September 11, 2008

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

Being a Condo Specialist Is Great Training…

We learn to dig deeper, question more, verify more. We uncover all the problems we can…the mold, the radon, the documents that forbid a pick up truck over a certain size and weight, the different mortgage products, the various insurance options or requirements. Condos require a little more inquisitiveness, a little more tenacity.

And this is great training because this week and last we have been knee deep with transactions that have required both of us to leave no stone unturned when it came to purchasing a vacant lot at the lake. The purchase will involve the ability of the purchaser to build a pier. No small task with permits from Duke. And flood insurance.
And to secure a mortgage. And to research all the comps of vacant lots whether they were purchased as extra lots with a home adjacent…

OR
 The purchaser could buy a home already built on the lake. So we previewed, assessed piers and parking pads and retaining walls and crawl spaces.

The second transaction involves the purchase of a home with a seller rent back for up to a year. Is it a second home or an investment? How do we look at repairs that might be needed during the rent back? Meanwhile, we prepare the buyer’s current home for the market with the flurry of wallpaper being removed, painting underway, window cleaners afoot, furniture going to a storage unit.

And we are also dealing with an assortment of mortgage originators, appraisers, attorneys, and agents. Some fun to work with, some slippery. We compare notes, and plan every step of each process together. Our custom is to work by the book, observe the protocols.

Working with condominiums teaches that what appears to be often isn’t. Knowing that helps us with homes and piers on the lake, 2^nd homes, investment homes…and we focus on another segment of our broad market.

Sometimes people ask if we just do condos…liking the complexity of condominiums
helps hone our skills for the rest. We enjoy our playing field.

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

September 10, 2008

You say potato, I say Potato…

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

The subject of condos, condominiums, attached housing…and it follows townhouses.

A condo is by legal definition air space. A townhouse has a footprint. It goes downhill from there.

Can a single family structure with a detached garage be a condo?
Can a cluster of single family residences be condos?
Can a building have flats on the first floor and two story units above?
Is a garden a condominium or a townhouse?
Can a townhouse have a basement?
If you live in a townhome do the monthly dues cover hazard insurance?
If you live in a condo do you need insurance at all?
Should you read the covenants and restrictions before purchasing?
What is also good reading for discovering surprises with attached housing?

Can there be radon on a fifth floor condominium?
Can the number of investors in a community skew the type of mortgage products?
 Here are some answers:

For everything I know on condominiums, check out…you guessed it: CondoCanDo.com. We tell all…and if we missed something, please let us know. We love learning all we can about condominiums…and townhomes and patio homes.

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

September 9^th, 2008

It’s My House…

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

Some days are longer than others. Some days the focus is on money, mortgages, interest rates, terms or the cost of repairs, or the buyer’s closing costs or the seller’s net…
somedays it’s making the pieces fit with timing for buyers and sellers and agents and attorneys…or setting times for appraisers and inspectors.
Many days are spent reviewing a step in the process of buying…both the one we just took and the one we are about to take. Real Estate is a process of many steps.
Today, I spent most of the day focusing on one house.
I crawled in the crawl space enough to see there was no hanging insulation, that a vapor barrier was in place, that it appeared free of standing water and smelled like a crawl space without mildew or mold. This was a first pass. I looked under the deck for pieces of wood, erosion, problems. And I looked at every square inch of all the trim, the paint job, the gutters and downspouts, the splash blocks, the roof vents, the outside mechanical units, the bushes, the mulch, the steps in the front and the back, the slope in the front and the back, the fences and how they attached to neighbors.
Inside I started in the attic looking at storage space and looking at ventilation, and pans under systems…
And then, room by room, closet by closet, making notes of size, windows and detail.
I looked at other storage areas off bonus rooms, counted windows, noted ceiling fans and marked lighting fixture lenses that might be missed when the window cleaners come tomorrow. They are also instructed to clean all the light fixtures in and outside the home, clean all mirrors…scrape the windows from the new paint job and clean all the windows in and out.
I checked all the carpeting and noted a faded area under the sideboard and asked that the dining room carpeting be replaced and while we are at it, to check under the piano in the living room as well to make sure that had not faded as well.
All the rooms were measured and measurements were compared to the floor plan.
The sellers had begun moving furniture readying a load for the storage unit they have rented. Cabinets were being polished. A painter came while I was working to give a price on the dining room, a half bath and an upstairs bedroom and full bath.
The seller and I talked again about the market, the price, our marketing approach and how we would develop those plans. It is clearly a partnership.
As we set ourselves to wrap up, they handed me the key. They said, “It’s your house.  Bring us a buyer.”
Today was another good day.

