staff.  It also has a large training and meeting room that will be made available to community groups that need a professional meeting space.

Food at the celebration was provided by The Button Factory, owned by Tom Meeker, who also was the developer of the new building. “We are thrilled to be working with Ruhl&Ruhl and look forward to having them as an addition to our downtown”, commented Tom Meeker.  “The property will provide a great visual welcome to the area for residents and visitors alike.  Caroline Ruhl and her staff are terrific people; it’s been a very enjoyable collaboration for us.”  Together Ruhl&Ruhl and the Meekers have invested over $300,000 to update and refurbish the property.

“Our grand opening was the pinnacle of many months of collaborative planning to make this project a reality. We are really excited about the opportunity to build our business and help with the revitalization of downtown Muscatine area,” remarked Eric Schlutz.

Ruhl&Ruhl Realtors is a family owned business that has been serving or region since 1862.  They are headquartered in Davenport and have 250 sales associates and 50 employees.  Besides their Muscatine office, they also have offices in Coralville, Dubuque, Bellevue, Davenport, DeWitt, Clinton, Maquoketa, Bettendorf and Moline.  They offer mortgage services through 1862 Mortgage, a partnership of Ruhl&Ruhl Realtors and Guaranty Bank.  For additional information, see their website at www.RuhlHomes.com.

MobileRuhl, powered by SmarterAgent, can now provide you with listings on your cellphone! With MobileRuhl you have search capabilities right in the palm of your hand. This application is free* and easy to download, plus, it makes your home search a breeze!

MobileRuhl application provides GPS search capabilities and real time property information directly to your cellphone. You can search by address, city, zip code, or MLS number.  See property details, photos, map views and save properties to Favorites.

 MobileRuhl provides you the perfect house hunting tool in the palm of your hand!

Please don’t forget to Become a Fan of Ruhl&Ruhl

*Most cell phone carriers will let you download the application free of charge, while others may charge from $.99 to $4.99 per month for unlimited use.

Are you ready to start the home buying process but not exactly sure how to go about securing a mortgage? Ruhl&Ruhl along with 1862 Mortgage have provided you a simple and easy way to be pre-approved for financing on your new home!

Start the process right away by completing 1862 Mortgage’s short application or get a jump start by completing the full 1862 Mortgage application. Each application is secure and you will be contacted by a Loan Officer within one business day to discuss your application.

If you’re not ready to be pre-approved and are just curious on what a mortgage would cost on a particular home, don’t worry, we have that too!! With our financing tab on each listed property, you can receive updated information about a mortgage that is unique to each property! The rates are updated on a daily basis and you can even calculate the down payment. Also, you have the option of emailing the Loan Officer to start the financing process.

Ruhl&Ruhl along with 1862 Mortgage provide all the necessary information to help make your decision about financing an easy one!

FEATURE OF THE DAY — ADVANCED PROPERTY SEARCH

With our interactive map and advanced criteria search, finding a home has never been easier! Search available properties by community or neighborhood by simply rolling your mouse over the icons. Also, narrow your search by price, number of bedrooms, location, and even how many days it has been listed!!! With Advanced Property Search you are able to find the home that is specific to your needs instead of searching through homes that don’t apply to your search!

These searches then can also be saved with Ruhl&Ruhl’s Personal Shopper, sign up for Ruhl&Ruhl’s Personal Shopper today!

And don’t forget to check out our Facebook Fan Page!

On September 1, Ruhl&Ruhl REALTORS launched an improved, even easier to use website, with additional bells and whistles to provide much more information, faster to our customers.

“Today’s buyers and sellers want to be in control of their home buying and home selling experiences. They want to do research and deserve all the information they need to make good, educated decisions, and find that information easily. So we reviewed the tools that functioned best in our old website and took those components to the next level, taking this opportunity to add even more features that will make the online experience faster, easier and more productive for our consumers,” said Caroline Ruhl, President of Ruhl&Ruhl REALTORS.

