tennessee: Fountain City, Knoxville’s “Norman Rockwell” neighborhood
- 08/08/08 10:09 AM
One of my favorite parts of North Knoxville is the charming little community of Fountain City. From Fountain City Lake (which the locals all call “the Duck Pond”) to Litton’s Restaurant; Fountain City has a style and charm all it’s own. Bordered to the north by Black Oak Ridge and south by Interstate 640, it’s sort of an area where time has definitely slowed down relative to the rest of Knoxville and not in a backwards way. Boasting lots of longtime, multi generational residents, Fountain Citians always seem to have a friendly hello and a smile for both old timers and newcomers … (0 comments)
tennessee: Referral fee update
- 02/08/07 10:10 AM
Apparently our recent blogging about referral fees and relocation companies have sparked some interest in the press; Inman News is doing a 3 part feature titled "Inside look at change in relocation industry", Unfortunately it's tucked away behind the members only screen so I believe you have to be a subscriber to read it. Since I wrote and was interviewed for this part I feel fairly secure in quoting myself from the article. ;-) "After-the-fact fees Rising relocation fees are not the only concern to real estate agents and brokers -- there is also an ongoing problem with so-called "after-the-fact" requests for relocation-related fees. "One … (5 comments)
tennessee: Why Knoxville, Tennessee is a great place to live
- 01/01/07 01:15 AM
The newest 'meme' challenge is to name 5 reasons why your hometown is a great place to live and to buy a house. There are so many reasons for Knoxville it's going to be tough limiting them to just 5 but that's the format so without further ado: You get a lot of house for your dollar in Knoxville. Our 3rd quarter 2006 median price for a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, resale home was $149,900 compared to the national median of $211,000.Diverse economy translates to a stable economy with historically low unemployment and slow but steady home price appreciation; ours has averaged 3-5% … (10 comments)
tennessee: Top 100 real estate markets in 2007
- 12/27/06 08:36 AM
At the current Internet edition of Fortune magazine they're predicting the top 100 real estate markets for 2007. "What will happen to the value of your home next year? We asked Moody's Economy.com and Fiserv Lending Solutions to crunch the numbers for the top 100 markets in the United States." Nashville, Knoxville, and Memphis are picked numbers 12, 15, & 16 respectively. What marvelous news; I knew our market was still pretty good but I'm delighted to see we're predicted to be number 15 of the 100 hottest US real estate markets in 2007! Knoxville home prices are expected to rise a modest 3.5% … (8 comments)
tennessee: Dear Mr. FSBO, is your buyer qualified to buy???
- 12/19/06 10:39 PM
OK, so you bought a $4.95 sign at Wal-Mart, stuck it in the front yard, and right away the nicest young couple stop by and say your house is perfect for them. "We want to buy it", they say. "Wow, that was easy", you're no doubt thinking. You get out your Office Depot contract form, you all sign it, and now all you have to do is wait for the check to get here. A couple of weeks later your 'buyers' strangely become incommunicado after numerous trips to your house to measure for new blinds, show it to friends and relatives, and talking about what they're going … (27 comments)
tennessee: Association project
- 10/01/06 04:23 AM
My Association's Board of Directors is working on a member website project that should be ready to roll out live soon. Essentially it's a portal with all of our listings, great search features for consumers, area census information, and several other cool features. The purpose of this site is to take back control of our listings and use them to benefit our membership; the people that put the listings there in the first place. As soon as it's up and running I'll give you the URL and you can take it for a test drive. One of the very cool parts of it is … (1 comments)
tennessee: Top places in the US to retire
- 09/14/06 02:09 PM
The current issue of "Where to Retire" magaine lists “8 low cost towns with great home buys”. Not surprisingly my city of Knoxville, Tennessee is one of them; in fact one of the few things below average around here are home prices. The National Association of Realtors lists $143,000 as the median price of homes in the area with the average cost of a new, 4 bedroom home at $175,520. No state income tax, low cost of living, lots of things to do, and temperate weather with four distinct seasons of year were all factors in selecting Knoxville as one of the eight low … (8 comments)
tennessee: Tennessee = "vacation" on Google
- 09/14/06 01:53 PM
Using video technology Tennessee's Tourism bureau doctored some scenes from an early Elvis Presley movie and replaced the original actress riding with Elvis in a red convertable with Dolly Parton in a 'made for the www' commercial promoting tourism in Tennessee. http://elvis.com/graceland/special/video_elvis-dolly.asp Thanks mainly to ads like this one a Google search of the word "vacation" now returns http://www.tnvacation.com/ , the Tennessee Tourism Department's "vacation in Tennessee" website in the top 10 results out of 335 million plus websites for that word. Speaking at a Knoxville luncheon recently State Tourism Commission Susan Whitaker talked about the importance of the internet as a marketing tool and … (0 comments)
tennessee: State Association meetings & conventions; who goes???
