Charlotte Area Tops for Quality of Life

People and companies continue to move to the Charlotte area, including Mooresville and surrounding communities.  There are many reasons for their choosing our area.  Kiplinger has a great article that explains why Charlotte is among 10 of the best cities to live in the US, including business climate, quality of education, and cost of living.

Lots of people like to live right in the city or a close suburb, and that’s great (I’ve done both).  Others like to live close enough to the city to enjoy the amenities of a metropolitan area without having to live in the city full-time and battle traffic and other irritations unless they do it by choice to visit the city.  Mooresville is close enough for one to drive to most parts of Charlotte within 30-45 minutes on the weekends.   Daily commutes to downtown are not too bad unless someone makes an “oops” up ahead and slows traffic, but you’ll find that anywhere.  I talk with and work with a lot of people moving to our area, and most find it a great place to live.  They like the Mooresville area’s slower pace and the recreational benefits of Lake Norman.  They also like being a only a couple of hours from our mountains and four or so hours to our coast.  Life is good here in the Charlotte/Lake Norman area!  If you want to find out more about it, check out the Relocation link on the right side of this page.

Take a look at the Kiplinger article HERE.

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Holiday Apologies

I have to apologize.  I’ve concluded that I don’t fit the Christmas plan.  It seems that when people ask me what I want for Christmas- you know, something reasonably priced and small enough to wrap, I just come up with nothing.  Don’t get me wrong.  I do want things, like new windows for my house, paying down my credit card balance, help on replacing my locked up heat pump compressor (revelation from yesterday), or maybe a couple of slabs of cherry wood to use in my shop.  I even like books and music, but now mostly I like to get them digitally, so that means a gift card from Amazon or iTunes.  I’m just not able to give my family a good traditional idea.  I think I’m lucky to be at a point in my life where things and stuff just don’t occupy a lot of my mind.  When I do want some hardware, it is usually pretty pricey and peculiar- not the kind of things to suggest to relatives and friends.  I really don’t mean to be difficult, and I still manage to appreciate the holidays for the food and fellowship they bring.  I read something the other day on the subject of happiness.   It was trying to identify why Americans seem to have more stuff than most any other country, but don’t rate very high on an international happiness scale.  The writer said that to be truly happy, we need to focus more on using our resources to have positive, memorable experiences.  Good memories that can be called up time and again can bring real happiness.

I’m too much of a gearhead/gadget guy to think that I’ll stop appreciating well-designed gizmos, but the older I get, the more I just enjoy a good meal with friends.  I’ll still happily rip open a Christmas package containing pajamas, a tie, a sweater, or other traditional goodies.  I’ll really appreciate them, and my bride will enjoy me looking a little less out-of-style. But just understand that if you’re looking for  the really unique gadget that will make me feel all twelve years old again, apart from going nuts in the Brookstone store/catalog, it’s going to be tough, but good luck!

Merry Christmas, everyone.  Hope you get what YOU want.

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Realtors Hear from Children’s Homes of Iredell County

Sonya Leonard

Last week, Realtors from the Charlotte Regional Realtor’s Association’s Northern Region (Iredell and N. Mecklenburg) enjoyed a holiday luncheon at the Statesville Civic Center.  Along with our usual fundraising activities for the Housing Opportunity Foundation and bringing toys for donation to the Salvation Army, we had very special guests as speakers after lunch.  Sonya Leonard, an Iredell area Realtor, introduced Brenda Speece of Children’s Homes of Iredell County.  Earlier in the year, Sonya nominated Children’s Homes of Iredell County for one of the HOF’s Community Grants Awards, and they later became a recipient of a sizeable contribution from HOF.  Brenda was asked to speak to the group about the work of her organization.

Brenda described how they provide a stable home-like situation for local foster children, but the surprising thing is that they also have a remarkable transitional program.

Brenda Speece and Rayna

Think about what happens to a kid when he or she ages out of the foster program.  How do they then survive?  Do they even know how to survive without getting into negative circumstances.  The goal of the transitional program is to answer that need by giving them a place to live, help in securing employment, or even help in pursuing further education.  What a great way to improve the odds of these kids growing up to be positive contributors to the community!

At our luncheon, Brenda went into a bit of detail about their work, then invited one of the youth who’s been in program, Rayna, to come up a tell us what it meant to her.  Rayna was clearly very appreciative of the work of Brenda Speece and Children’s Homes of Iredell County and what it has meant to the quality of her life and future prospects.  The Realtors that day left with a greater appreciation for what they, and anyone, can do to put light into the lives of those who need a break.

You can help too, by contacting Brenda Speece at Brenda.speece@chomesofiredell.com, or call her at 704-768.2719.  They operate a thrift store at 224 N. Center St. in Statesville to provide employment for the kids and raise money for the organization.  From the photos I saw on their Facebook page (found HERE), it looks like they’ve got some great, high-quality items for sale.  I’d say it’s worth a trip or two or three, for a variety of reasons!

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Planning Real Estate Closings

I was talking with my bride yesterday about the differences in our work schedules.  She’s a teacher in the Mooresville school system and has short-term and long-term lesson plans to follow, and specific things to accomplish.  She works very hard to make all those things happen on time and with great academic results.  Sometimes, it puts a heavy load on her to get it all done by the appointed time, but she gets it done.  I, on the other hand, have long-term plans, short-term plans, intermediate term plans and spur of the moment plans in relation to helping my clients finally either sell a property or buy a property.  When I wake up in the morning, I have some specific things I want to accomplish.  They may have to do with marketing my services, marketing my listings, searching for properties for my buyers, or working on the details of upcoming closings.  As it turns out, it’s a rare day when my morning plans match my end of the day accomplishments.  That’s because the business of real estate has a tendency to be somewhat reactive to unexpected results on inspections, appraisals, repairs, calls from brand new clients, calls from current clients, and a myriad of other things that will throw off the plans for the day, or week or month. 

Real estate agents have to be very flexible, creative and understanding of everyone’s priorities in order to keep from going nuts.  They’ve also got to have those characteristics to keep their clients from going nuts, too!  I’ve often told my clients that one of the unappreciated roles of an effective real estate agent is to act as a “shock absorber” for their clients.  We know that clients, both buyers and sellers, are excited and somewhat anxious about making their plans work.  Good real estate agents put considerable effort into managing all the variables and surprises than can crop up to make the path to a closing a bumpy one.  We do our best to anticipate those bumps, but “stuff” does happen in spite of our best efforts.  That’s when a good understanding of the process and good relationships with our service providers can help smooth out those bumps.

I’ve had 3 buyer closings on the books for several months, and I took special care to spread them out on the calendar.  But “stuff” showed up on two out of three, and now this week I’ll have all three closings within two or three days.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m happy to have these three closings, but that’s not how I’d plan them.  We just have to take a deep breath, and do what needs to be done to make all clients involved happy.  If we do that and remain calm, the visit to the closing table will be a welcome finale to the long transaction process, and there’ll be no last-minute surprises.

Surprises are great for Christmas, but not for closings!

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