2011 August | Bull City Real Estate

Archive for August, 2011

No Hurricane Can Stop A Weichert Open House!

Sunday, August 28th, 2011

With Irene working her way up towards New York, it’s time to step outside, take a look at the fallen branches and stop by one [or several] open houses! Here is the schedule for today’s Open Houses on the listings we’ve highlighted here at Bull City Real Estate.

	From 1-3PM today, stop by 100 Settlers Mill Road. This beautiful home is 2400 square feet of space just minutes away from Southpoint Mall, I-40 and Chapel Hill. Listed at $197,200 this is a great value for your home investment
From 2-4PM today, we’ll also be at 5508 Grand Mesa Drive. This beautiful home features an open sunroom and a landscaped backyard with a koi pond. Listed at $155,000, this home is a great balance of seclusion and quiet.
	Finally, from 3-5PM this afternoon, we’ll be at my new listing 3218 Oxford. This 4 bedroom home is tucked away in University Estates – a nice quiet community just north of Martin Luther King Parkway. Listed at $115,000, this is a great value for someone who needs a little space, but needs to be close to everything.

When you are out and about this afternoon, I really hope you will join us at one of our events.

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A Great New Listing In University Estates

Saturday, August 27th, 2011

I wanted to introduce you to my newest listing. this great home in University Estates has all the quiet and seclusion of living in the country, but is just minutes from Duke, Southpoint and RTP! With 4 bedrooms and almost 2,000 square feet of space, this is a great home to expand into. Plus, with a list price of only $115,000, it’s a great bargain!

Hit the link for more details on this great home.

We’ll be holding an Open house to celebrate this new lsiting on Sunday, August 28th from 3-5PM. We’d love to see you then, or if you can’t come out them, call or email me and we’ll arrange a showing.

Tags: Durham, listings

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Would A New Homestead Act Save Real Estate?

Friday, August 19th, 2011

Photo credit - alh1 & Flickr

The Homestead Act, passed in 1862, was one of the pivotal moments in the settling of the West. In the Homestead Act, settlers were offerered up to 160 acres of land provided they farmed the land for five years and made other improvements to their homestead. Through this Act, much of the western Great Plains was settled.

With the turmoil in today’s housing market, prehaps we need something as expansive as the Homestead Act to set things right. along those lines, Rep. Gary Ackerman [D. - NY] announced on Wednesday that he will introduce “Homestead Act 2″ in an effort to “reduce the housing glut and put Americans back to work.” Rep Ackerman’s bill has two parts;

The first two million applicants to the program would be offered up to $20,000 matching subsidy as down payment assistance. This would originally be a loan from the Federal government, but one-fifth of the loan amount would be forgiven each year the owner-occupant stays in the home until the loan is repaid at the end of the fifth year.
Additionally, there would be a 10-year exemption on rental income for the first one million homebuyers to purchase a single family home as a rental property.

The combination of these would, in Rep Ackerman’s opinion “spur the traditional housing market as the existing inventory overhang of housing is depleted. Over a million workers would be productive again.”

Would it work? Well, I see several advantages to this plan. First of all, by making the $20,000 a subsidy, it avoids the problem of the First Time Homebuyers Credit — that the money was needed at closing, not several months later. secondly, by making it a matching subsidy, it would encourage larger down payments, which will put the overall housing market on a firmer foundation.

Finally, I like the fact this bill recognizes that investors are a key part of pulling the market out of the doldrums. Too often investors have been seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Representative Ackerman intends to file this bill after the summer recess. While the devil usually hides in the details, I hope Congress seriously looks at this legislation.

[Click here for Representative Ackerman's press release]

Tags: mortgage news

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Bull City Real Estate In The News

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to be a resource for a couple of local news articles;

When The Landing at Southpoint announced they were auctioning off their remaining condos, [7/13/11 - 751 South developers to auction condos] Ray Gronberg of the Herald-Sun asked if there was more behind the announcement, such as an imminent foreclosure [there isn't that I am aware of]. I explained that condos are a very hard to get financed, and therefore sold, in the current mortgage market and that the auction was probably just a move to generate a return on a product that was largely unsellable. “The farther away from dirt you get, the more difficult it is to finance.”

