Saturday, June 14, 2008

Charlotte Oktoberfest 2008

I wanted to offer an update on this event. We have chosen 2 charities for this year's event:
1. National Multiple Schlorosis Society www.nmss.org
2. A Child's Place www.achildsplace.com

We will be donating to the local chapter of N.M.S.S. and dedicating the money go to assist local families in whatever needs they may have.

A Child's Place serves children of homeless families in the CMS school system.

Please visit these folks and donate if you are able.

Our website has been updated, but not fully operational. We expect to have it 100% by mid-July and you will be able to purchase tickets at that time www.charlotteoktoberfest.com

Also, if you are looking for a homebrew supply store, please visit www.ebrew.com.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Catching up is hard to do

Wow, what a past couple of weeks it has been. A busy real estate market has kept me hopping!

Over Memorial Day weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting a family relocating from Denver, CO. We spent 2 days looking at available homes in Charlotte. What a great time we had! It's always nice in this business to have clients who keep me as entertained as I try to keep them. They returned to Denver with a better understanding of Charlotte and they hope to be here within the next 12 months.

I also helped a young man who is currently enrolled in seminary here, find the home he has been looking for!!! We have been looking on and off for about a year. Sometimes it just takes awhile. However, this wasn't an easy one. We submitted our offer and were negotiating price when another offer came in. Uuuugh! We went through the same exact thing a year ago(almost to the week) on another property that we ended up losing out on. While it's great to see the Charlotte market still strong to support multiple offers on properties, it's just a very emotional time. Luckily, we hung in there, beat out the other buyers and got this one under contract!

During this same time, I am also assisting a young lady(who I've mentioned in an earlier blog) look for a home. Poor thing, she had to put up with listening to me negotiate on behalf of my clients. As much as I apologized for putting her through this while we were out house hunting, she was very understanding. I told her she not only got a crash course in Real Estate 101, but she was witness to how I fight for my buyers!!!

On another note, the Roggenbeir that I brewed several weeks ago(mentioned in a previous post), did not ferment out all the way, which left me very dissapointed. I transferred the beer into a secondary fermenter along with all the yeast, in hopes it may ferment out a little more. If not, it will still be a good beer to drink, it just won't be competition worthy.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Charlotte home prices gaining

Posted on Wed, May. 28, 2008

Home prices here still gaining
The Charlotte region again ranks among the nation's urban markets with appreciating real estate.
STELLA M. HOPKINS
shopkins@charlotteobserver.com
The Charlotte region notched its third month Tuesday as the only one of 20 urban markets nationwide still showing rising home prices.
Area prices rose a little less than 1 percent for the 12 months through March, according to the widely followed S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. That's less of an increase than in previous months but compares favorably with a 14 percent national decline on what is often a person's largest investment.
In addition to the annual gain, Charlotte also was the only one of two markets in which March prices rose slightly compared with the previous month. The monthly upticks in Charlotte and Dallas are the first for any of the 20 markets since September, according to the reports.
The two hardest hit areas – Las Vegas and Miami – have seen annual declines of about 25 percent. Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco also posted drops of more than 20 percent.
By another broad measure, Charlotte area home prices gained 6 percent during the same time frame. That put the Charlotte region at No. 14 out of 292 markets ranked by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which evaluates a somewhat different pool of sales. Both indexes evaluate repeat sales of single-family homes, an important gauge of changes in value.
The OFHEO quarterly index released last week shows Charlotte with a five-year return of 29 percent. The index also shows that markets with recent declines still have much higher long-term gains than Charlotte. Miami, for example, has a five-year return of 92 percent while Las Vegas is up 65 percent.
Charlotte has so far been spared steep declines because the area didn't experience the sharp gains during the nation's real estate bubble.