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Daylight savings time sucks. There is an easy pass scam going around Delaware that we're going to talk about. And finally, Barstool has finally come to Delaware and has checked out our pizza. Now let's see if they picked the right pizza place. Welcome back to Your Delaware. I'm Jen, your Delaware Realtor. I have a great show for you today, so I'm just going to get right on into it. All right. So the first thing being daylight savings time. Is this finally going to be the year that we don't have to spring forward? Because honestly, I'm just going to go on a little bit of a rant right now. Daylight savings time sucks so bad. I don't understand it. I don't under... I mean, I understand it. I understand why we used to do it. But ultimately, at the end of the day, I don't want to do it anymore. Technology has come so far that I just feel like farmers don't need, I guess, that extra hour of daylight. I guess that's what we're... I think that's what the whole point of this was. I'm not really sure. But essentially, on Sunday, March 9th, we are supposed to spring forward, which means that we lose an hour of sleep. Do not shoot the messenger. I'm very, very sorry. I don't like this any more than you do. And essentially, I just... It messes everything up. It takes me weeks. I mean, absolutely, at least a solid month to get back on schedule. And I did not have a child before. And now I do. And I'm dreading this because when we fell back an hour in the fall, that was an absolute nightmare as well. And I can just imagine what it's going to be springing forward. I'm not looking forward to it. And it looks like this, hopefully, hopefully, will be the last time that we have to do this. So essentially, the question that people have is, was the United States the first country to have daylight savings time? No. Apparently, it started in 1916, when Germany started it to conserve fuel. And then essentially, some people say that it was Benjamin Franklin. Others credit New Zealand. And then some people say it was the British builder William Willett, who wrote The Waste of Daylight in 1907, and encouraged people to set their clocks back so they could wake up earlier. Now, I know that in the fall, especially when we have that week where it's actually the week before daylight savings time, where if you wake up at 6, 7 o'clock, when most kids are going to the bus stop and people are getting ready for work, it is pitch black out. So I can understand the safety concern. My whole thing is, like, could we just spring forward and then just be done with it? Right? I know. I think that would just like help everything and just just be done. So apparently, the president elect Donald Trump has pushed the idea of ending daylight savings time. So the incoming president announced his push to make standard time year round a move that would require action from Congress. OK, so he says that the Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate daylight savings time. Daylight savings time is inconvenient and very costly to our nation. Although getting rid of daylight savings time would keep the strikingly early winter evenings, the move would mean no more time changes, which some call their biggest annoyance. Some being me. So it would keep the later sunsets. It essentially had in 2022 had gone through the Senate and they approved it, but then it stalled in the House. So hopefully we can get that passed. And that means that we do not have to like, well, I have to spring forward, but then we can just be done with it and never have to do this ever again. I would love that. Sincerely, a mom who is not looking forward to March 9th. All right, moving right along. There is a scam that is going around in Delaware from EasyPass, and I have actually been one of the people who got this text. So essentially, this text message came, I want to say it was about a week ago. And it said, you have an unpaid toll and you it was it was this weird text message, actually, it was you have an unpaid toll, you need to copy and paste this link into the browser and then pay it. And it said that the toll, I think, was like six ninety nine. So my first red flag should have been the six ninety nine part, because if you have gotten a toll violation in Delaware, you know that it is not six ninety nine. So the tolls in Delaware normally, if you are traveling during the week, are I think they're a dollar. And then if you're traveling on the weekends, I'm talking about the ones on Route 1, they are three dollars. And then you see all of the fees. It's twenty five dollars here. Seventy five dollars here. So your one dollar or three dollar toll ends up being almost a one hundred dollar ticket or toll violation, essentially, which that's a whole other story that people are complaining about. I'm not even going to go into that, but I think that's absolutely ridiculous. Honestly, just me personally. But that should have been your first clue that this six ninety nine toll like unpaid toll is actually a scam. And it really bothers me because I know that there are people that are essentially like I'm actually kind of glad that the you essentially need to copy the link into your Safari browser, because if you had to actually hit the link, I don't even know how many people would probably believe that and click it. And essentially, they're not looking for your six ninety nine. They're essentially wanting your information. So if you do get something in like, you know, this has like from Hotmail or whatever, mine was actually, I think, believe I deleted it, but I believe it was a 302 number and or an 804 number. I get a lot of weird like numbers. And essentially, I just deleted it and knew it was