We're looking for Investor Properties

Jonathan Swanson (Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:48:12 -0500

I know everyone is looking for a deal, but we're looking for people who need to sell their houses and don't have any equity and the houses need repairs and improvements. I've been working with a team of investors for several years. We've been buying fixer uppers and improving them to retail condition and selling them to owner occupants.

Since the Wilmington NC real estate market has cooled off in the past few months we're changing our strategy a little. We're looking for sellers who are in need of selling their homes. We want to meet homeowners who need to negotiate with their lender and sell their house for less than the payoff because they have overleveraged their equity. We've seen many situations where people took out the equity in their home and suddenly the value dropped. This is not the fault of the homeowner, lender, appraisers, or anyone specificjus. This is simply the market no longer supporting the past values people based their financing on.

The investors I work with can negotiate with the bank to help the homeowner with a loan modification, forbearance, or a short sale. In a loan mod and a forebearance the homeowner makes arrangements with the lender to keep their home. In a short sale the homeowner sells their home to an investor or other buyer for less than the payoff on the loan(s). This is inconvenient for the homeowner but often helps the homeowner avoid foreclosure.

If you or someone you know are in this situation in or around Wilmington, NC please let me know. I can help.

If you'd like to see some of the homes we've fixed up, visit http://www.flip4wilmington.com

Wilmington NC Real Estate is still "MOVING"

Jonathan Swanson (Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Realty) — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 17:57:30 -0500

CNN ranked Wilmington, NC one of the best places to live. Wilmington continues to be a popular destination for tourist, college students and businesses. It continues to be an affordable place to live and work. Despite the negative publicity circulated across the country by the media, Wilmington Real Estate activity continues steady. Although it takes longer to sell houses now than in 2005, we consider that to have been an exceptional time in our real estate history. We still have affordable housing, several beaches, UNCW, a strong local economy and many other features, advantages and benefits.

To search for Wilmington, NC real estate visit http://www.flip4wilmington.com

No registration, no catches, just search.

2007 2006 2005

<!--<a href="/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2007/top100/index.html"><img src="http://i.a.cnn.net/money/.element/img/1.0/buttons/button_full_list.gif" width="81" height="24" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" alt="FULL LIST"></a>-->CITY STATS Wilmington, NC Top 100 rank: N/A^C Population: 82,400 Compare Wilmington to Top 10 Best Places
Financial
	City stats	Best places avg.
Median family income (per year)	$48,661	$90,316
Family purchasing power (annual, cost-of-living adjusted)	$48,906	$82,867
Sales tax	7.00%	6.74%
State income tax rate (highest bracket)	8.00%^I	6.38%
State income tax rate (lowest bracket)	6.00%^I	2.74%
Auto insurance premiums (Average for the state)	$2,199	$2,121
Job growth % (2000-2006)	10.42%	13.41%
Housing
	City stats	Best places average
Median home price	$261,953	$359,352
Average property taxes (2005)	$1,367	$3,585
See homes for sale
See million-dollar homes
Education
	City stats	Best places average
Colleges, universities and professional schools (within 30 miles)	1	29
Junior colleges and technical institutes (within 30 miles)	2	18
Test scores reading (% above/below state average)	-3.9%	20.1%
Test scores math (% above/below average)	8.0%	24.8%
% students attending public/private schools (located within town limits)	93.3/6.7	91.1/8.9
Quality of life
	City stats	Best places average
Air quality index* (% of days AQI ranked as good)	92.0%	77.3%
Personal crime incidents (per 1,000)	10	13
Property crime incidents (per 1,000)	79	206
Median commute time (in minutes)	15.0	23.1
% population with commute 45 mins. or longer	6.1%	15.6%
% population walk or bike to work	4.5%	2.7%
Leisure and culture
	City stats	Best places average
Movie theaters (within 15 miles)	10	30
Restaurants (within 15 miles)	566	2,899
Bars (within 15 miles)	79	287
Public golf courses (within 30 miles)	40	125
Libraries (within 15 miles)	13	71
Museums (accredited by AAM; within 30 miles)	2	11
Ski resorts (within 100 miles)	n/a	17
Arts funding (Dollars per person of state funds spent on arts)	1	1
Weather
	City stats	Best places average
Annual rainfall (inches)	57.07	40.18
% clear days in the area	30	28
High temp in July ° F	89.9°	86.1°
Low temp in Jan ° F	35.8°	24.0°
Health*
	City stats	Best places average
Has health plan (% of residents)	89.9%	90.5%
Body mass index (avg. for residents)	27	27
Diabetes rates (% of residents diagnosed)	10.6%	9.3%
Hypertension rates (% of residents diagnosed)	38.1%	30.6%
Elder-care facilities^**	18	107
Meet the neighbors
	City stats	Best places average
Median age	34.2	36.8
Completed at least some college (% of residents)	61.9%	72.4%
Married	37.9%	60.8%
Divorced	10.6%	8.0%
Racial diversity index (100 is national average; higher numbers indicate greater diversity)	126.8	59.2
Amount spent on vacations (domestic and foreign, household avg. per year)	$6,442	$8,250

