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real estate: Wishful thinking - 10/16/07 01:14 PM
Things are not always what they look like.  If you look at these shrimp boats in port during the height of the shrimp season, you might think something is wrong.
If you are close enough to the shrimping community, you might known that you can't shrimp on Saturday in North Carolina.  "It is unlawful to take shrimp by any method from 9:00 P.M. on Friday through 5:00 P.M. on Sunday."
The commercial shrimp fishermen do not complain because the law was designed to help those who depend on shrimp for their income from weekend shrimp fishermen.  I don't know if it achieved any … (2 comments)

real estate: That real estate buzz - 10/10/07 10:46 PM
Today was a neat day.  I have some clients who read about our area on my websites.  They listed their home, got a full price offer on it and closed at the end of September.
They rented a place on the water for a month while they looked of a home.  Last week we found them one.  They made an offer, and it was accepted. 
What was even more amazing is that they had never visited the area before this trip.  They were looking for a quick and dramatic change.
They are getting very excited because things are moving very well so … (1 comments)

real estate: Twenty years of clutter to clear - 10/06/07 11:22 PM
We are working to get our home ready for sale.
As a Realtor®, I know what needs to be done.
The challenge is that doing that requires a lot of hard decisions on items that have been part of our lives for many years.
Today I went through dozens of tee-shirts which I had collected over the years.   Being in the world of technology, almost every trip resulted in a new tee-shirt.
I did find an original iMac tee-shirt still in the plastic wrap.  Maybe I will put it on eBay.
We have some interesting things like an electric butter churn and a stainless steel milk … (3 comments)

real estate: Some market changes noted - 08/01/07 11:36 AM
While our market on NC's Crystal Coast is probably different from many markets, we certainly have faced many of the same challenges as other markets this year.
Still I think we are showing some signs of life which we need to aggressively protect and nurture. 
We have also seen some special issues such as being named the county that is the number one hurricane target in the US. Numbers are sometimes funny.  I looked at the same statistics and drew a totally different conclusion.
My thought was not that Carteret County was due to be hit since it had been a long time since … (0 comments)

real estate: Time for a swim - 07/06/07 10:10 AM
Both of our local papers, the Jacksonville Daily News, and the Carteret Times, had articles today about the holiday throngs being the best crowds in years.
Yet when I worked the duty desk at the real estate office on July 3rd, there were no calls.
New home starts continue to be weak.
My guess is that this great holiday weekend is a beginning of a recovery for our area of Coastal North Carolina. Tourism is our lead generator.  I would guess that even in the days of the real estate bubble, there were few people who bought in the Southern Outer Banks without visiting … (1 comments)

real estate: Search Engines, Cattle Genetics, and Real Estate Clients - 05/27/07 01:27 PM
Where we live has always been important to me.  We have always made that decision carefully whether it was our first farm on the shores of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Columbia, MD, Roanoke, VA or Cape Carteret, NC where we have our home now.
When we end up in a place, I inevitably end up as an evangelist for the area.  I was doing that long before I became a Realtor®.
In my mind, I often find personal endorsements of areas to be of great value.  The idea that someone would take a considerable amount of their personal … (0 comments)