Catching Ann Pope just walking into work today – she stylishly shows off her latest fashion finds. Blouse, GAP; Pant, Banana Republic; Shoes, Christian Louboutin; Glasses, Michael Kors; Bag, Longchamp
As always we encourage everyone at Lane and Smythe and our clients to, “Live Your Style.”
Photo by Russ
Great news for first time homebuyers! If you purchase a home for your principal residence between January 1, 2009 and December 1, 2009, the government will pay you $8,000 in the form of a tax credit! A first time homebuyer is defined as someone who has never purchased a home, OR someone who has not owned a home in the past 36 months. The first time homebuyer tax credit first came on the scene in April of 2008 and was set to expire June 30th, 2009. Originally, the amount of the credit was $7,500 and repayment was required over a 15 year period. In essence, it was a moderately appealing interest free loan from the government. This credit has now been amended for 2009 as a part of the new stimulus package removing the repayment requirement and raising the dollar amount to $8,000! When considering this exciting new opportunity coupled with extremely low interest rates, I have made the decision to purchase my first home. I really can’t imagine a better buying scenario. Prices are low, interest rates are even lower, and the government wants to give me $8,000 for making a wise and potentially high yielding investment. Where do I sign? Of course you must first make sure you are in a position to afford home ownership by evaluating your finances, securing a down payment, and getting pre-qualified by your lending institution of choice. Contact me if you are like minded, don’t kick yourself in 2010! For more information on how the credit works, visit www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com or call Lane and Smythe for the rundown 843-577-2900.
The Today Show recently had real estate expert Barbara Corcoran on the show to discuss ten common real estate myths. The myths were broken up into the two groups they were held by, property sellers and property buyers. These myths are common misconceptions in the real estate market that real estate agents must deal with on a daily basis. With the economy in the current state it is in, it is important for everyone to understand that the real estate myths people commonly hold are in fact myths. Both buyers and sellers will benefit from these clarifications because they will both understand that sometimes you don’t have to have great credit to get a loan or that sometimes you can get the best refinancing rate from your current lender.
In today’s uncertain market, fear runs rampant on both the buying and selling sides of the fence. Many myths need debunking. Here are five untruths held by buyers, and five held by sellers.
Buyer myth No. 1: The longer the house is on the market, the more you can negotiate.
When buyers ask, “How long has this property been on the market?”, they think “six months” means they can negotiate the price down. It more often means the seller is stubbornly holding on to their price.
Buyer myth No. 2: The sellers today are desperate.
Most aren’t. Always ask why the sellers are selling. It’s the key to finding how motivated and anxious they are. “I’m being transferred to Dallas” is a very different answer than “We’d like to find something bigger.” The first homeowner is hot to trot.
Buyer myth No. 3: You can’t buy a home today with less than 20 percent down.
FHA loans require only 3.5 percent down, and you can even ask the seller to pay the closing costs.
Buyer myth No. 4: You need good credit to get a good loan.
Once again, the FHA to the rescue! They’re happy to lend money to buyers with bad credit.
Buyer myth No. 5: You shouldn’t buy before prices have bottomed.
You can’t sharpshoot the real estate market. Once you identify the “bottom,” prices have already moved up.
Seller myth No. 1: Now’s the absolute worst time to sell.
Not necessarily. It depends upon where you live. Many of the worst hit markets, like Las Vegas, Phoenix or San Diego, are already beginning to turn around. And if you’re a homeowner who wants to trade up, the loss you’ll take on your current home will be more than offset by the bargain you’ll get on the next one.
Seller myth No. 2: Never respond to a low-ball bid.
All buyers today feel obligated to put in low-ball offers to see if the seller bites. If you respond with a reasonable counter offer, most buyers can be convinced to come up in price and make the deal.
Seller myth No. 3: The first offer is never the best offer.
Most sellers believe that it’s smart to hold out for something better. But four times out of five, the first offer is the best you’ll ever see.
Seller myth No. 4: ‘I can always reduce my price later.’
Sellers often price their home high for a few weeks just to test the market. But buyers shop by price bracket and if your house is in the wrong one, you’ll just help sell everyone else’s home while yours sits there overpriced. And reducing your price later in small increments puts you in the position of chasing the tide as it goes out.
Seller myth No. 5: Before you refinance, shop around.
You can if you want, but you’ll usually get the best deal from your current lender. And you’ll be able to negotiate your closing costs.
Source: Barbara Corcoran
Lois broke her toe. 
She will be back in the full swing of things momentarily. Please send flowers and cards to 9 Broad. 
We’re certainly not a Las Vegas, Detroit or Miami.
That’s what local home- owners and real estate industry players can take comfort in when lamenting Charleston’s weakened housing market. Comparing market conditions with cities in far worse positions, in fact, makes our local problems seem much smaller.
To that effect, Charleston recently was cited as one of the top 25 Strongest Housing Markets by Forbes magazine, which asked Moody’s Economy.com to create a list of areas that are nearest to recovery. The group looked at metro areas with populations higher than 500,000.
The analysis forecast that the Lowcountry housing market will hit the bottom in late 2009 and that prices will fall by a margin of 1.1 percent before that time. (That prediction doesn’t jibe with data from the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors, which suggests that, at least since 2007, home sales prices have fallen by roughly 3 percent.)
Charleston shared the honor with other Southern cities, including Columbia, Birmingham and Augusta. Clusters of real estate stability were found in Upstate New York in cities such as Rochester, Albany and Buffalo and throughout Texas in cities including San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth and El Paso.
The analysis emphasized that the listed markets aren’t immune from the current downturn. None of the cities is likely to see prices increase by the end of the year.
In storage
A local developer has picked a spot to polish up in the revitalizing Charleston Neck Area.
