Real Estate and Related Topics

NHL All Star Game Comes To Raleigh, North Carolina This Week-End

I know, right!!! 

What has happened to the world when the NHL All Star Game is being held in a Southern Capital City like Raleigh?Well if you know any Caniacs, it will make perfect sense to you.

Caniacs are fans of the local NHL Franchisee the Carolina Hurricanes (get it?) and let me tell you these people are fanatical, as all fans should be. I don't know if it's the fact that there are so many transplants here from states up north like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts who all have a long hockey tradition. Oh! And Canada Or the fact that it is so new to people they have taken to their team with passion. The fact that the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup in 2006 won't have hurt.

Raleigh is a very popular city as is the whole Triangle and this weeks event will have a lot of people from all over the country checking it out. The first thing they will see if they fly into Raleigh is trees, once here they will experience a vibrant, cultural, youthful city with fantastic restaurants, bars, museums, parks.

Sports fans normally come in three shades here, light blue, dark blue and red.....and now red and black! Hotels are full, there are activities planned for the whole weekend, it should be a good time. The weather is looking nice too, which must play a small role in why they come here, a bit like the Super Bowl always (almost) being played in warm states. The golf courses will be open for business.

Speaking of ice and sports done on them, the US Figure Skating Championship just started in Greensboro this week also.

P.S. The barbecue is vinegar based, so when you get a BBQ sandwich, get the coleslaw on top it is the best way to have it....Y'all!

Building a Custom Home in Portofino in Clayton...A Diary,Day 2 and 3

Alright so the lot has been excavated and now it is time to frame the footers, very important. Every thing is important here but this is a big heavy house so the footings need to be right.

This home is also going to have a large basement, once the re-bar is in and the frames are set, the following day they brought in the cement trucks and the pump truck.

The cement is dumped into a big tank at the back of the pump truck and then the boom operator positions the opening over the frames and starts the cement flowing.

Building A Custom Home in Portofino in Clayton...A Diary, Day 1

For Illustrative Purpose Only

The first thing we start with is the raw land, in this case a very nice lot with some pine trees and a great view. In todays world the bucket of the grader is remotely wired to a GPS system which tells the operator how close and how much dirt they need to move. This basement home lot was dug in a day by one person.

The Custom home is being built by Corker Enterprises and it is on Lot 31 in Portofino in Clayton. Portofino was just named 'Community of the Year 2010' and it is because of homes like this one and the builders like Steve Corker who are on the Builder Team at Portofino.

Building a Custom Home starts in the design and drawing stage as each home is different and each time the builder will tweak something or add something to the plans.

Lot 31 is a little over an acre it has a gentle slope which will make it ideal for this basement home. This is a four bedroom home with three and a half bathrooms. It is approximately 3100 square feet plus another 1200 square feet in the basement.

Where Can you Trail Ride Your Horse in The Triangle, NC.......Without Leaving Your Community?

I am always pleasantly surprised when I fly out of New York or New Jersey where below you is houses, industrial parks and miles and miles of highway, and as the plane descends on it's approach to Raleigh Durham International Airport the first thing you see is trees and lakes!

Trees, parks and lakes are in great supply in the Triangle and so the ability to Trail Ride is plentiful. But what about living in a community where your horse lives as well and there are miles of the most beautiful trails you could imagine?

So where can you trail ride your horse in the Triangle, NC without leaving your community?

Portofino in Clayton has all that and more. We have amazing trails for riding that wind through the community of 400 acres. One trail follows the creek that flows from the fishing pond to the Neuse River. We are an Audubon Signature Community, so the trails are as natural and wild as can be. The creeks are full of small fish, crawdads, frogs, lizards etc. We have wild turkeys and hawks, deer and beavers, rabbits, squirrels and something else.......!(picture coming)

Portofino will only have 190 home sites when it is finished so the lots are big and offer lots of privacy, most back up to either a trail or a creek or a buffer. We have plans for 20 pastures about half with run in sheds, the run ins we have now would put most full stables to shame. We have a twenty two stall barn that is under construction. We have  custom homes that start in the $280's and go up to a Million. There is no better place to call home if you want to live near your horse and not get in a trailer to trail ride.

Where can you trail ride your horse in the Triangle, NC without leaving your community?

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Basement Home in Clayton at Portofino.

Corker Enterprisesjust started this magnificent basement home in Clayton at Portofino. It is on Lot 31 which lends itself perfectly to a basement home with a gentle slope. It is just over an acre lot which has a beautiful pastoral setting. It is also located right beside the entrance to the trails at Portofino.

Steve Corkeris on the builder team at Portofino which is made up of the finest builders in Johnston County. Steve is a very hands on builder and we can expect to see a lot of him over the next number of months.

Are you looking for a basement home in Clayton or have you looked in the Triangle? Basement homes are not too common here in the Triangle area of North Carolina, however as people move south from northern states like New York and Pennsylvania they are asking for them.