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

September 8, 2008

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

Conundrum…Mold in a Condo…

This subject makes me crazy. The first time I started reading about mold in a condominium was the one that had been foreclosed and sat empty for 4 to 5 months…and finally when the neighbors and the HOA gained entrance, the place was black with mold.
The unit had been trashed; the plumbing was leaking and then comes the mold. Common walls and common ceilings and common floors and vents…

And now, I have learned of another instance. A young woman purchased a condo in a prestigious area. Pretty pool. Great location. Close to work and shopping and friends.
She’s a first time home owner. I learned today that she is quite ill. Eyes red and itching, breathing difficult, headaches and she has moved in with friends. There is black mold on her kitchen cabinets. There is mold in her furniture. She has been gathering information. Requesting minutes from Board meetings for months and discovering problems and delays and poor maintenance and poor repairs. She has consulted an attorney. She has asked if I could list it for sale. The fact is, I could, but I can’t. I know too much. And the sad thing is, I am afraid there is little they can do because the HOA has no money. Poor management maybe. Non-professionals on the Board trying to do a job that really needs a professional…and frankly, some the professionals in property management are lacking.
Being pro-active seems to allude many.

The best I can do is try to get her information to a viable news source. The subject of mold is one of the top ten things we are all wary of…and rightly so…just last week I previewed a home at the lake…mold in the crawl space…and could not get out fast enough. I have been sick and remain congested and have flu like symptoms. The air we breathe…

I am stuck.

September 5, 2008

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

People, The Trouble With Condos…

210 East Trade/EpiCenter

Developer stops sales of units at troubled condo building         

With no end in sight to the legal troubles surrounding the stalled 210 Trade condo building, its onsite sales team has moved out.

In a letter to condo owners last week, Builder Services Inc., an arm of Allen Tate, said the team was leaving the sales office, citing “issues … in the court system, thus temporarily curtailing our ability to sell property at this location.”

The company plans to monitor the building's progress and update buyers through a Web site it created for them, the letter said.

Questions about the move were referred to a spokesman for the developer, Charlotte FC, part of the Indianapolis-based Flaherty & Collins. He did not immediately return phone calls Thursday.

Charlotte FC will not sell more units until the legal issues are resolved, its attorney, Lee Spinks, said.

Work on the 50-story tower, part of the EpiCentre complex uptown, stopped in February, with two floors built, because of a disagreement over technical building-code issues.

Its developer and the EpiCentre's,

Both sides have said they want the project to move forward. The latest contract gives developers until December 2010, with the option to extend up to four months beyond that, to finish the building.

Spinks said Charlotte FC hopes construction can be started in time to meet the deadline and that the developer will let buyers know when that will be – or if it's unable to start construction in coming months.

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

Kirsten Valle/The Charlotte Observer

September 4, 2008

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

Condos: Consider the risks a well as the benefits.

Even in the newspaper story about Rosewood Condominium yesterday, the lines about buying a condo, downsizing from single family homes and eliminate maintenance chores made me laugh off my large medicine ball-chair.

Why, you ask? Because I spent the better part of the morning reading the minutes from a popular condominium located in one of Charlotte’s most prestigious neighborhoods.
Granted maybe the lack of proper maintenance is management company, maybe it is because when we do things by committee preventative maintenance winds up on the floor. And the older I become, the more I know, everything is about maintenance. Your bike, your teeth, the gaps in the cement between bricks.

In this one particular complex there have been water problems from the air handlers of air conditioning units. And from the water problems, long neglected, come a mold problem.
People who have health challenges are experiencing irregular temperatures and are having a hard time being heard.