Quattlebaum Development Co. is on the brink of breaking ground for a new storage facility on Heriot Street. The 106,000-square foot facility, which will be managed by Extra Space Storage, could open as early as June.
Extra Space Storage has three other locations in the Charleston area.
The 1.4-acre site used to house the brick Craig’s Seafood building, which has been torn down.
Quiet Heriot Street’s profile recently was elevated by the neighboring Magnolia urban infill development, a proposal that aims to turn 126 acres of previously polluted land along the Ashley River into a mix of offices, shops and as many as 4,400 homes. Magnolia developers plan to route the future neighborhood’s traffic over a marsh and through Heriot to link up to U.S. Interstate 26.
Reach Katy Stech at 937-5549 or kstech@postand courier.com.
Read the full article on Charleston.net
Lois Lane is responsible for this beauty!
Our office manager, Christy Barnwell, turned 30 today on Friday, December 12, 2008. Last night we celebrated her birthday, but more so celebrating her last night of 29 years. Towards the end of the celebration a double rainbow was sited outside our office on 9 Broad. Happy 30th Birthday Christy!
Being a young artist and attending The Art Institute of Charleston I was excited to see one of Charleston’s own in one of my favorite magazine’s, GQ. This month in the December 2008 issue Mr. Fairey has his own page. In the quaint office of 9 Broad, my desk sits in front of a mantle with a very unique piece of art on a metal sheet done by Mr. Fairey. “RADICALS” – a 2 color vector style piece in four quadrants with portraits of Einstein, Warhol, Parks and King. I love it. It is such a part of my everyday life.
Mr. Fairey we have discussed you and your work many times at The Art Institute of Charleston! Congrats!
Russ Bratcher
Lane and Smythe Real Estate
In-House Graphic Designer
Charleston has long been considered the quintessential southern city, all shrimp-and-grits, refined manners, and linen suits. Decimated during the Civil War, when the city was considered the “cradle of secession,” Charleston slowly recovered. Most of its Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, and Victorian houses and civic buildings have survived and still dominate the strikingly beautiful cityscape.
This, of course, is no accident: The Preservation Society of Charleston was founded in 1920, the first such activist group in the country. In 1931 it persuaded the city to pass a zoning ordinance that established the Board of Architectural Review and designated the city’s historic district (also a national first and since expanded). Then in the 1970s, Mayor Joseph Riley undertook an urban planning effort that further revitalized the city—while protecting its historic resources through such means as carefully controlling the design and scale of new buildings.
When tourists started making their way to Charleston, it was the rich array of historic architecture, charming oak-tree-lined-streets, imposing waterfront, regional folkways, and nearby Civil War landmarks (including the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Drayton Hall) that made them want to return. “People retain a real sense of the past here, architecturally and historically,” says Vanessa Turner Maybank, the city’s director of tourism. “I think there’s also a comfortable side of Charleston that other cities don’t have.”
In 1984, in an effort to ensure that the booming tourism industry would not dominate or detract from local culture or living environment, Charleston enacted its first tourism management ordinance—and later, in 1994, a tourism management plan. These were meant both to protect residents’ quality of life and to offer travelers a pleasurable and informative stay. One outcome of this effort was construction of the Visitor Reception and Transportation Center, which orients tourists and coordinates their activities while reducing unnecessary traffic and pollution in neighborhoods. The city also created a tourism commission to implement the management ordinance through, for example, licensing tour guides and properly routing traffic.
Thus far, that effort has been a success: Survey panelists lauded Charleston as “a real open-air museum” and “a perfect blending of past and future.” Another panelist noted that “Charleston is a city of firsts, both for historic preservation and forward thinking on tourism. Its built heritage is second to none in the country and perhaps the world.” Indeed, Charleston’s progressive policies about preservation and tourism—and the bond between the two—have been well noted by rest of the country. Maybank says that “many people from other cities’ boards of architecture or preservation societies visit Charleston today because their communities have patterned themselves after Charleston. There are places all over this country that are using our zoning ordinances and tourism board as models.”
What happens when you match travelers with historic places? Once upon a time, it seemed, only happy endings. The travelers loved discovering well-preserved cities and towns. The destinations reaped financial rewards. Historic preservation was the ultimate winner.
In some locations, however, the situation soured as visitation soared. Popularity spawned crowding, pollution, sprawl, and overdevelopment-vexing residents and visitors alike. Historic sites began to look worse for wear, their authenticity sometimes blurred by the local temptation to “give’em what they want,” even if it wasn’t genuine.
So much for happy endings.
Still, mass tourism doesn’t have to make a mess. Some destinations, having tussled with everything from noisy tour buses to pushy bauble hawkers, have learned to manage crowds with aplomb-avoiding town-tourist conflicts and environmental degradation while keeping history real.
Do you wonder how the world’s top historical attractions are coping these days? Which ones do a good job of protecting their heritage and environment? Which have slipped? To answer these questions, the national Geographic Center for Sustainable Destinations conducted a survey that rated the stewardship skills of 109 places worldwide. Each is a city, town, neighborhood, or landscape of considerable historical value.
A panel of 280 experts-from fields such as preservation, tourism, ecology, site management, travel writing, cultural studies, and archaeology-assessed the destination. (The panel’s criteria were environmental quality, condition of historic buildings, cultural integrity, aesthetic appeal, quality of tourism management, and future outlook.) Each location was given a numerical score, best to worst. The results appear in the November/December 2008 issue of National Geographic Traveler, with additional panelist comments available online at nationalgeographic.com/traveler.
Of particular interest to U.S. preservationists are the survey’s American destinations. Preservation spoke to residents in five featured locales: Ashland, Ore.; Charleston, S.C.; Galena, Ill.; Lancaster County, Pa.; and Santa Fe, N.M.
