Archive for January, 2012
A new research park in Chatham County
Chatham residents have known for some time that the Preston Development Group was buying up land between Pittsboro and Cary south of Highway 64, but it was widely speculated that this land was being acquired for a housing development. As it turns out the developers have something much bigger in mind: a new research park [...]
Property tax values versus sales prices
North Carolina law requires that counties reassess property values for tax purposes at least every eight years, but until recently the rapidly increasing home values led to more frequent revaluations. Durham and Wake County reassessed values in 2007 (effective 2008) which was at the peak of the market, and Chatham and Orange reassessed in 2008 [...]
Positive real estate news and the second “shadow inventory”
My inbox is full of positive news this morning: December home sales trended upwards from the previous year. Home builders’ optimism score is higher than it’s been in the past two years. Core Logic’s chief economist says housing will turn the corner in 2012, citing “a quarterly survey by the New York Federal Reserve Bank, [...]
Top Luxury Home Sales in the Triangle: Part II
Catch up on yesterday’s post here. The second in our series of luxury homes that sold in the Triangle last year highlights a fabulous estate in Rougemont. Rougemont is a beautiful rural community (unincorporated) just north of Durham and east of Hillsborough and is the home to quite a few equestrian estates. This gorgeous home, [...]
Top Luxury Home Sales in the Triangle in 2011: Part I
The Triangle Business Journal recently published their list of the Top Residential Sales in 2011, but they missed two fabulous homes that sold for over $2 million: one in Chapel Hill and one in Rougemont, just north of Durham. I’m going to profile these homes today and tomorrow, beginning with this beautiful home in Conservation [...]
Market analysis challenges in 2012
Before 2008, I was proud of my ability to nail the selling price of a home, often within a few thousand dollars. I would go into a listing appointment with my market analysis prepared and printed, and confidently tell the sellers the exact price range within which their home would sell. Those days are long [...]
Why do some Realtors want to stop syndicating their listings?
The ownership of real estate data is a thorny subject in the real estate world. Ever since the Multiple Listing System was first conceived, real estate agents have owned the data of the homes that were listed there. As the Internet grew in importance as a place for prospective buyers to search for listings, a [...]
Happy new year!
This has already been a busy week for us which we are hoping bodes well for the real estate season. We’ve been writing contracts and showing properties as though it were May, which is a great sign for the rest of the year. The only downside to being this busy is that I haven’t had [...]
