Author: Dianne Goode
-
The Charming Onsite Agent
Many buyers, especially first-time buyers, will wander into new subdivisions and end up buying from the on-site agent who helps them. Why not, when they are so warm and friendly and charming? The job description requires charming. Usually also attractive, but inevitably charming. The problem is that buyers don’t realize that the onsite agents, charming…
-
Lake Lynn in fall
Fall is a beautiful time of year in North Carolina! Lake Lynn is one of the parks maintained by the City of Raleigh. The asphalt trail goes 2 1/4 miles around the lake. Ducks and geese wait eagerly to be fed.
-
Lipstick, pigs, and foreclosures
Not every foreclosures is a bargain, and not all bargains are foreclosures!
-
Downunder Prices are Up
A trip to Australia and New Zealand has left me convinced that our housing market is a bargain. Even before the recent Troubles and resulting price drops, a bargain. The home pictured here belongs to friends who live in Strathfield, a Sydney suburb. They’ve been offered $900,000 for this home — for 1500 sq. ft.,…
-
Market News
I was quoted in the News and Observer this week, saying that this market is “brutal for sellers,” which it is. In the same article, Loan Officer Todd Barbour said that buyers won’t buy just because of low housing prices and mortgage interest rates — it takes jobs. I said it takes confidence in the…
-
Area News
At this month’s Women’s Council of Realtors meeting the guest speaker was Stacey Anfindsen. Stacey is a local appraiser who has found a niche crunching MLS and CSS numbers, publishing his summaries as an online newsletter calledThe T.A.R.R. (Triangle Area Residential Real Estate) Report. At the WCR meeting, he told the roomful of Realtors that…
-
Area News
I know the economy is better than it was a year ago, because everywhere I go there’s construction. Road work, utility work, bulldozers pushing red clay around. Definitely encouraging!
-
Market News
A recent headline in the News and Observer reads “Picky buyers, touchy sellers slow home sales.” The article describes buyers as “on a quest for perfection at the perfect price,” while “sellers feel humiliated and even angry.” Not all buyers are picky and not all sellers are touchy, but it’s true that many of them…
-
Area News
I have clients relocating from Texas, so I left some maps and relocation magazines at their hotel for them to have when they checked in. As a container for the pile of literature, I put everything into a Trader Joe’s paper grocery bag. (They don’t do plastic.) When I picked my clients up the next…
-
Market News
A recent post in NPR’s Planet Money blog talked about how construction is up this year compared to last year — but that’s misleading because last year was so incredibly low. I made a similar point myself in a blog earlier this year, talking about housing sales in the Triangle. This year can’t help…
ADVENTURES IN REAL ESTATE 