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

Sometimes a TANGIBLE example can bring home the point! YES, folks really are able to ammend this years taxes (or in this case file after an extension) and get THE CHECK IN THE MAIL!

If you are still considering buying and you have never owned or not owned in the last three years, this could be you. I have many, many years of experience working with first time homebuyers in the Chapel Hill / Carrboro / Durham / Chatham area and a network of professionals ready to assist you with becoming a home owner. I will be happy to simply talk about your options with you! Call Me, Email Me or Text Me...whatever works for you!

Another survey is out and not surprisingly the Triangle AGAIN ranks in the Top Ten! This time it is the Kiplinger Best Cities: It's All About Jobs rankings.

As I have noted before regarding these rankings, the Census Bureau, for some strange reason decided to separate the Raleigh / Cary market (called an MSA) from the Durham / Chapel Hill Market.  I am not alone in finding this to be not terribly well thought out. But the fact remains that it is an easy thing to make a case for the entire Triangle being the best place to live.

As the Triangle Business Journal article about the Kiplinger rankings points out, the economic base created by NC State, Duke and UNC is hugely responsible fo the strong showing of the Triangle. Well of course they are! The universities in this region of North Carolina are undeniably the biggest reason folks come here. Whether it is to go to undergraduate or graduate school, to work with a company started by someone with university credentials or just because they are attracted by the creative and intelligent kinds of folks who are involved in university life, they always find other reasons to stay! We are a couple of hours from the coast and a couple of hours from the mountains. We have towns and cities with unabashed community spirit and opportunites for growth, learning and exercise that are unmatched in many places in the country.

We also were not one of the regions of the country that saw hugely unsustainable development and we are lucky to have great options for housing all over the area. Want to live downtown? No problem. Want to live on lots of acreage? No problem. Want your child to walk to school? Absolutely! Want to be able to take a weekend trip with the family to play on the beach or experience colonial and revolutionary history in an afternoon? Bring it on! We've got it! North Carolina is a fantastic state and the Triangle has it all! (Have I mentioned the southern weather isn't too bad either?)

Combine all that AND throw in historically low interest rates as well as a solid future for career growth and opportunity and I'm not sure why you aren't running for the phone to schedule an appointment with me as we speak....oh, there's the phone! You must be calling! Gotta run!

SarahGray Lamm is a licensed, full time, residential Broker in the Triangle of North Carolina.  She specializes in serving the real estate needs of home owners and home buyers in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, SW Durham and Northern Chatham County.  With over 60,000 hours of experience in North Carolina real estate, SarahGray is proudly associated with Allen Tate Realtors , the Carolinas largest independent real estate company, ranking #8 in the nation.  With exceptional relationships all over the Carolinas, SarahGray is able to connect you with other professionals in all areas who will make your home buying or selling experience the best you have ever had!

Use of any content from the Agent Outlier Blog without permission of the owner is a violation of federal copyright laws .

I’m the kind of person who loves timelines…I am always intrigued and well, comforted, to see how things got to where they are and a really cool timeline is a great way to show it to me. So I was not surprisingly drawn to it when I ran across this beautiful timeline.

Thomas Baekdal is way ahead of the curve when it comes to social media. He is so cutting edge as to be ahead of the class by light years. But he does what I like, looks at history to show us where we might be going. This is his admittedly ‘flexible’ timeline of how people have gotten information since 1800. It accompanies a fascinating article about how people have been trying to connect with each other for over 200 years.

He begins his assessment of this fundamental shift in how we get information with a look at history. His colorful timeline is necessarily flexible (for all you data purists) because it would be boring to look at it in even, static increments! (Rule #1 – as all high tech marketers know if it ain’t pretty or intriguing nobody clicks on it!)

But once he gets to the last couple of years the timeline colors swirl together in a way that screams speed of light at you! His point is made visually whether or not you read the article. That’s how we get our information these days and will in the future…at the speed of light and from every direction!

How does your brain decide what to snatch out of the swirl? And isn’t that what we are all grappling with in the brave new world of marketing? Trying to be the flash of color that gets snatched out of the swirl? Isn’t this the reason we spend so much time communicating with each other about how we should communicate?

The truth is that as I sit here, I cannot, for the life of me, remember what I clicked on or what caught my attention for the micro second it took to decide to click on the link to his article. I have no idea…but isn’t that the point? He is part of the natural flow of information…he is organic.Who cares how I found him, I found him.

Isn’t that what you want to be?

SarahGray Lamm is a licensed, full time, residential Broker in the Triangle of North Carolina.  She specializes in serving the real estate needs of home owners and home buyers in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, SW Durham and Northern Chatham County.  With over 60,000 hours of experience in North Carolina real estate, SarahGray is proudly associated with Allen Tate Realtors , the Carolinas largest independent real estate company, ranking #8 in the nation.  With exceptional relationships all over the Carolinas, SarahGray is able to connect you with other professionals in all areas who will make your home buying or selling experience the best you have ever had!

Use of any content from the Agent Outlier Blog without permission of the owner is a violation of federal copyright laws .

