SarahGray Lamm ~ Chapel Hill / Carrboro / Durham Real Estate Blog ~ Agent Outlier: December 2009

You know that letter that arrives in your mailbox periodically from your credit card company? The single page filled front and back in a #8 font, single spaced and with no pictures, clearly formatted to be sure your eyes glaze over before you reach the halfway point? All the better to make sure you don't read it, right? This time you better read it. The changes coming are like none you've seen before.

The credit card companies, unhappy about changes passed by Congress and aimed at changing the way they do business, have pulled out all the stops and are reworking their fee schedules and other rules and regs in order to offset what they believe will be a multi-billion dollar loss to them. Even if your credit card philosophy is the same as mine...never charge what you cannot pay off at the end of the month, you could get hit by some of the proposed changes.

Credit has been so readily available for so long and with so little requirement to qualify for it, that who among us doesn't have at least one card you never use but keep 'just in case.' Besides, haven't we always been warned that closing a credit card account will adversely affect our credit score? So how does a MONTHLY INACTIVITY FEE strike you? Would it upset you to pay $240 a year NOT to use your credit card?

Some companies are closing accounts for inactivity which can change your ratio of used to available credit and drop your excellent credit score to something less excellent. (Thinking about buying a home? This might matter to you!)

Not surprisingly the VARIABLE interest rate on credit cards is going up. I could have told you that without reading the “informational letter” from the credit card folks. But if you have a FIXED rate on a card it has probably already been converted to a variable one. Not to worry, you'll just transfer your balance to a card with an enticing lower rate. Gotcha...new fees associated with that.

As I began to look into the changes being implemented by credit card companies I ran into many stories of consumers getting caught in some pretty sticky wickets. Start googling and you'll see what I mean. But I am not a financial adviser and have no special skills for assessing the impact of what is coming. My only advice is to PAY ATTENTION to YOUR situation and be proactive in seeking any help you may need.

Here's what I do. I have ONE business credit card and ONE non-business card. I use them all the time but only as a convenience. I have the discipline to pay them off monthly without paying finance charges and I like having the record of my expenditures. I never, ever, finance a purchase over time on a credit card. Never.

I'm going to pull my free annual credit report and make sure there are no unused cards languishing out there. Have you ever canceled a card only to find out they never really canceled it? I have. I'm going to talk to my personal banker and financial adviser and simply ask them if there is something I am not doing that I should be doing.

Now is not the time to sit back and wait for all of this to shake out. Read the fine print and don't assume your good credit will not be affected if you just don't change anything you already do. Maybe this is cynical but one financial writer believes the credit card companies are hoping to mitigate consumer outrage by targeting many of their changes to those of us with good credit so that they may not create situations that look good on the nightly news!

Lizette Fitzpatrick, a colleague from Kentucky, writes beautifully about exactly why a Realtor would consider not taking a listing. The public deserves an honest and professional assessment when they ask for the assistance of an experienced agent. After all, if I can't succeed with my own business how would you expect me to succeed with yours?  I welcome the opportunity to discuss with potential sellers in the Chapel Hill / Carrboro / Durham market what it will take to sell their home quickly and profitably!

Brian Brady, a California mortgage broker, has a unique way of illustrating how he knows interest rates will begin to climb very shortly. It involves his daughter,a beach and calculations a child can make! If you are interested in purchasing a home in the Chapel Hill community and taking advantage of the artificially low interest rates available today, read this excellent article then call me to get started! An increase of just one point in your interest rate can add hundreds of dollars to your monthly mortgage payment.

The Chapel Hill, NC Fire Department participates each year in a safety campaign called Keep The Wreath Green as a visual reminder to the local community of the danger posed by Christmas trees and other holiday decorations if they are not properly installed and monitored.

The wreath hangs on the Chapel Hill fire station from the first day of December until the last and starts out decked with a large red bow and green lights. For every house fire during the month of December a green bulb is changed to a red one.

Today is Christmas Eve and fortunately there is but one red bulb on the wreath. Of course the goal is no red bulbs but this year cigarettes were the cause of a house fire in Chapel Hill which completely destroyed someone's home.

There are still eight days to go until the wreath comes down. Here's hoping our firefighters have a boring end of the year and get to spend their time with their own families and not witnessing the destruction of any more area homes.

Be Safe and Merry Christmas!

Can't you feel the anticipation? The magic words were spoken yesterday, “The Raleigh Durham area is preparing for a snow event.” Yes, that's what we call it here; a “snow event.” That's because snow in the Piedmont of North Carolina is always an event.

The technical reason is that we see so little snow, and it is so infrequent, that the cities and towns around most of North Carolina don't have budgets for the equipment and manpower to stay ahead of mother nature's winter kiss. We have none of the mountainous salt hills of the north. No massive snow moving equipment or fleece clad armies ready to spread out in the middle of the night to take care of the business of erasing the effects of the latest snowfall so business as usual can go on. No, the irritating inconvenience of chipping ice off a windshield experienced by most northern dwellers is unheard of here. We aren't going to work.

