Looking for something to do to celebrate our nation’s Independence Day? Here are a few ideas

As always the biggest event of the weekend is the Festival For the Eno. The festival runs all weekend, and features over 80 performers on 4 separate stages. Plus it ends at 6PM, so you would still have time to make the fireworks!

Durham’s fireworks celebration will be in the American Tobacco complex. There will be live music starting at 5:30, a baseball game at the DBAP starting at 6:50 [the USA National Team vs. Guatemala] and fireworks after the game — probably around 9PM. Admission to the stadium will be free after the 7th inning stretch [around 7:30]

Chapel Hill’s fireworks will go off at Kenan stadium on UNC’s campus. The stadium gates will open at 7PM with live entertainment until the fireworks start at 9:30PM. Admission is free.

Have fun this evening, and remember what we are celebrating.

Last month’s housing data showed a strong increase in the health of the
Durham housing market. Will the numbers for June hang on to those gains? Let’s
take a look.

For all of Durham County there were 2046 houses listed at the end of June. 328
sales closed in June, so at that pace the currently available inventory would be
sold in 6.2 months. This is an  improvement of 2.1 months building
on May’s improvement of 3.5 months. In fact, this would almost make Durham
County a buyer’s market if that strength held up for any length of time.

For the 27713 area code there were 427 homes listed at the end of
June. 108 homes sold during June, so the current listings would be sold through
in just under four months. This is another significant improvement from
last month and a marked improvement from Aprils 12 month absorption rate.

Like last month, these improvements are largely driven by increases in the
number of homes that are sold without a similar increase in the number of listed
homes. Still, two months of solid sales in both the county as a whole and in
south Durham can lead one to believe that our market is recovering.

Let’s take a look at some individual communities

All of these communities showed strong improvements over last month’s
numbers, and currently appear to be in a buyer’s market — most of them
for the second month in a row.

The Friends of the Durham Library is having its 2009 Summer Book Sale this weekend. The sale is being held at its traditional location – the Main Library at 300 N Roxboro [on the eastern side of the Durham Loop]. There will be thousands of books, DVDs and other media for sale with prices starting at 50 cents each. Here are the hours for the sale.

• Friday, June 26, 4 – 7 p.m. Friends members only—join at the door!
• Saturday, June 27, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Everyone welcome.
• Sunday, June 28, 2 – 5 p.m. Everyone welcome. $7 Bag Sale, auditorium only.

This is a great opportunity to fill out a collection, or explore some genres you have been curious about. Plus, your money helps a community resource. Hopefully, we’ll see you there.

The blog at the Independent reported this afternoon that the Varsity Theater in Chapel Hill will be closing tonight. The owners, Bruce and Mary Jo Stone said in a statement that the Varisty could not compete with newer multiplexes like Southpoint Cinemas and that the theater could not find a niche running small run specialty films. The statement also noted that downtown Chapel Hill was not conducive to running a theater that catered to older [read non-student] customers.

As the owner of a business that used to be on Franklin Street, I certainly understand the Stone’s position. It’s hard for a business model not tightly focused on the students and their unique schedule to succeed there. I wish them all the best in wherever they go from here.

As you can see, Bull City Real Estate has a new look! The recent server move revealed all the problems that had crept into the old website, so we decided to redo everything from scratch. We certainly hope you find the new look easier on the eyes, and more useful to boot.

There are still some areas that need to be fleshed out. In particular, the posts from the old site didn’t make it over, so I’m reentering them manually over the next few days. That links section looks pretty thin too.

Thanks to CHCS and Wordpress for the new look. Where have you guys been all my life?

Please feel free to leave your comments and impressions! [the comment section finally works too!]

Final designs are set to be submitted this summer with construction to start in early 2010 and a completion date of December 2010. Other than the fact that it will take three years to build a pedestrian bridge everyone wanted, this is a great step forward in the development of the Trail.

It’s that time of month again, and the news this month looks a lot better than the last couple of months. Let’s dive right in. As always, data was pulled from the Triangle Multiple Listing Service at about 10:30PM last night.

In Durham County there were 2,107 available listings at the end of May. 261 sales were completed in May meaning the current home inventory would be sold in 8.1 months. This is an improvement of 3.5 months, which makes the improvement over the last three months a whopping 6.8 months. Anything between 6 and 8 months is normally considered a balanced market, so the county market as a whole is vastly improving

For the 27713 zip code there were 464 homes available on May 31. 73 sales were completed in May leaving 6.4 months of inventory available. This is half the inventory available last month.

In both cases it is worth noting that the improvement is driven by large increases in the number of closings. That is to be expected. Normally, however, the rise in closings is accompanied by a rise in listings, so things are close to balancing out. I’m certainly not complaining.