RuhlHomes.com, the #1 real estate website in the area for 10 years, provides detailed information on over 11,000 properties from ten different Multiple Listing Services in the region, including the Iowa/Illinois Quad Cities region; Cedar Rapids, Clinton, Dubuque, Iowa City, Muscatine, Jackson County, IA; DeKalb and Sauk Valley, IL; Southwest, WI; and the Realtors Land Institute.

The website includes larger photos and guided tours, and gives users the ability to search available properties on an interactive map. In addition, listing information is updated more frequently from each multiple listing service, showing new listings and updates several times a day, instead of once every 24 hours, as it was previously. Users are able to search for properties by city or state, by property details such as price and the number or bedrooms or through an interactive map, where users can simply roll their computer mouse over the icons in a community or neighborhood. Photos, address and price are displayed right on the map, if desired, allowing for a streamlined search and reducing computer load times.

The website also improved its current Personal Shopper, a feature that allows customers to be the first to know about new listings through pre-registered property search criteria. Customers can now create multiple saved searches, receive email notifications and new properties that meet desired specifications, and have the ability to save any properties to their favorites to view at a later date. All of these new features streamline the search process for clients, making the Ruhl&Ruhl website an even more effective, time-saving tool for home buying, Ruhl added.

For Ruhl&Ruhl clients, the new site offers seller activity reports, which include web visit counts and information on local competing properties, including new listings and price changes, among others. These reports are emailed weekly to each client who is listing a property with Ruhl&Ruhl.

“This improved website allows our agents to work more effectively with our customers and provides a plethora of detailed information and reporting capabilities,” Ruhl added.

In addition, each Ruhl&Ruhl agent also has their own website, allowing consumers more avenues to search for properties and giving them access to listings right from their agent’s website.

Additional benefits to users include:

• Easy to use property search, by map, address, MLS #, price range, school district, new construction and more.
• Market pricing trends, competitive market analysis and other reports available online for an overview of the market and how your home compares.
• Online applications for a pre-approved loan with 1862 Mortgage, a partner of Ruhl&Ruhl REALTORS.
• New construction subdivision information and ability to learn about the many quality builders represented by Ruhl&Ruhl.
• Home Services Vendors listings that provide resources for home repair, information on how to hook up utilities, and move preparation.
• Information on Welcome Packets and area tours, cost of living comparisons, schools, taxes and much more.
• As a member of RealtyTrac, get exclusive access to distressed real estate and foreclosure listings in Iowa, Illinois, or Wisconsin. This includes comparable neighborhood sales, loan history, tax assessment information, lender contact information, access to online auctions and access to make an offer directly to lenders.
• Sold property information is also easily accessed from RuhlHomes.com.
• From the website, users can download Mobile Ruhl, an application used to search and provide real estate listing information on your cell phone. Mobile Ruhl displays listings on a map, has GPS capabilities to show properties for sale in the area around the user’s location and allows users to view real time property information, such as photos, square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms and other property details. Consumers are able to refine their search to see almost any listing in Eastern Iowa, Western Illinois and Southwestern Wisconsin using their personal cell phones, whether it is listed by Ruhl&Ruhl or another company.

In addition, Ruhl&Ruhl also updated the look and function of the company’s blog, www.RuhlBlog.com. The blog includes real estate trends, facts and information. It will be accessible through the new website as well.

Visit www.RuhlHomes.com to view all the new capabilities and improved functions Ruhl&Ruhl REALTORS has to offer.

A family-owned company since 1862, Ruhl&Ruhl REALTORS annually sells approximately 3,400 homes in eastern Iowa, western Illinois and southwestern Wisconsin. Caroline Ruhl is the President and owner of Ruhl&Ruhl REALTORS, and is the fourth generation of the Ruhl family to lead the residential brokerage and home services company. Headquartered in Davenport, Iowa, the company has 250 sales associates and 60 employees based in sales offices located in Bettendorf, Bellevue, Clinton, Coralville, Davenport, DeWitt, Dubuque, Maquoketa, and Muscatine, in Iowa, and in Moline, Illinois. In addition to residential sales, Ruhl&Ruhl offers services in relocation, new home sales, farm sales, senior services, and mortgage services through 1862 Mortgage.

For more information on Ruhl&Ruhl, visit their website at www.RuhlHomes.com