Southerners know that a “snow event” means everything will stop. And I mean STOP. School will be canceled in anticipation, meetings and other less climatic events will be postponed. Parents who work will stay home, no discussions. Who would watch the kids if they went to work? But no one else will be at work either. Southerners have no “snow driving skills.” I'm not kidding. You take your life into your hands by attempting to drive in snow in Chapel Hill. Any amount of snow. Half an inch or half a foot, no matter. Ah, you're from the north you say. You KNOW how to drive in snow! Take my advice...don't do it. It is really irrelevant that you know how when absolutely no one else does. The only folks out on the road will be in a 1975 Chevy Impala with bald tires, driving around in the silence, just because they can...they CAN walk away alive from a slow motion slide through an intersection which ends in a shallow ditch.

Yet we still make sure the car is full of gasoline and we fill the extra gas cans, just in case the power goes out and we have to crank up the generator. A truly prepared Chapel Hill homeowner has a gasoline powered generator in the garage just waiting for the next “great snow event.” I've been there. Five days with no power. Blankets hanging over room openings and the biggest neighborhood party on record. For us, snow is a magnificent unplanned event. But that doesn't mean we don't plan for it. Far from it. Southerners race to the grocery store at the first hint of a snow advisory to buy up all the bread and milk available. We haul in the wood and check the pantry. We need all the fixin's for homemade vegetable soup, chili and applesauce cake.

Which brings me to the best thing about snow events. Party in the 'hood! Southerners have party skills. Skills finely honed during that other kind of weather event we occasionally endure; the hurricane. Neighbors come and go, eating together, cooking together and just hanging out by the fire. It's true what you've heard about us. We know our neighbors. On a normal day we think nothing of borrowing a cup of sugar to finish a recipe and understand that returning with a bit of the resulting treat is part of the process. A southern snow event is simply an excuse to do what we do best...take a party to another level!

Gotta run now...Greg Fischel, our perpetually reliable local weatherman, just announced that we are “under a winter storm warning” and I just realized I need some more egg nog before the neighbors arrive!

Let It Snow!!!

SOLD in 16 Days for $142,000

~2106 Strebor Street, Durham, NC 27705~
$145,000

3 Bedrooms + 2 Full Bathrooms
Well Maintained and Updated Brick Ranch Home
Living Room with Raised Brick Hearth Fireplace /Built in Bookcases
Large Dining Room
Bright Spacious Kitchen
Laminate Flooring in Main Living Areas
Attractive Sun Room with door to Private Patio and Landscaped, Fenced Backyard
Covered Front Porch
Large Shed with Workbench

Video Tour and Clickable Floorplan Here or Below

Check out other North Durham Properties between $135,000 and $155,000 by clicking here

Fathers teach their children many things and in many ways. Sometimes they teach by example and sometimes by parable, but always fathers teach what they value…what matters most to them. My father taught me that home matters.

As a child everyone I was related to lived, with only rare exception, in the same town; the same five mile radius, actually. Those relatives who had ventured out of town were expected to come home at holidays. We did not go to them. It wasn’t even considered. Holidays at home mattered.

I grew up knowing the homes in town by the families who lived in them, most often having built them, and my family was no exception. Every family home had a pen and ink drawing of it hanging on the wall. Homes were the trademark of the family; the tangible evidence of belonging.

After my parents wed they moved in with my father’s mother until my father could build their marital home…next door. My folks moved into our new home when I was six months old and it is the home all three of us children were raised in until we left as adults. That home was planned down to the last tiny detail by my father, who oversaw its’ design and construction. Every room was planned around how his growing family would use it; a child’s bedroom near the master bedroom for the newest arrival, an upstairs bedroom large enough to serve as a playroom but with back stairs to the breakfast room, the better to call us to a meal in our pajamas. There was a library for study and games, a sunroom with the perfect place for a Christmas tree and a formal dining room large enough for dinners with extended family and guests.

Our home was filled with furnishings passed down from family through generations. Every piece had sentimental value and we children were taught the provenance of each. It mattered that we knew which great grandparent, which grandparent had owned each item, how they had procured it and where it had stood in their home.

I grew up watching my father care lovingly for our home. I knew what architectural features were his favorites and how they were constructed and maintained. I learned how to care for a home with the change of seasons and I watched him plant the garden and plan our future. Our home mattered because his family mattered.

When I bought my first home at the age of twenty-three, my parents immediately began to pass on family possessions to me in order to make my new house a home. I had just made my lifetime career choice. I was a newly minted real estate agent. What else would I have done? My father didn’t suggest I become a Realtor but what better choice of career is there for someone who was taught from birth how very important a home is to a family.

By my father’s loving words and patient example he handed me my family's history as well as my future. Home matters. I miss you Daddy, give Mother a big hug for me.