- 09/10/06 02:16 PM
This coming October 4-7th in San Antonio, Texas the Tennessee Association of Realtors (TAR) is having their annual convention. I'm there; plane & hotel reservations made, time scheduled, everything but packed my bags. Now why would I give up 4 days of my time, fly halfway across the country to San Antonio, and spend the days hanging out with a bunch of Tennessee Realtors? Because: It's funI always learn a lot of new stuff from the seminars and speakers. This year we have: Linda Talley speaking on "Customer Service: 7 Mistakes That Stop Referrals & Repeat Business," Ralph "Sell Like A Madman" … (9 comments)
tennessee: Been visited by the "after the fact" referral fee fairy (AFRFF) lately???
- 09/09/06 07:13 AM
You know the one; that little fairy that flies down just before you close your deal, waves her magic wand, and says: "Excuse me, those are my clients, you own me a 35% (or more) referral fee for the privilege of working with them...............and oh, by the way, if you don't pay me ‘our' clients won't get to collect their relocation benefits." Congratulations, you've just joined a large and growing group of Realtors who have been forced to pay what is known as an "after the fact" referral fee. An after the fact referral fee is typically one where a Realtor has … (4 comments)
tennessee: How about an economy covered bridge.
- 09/04/06 06:17 AM
In horse & wagon days covered bridges were all over the eastern United States. They were covered for two reasons; one was to protect the bridge infrastructure from decay and rot since they didn't have today's modern weatherproofing materials, and another was to keep from spooking the horses if they looked over the side and saw the rushing waters below. These relics from yesteryear are fast disappearing and in my area it's a pretty rare sight, sort of like the ferries and grist mills that used to dot this area. One of my sellers moved to an adjoining county recently and bought a 20 acre … (7 comments)
tennessee: It was football time in Tennessee today!!!
- 09/02/06 01:07 PM
My Tennessee Volunteers beat 9th ranked California 35 to 18Tomorrow's headlines"Volunteer effort: Tennessee crushes CalTennessee jumped to a 35-0 lead and then put it on cruise control in Saturday's 35-18 upset of No. 9 California "I don't know where they came up with that "upset" stuff; after all it was Tennessee............................and we were playing in Knoxville before 107,000 screaming Tennessee fans. ;-)California's Heisman hopeful Marshawn Lynch would have been about as effective back in California as he was on the field; only gaining 12 yards rushing.On the other hand Tennessee's on again, off again quarterback, Eric Ainge was definitely on with … (3 comments)
tennessee: It's Football Time In Tennessee!!! (nothing to do with real estate)
- 09/02/06 11:12 AM
The only thing real estate related in this post is the yards. It's now half time of the California-Tennessee game. So far it's been a long afternoon for the California boys; Tennessee is leading 14 to 0. California has a pre-season ranking of 9, Tennessee is 23rd. California is having a tough time moving the ball effectively. Their quarterback seems to be trying too hard and shows some indecisiveness. Tennessee on the other hand is moving the ball fairly effectively and showing their usual powerhouse defense which is contributing greatly to California's problems. The stats as always, tell the story: TOTAL … (0 comments)
tennessee: My computer can beat your computer.
- 08/26/06 03:45 AM
So you think your Dell XP 10,000 BLT special is pretty speedy?? If you line it up against Oak Ridge National Laboratories newly upgraded "Jaguar" supercomputer that runs at 54 teraflops, or 54 trillion mathematical calculations per second you'll get left in the dust so fast you won't even have time to blink. Oak Ridge National Labs (or ORNL as we know it locally) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, just doubled the speed of their super computer by hooking up 54 Cray XT3 supercomputers to run in tandum making their computer the fifth fastest in the world. http://tinyurl.com/pwlwt I actually got to visit the computer room … (9 comments)
tennessee: Selling your current personal residence?? You probably qualify for a big tax break.
- 07/26/06 09:09 AM
If you sold your main home in 2005, you may be able to exclude from income any gain up to a limit of $250,000 ($500,000 on a joint return in most cases). If you can exclude all of the gain, you do not need to report the sale on your tax return. Unlike most federal tax forms it's fairly easy to calculate if you have a capital gain on your sale. Just take your contract sale price and subtract most of your selling expenses, i.e. your real estate sales commission, any advertising you may have paid for personally, legal fees, etc.. … (2 comments)
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One of my favorite parts of North Knoxville is the charming little community of Fountain City.
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