More recently, CNN ranked Wilmington, NC one of the top places to buy NOW. In my experience, I've met a lot of people who are and have moved to this area from the Northeast US. Some advantages I hear over and over are the weather, the people and the lack of huge property tax bills. They still can't believe the property tax rates here compared to there, even after they've been here for a few years.

Top 10 cities: Where to buy now
The real estate slump could get worse before it gets better. Business 2.0 Magazine, in its November 2006 issue, identifies 10 markets that offer great opportunities for those who have the patience to buy and hold.

Back to feature

7 of 10

7. Wilmington, NC

37%	Projected gain in home prices (5-year)*
	Median home price 2006: $217,000 2011: $297,000
	Population 2006: 325,000 2011: 361,000
	Per capita income 2006: $30,500 2011: $38,300
*Metro region statistics

Nestled between the Cape Fear River and North Carolina's Inner Bank beaches, Wilmington has great golf, mild weather, natural beauty, and a relatively cheap cost of living, all of which make it popular with both permanent residents and second-home vacationers.

But it hasn't always been this way. It was an isolated backwater until 1990, when the final 120-mile stretch of I-40 opened. Now the Research Triangle's well-heeled tech workers can be at the beach in three hours.

As the only city of any significant size on the North Carolina coast, Wilmington may be just at the beginning of its boom. It has a seaport, an international airport, and a UNC campus. But it has also maintained its "historic" ambience, bringing it another revenue stream: Hollywood has filmed 180 features here during the past two decades.

CAUTION: Wilmington has seen a high proportion of speculators invade the region in recent years. Barron's estimated last year that 38 percent of its homeowners are nonresident investors who use their properties only occasionally, if at all. One other word of warning: hurricanes.

Forbes ranks Wilmington #19 Best Places

#19 Wilmington NC
Population: 253,000

RANK

	Engineers¹	33

	Cost of Doing Business²	38

	Cost Of Living³	142

	Crime Rate⁴	145

	Culture & Leisure⁵	43

	Educational Attainment⁶	40

	Income Growth*	101

	Job Growth*	69

	Net Migration*	8

Overall		19

See Also:

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1 Engineers as a percent of total employment.
2 Index based on cost of labor, energy, taxes and office space.
3 Index based on cost of housing, utilities, transportation and other expenditures.
4 Crimes per 100,000 residents.
5 Index based on museums, theaters, golf course, sports teams and other activities.
6 Share of Population over age 25 with a bachelor's degree or higher.
* 5-year annualized figures.
NA: Not available, not applicable.
Sources: Economy.com; Sperling's BestPlaces; FBI Index of Crime.

Being in Wilmington is fun. If you want to stay busy, there's never a shortage of things to do and see. There's plenty of free and cheap activities. There's also plenty of activities you could spend money on. Getting to Wilmington is easy via I-40 and the ILM airport. Other options include Hwy 17 from the north and south and Hwy 74/76 from the west.

Jonathan Swanson's Wilmington NC Real Estate Blog

We're looking for Investor Properties

Wilmington NC Real Estate is still "MOVING"