Triangle Home Wizard Real Estate Blog

This is the first post in a new series from Kevin Martini of Homebanc.

THIS WEEK (1-8 to 1-12-07)

So…what will happen this week? In terms of economic news, the week ahead will be fairly slow, until Friday’s potentially high impact Retail Sales Report. And whenever the market lacks economic reports and data to trade on, technical indicators like historic highs, lows and trend lines will generally take center stage. The great news is the technicals are on our side.

There will be 5 reports this week that may effect rates. The 3 big ones are Initial Jobless Claims (1/11/2007)…Retails Sales & Retail Sales ex-auto (1/12/2007). It is my opinion that Fridays reports will have the highest impact.

Kevin

Digital signatures. Why? Good grief, why *wouldnt* you? Imagine the following scenario: Happy Couple A have been searching for a home for the last 10 days. The are relocating from California because they both work for Initech. Initech is hiring like mad in the Triangle, and offering great incentive packages to any California employees who move to come work at the RTP office.

Good news! The husband has found the perfect home in Cary. But the wife flew back to Bay Area for the Friday afternoon sales meeting. The plot thickens: there is another offer from another party. It gets thicker: the wife is stuck in ORD waiting for the fog to clear in SFO. Happy Couple A really want to submit an excellent offer and they need to do it in the next 15 minutes.

Home Wiz to the rescue. He writes up the offer, and submits it to the digital signing service. Since the wife has a laptop and wireless Internet access, she simply logs in to her email program of choice, clicks on the provided email, and within seconds, signs the entire document with nothing but a mouse.

As luck would have it, the husband also has a laptop and Internet access! (In fact, as long as you have access to any web-enabled computer (sorry PDA browsers), you can securely log in to digitally sign your document). A minute later, the wife sitting at C20 in ORD, and the husband sipping a macchiato at Pheasant Creek Coffee , have both signed the 7 page document.

Instantly, the Triangle Home Wizard is notified that they have both signed the document. He then forwards along the document to the listing agent. He jumps in the car (that’s the ’speed of car part’ and drives up to the sellers.) Their offer was indeed better, and is accepted!

The entire signing process happened in minutes. Never was a pen lifted. There were no paper jams in a fax machine. Nobody signed in the wrong place (or missed a signature). The copy delivered to the listing agent was amazingly clear; it had not been downsampled, rescanned, refaxed, reprinted, reoriented or chewed on by the dog.

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The pen was invented over 100 years ago.Fax machines have been around for more then 60 years.Why not try Docusign? - Flash based Docusign demo.Look interesting? Email me for a sample document that you can sign! What’s the surprise? A $5 gift certificate from Amazon. What’s the catch? Well, I get your mailing address, your name, and your email address. All good things to have for an effective home search Don’t worry, I hate spam. The only thing I will do with your email address is send you other great tips like this one. Including other fun offers & surprises.

I am pretty careful with my recommendations and referrals for any business. I only endorse things that I have personally used and have been thoroughly impressed with. I have a particular interest in local Cary business. I try to support local service companies whenever possible.

So the other day, my VW Passat started making really nasty noises. I tried calling the local VW dealership. This was Monday, and they were taking appointments for Friday. Did I mention the car was making REALLY NASTY noises? Hmm… My other choice was to take it up to the Raleigh dealership for an appointment on Wednesday. The logistics of that weren’t thrilling.

I then remembered my great experiences with Hubcap Heaven. They took very good care of me when I had new tires put on. They are a smaller shop, but I think a lot of the local racing enthusiasts have their wheels and tires done by Hubcap Heaven.

A bit desperate, I called Mark and asked him if he knew of a good VeeDub shop. Without hesitation, he said Black Forest Industries. I dialed 468.5400. “Hi, I have a 2007 Porsche 911 Turbo 2000 VW Passat that is going to die *any second*. The dealer told me that they can’t even look at it until Friday. Can you help me?” “How soon can you come up? I can figure out what the problem is and order parts to be delivered tomorrow”…

Anyways, the problem was a bad water pump, timing belts (yikes there was metal shavings! under the engine cover). The best part of the experience was when Paul came out with a flippin’ stethescope to listen to the engine. I don’t think it was just a prop, but even if it was, how often do you have someone listen to your CAR with stethescope?

To wrap it up, I had an excellent experience with these guys. If you have a VW, Porsche or an Audi, and you want excellent, personalized service by enthusiasts who keep their garage floor cleaner then most restaurant dining floors, give them a shout.

I was helping some nice folks relocating from Utah look for a home today. Cisco is treating them nicely - they are looking for a home right at the limit of conforming loan. As we were inching upward, suddenly we realized we were pretty close to the jumbo limit. Well, I hadn’t checked what that number was, and as 2007 is right around the corner, I decided I better look it up.