a scam. But if you do get a text message saying like, oh, you owe this and you owe that, do not ever click the link. Don't ever click the link. It's just like an email. Don't ever click the link because the link essentially is doing something that is going to somehow get into your information. This is the same thing I tell people when they buy a house and you have all of this mail coming in for mortgage insurance and this and that. If you think it is a scam, it is probably a scam. If there is something that you need to do that you were not told by someone, do not ever believe it. This is like the amount of scams that go through like just everywhere, whether it be the IRS or banks or mortgage insurance or EasyPass. I mean, they really are trying everything and anything to get your information. So please, please, please do not click that link. Do not put it in your Safari browser. And just know that I also was one of these people that got this message and I knew it was a scam, but I'm really glad that Delaware Online did an article on it so that we don't see more and more people clicking this. And here are things to look out for in things that essentially most scammers like word in their messages. So asking for any kind of payment in gift cards or cryptocurrency. I actually had this happen when I first moved to eXp. I got this text or actually I got an email from my broker that said that he was in a meeting and he needed something and that he needed me to buy him gift cards. And at that point, that's when I realized, oh, wait, this is actually not him. So I do not do anything but just know that if they're ever asking for payment in gift cards or any kind of cryptocurrency, unknown phone numbers or email addresses, a lot of times like you'll see at gmail.com or at Hotmail. And it has nothing to do with like EasyPass or anything else like that. Just don't do not respond, just delete dating someone online without ever meeting or seeing their face. Yes. This is huge. Do not ever do that. This is this includes like honestly, sometimes like if you're meeting someone for like a Facebook marketplace pickup, I would just meet at a police station or somewhere public. Same thing goes for when you're meeting people for showings, meet them somewhere public, whether it be like new construction or like a Starbucks or anything else like that at your office. Like if you don't know the person, especially if you met them off the Internet, make sure that you get some kind of I.D. claims that you won a lottery or contest you didn't enter. Yeah, that happens a lot. Awards are free vacations. I also used to get them a lot unsolicited sales calls. This is why I do not cold call one of the reasons because I come that that to me comes off as a scammer. High pressure to make immediate decisions. Yeah, I've definitely been in those situations as well. And then threats of arrest, harm or canceled benefits. I actually have heard there have been scams going around where a person calls you and tells you that your son, daughter, mom, dad has been abducted and they're asking for money. And like if you don't go straight to the bank right then, like they're going to harm the person. That is a scam that's been going around, which I think is absolutely terrible. It's actually terrifying. And I know there are some people that have sent money, which is awful. And then there's other people that call other people and they go, you know, this just happened and they are told it's a scam. It seems like those kinds of scams are targeting the senior community. I have not heard of anything in Delaware personally, but I have heard it in different states. So just keep an eye out for that and make sure that you are not one of those people that fall victim to a scam. All right, moving right along. So Delaware was in the top 10 fastest growing states in the census report, which does not surprise me at all. In 2020, when the world basically shut down and a lot of companies went to remote work, we saw a huge influx of the surrounding states, whether it be New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania. I saw a lot of people from Tennessee, Texas, California, and essentially, in some cases, the taxes were just too high where they were living and they decided that they could sell and because they were remote, they could work from anywhere. And then they moved to Delaware for the low property taxes. I've also seen especially retirees decide to sell their family homes and move to Delaware because of our property taxes and our tax benefits for retirees. So the population growth in Delaware in 2024 was enough to create the fifth largest incorporated city in the state behind Wilmington, Dover, Newark, and Middletown. So we had a gain of 15,494 people and it grew by 1.49% from July 1, 2023 to July 1, 2024. It says that is the eighth highest percentage growth among all states. So here is a list of the top 10 states that had the most amount of growth. One being Florida, which we've heard, which this does surprise me, especially with Florida going through the homeowners insurance issues with a lot of people not being able to get coverage with all of the hurricanes. I'm a little shocked by this one that we're still seeing Florida be in the top 10. I feel like I've had a lot of clients moving from Florida to Delaware because of this. So that was a little surprising. Two being Texas. That does not surprise me. Three, Utah. Four, South Carolina. That does not surprise me at all. Five, Nevada. I know a lot of people from California actually moved to Texas and Nevada. Six, Idaho. That's a little surprising. I thought Idaho is one of those states where you get a lot of tornadoes. So I did not expect that. Seven, North