This basement home in Portofino will have all of the highest quality features you would expect and more. Portofino offers Fiber-Optic Cable through out the community, along with Natural Gas, County Water and no city taxes.

So If you are looking at a basement home in Clayton or you are searching for a custom built home on a large private lot, you need to see this home. Call me to set up an appointment or to get the floor plan.

North Carolina is the Third Most Popular State for People to Move to!

How about that? North Carolina is in the top tier of states that have the highest percentage of inward migration versus outward. After the District of Columbia, North Carolina is the only other mid Atlantic state to have a positive inward migration. The state moved up from number 10 in 2009 to number three last year.

South Carolina also saw a high inward migration and on the West Coast the states of Oregon (2nd) and Idaho had high inward migration.

The states going the other way who had more people leave than move in were led by New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois. The findings are a result of United Van Lines 34th annual migration study.

What brings folks to North Carolina, jobs, family and weather in a nut shell, I'll bet the majority of people who come here do so for one of those reasons. The schools, roads, affordable housing, beach and mountains, golf, fishing, health care don't hurt!

I will do a follow up to see where people are coming from, the last time I checked New York was at the top of the list, which is now a neutral state with almost equal inward and outward migration.

Grandparents Think! Will The Grand Kids Want To Come Visit You if you live in a 55 Plus?

Lets see which grandparents do we want to spend the summer with?

Grandparents A live in a cool community that has three pools, a lazy river, a jungle gym on every corner, lots of kids our age. A fishing pond, near the city, a movie theater a block away, pony rides!!!!

And Grandparents B live in a 55 plus community that also has a pool but it's always adult swim....and there's Bunko!!

Seriously, I have had a number of grandparents tell me lately that one of the reasons they would choose to live in a certain community is because of the amenities that would encourage their grand kids to come visit!

In North Carolina, we see a couple of types of migration, job seekers and college grads who decide to stay and raise a family and they are then followed by their parents who have retired and live a million miles away and get to see their grand babies...never! So they move here!

We took our boys (10 & 8) to Ireland in 2007 and needless to say they were spoiled at every turn. I have three sisters, two aunts who never married and my mom who while very active at eighty four probably has done all her trans continental flying. And my two boys would go back to Ireland in a New York Second, they loved it, they got ice cream for dinner, they were taken to three story toy stores and told to pick whatever they wanted. They saw castles, lighthouses, trains, horses, tree houses and had wads of cash stuffed in their pockets at every visit. They cant wait to go back!

Now I understand living in a community with a bunch of kids may not be ideal for people who are in the take it easy part of life, then again it probably has it's benefits.A little plug here if I may, I am the on-site agent at Portofino which is where these people have been coming as we are working on our new phase which has a lot of Ranch plans with downstairs masters and we have a horse barn on the property, we have a beautiful zero entry, salt water pool. We have miles and miles of trails through the woods with streams and waterfalls and a river and canoes.......and kids!

Food for thought!

What Will You Do For Your Seller? How About This?

I read a post recently from Tara Winfield who wanted to know whether it was the right thing to do to clear a snow drift from her clients a vacant home.

So it seems of late the majority of my listings were vacant and for some very different reasons. I had a property that was owned by Duke University, it was a gift and they never even saw it. It was an older home with a lot of trees around it and it needed a clean up so I got some quotes and they were outrageous, so I did it. The roof was not that high!

I had a house where we had a well test come back positive for bacteria and the bank would not fund until we got a clean water test. My clients who were going to lose the house to the bank and had moved out were not about to come back and shock the well, so I did it, over and over and got eaten by mosquitos doing it.

I will do about anything to help clients sell their homes especially if they have moved already....anything within reason that is!!! 

I don't Remember My Dad Liking My Music So How Come I like Key$ha?

I mean she's OK. I can put up with Katy Perry, I like the Black Eyed Peas, Flo Rider! These are all the artists my two sons are listening to these days, they're 10 and 8. I can actually stand to listen in the car as we are commanded to play G105 wherever we go. Now first of all my dad's car did not have a radio so that was never an issue, it didn't have seat belts either, but that was the norm back then.

We had a black and white TV with one channel when I was their age ( remember I grew up in Ireland in the seventies). There was never ever any music shows on, MT what now?. We got our music listening to our transistor radios in our room. The kitchen radio was constantly tuned to the news channel and my dad would get the news every half hour. When I got a car in my twenties it had a radio and I would drive my dad around and he would say "get me the news" like a lot had changed in a half an hour.

I now listen to the news on NPR, FOX, BBC America and get my updates every half hour, in a way I'm worse because when I log on my computer I first check the news, sometimes a couple of times. He would have loved the Internet....I think!

So is technology to thank or to blame or am I just hipper than my dad, my kids think I'm a dork so that hasn't changed! I walked in to their TV room the other day and there was a commercial on TV so they were watching a video on You Tube on Conor's iPod Touch.