Well, according to Fannie Mae - here is the breakdown effective January 1, 2007:

• One-family loans: $417,000
• Two-family loans: $533,850 (duplex, etc)
• Three-family loans: $645,300 (triplex)
• Four-family loans: $801,950

Not enough for you? Move to Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, or the US Virgin Islands and borrow 50% more and still qualify for conforming rates (if you do move, except for Alaska, make sure to invite me over).

If you decide to buy Cary real estate, make sure you first talk to Kevin Martini over at Homebanc. Kevin can get you a pre-qual letter in no time. Just apply online right at his site. Oh, and be sure to mention my name. He pays me thousands of dollars for every referral. Just kidding. (Really! That is not only unethical but illegal). I refer my clients to him because of his service, knowledge, and availability.

Kevin is a great guy. If you want me to prove it, email me for a video clip of him dancing to the “Loveshack” at our 2006 Fashion Victim Ball.

Now would be a great time!

After easing downwards over the last 5 months, mortgage rates have hit the lowest point during 2006. What does this mean if you are trying to sell a home in Cary? One question I often get from friends is “How is the market?” My current response is that there is NOTHING wrong with our market, its everybody else’s market that is the only concern we have. Lots of folks want to move to Cary from all over the country. But the sticking point is usually selling the home in the market they are coming from.

Now back to the point - now that rates are getting low, that may breathe a bit of life back in to stagnant markets where folks are coming from. Now is a great time to sell your Cary home. Give me a holler/email/ring and we can discuss what your home is worth.

Wow. The 2006 Fashion Victim Ball Charity Fundraiser was a HUGE success. The diligent crew from the Keller Williams Cary office, local sponsers and residents all contributed to a very fun evening and a fantastic fund for the charities.

The official site for the Ball is: www.fashionvictimball.com

Pics in a:

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April’s Angels provides fantasy bedrooms for chronically ill children in Wake County. Please visit the site and check out the wonderful stories and amazing changes they are making for some special children. www.aprilsangels.org

One of our other beneficiaries is The Center for Volunteer Caregiving. Their mission is to help Wake County seniors, family caregivers, and adults with disabilities, maintain independence, dignity and quality of life. They are a private, nonprofit, faith based organization founded in 1992 by area ministers, health care and social service professionals, and caregivers.
Everyone at our in-house team meeting today was excited and emotional. Lots of good times, food, music and a whole bunch of fun.

Looking forward to seeing you next year!

*EDIT*  Bummer.  For some reason they are all off-line.  I will see if I can dig the new URL and/or server and get the links posted again.

Here is a list of new traffic webcams for Cary.

U.S. 1/64 at Walnut Street
Tryon Road at Kildaire Farm Road
Airport Blvd. at I-40
Harrison Avenue at Cary Parkway
Harrison Avenue at Maynard Road
Kildaire Farm road at Maynard Road
Cary Parkway at Holly Springs Road
N.C. 54 at Weston Parkway
Chapel Hill Road at Cary Parkway
Evans Road at Weston Parkway
Evans Road at Cary Parkway
Walnut Street at Dillard Drive
Harrison Avenue at Chatham Street
Maynard Road at Walnut Street
Cary Parkway at Kildaire Farm Road

Congratulations Wake County Public School System - the Blueprint for Excellence 2006 moves ahead!
Wake County voters passed a $970 million bond which will:

• 17 new schools scheduled to open between 2008 and 2011
• land design for another 13 schools
• major renovations to 13 existing schools
• other repairs at dozens more schools

Wake County is renowned for its school system. A strong selling point for people moving into Cary and the Triangle are the fantastic public schools.

The latest GrowthCast, a Quicktime video from the WCPSS, reflects on the bond vote. Click here for GrowthCast #28.

The 2006 Parade of Homes is upon us! Here are the dates:

September 30th - October 1th

October 6th - October 8th

October 13th - October 15th.

This is an award winning Parade - considered to be one of the most outstanding Parade of Homes in the country. Don’t miss it!

For more info, email or call me 919.924.4040. I would be happy to get you one of the extensive magazines showing all the homes.

The Wiz pulled some detective duty and uncovered an estimated opening date of the new Cary Trader Joe’s at Cary Parkway and Kildaire Farms. Early November from knowledgeable sources. Construction is scheduled to be finished late October.

Wow, I can’t wait to dig into all the goodies I’ve missed since moving from California.
With all the rabid TJ fans (yours truly included), will the store soon be overcrowded from everyone all over the Triangle? Nope! Several more around Raleigh are on the drawing board.