Carolina. I also totally expected that one. Eight being Delaware, nine being Arizona. Arizona does not surprise me, although I do know that they're having like a water issue where they're having water shortage. But it's dry and it's warm, so I could totally understand why that one would be one of the top 10. And then 10 being New Jersey. Now this also kind of blows my mind a little bit just because New Jersey property taxes are very high. But this could also be because New York taxes are extremely high, so a lot of people from New York are moving to New Jersey where they can still get to the city and have a slight break on taxes, I guess you could say. So yeah, that's exciting. And I do totally agree with this. We have seen a lot of people come here and move to the first state. And it just seems like we have such a robust population, like it is like a melting pot. We have so many different people. We do have the Air Force Base in Delaware, so I do feel like we have a huge military population. And ultimately, I think that's one of the reasons why I find people to be so nice is because a lot of the people that move here are also what we call transplants. And essentially, they're used to not knowing anyone and having to make friends. And I think that's why we see such friendly people in Delaware. If you have never driven through some of the neighborhoods, a lot of people will stop and they'll wave if they're walking their dog or if they're just outside. It's very neighborly. And ultimately, it just seems like people are happier here. I think it's because you're outside more, you're getting that fresh air, you're getting more sunshine. There's things to do. Delaware is centrally located, so a lot of times people take day trips to other places that they want to go and then they come home, which is really nice. So, I'm very excited about that. Hopefully, we continue to see that growth, but not too much, right? I don't want to see too much. But it says the U.S. population grew by nearly 1% between 2023 and 2024, surpassing 340 million people. That's a lot. This is the fastest annual population growth a nation has seen since 2001. Oh, wow. Well, I added to that by adding Nora. It says that the growth was primarily driven by rising international migration. With the net increase of 2.8 million people, it accounted for 84% of the nation's 3.3 million increase in population between 2023 and 2024. This reflects a continued trend of rising international migration with a net increase of 1.7 million in 2022 and 2.3 million in 2023. It says net international migration was positive in all 50 states, with the top three states for national migration being Florida, California, and Texas. Wow. It said, so the article does ask, did Delaware pass any states in population? So Delaware was the 50th, I'm sorry, Delaware was the 45th state by population in the 2020 census, and that ranking did not change with the 2023 or 2024 figures. So we still sit at the 45th state, which makes sense. The only change in the bottom 10 states from 2020 to 2024 was Montana, moving up to the 43rd state passing Rhode Island. I wonder if Yellowstone has anything to do with that. I know Yellowstone made me think about, hmm, you know, it'd be kind of nice to live out in like cowboy land. But then I thought to myself, no, I'm good. I really love Delaware. I don't want to move. All right, moving right along. So I have a little bit of a, I'm going to go on a little bit of a rant here. So for those that don't know, before I got into real estate, I used to own a pizza shop, right? So I've kind of grew up in pizza. I started my first job, I believe I was 15. I was 15, I worked at a pizza shop. And I kind of stayed with the same family. They had different like pizza shops all over where I lived. And then I went to Westchester University for college and one of the brothers opened up a shop with my now husband, but at the time, he was just my boss. And so I think I at this point, like I could say, like I'm a pizza connoisseur, right? Like I can tell you like good pizza. And so Barstool finally made its round to Delaware after doing a decade long run of Barstool Sports. So it basically, he does this like popular one bite pizza review series. His name is Dave and he dropped into Delaware on Wednesday night for two days. So he just finished up his round in I think Maryland, like the Baltimore area. So he decided that he was going to review Grottoes. And like, I'm going to be honest, like, I don't like Grottoes. I think that probably was like the worst place that you could have tried personally. Not saying that I'm like, okay, I'm just going to be honest here. I don't think there's really good pizza in Delaware. I leave the state to find a good slice. That's just me. When I did have my shop, I obviously thought that it was good. We still make pizza in our backyard. Like we have a pizza oven in our like an outdoor kitchen, but I just don't think there's any good pizza in Delaware. So I like, and I, I'm open to like, I'm actually going to want to like start a series, like going to try all the pizza shops in Delaware, just because I need to find something that I can recommend to people because when people ask me about pizza in Delaware, I'm completely honest with them. No, I don't think there's anything good. But I'm open to trying different things and seeing if I can find one that I would recommend to people. So if you do know of a shop in anywhere in Delaware, please let me know. I have tried a few. I'm not going to name names because I don't want to throw them under the bus, but I haven't found anything that I would be like, yeah, I would definitely go back for that. So if you are one of those people that is like a diehard, a certain