Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for January, 2011

Mecklenburg Property Revaluation Presentation

Posted in Mecklenburg County, tagged , , on January 29, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Below you’ll find a video of a recent presentation made by the Mecklenburg Count (NC) property tax folks about the current process of revaluation and equalization of real estate.  The bulk of information applies to all counties in NC since most of the activities of the tax folks are defined by state statute. The presentation was made to a gathering of Mecklenburg Realtors.  We may be able to set up the same type of presentation for Iredell Realtors with Iredell tax folks, but in the meantime, the information presented here is good for those who want to know more about the process and what it means (and doesn’t mean) regarding market values of properties.

Read Full Post »

Ever Heard of a Parliamentarian?

Posted in Real Estate, tagged , , on January 26, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Parliamentarian-   One who is expert in parliamentary procedures, rules, or debate.

Have you ever seen those videos of legislators in other countries getting into fist fights during their meeting sessions.  Ever nearly (or truly) get into a fist fight in your own community and club meetings?  Sounds like they all need to agree to a few rules on how to get things done.

Yesterday I went to an annual session put on by the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association for old and new board members beginning their annual terms.  These sessions remind everyone about their responsibilities to the association and how meetings are run to be most effective and efficient- that is by operating according to the rules of Robert’s Rules of Order.Gavel To help us understand those rules, we always have an attorney and Certified, Registered Professional Parliamentarian, Jim Slaughter, give us a class on parliamentary rules.  He must be pretty good at it because he also oversees the meetings of the NC Association of Realtors Board that I met with just last week. Jim spent around 2 1/2 hours talking about parliamentary procedures, doing his best to make it interesting and even a bit entertaining.  Given that the book he primarily references has over 700 pages in it, that’s a pretty good trick.  It helps that he provides lots of lists and charts that simplify the process.

The good news is that if you find yourself in need of understanding such things for your own meetings, Jim has a nice website that offers lots of free information and many of the same handouts he gave to us.  He even has links to news articles about various groups which got into various scuffles that were resolved by using proper parliamentary procedure. You can visit the site at www.jimslaughter.com and be amazed at all the info he has there.

Who knows, you may suggest to your kids that when they grow up, they may want to be come a Professional Parliamentarian!

Update:

Janet McConnell, Registered Parliamentarian, saw the above post and suggested those interested in learning more about parliamentary procedure can find additional instructional information at www.parli.com and www.robertsrulessimplified.com.

Read Full Post »

Big Changes in Real Estate Offers to Purchase

Posted in General Real Estate Market, Real Estate, tagged , , , , on January 19, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Change is good.  Right?  Well then the NC real estate community is having some good times learning the ins and outs of a substantially revised Offer to Purchase and Contract form that was officially put into play on January 1, 2011. Contract The most significant change from the previous way of doing things is that now we are using an approach that has been standard procedure for the commercial real estate market.  It is that when you make an offer on a property, you will be expected to pay the seller directly a “Due Diligence Fee” that in effect buys the buyer time to do all of the things he needs to do to be sure he’s happy with not only the terms but also all aspects of the property and financing details.  During that time, the buyer will apply for financing (in most cases), get inspections done and repairs negotiated, check on insurance costs, get a survey, review deed restrictions and HOA rules, and do anything else that he chooses to decide if he wants to follow through on the purchase.  If somewhere during that due diligence period, the prospective buyer decides against the purchase, he can formally advise the seller that he won’t close, and any earnest money that the buyer put up initially will go back to the buyer.  However, the seller gets to keep whatever amount he was given initially as the Due Diligence Fee.  How much is the Due Diligence Fee?  There’s no standard rule, and other states that have used this system have evolved a number of approaches.  Certainly, the buyer/seller environment will have lots to do with this.  In a buyer’s market, the sellers are going to be really happy to receive an offer, so they probably won’t press for a very high fee.  However, to some extent, being under contract does reduce the likelihood of the seller receiving another (backup) offer during that time, and there’s still the chance that the buyer under contract will back out before the end of the due diligence period, so the seller rightfully should receive something for the potential lost market time, particularly if it’s in a time of the year when the sales rate is highest.

There are some other details about changes in the offer process that I won’t bore you with here, but if you’re interested, give me a call or email.

It will be interesting to see how these negotiations turn out as people make offers this year.  As time goes on, we’ll establish a feeling for what’s “normal”, but right now that’s a work in progress.  We may even see differences between what’s done in the Charlotte / Mecklenburg / Iredell market versus what’s done elsewhere, but you know what they say, “real estate is local” so the norms we develop here will be most important to those who live  here or want to live here.

Read Full Post »

Mooresville’s Li-ion Motors to Deliver All-electric Cars This Year

Posted in Economic Development, Iredell County, Mooresville, Real Estate, tagged , , , on January 14, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Could Mooresville change from Race City to Motor City?  Mooresville’s very own car manufacturer, Li-ion Motors says that they are taking deposits on two models of all-electric cars that they will produce here.  Li-ion recently won a large piece of the $10 million Automotive X Prize for meeting all of the requirements put before them by the competition organizers, beating many other entries from around the world.  Check out previous posts on these cars by using the search term “x prize” in the search field to the right. Li-ion Motors Wave II

They’ll be selling two models, a high-end sports car and a more modestly priced two-seater.  Lets hope this is just the beginning of a growing manufacturing and sales business here in Mooresville and Iredell County.

HERE is their full press release.  HERE is a Forbes article on Li-ion’s showing at the Detroit Auto Show.

