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 seller’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 seller’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 seller’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.