shop in, in, in Delaware, please let me know so that I can go try it. And then, yeah, I want to do like a top 10 of just my opinion, by the way. But yeah, so Barstool went to Grotto and he rated it a 7.3 out of 10. Not good, but not bad according to his scale. So essentially he takes one bite and then he tells you what he thinks. So he said, and he went to the Grotto pizza in Wilmington, right off of Concord Pike. So I think Grotto's has 22 different locations. I guess I thought the first one was in Lewis, like right off of Route 1, Grand Slam. That's what it used to be called. I don't know if it's still called that, but. So okay, I'm just going to do a little, a spoiler alert, by the way. So the review, he wasn't wowed, but he didn't trash the best known pie in our state. He basically said it tastes like boardwalk pizza. And he called us the shore. We are not the shore. We are the beach. It is the Jersey Shore, the Delaware beaches. We'll let that one go. Obviously he's not from around here, because otherwise you would know that, but he essentially, so he said in his video, he's seen walking out of the restaurant, flipping open the pizza box and taking a bite out of the fresh out of the oven cheese pizza. Although it's called one bite, he usually only takes a second bite of the crust at the end of the slice as well. Okay, so he usually does that. He basically said, if you ask me in my head what a Delaware pizza looks like, that may be what I guessed. This time he took four chomps out of the little bit floppy slice of what he correctly labeled a boardwalk pizza. He said, not bad. This tastes like a boardwalk pizza to me. I like it more than I thought I would. It could use a little bit of a crisp. He gave it a seven, oh, 7.4, which is even worse than I thought it was going to be. Okay, so if I was going to rate Grotto's pizza on a scale from one to 10, I would give it a zero. I'm not even kidding you. If that was the last thing available on this earth, I wouldn't eat it. Sorry. I know that there are some diehard fans out there that are like, oh, this is great. But like, if you told me that was great, I wouldn't value your opinion on pizza anymore. Sorry. I'd rather eat my desk. And I'm not lying when I say that. But I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Don't do not judge us on Grotto. Please do not judge us on Grotto because you'll never come back for pizza. But I guess please, if you do know of a pizza shop in Delaware that you absolutely love and you want me to try their pizza, please let me know down in the comments section or send me a text if you know me a person or send me an Instagram message, something. And I will be sure to go try it out. Because like I said, I just ultimately have not found anything in Delaware that I absolutely love. All right, moving right along. What is there to do in Delaware this weekend? I just feel like because I'm looking at my phone, by the way, I just feel like because it is the winter, there has not been many things going on. I know that there is a soup cook-off in I believe it's Smyrna at the Harley-Davidson location right off of like Route 13. And essentially, you can enter like chowders or chilies or any kind of soup. And I believe that takes place this Saturday. It's called Speed and Stew Annual Soup Cook-off. So it will be Saturday, January 25th from 12 to 3 at the Rommel Harley-Davidson in Smyrna. So essentially, you can bring a soup, stew, chowder, gumbo, chili, everything qualifies. And you can essentially, it says free to register. Everyone is welcome. So check that out if you are looking for something to do this weekend. Yeah, there's just not a lot going on right now. Because it's cold and it keeps snowing. Obviously, we still have football going on. So be sure to check out the football games. I'm sure Buffalo Wild Wings and all of the sports bar Green Turtle, all of the breweries will be showing at the football games this weekend. Go in, grab a slice of pizza, or grab a drink from them. Grab some wings and enjoy the games, especially since we're going to, I'm sure as we get into February, we're going to have more going on with the Super Bowl. I know February 2nd is the polar bear plunge in Rehoboth, which is normally the same weekend as the Super Bowl. But I guess because the Super Bowl is, I don't want to say later, but yeah, it's Sunday, February 2nd. If you want to go check that out, I know that's a great time. And it also helps like the small businesses on the avenue during polar bear plunge. So definitely go check that out. And yeah, that's basically, that's it for this week. I know that there's not much going on. But I mean, it is the dead of winter, honestly. This is your normally where it's a great time to watch movies, catch up on all your shows, and cuddle on the couch, essentially. This is the best time to do that. I really hope that you enjoyed this episode. If you did, be sure to give me a thumbs up. Be sure to subscribe to the channel. If you are looking to purchase in Delaware, or you are looking to sell in Delaware, I would absolutely love the opportunity to help you. My information is down below in the description. So please feel free to send me an email or give me a call, or there is a link for my calendar. And we can set up, I set up a one-on-one meeting. Once again, I really hope that you enjoyed this episode. If you did, be sure to give me a thumbs up. Be sure to subscribe to the channel, and I will see you on next week's episode. Hey, if you were thinking about moving to Delaware, you should definitely check out this playlist right here. And if you would love to see other episodes of Your Delaware, check out this playlist right here. And don't forget, subscribe to my channel.