Author: Dianne Goode
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Personal News
Last Tuesday I officially became a Competent Communicator! This designation means that I’ve completed the basic 10 speeches in the Toastmasters Competent Communicator manual. If you’re interested in becoming a better public speaker, Toastmasters offers a great program. There are lots of clubs in the area; you can choose one that meets at a time…
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Market News
“A rising tide lifts all boats.” Is that how the proverb goes? By the same token, speaking of the current housing market, a falling tide lowers all boats. In practice, what’s happening is that sellers who also buy don’t fare so badly. Let’s say they’re selling their starter home for $175,000 and they end up…
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Personal News
My GPS has made me stupider. Admittedly, I’ve always been directionally challenged, which made my early years as a Realtor very stressful. In the course of showing property, I am always going places I’ve never gone before. I used to plan showings using an atlas dotted with sticky note shreds. A tedious way to plot…
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Area News
I recently had the good fortune to attend my first performance at the Durham Performing Arts Center — DPAC for short. The play was great and the facility wonderful, but I was even more impressed by the entertainment complex that Durham has created out of the old American Tobacco factory. Besides DPAC, the pedestrian-friendly mall…
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Area News
The Triangle often ranks high on those lists of Best/Most something places to live; we’ve gotten blase` about being told we’re wonderful. This latest one, though, is pretty cool — The Daily Beast says that we’re the smartest! We beat out Boston (#3) and New York City (#13) and our arch-rival Charlotte could do no…
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Market News
FHA stands for Federal Housing Authority, and it’s been a very successful government program for decades. It has lower down-payment requirements than conventional loans, as well as more generous debt-ratios, more tolerant credit score cutoffs, and allows seller help and/or gift money to be contributed on the buyers’ behalf. Since the financial meltdown, FHA has…
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Garden News
Quite a few people entered the Valentine Drawing for the $100 mall gift card. The actual drawing was done by Jon Nickel, over wine and appetizers at Winston’s. He joked, “What if I draw my own name?” but he didn’t. He drew Wayne and Leslie McPeters, long-time clients who live in Wake Forest.…
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Area News
I showed a foreclosure home this morning. You never know what you’re going to get, with a foreclosure. Some of them are fine, just like any other resale home. However, some of them are disasters. This one isn’t in terrible condition and the price is certainly good, but I couldn’t recommend that my clients consider…
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Area News
A seller called me today. I showed his house maybe five or six months ago. “It’s getting down to crunch time,” he said. “I just want to tell you that we will consider any offer.” As I recall, his home was priced around $400,000. My clients would have bought it, if they had been in…