Barbara Corcoran, a real estate expert and motivational speaker from New York, has the ear of plenty of listeners as a regular contributor on the Today Show on NBC and yesterday she was interviewed there about which U.S. housing markets she feels are most likely to rebound.

She cites the four most important factors in making her determination as:

• Job Growth
• Growing Population
• Great Weather
• First Time Home Buyers

Even though since 2005, the Census Bureau strangely separates Raleigh-Cary from Durham-Chapel Hill, it should come as no surprise to those of us in what WE call the Triangle of North Carolina, that Ms. Corcoran has selected Raleigh, NC as the #2 city on her list! In fact I would argue that the same positive factors that Raleigh boasts can also be claimed by Durham-Chapel Hill! This is how I see the Durham/Chapel Hill area stacking up on her list of factors:

Job Growth -According to a recent article in the Triangle Business Journal, “Durham-Chapel Hill soared 24 spots, to No. 19, in the rankings of all U.S. metropolitan areas with at least 30,000 jobs.”

Growing Population - Raleigh was selected by Forbes Magazine as the #1 city to where Americans are relocating. According to 2008 population estimates, Raleigh, N.C. is #1, increasing 4.29% to 1.9 million folks. According to the U.S. Bureau of Census, the Durham – Chapel Hill Metropolitan Statistical Area shows a steady, consistent growth in population.

Great Weather – We have four seasons, a mild climate and are located 2 ½ hours from the beach and 2 ½ hours from the mountains! Something for everyone!

First Time Home Buyers – Ms. Corcoran explains that without first time homebuyers, there is no reliable move up market. I can talk about this from experience! I have made a career out of selling North Carolina residential real estate for 29 years. One of my favorite groups of buyers is the first timers. I work with lots of them and can vouch that they are indeed here! The median age in Orange County is 33. But in case you want more data…according toThe HH Report “the Income Level of Raleigh - Durham - Chapel Hill residents can be broken down into 8 categories: 21% are High Earners, 17% are Upper Middle Families, 13% are Lowest Income, 12% are Upper Middle Class, 12% are Young Professionals, 10% are Lower Income, 9% are Blue Collar, and 6% are Middle America.” Sounds like folks who buy homes to me!

The only city above Raleigh on her list was Denver, CO and the three cities just below us were Austin, TX, Seattle, WA, and San Francisco, CA. How’s that for great company!

SarahGray Lamm is a licensed, full time, residential Broker in the Triangle of North Carolina.  She specializes in serving the real estate needs of home owners and home buyers in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, SW Durham and Northern Chatham County.  With over 60,000 hours of experience in North Carolina real estate, SarahGray is proudly associated with Allen Tate Realtors , the Carolinas largest independent real estate company, ranking #8 in the nation.  With exceptional relationships all over the Carolinas, SarahGray is able to connect you with other professionals in all areas who will make your home buying or selling experience the best you have ever had!

Use of any content from the Agent Outlier Blog without permission of the owner is a violation of federal copyright laws .

If you live in North Carolina and you are facing difficulty making your mortgage payment or you anticipate a problem paying it in the near future, the fear of the loss of your home and all the horror stories you have heard about the struggle to save your biggest asset from foreclosure weigh heavily on you and your family. Or you may have just received a letter from the State of North Carolina, Office of the Commissioner of Banks advising that you may be nearing foreclosure. The time to act is now and the place to start is FightNCForeclosure.org.

North Carolina has a strong partnership of trained and knowledgeable people prepared to counsel you, provide you with an actionable plan, assist you with contacting your lender and identify resources you may be able to use. The North Carolina Association of Realtors, the N.C. Office of the Commissioner of Banks together with the North Carolina Banking Commission , Self-Help, and Capital Broadcasting Company have teamed up to get you the assistance you need and have launched the website to make this program known to many more folks.

You are not alone. North Carolina had 53,995 foreclosures in 2008, an increase of 9% over 2007. This program has helped hundreds of North Carolina home owners already.

Don’t wait. Call 1-888-442-8188 to be put in touch with a HUD-approved counselor who will provide you with FREE foreclosure counseling. Visit the website and find tips for avoiding foreclosure, stories of successful assistance and a list of the things you need to pull together to begin your process and information on how to avoid scams.

If you need help, start now! This is the first step in saving your home!

SarahGray Lamm is a licensed, full time, residential Broker in the Triangle of North Carolina.  She specializes in serving the real estate needs of home owners and home buyers in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, SW Durham and Northern Chatham County.  With over 60,000 hours of experience in North Carolina real estate, SarahGray is proudly associated with Allen Tate Realtors , the Carolinas largest independent real estate company, ranking #8 in the nation.  With exceptional relationships all over the Carolinas, SarahGray is able to connect you with other professionals in all areas who will make your home buying or selling experience the best you have ever had!

Use of any content from the Agent Outlier Blog without permission of the owner is a violation of federal copyright laws .

My little sister called me the other day and in an excited voice declared, “I think I might need to look at houses…It’s a GREAT time to buy a house right now, you know!”

