February 8, 2010 by Stan Suther
Statesville has taken some hits lately from companies closing shop and laying off employees. I guess that’s to be expected in our wounded economy. Still, every once in a while, we get a shot of good news to keep us hopeful. That came for Statesville last week with the announcement that Kewaunee Scientific Corp. is expanding their furniture production plant over the next 5 years, and will add 100 more employees. That’s not many employees per year, but I’ll take positive growth over negative growth any day. Just holding your own nowadays is quite an accomplishment. Although many economic observers are starting to see some glimmers of hope for coming out of our recession, it’s likely to be a ”two steps forward, one step back” type of recovery. Here’s a Statesville Record & Landmark article on this news item.
Any time I hear or read something about Kewaunee, I perk up and pay a bit more attention than usual. There are a couple of reasons. One is that one of my neighbors is a part of the management team up there, and of course I’m always happy to see good things happen for a neighbor. The other reason is that back when I was in college, I worked there when it was referred to as “Technical Furniture” during one summer. That job along with a similar one at Blanton and Moore in Barium Springs may be why I like woodworking so much now. You might say I have sawdust in my veins. As I recall, it was more about having sawdust in my lungs back then. They did a fair job of removing sawdust as the machines cut the wood. Trouble is, the big bins that collected the sawdust would get clogged from time to time. That’s when they’d send in the kids working summer jobs to poke around the big pipe that discharged all that sawdust into the bin. After a proper amount of poking, the clog would let go and cover you from head to toe with sawdust. We didn’t know about dust masks back then. I don’t blame the older guys making us kids do that then. When we went back to school in the fall, I’m sure the bin would clog up eventually and someone else would have to do the dusty job.
Hey, that’s all part of the growing-up process- if you survive.
Posted in Iredell County, Statesville, Woodworking | Tagged economy, economic development, iredell real estate, Statesville Real Estate, Kewaunee | 1 Comment »
February 7, 2010 by Stan Suther
This weekend provided Washington, DC, among other northeast cities, what’s been described by some weather watchers as a “blizzard of historic proportions.” Susan and I have been able to get some in-depth reporting on this because one of our daughters, Kathryn, lives in DC with husband Ron and granddog Max. They had already had a rather big snow before Christmas and sent photos then of their neighborhood and Max trying to maneuver in the deep snow. This recent snow tops that by a large margin. Last night they sent a link to some photos they took yesterday, and all I can say is that I’m sure glad we here in the Lake Norman area are not having to deal with a snow like that. I know I’d not make a happy northerner because when I see photos like that, I think of all the work it takes just to do simple things like maybe just open the front door when there’s a snow drift up against it. I thought about their having to deal with Max. Like, how does your dog go out to do his business when the snow is over his head? Ron is 6′4″, and the snow was above his knees!
Ah, at least Kathryn and Ron (and Max) are young and can treat this as an adventure that will make good stories for years to come.
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A Cool Trumpet Player
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Off Rockcreek Parkway
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Ron & Kathryn’s Neighborhood in DC
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Kathryn
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Ron
Posted in Quality of Life | Tagged blizzard of 2010 | Leave a Comment »
February 5, 2010 by Stan Suther
Charlotte television station WCNC recently did an investigation of a strange phenomenon of melting vinyl siding. The only time I’ve seen this is when a homeowner fired up the grill a bit too close to the house (yes, I’ve seen it more than once). In this case, they interview multiple homeowners who’ve found melted vinyl on the sides of their homes. You’ll never guess what’s the cause. I asked the reporter, Stuart Watson, if he would allow me to post their video. He was happy to say yes, and asked me to pass along their email address, iteam@wcnc.com, so that if anyone else sees this, the homeowner can contact WCNC for additional information about getting it resolved.
HERE is a link to their article and video of the news report. There are other useful links there on this subject.
Posted in Home Maintenance, Real Estate | Tagged homeowners, vinyl siding | Leave a Comment »
February 4, 2010 by Stan Suther
With the relative difficulty of getting some houses sold these days, there are quite a few sellers and buyers who think that a lease/purchase or lease with option to purchase might just be the ticket to at least getting a little money for the seller right now and help the buyer who can’t currently get a loan still move into a home. For some, that may be true. However, this is not something to be viewed as a simple solution. In fact, there are so many variables in such an agreement, that the North Carolina Association of Realtors does not have a form that covers that, and you can’t just use a purchase offer and a lease agreement and staple them together. In fact, you need to use a real estate attorney to create the agreement. It would be best to consult the attorney first before you’ve agreed to anything so that you fully understand the variable details and pitfalls. That way you can negotiate knowledgeably and in a way that allows you to direct your attorney in the agreed details as they write the lease/purchase agreement. Yes, it will cost you a few dollars, but it’s better than going to court if things go bad down the road.