And then as I finished walking the dog and was closing the gates, my new neighbors walked by and stopped to tell me the Radon remediation on their condominium in the city went well. We spoke of being proactive. Another condo has been reported with Radon Uptown. Why is it I know and the residents don’t?

And just when I figure I can’t make sense of a good concept, condos, gone astray, I am reminded of the superior job being done by a woman in Cotswold. She keeps amazing all of us with her tenacity, her focus and her single sterling vision of condo principles. Maybe we can persuade her to join us for a podcast soon. She is the example of how a community should be and can managed.

For Condo CanDo, This Is Lynnsy Logue, The Real Estate Lady in Charlotte, NC

September 3, 2008

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

Hat’s Off to Rosewood Condominiums!

At the corner of

September 2, 2008

Trying to Figure It Out

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

I should never write these podcast/blog when it is late at night…after a day where energy was spent carefully and consistently on important things like septic tanks. We live in a growing, bustling city. Charlotte will be one of the first out of the muck and mire because we are basically a conservative southern town. We like brick, traditional homes. We like

our medium size southern town that is looking towards being World Class. Why last year, the newspaper was consistently announcing condo towers…most of them in Uptown Charlotte.
Today…The Park has tried to go through foreclosure but now is in the throes of an involuntary bankruptcy…but wait the court appointed attorney is looking through all of the documents to see if there is anything else going on…anything that is less than honest.
The guy whose dream was this building…says he knows how to solve the problems, just let him finish.

Okay…so there is a stalled 60-70% condo tower uptown, decaying. And just down the street is another dream turned nightmare…210 East Trade, a part of the Epicenter. Legal battles are being waged, condo definitions and process are in the air…and that may have been the gamble. The building stands unfinished.

Then there is a three liner on the 2^nd page about another large Uptown condo project…not started, no word. The word “condo” takes on less meaning. Nebulous.

It’s hard to write about condominiums when the concept is tough to materialize because the people seem to be less than detail oriented or something like that.

So I write about what will make this market…the lite rail, the fabulous Greenways and trails, the parks and the bond drive that bring us more green, the sections that are morphing from fringe areas to new…new designs, new pedscapes, new names. And everywhere, there is building and remaking…and cranes moving to the tunes we hear in this small southern city. Yes, we can. Yes, we are. Yes.

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

September 1, 2008

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC

Analyzing the Second Quarter
By Chuck Graham, Charlotte Real Estate Consultant      

Story Highlights
• Charlotte's return to normalcy will be quicker than most
• Soon to be the best time to buy

A comparison of the twelve months ending 2Q08 vs. 2Q07 reveals an existing market down 26 percent on an unchanged median price; the new home market was down a similar 26 percent on a 6 percent increase in median price.

The total (new and existing) Charlotte for-sale housing market first slipped 2Q07 when total closings fell 5 percent 2Q07 versus 2Q06.  Median pricing however continues to climb at 3 percent.

3Q07 saw a 14 percent drop in closings with an additional 4 percent increase in the median price.  4Q07 reported a 20 percent drop in closings with 5 percent increase in the median price.

1Q08 was a particularly difficult time period with total closings dropping 36 percent on a 1 percent increase in median price.  Both new and existing closings were equally hurt.

2Q08 saw a similar drop of 37 percent on a 1 percent decrease in median price.  Existing closings were down 36 percent and new closings 40 percent. These statistics would suggest that the market’s deceleration has peaked.

As previously noted, Charlotte’s residential title transfers never saw the run-up in the investor market, the sub-prime/alt A market, or pricing that has been seen nationally. Consequently its difficulties will be less severe and its return to normalcy quicker as continued Case-Shiller reporting suggests.

For home buyers without a house to sell; future deceleration will gradually slow as we near the bottom of the Charlotte market – and the best of times to consider looking and buying depending upon your ability to satisfy desire.

For home buyers with a house to sell consider that good times, average times and difficult times present very similar pricing differentials, what you sell your house for will be matched by a similar value in the house you buy.

Thank you, Chuck Graham.

Lynnsy Logue The Real Estate Lady and Condo CanDo in Charlotte, NC