Foundation problems in the Triangle: a true story
It starts with the clay The Chapel Hill/Durham area is famous for its shrink/swell clay soils, and it’s not uncommon to have settlement cracks around sheetrock corners and windows. Sometimes we see cracks in foundations, and if a house is brick the cracking becomes even more obvious. This is especially true in an area called [...]
Halloween in Chapel Hill
The celebration of Halloween in Chapel Hill is such an institution that it has its own Wikipedia page. I confess that sharing Franklin Street with 50,000 other people on the craziest night of the year is not my particular cup of tea (I have been to this event exactly once in my life). But this [...]
No matter what the market, List to Sell ratio is consistent
Here’s an interesting statistic for anyone interested in the Triangle real estate market: Even in this worst-ever housing market, the ratio of list price to sold price remains at 96%. In the 30 years that I’ve been in the real estate business in the Triangle, this ratio of selling price to listing price has remained [...]
A sweet story
It’s this kind of story that makes life in real estate really wonderful. I have some clients that I’ve worked with for about fifteen years now. It seems every five years they make a move. I first met them when they were looking for a home in Chapel Hill and sold their old home in [...]
Zillow is not very accurate
“What about these?” One of my clients sent me a list of homes he had found on Zillow for which he wanted more information. I dutifully set about to research these properties which were not listed in the MLS. Two of the properties were listed as “preforeclosures,” meaning that the sellers were late on their [...]
Greenbridge may stave off foreclosure
Greenbridge, the state-of-the-art green building in Chapel Hill’s West End, is slated for foreclosure auction on June 27th. Those in the know tell me that before the foreclosure documents were filed, developer Tim Toben and his representatives submitted several offers on the condos to Bank of America, but B of A rejected these offers which [...]