By the way, nationally 92% of these agreements never result in a sale of the property, so go into it with reasonable expectations.
Posted in Finance, General Real Estate Market | Tagged lease option, lease purchase | Leave a Comment »
February 2, 2010 by Stan Suther
There are many good, honorable mortgage lenders out there. I’ve worked with many who I trust to do absolutely the best they can for their clients and never worry about trying to get lending business by being less than honest. However, as we’ve seen in reports over the last few years, there have been plenty of people trying to sell mortgages who did it without regard for the well-being of the borrower, and had no qualms about mis-stating details in their loans that would come back to bite the borrower. The federal government has changed some of the rules that the lenders must follow in order to limit the damage a crooked lender can do. Kenneth Harney, a nationally known housing columnist, recently reported evidence that lenders are possibly skirting a new law that requires lenders to give their quotes via a Good Faith Estimate (GFE) which at closing will be compared to the actual closing numbers. Errors in estimates by the lender on the GFE larger than 10% must be paid by the lender. Some lenders are concerned about their ability to accurately estimate all of the fees since they don’t control some of them. Yet, I’ve found that when I put together estimates of closing costs for my clients, I can be quite accurate if the lender just gives me the numbers they control, and I add estimates based on experience for the others such as surveys and inspections.
Harney goes on to say that some lenders are responding to quote requests with what they call “worksheets” and “loan scenario” forms that are not bound by the federal laws. This is within the bounds of reason if you’re just getting rough estimates without having a specific property in mind. Just be sure you understand that when you are getting mortgage quotes on a specific property you want to buy, then you should ask for a Good Faith Estimate. That’s when the federal laws will kick in and protect you from a lender who tries to low-ball some of the numbers to make their quote look better than others.
The old saying still applies, “If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.”
Posted in Finance, General Real Estate Market | Tagged mortgage lenders, mortgage loans, mortgages | Leave a Comment »
February 1, 2010 by Stan Suther
I just had a conversation with one of my grumpy real estate agent friends who was complaining about our recent snow. What makes that special is that he moved here from another- much more snowy state. He asked what’s going on here since he moved here to avoid this kind of thing. I said that we do have some icy weather most years, but at least you can count the episodes usually with one hand. Compared to northern or upper western states that’s pretty good, and I bet when it does snow in those other places, they don’t have a reasonable expectation of having 40-50 degree weather soon after a snow to help get rid of it quickly. That’s why we don’t usually have to suffer with gray snow!
If you want to get into a spirited conversation with one of the locals about how much it showed back when, HERE’S a pretty neat website from NC State University (my alma mater) that shows weather history by year, county, and type. There are lots of other interesting details on weather in the southeast that might make good reading while you’re waiting for the snow to melt.
Posted in Iredell County, Quality of Life | Tagged piedmont weather, sleet, snow | Leave a Comment »
January 30, 2010 by Stan Suther
Sitting at home in Mooresville, NC looking out the window at our snow-covered landscape, my thoughts go back to last October when we were “checking the signs” for a clue about what kind of winter we had in store. 
At that time, I wrote a post on the Wooly Worm Festival in Banner Elk, NC where they have a contest to select a wooly worm to predict the winter weather. See my post HERE. The winner, named Wilbur, predicted some unusually cold weather for the 13 weeks of winter. Check the post for his specific predictions. He may have been off a little bit on the timing of the precipitation, but overall, I’d say Wilbur got it right. It has certainly been colder than the past several years lately. As I said in the post, the amount of acorns that had fallen also showed the likelihood of cold weather. The squirrels certainly took advantage of that.
Thank goodness that we’ve had a few pleasant breaks in the cold, one of the more attractive characteristics of Piedmont NC weather. We may get plenty cold from time to time, but at least we give you some little streaks of warmth among the cold weeks so you don’t get just totally depressed.