Last week, Monica Chen noted that developers were in the early phases of planning a townhome development along NC751 just south of Southpoint [8/5/11 - Florida Developer Files to Build Townhomes in Durham (subscription required) ]. Much of what I said was edited for space, but I hope to develop those thoughts in a later post.

If you are interested in real estate development is south Durham, please call of email me. I’d love to hear from you!

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Come See My New Listing!

Friday, August 5th, 2011

Earlier this week, I was reminded that I have not posted anything about my new listing. Let’s fix that.

100 Settlers Mill Lane is a beautiful home right at the entrance of Settlers Mill, which is just west of Parkwood. it’s a nice large 2400sf home with 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. It lets in lots of light, especially in the kitchen and family room. The bedrooms are also nice and large with the master bedroom having a roomy bath.

Listed at $197,200 this home is a great value. It is a HUD foreclosure, and it does need some work, but it is almost entirely things that can be done over time while you live in the property. Also, this listing qualifies for a special promotion where you can purchase it with a $100 Down Payment!

If you would like to find out more about this great property, please email me. Or you could come by and visit during my Open House this Sunday from 1PM – 4PM. I look forward to seeing you!

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A Survey Where #8 Is Nothing To Sneeze At

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

CNBC published a slideshow earlier this week — 10 Cities Virtually Untouched By The Housing Bust. It’s a quick overview of several small towns that have been little affected by the housing bust. Durham is #8, which is something to crow about [Fayetteville is #1].

It’s nice to get good press, but I’d like to see this analysis taken to the next level. The CNBC piece has the “change from national peak,” which is their attempt to track how far that market has fallen since the summit. I’d like to see someone compare that to how far that market rose during the housing boom. I’m pretty certain that most of these markets didn’t see a big rise during the boom, didn’t have an overheated housing market, and therefore didn’t crash. I know that is true for us, and probably Fayetteville – I can’t speak for the rest of those markets.

BTW, if you don’t like slideshows, a more readable list is at Agent Genius.

Tags: Durham, housing stats

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July Housing Stats For Parkwood, Hope Valley Farms, Lochside And Elsewhere In Durham

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

June was a good month for local real estate. Will July follow in its footsteps? Let’s find out.

For all of Durham County there were 2214 homes listed for sale at the end of July – an decrease of just over 100 listings. 257 sales closed in July, a drop of 90 closings. Using July figures, it would take 8.6 months to work through our current inventory which is an increase of 1.9 months. While this is a step back from June’s red hot numbers, it still puts the county in a pretty balanced market [OK, technically it's 0.9 months in a buyer's market, but compared to some of the months we've seen, I think you will forgive my optimism]

In South Durham 804 homes were listed for sale at the end of July – another decline of 68 homes. 103 sales closed in July, a drop of 44 closings. It would only 7.8 months like July to work our way through all the available homes, which, as I noted about, puts South Durham firmly in the balanced market range.

Here’s the updated neighborhood information, with some of our new neighborhoods.

	Total Available Listings	Total Closed Sales	Adsorption Rate [in months]	Avg Sale Price
Woodcroft	74	10	7.4 [-7.4]	$155,983 97% of list price
Hope Valley Farms	70	7	10.0 [+6.1]	$177,986 96% of list price
Woodlake	24	5	4.8[-0.6]	$203,500 97% of list price
Parkwood	25	4	6.3 [+3.6]	$131,500 98% of list price
Chancellors Ridge	24	4	6.0 [-0.0]	$300,875 98% of list price
Grandale	3	1	3.0	$320,000 97% of list price
Audubon Park	12	1	12.0 [+2.0]	$205,500 97% of list price
Falconbridge	15	0	N/A	N/A
Fairfield	15	1	15.0	$327,000 99% of list price
Lochside	12	0	N/A	N/A
Marydell Estates	2	0	N/A	N/A

[Neighborhood to watch: Penrith had four closings in July]

So, what are we seeing here? As you may remember, a wave of listings entered the market in March and April. Buyers followed sellers into the market finding homes and closing on them in May/June. closings then subside a little bit during the heat of the summer with another swell after the heat breaks — late August through early October. It’s been a while since we’ve seen it, but this is a normal annual market cycle. Feels good, doesn’t it?

There is still time to take advantage of this improved homebuying season. If you are interested in seeing how your home would fare on the market, or just want to see some of the homes available, please send me an email and we’ll gladly get started. See you right before Labor Day.

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