After the pregnant pause ensued (the one where my condescending big sister brain struggled with my professional Realtor brain) I finally said, “No? Really? What makes you think that?” (You can tell which brain won out.)

“Well. I have a friend who just got a fantastic deal on a house and I think it might be time for me to think about looking!”

Ok, so which part of what I have been saying for months now did she miss? Apparently, the same part that ALOT of buyers are missing…that would be the part that sounds just like Charlie Brown’s teacher talking whenever somebody you aren’t listening to tells you something: Wah, wah, wah, wah…

It’s been on TV; it’s been on the radio; it’s been in print and on the web…where hasn’t it been if you’re a professional Realtor and tuned in to everything real estate ever since they first uttered the words U.S. HOUSING CRISIS!

But here’s the thing… if you are just another economic-shell shocked human being wondering what happened while you were busy enjoying the last twenty years of your life, it may well BE the first time you are realizing it! After all, we all know sellers who still don’t seem to understand that a buyer’s market means that they, too, will not be seeing the profit from the sale of their home that their neighbors saw last year. What in the world makes us think those same folks are out there telling their friends and relatives that they just heard it’s a great time to buy a house!

Its human nature to think that, as long as your world doesn’t seem to be terribly different, then all those problems THE MEDIA is describing must be happening to other people! After all, if you hadn’t really saved that much for retirement, you might not notice that 401Ks everywhere have become 201Ks. If you’re just getting started thinking about long term career goals, job loss statistics are probably lost on you. And if your friends and family don’t have to sell their houses any time soon, you may not have heard that the prices sellers are getting for their homes are easily 10 to 20 to (gulp) 50% less (depending on where you are) than last year’s sellers got for their homes. Just as this past presidential election cycle was the longest in recorded history, so too, it seems to many of us, is the recovery from the housing crisis. But if you don’t vote…or don’t want to buy a house…who cares? It’s only a Buyer’s market if you actually BUY!

Let’s face it, those of us in the business are fully aware that we are in the army now…if we, as professional Realtors, can get some of this housing inventory sold, we will have begun to win the battle that will lead to winning the war! And if we can win the war to get the housing market back on track, we will win the war to get the whole U.S. economy back on track! We are the key! (How’s that for a pep talk?!)

So what do Realtors have to do to get buyers to see that this is serious business? The government is anteing up $8000 in tax credit to get some of you moving. In fact FHA is getting ready to let you use that $8000 as part of your down payment…without having to wait until after closing! Combine that with unbelievable, never before seen, never again to be seen in this lifetime, interest rates (which, by the way, are just as fantastic for those of you who don’t qualify for the tax credit) and you guys should be fighting to get on my schedule to look at homes! I mean full on, no holds barred, hair pulling,fighting!

Oh, I know you’ve called me and we’re trying to get together...but, what with your vacation and all…how ‘bout next month? I even know a lot of you are working with other agents because you’re looking at my listings and you’re even having your agents call me to see if anybody else is looking at the house you like. But what’s up with having your agent write up a preliminary offer, spend days verbally sparring with me and my seller before reaching a tentative agreement, and then I don’t see another thing in writing from you for two weeks?

Buying a home is not a spectator sport! It is a major and serious step toward achieving the American Dream. You’ve heard of that haven’t you? That’s when you get a pretty little piece of dirt with a cozy little roof over your head to come home to after a hard day at work! A place to call your very own and nobody (well except for the HOA, and, of course, your Realtor when it's time to sell) can tell you what to do there! It's a place where you can paint the walls any color you want, invite friends over whenever you feel like it or get a puppy!

Give us poor Realtors a break… we've done all the work already, helping our sellers see that they need to provide you with a home in really great condition and at a really great price (no they aren't happy about that last one but THEY trust us.) How can you go wrong?

So, little brothers and sisters, I'm here for you! I promise to show you opportunities you won't believe are available! I promise to walk you through the process every step of the way and answer ALL your questions and teach you really COOL stuff about home ownership! I'm telling you there is a SALE, a REALLY BIG SALE on real estate right now and you shouldn't miss it!

I mean seriously, when it’s all said and done, when did your big sister ever really steer you wrong? Don’t answer that…. 

When it comes to today’s challenging home purchase market, the objective for those of us who take pride in providing the best representation to buyers and sellers is to find common ground that is win-win for both. Buyers want the deal of a lifetime and Sellers want to get as much equity out of their home as possible so they can move forward and become Buyers!

I’m thrilled that Allen Tate Company, has taken the lead in offering two new programs for Carolina sellers to help make their homes attractive to more buyers!


Announced today, Allen Tate Sellers can offer two new, optional programs, Rate Relief and Job Loss Protection, to Buyers in order to tip the balance toward making an offer on their Allen Tate listing!

What a great way to get more potential buyers through your Allen Tate listed home and increase the odds of finding a qualified buyer for your beautiful home! For more information on these programs and how they compliment ‘my magic marketing bag of tricks to get your home sold’, contact me!

SarahGray Lamm, Realtor

sarahgray.lamm@allentate.com

919-819-8199