Posted in Iredell County, Lake Norman, Mooresville, Quality of Life | Tagged winter weather, wooly worms | Leave a Comment »
January 29, 2010 by Stan Suther
I had a conversation with an appraiser today about the value of a pricing adjustment I needed to make while helping a client set a listing price. We real estate agents work with real estate appraisers to get general ideas of how they value things like brick versus vinyl siding, additional square feet of space, pools, outbuildings, and various other things that we come across in working with clients. We use this information to make adjustments when recommending listing and offer prices. It’s important for us to be on the same page with appraisers since once we have a contract on a property that requires a mortgage, the lender will hire one of these appraisers to help the lender decide if they agree on the price. It’s only logical since in most cases, the lender will actually own the largest share of the property for quite a while. If the appraiser and lender think the buyer has agreed to pay too much for the property, then the lender will not agree to the loan. That makes everybody sad! So, there’s no point in pricing a property too high in the first place since foolish cash buyers would be the only ones who can buy it at a too-high price.
Unfortunately, we don’t see many foolish cash buyers running around loose these days.
My appraiser friend volunteered a comment about something agents have been seeing. That is that the lenders are telling the appraisers to be very conservative in their valuations. This can have a significant effect on the number of contracts that don’t go to close because the buyer can’t get the loan at the agreed price. So, sellers should keep this in mind when pricing property and negotiating offers. Like I said, a contract that doesn’t go to close because the loan didn’t happen makes everyone sad!
Posted in Finance, General Real Estate Market | Tagged appraisals, Home Buyers, home buying, Home Sellers, home selling, real estate appraisals | Leave a Comment »
January 26, 2010 by Stan Suther
If you find yourself in the situation of wanting to sell your home in the Lake Norman/Iredell County area, but you’ve got the itch to try to do it yourself, I say, “go for it!” You don’t know if you don’t try. You might find it odd for a real estate agent to say that, but really, it’s no big deal. We agents know that lots of people have to scratch that itch, and some are successful. Over the years, anywhere between 12 and 16% of people selling houses did so as a FSBO (For Sale By Owner). Of course, in around half those cases, they already knew the person who bought the house, so that’s not quite like having to advertise the house, attract buyers, and negotiate a good deal. We also don’t know how well they did on getting the most possible net price for the house.
We don’t know how much they spent advertising their homes or taking time to show their homes to complete strangers who may or may not actually be interested in or financially able to buy a home. They may have just been curious or worse yet, interested in finding out what valuables the home seller had around the house. We see lots of FSBO signs go up and stay there for a few weeks, then see that the owner has gotten tired of the process or scratched that itch enough to hire a real estate agent. Fact is, we can usually help the seller negotiate a price that nets higher than he would have gotten him/herself even considering our sales charges.
If you really want to try to sell your house yourself, then let me know. I’ll be glad to give you some advise to help you sell it in exchange for letting me help you find another home locally or by referral to another agent in your destination. I just look at you as being a potential buyer rather than as a seller. I’d also like to get the list of people who looked at your home and didn’t buy it, because I may be able to help them buy one of my listings or find them another home to purchase.
So, you see, I don’t need to push you to list your home with me in order to give me a reason to want to help you, although after you’ve scratched that itch, if you’ve not been successful and want to get on with it, I’ll be happy to help then, too!
Posted in General Real Estate Market, Iredell County, Lake Norman | Tagged for sale by owner, fsbo, Home Sellers, home selling | Leave a Comment »
January 25, 2010 by Stan Suther
I’d like to take the time to write a nice useful, insightful post today, but unfortunately, I’ve got to spend the rest of the day packing my office for a move to our new office on Williamson Road in Mooresville. It’s only been a year since I moved from our Troutman office to the one on River Highway, but somehow, I’ve managed to undo all the thinning out of unnecessary stuff that piles up. It is truly amazing how much paper we receive and generate in the real estate business, especially since we are more “digital” in how we conduct business than ever. Some day we may move to an all-digital office, but right now, the real estate business still operates on paper, with agreements, offers, contracts, disclosures and all manner of other documents that become part of each client’s file. The files have to be retained for a considerable period after the closing for audits and such, so they stack up. Of course, I’m not complaining that I have files to stack up. Each one represents a lot of time and effort to help a client or clients work their plans and fulfill their dreams.
Those are good piles of files. Back to packing!
Posted in General Real Estate Market, Iredell County, Lake Norman | Tagged Home Buyers, home buying, Home Sellers, home selling, housing market, Iredell County, Lake Norman Real Estate, mooresville real estate, Statesville Real Estate, Troutman Real Estate | Leave a Comment »
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