Now let’s take a look at our favorite communities

• Hope Valley Farms continued to be the sales leader with 16 closings in May – more than double April’s 7 closings. There are 60 homes available [up 1 from April], making the absorption rate 3.8 months. That is normally a buyer’s market. The average sales price for homes sold in Hope Valley Farms is just over $214,000.
• By raw sales numbers, second place goes to Woodcroft. 13 homes sold in Woodcroft last month for an average price of just under $135,000. With 65 listings currently active, that makes the absorption rate 5.0 months, again a buyer’s market in Woodcroft
• Woodlake had another strong month with three sales closing in May for an average price of just under $214,000. 14 homes are currently available meaning there is 4.7 months of inventory. I said that last months 3.4 months of inventory might have been a fluke — I may have been wrong.
• Parkwood had 3 home sales close in May. 27 homes were for sale at the end of May at an average price of just under $135,000. This makes the absorption rate 9.0 months. While this is still a sellers market, the numbers are much better than April’s 1 sale and 24 listings
• Penrith also had 3 sales in May with an average price of $163,500. Penrith had 6 listings available at the end of May for an absorption rate of 2.0 months

To be fair, this is only one month of good news for many communities [except for Woodlake, which shows a lot of resiliency]. Still, I have to admit it was fun to write buyer’s market as many times as I did, and I skipped a couple of opportunities. With the continued availability of the $8,000 tax credit, I expect to see continued strength in the “starter home” communities such as Penrith, Parkwood and parts of Woodcroft through out the summer. It’s too early to say we’ve turned a corner, but I think we can see the corner from here.

HUD has released updated guidelines allowing for the use of the $8,000 tax credit for first time home buyers at the closing. Those guidelines are in Mortgagee Letter 2009-15 [which is as long and filled with governmentese as you expect]. Here is a brief summary.

FHA-approved organizations [which is just about all banks and mortgage lenders] are allowed to purchase your $8,000 tax credit. This will allow you to use the credit at closing to cover most of your closing costs. One major catch — you can not use the credit to cover a required downpayment So, if you have an FHA mortgage, you still have to bring 3.5% to the closing table, but you could use the credit for just about anything else — closing costs, prepaid taxes & insurance, and so on.

While this isn’t everything, it is still a great step forward. Knowing that the $8,000 will cover closing costs, buyers can be a bit more aggressive on the price they offer and get into their first home for a lot less.

If you are interested in looking for your first home, please email me and we’ll get started

Like most licensed professions, real estate licensees have to take continuing education courses every year. Some of those courses are mandatory — legal updates and such, and the rest are elective. This year I decided to take a course on 1031 Tax Free Exchanges

A 1031 Exchange [also called a Tax-Free Exchange, a Like-Kind Exchange, or a Starker Exchange] is a mechanism that allows investors to sell their investment property and reinvest the proceeds in another property without paying capital gains tax. You won’t avoid paying the tax entirely, but you can delay paying the taxman until much later. It’s somewhat like doing an IRA rollover — you sell all the assets in your old IRA/real estate and move the assets over to the new IRA/real estate without paying capital gains until you ultimately cash out.

There is an administrative burden. In particular, you need a “qualified intermediary” to manage the transaction [remember the IRA rollover example -- you can't touch the money]. A 1031 exchange, however, is still a great way to manage your investment property both now and in the future.

If you would like to know more about 1031 Exchanges, email me. I’d be happy to refer you to a Qualified Intermediary and help you with the sale/purchase of your investment property.

Every month I go into this data with a mixture of fear and excitement. Will the numbers look better this month or not? Let’s find out.

[data pulled from Triangle MLS at about 10pm last night]

In Durham County there were 2,196 available listings at the end of April. 189 sales were completed in April meaning the current home inventory would be sold in 11.6 months. This is an improvement of 1.7 months, which follows a 1.6 month improvement in March. It is still a buyer’s market in Durham County, but there is steady improvement.

For the 27713 zip code there were 500 homes available on April 30. 41 sales were completed in April leaving 12.2 months of inventory available, which is about the same as last month. This is also the first month where there was more inventory available in South Durham that in the County as a whole.

[As an aside, there are 2 listings which have been on the market since 2007 and another 6 that were listed prior to May 1, 2008. For comparison, 112 houses were listed in April 2009]

Now let’s take a look at some of our favorite communities;

• Hope Valley Farms was the big winner this month with 7 closings. There are currently 59 homes available, which is 8.4 months of inventory — almost exactly the same as last month.
• Close behind was Woodcroft with 6 closings in April. Woodcroft has 75 which translates into 12.5 months of inventory. That’s a big drop from the 16.2 months of inventory available at the end of March. almost a third of the homes available in Woodcroft were listed in April, and another third in March, so these numbers will improve as that inventory burns off.
• Woodlake was the third place finisher with 5 closed sales in April. 17 homes are currrently available, which would sell through in 3.4 months. I’m pretty sure the sales number is a spike — we’ll see in May
• Parkwood again only had one closing in April. The number of homes available increased to 24. This bears watching, as it is really unusual.

So, like most months, some good news and some bad news. It’s up to you to decide which side of the glass you want to look at. See you next month.