Read Full Post »

Another Year of Realtor Board Work

Posted in Charlotte, General Real Estate Market, Iredell County, tagged , on January 13, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

The snows melted enough for the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association to hold its annual inauguration of the CRRA and Carolina Multiple Listing Service Boards of Directors last night at the downtown Mint Museum.  I was there as a CRRA board member heading into my third year of service on the CRRA and before that also on the CMLS board.  I’m going next week to the winter meeting of the North Carolina Association of Realtors to re-up as a board member on that statewide group.  Why do I do these things?  Well, for one thing, I was asked by my associates to run for these offices.  The other reason is that whenever I’m a member of any group, I enjoy helping that group be as effective as possible for those the group represents.  Having done this type of thing over the years for quite a variety of groups, I have pretty good confidence that what I’ve learned in the past often can be put to use again in a new setting.  That includes adapting to changing circumstances- something that Realtors are being asked to do big-time now.

I appreciate the confidence that my peers have put in me to work on their behalf and also on behalf of property owners throughout the state.  Property rights are one of the focal points of these organizations, and we work constantly with legislative groups to ensure that property owners’ rights are not unfairly affected by new laws and interpretations of current laws.

Hopefully we’ll spend the year figuring out how to adapt to an improved real estate market!

Read Full Post »

Coldwell Banker Proposes a Solution

Posted in Finance, General Real Estate Market, Real Estate, tagged , , , on January 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Sometimes when we’re stewing in the big pot o’ problems, there just doesn’t seem to be a good solution.  That’s about the time that someone steps with an idea that makes you want to say,”why didn’t I think of that?”  Below you’ll see that Coldwell Banker Real Estate folks are trying to come up with some solutions that actually would work.

OP-ED PAGE – NEW YORK TIMES
“Home Team”
By ALEX PERRIELLO
Published: January 5, 2011
Three years after the mortgage crisis began, there are still 11 million to 15 million homeowners who owe more than their home is worth, meaning that about 25 percent of all mortgage holders are underwater. As a result, foreclosures continue to mount; many homeowners can’t make their payments and are tempted to simply walk away from their debt. Meanwhile, the lenders and investors who own the loans are unwilling to work out a deal if, as is usually the case, it means losing money.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Rather than be at odds, homeowners and investors should partner in long-term equity-sharing arrangements.

Here’s how it would work. Let’s say a homeowner purchased a house in 2004 for $300,000 with no money down, and the property is now worth $150,000 — a 50 percent drop in value.
In an equity-sharing arrangement, the lender would write a new loan for $150,000, retire the original $300,000 loan and, to make up for that loss, take a 50 percent deeded ownership interest in the property. The homeowner would also agree to split 50 percent of the net proceeds of any future sale of the property with the lender. The new arrangement would also include a buyout provision, so that if the homeowner ever wanted to take over the lender’s share, he would simply pay the lender a predetermined amount of cash.
Such a plan would be relatively easy to put in place, assuming the lender held the loan in its own portfolio. In most cases, however, lenders immediately sold their loans to investors and merely performed loan-servicing duties like collecting monthly payments and sending statements.

In those instances, the lender would have already made its money when the loan was originated, the proceeds from the new loan and the 50 percent deeded interest in the property would go to the investor, not the lender. The investor would also benefit from any future sale or when the homeowner exercised the buyout provision.

Equity-sharing would be a boon for everyone involved. Homeowners could stay in their houses and preserve their credit (assuming they stay current on the new loan). The neighborhood would avoid a foreclosure, which can depress property values. And the lender or investor could participate in the upside potential when the house eventually sells. Best of all, it wouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime.
A major reason the mortgage mess has gone on so long is that homeowners, lenders and investors assume their interests are at odds. An equity-sharing arrangement would bring all three onto the same side — and help solve America’s foreclosure crisis.
Alex Perriello is the president and chief executive of a real estate franchise organization.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on January 6, 2011, on page A27 of the New York edition.

Read Full Post »

New Year’s Day and Dad- 1/1/11

Posted in Quality of Life, Real Estate, tagged , , on January 4, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Last Saturday was new year’s day, but not just any new year’s day.  It was one of those that come along every hundred years where you can write the date in normal shorthand as 1/1/11.  That date has always been special to me because the last time that happened, it was the date of my father’s birth in 1911.  Yes, he would’ve been 100 years old had he still been around.  As it was, he managed to live 90 mostly healthy years, passing away in June of 2001. Given the many times one has to state their birth date over their lifetime on forms and in person, and knowing his approach to life, I think he probably got a kick every time he was able to state that remarkable set of numbers.  The older he got, the more he enjoyed it, surprising people when they found out how old he was.  In his later years, I had a number of occasions to take him to various doctors, and they always made a big deal out of how young he looked for his age.  I don’t know if they did that for everyone, but he got the full value from it.

I thought about him again last night.  A television show had a storyline about a young married guy always calling his dad when he had good news.  That was his thing- calling with good news.  Although the series is a comedy, the young man is shocked when, getting some great news about he and his wife’s plans to have a baby, his finds out his father has just passed away, and he won’t be able to tell his dad the news.  It made me think back to countless calls of good news from me to my dad, enjoying the moment together.  Even now, when one of our favorite ball teams has a win, especially if it’s unexpected, I wish I still had my dad around to help me enjoy the moment. 

Somehow, even though I can’t make that phone call, I’m still enjoying the moment with him.  Happy birthday, Dad!

Read Full Post »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 421 other followers