The most bearish of Wall Street economic analysts have made the same point for the past 18 months. There's no recovery or rebound in the housing market, they said, until home builders start building again.
"Show us positive numbers on new home starts for a few months," they say, "and then we will we agree that the housing market has finally turned around."
Hey there bears, here are the numbers you asked for: Last week the Commerce Department reported an unexpectedly large increase in new single family home starts during May - up by seven and a half percent.
That was the THIRD consecutive monthly gain in single family starts. Total starts, including multifamily apartment starts and condos, were up by 17 and a half percent!! Not only were starts up a lot, but so were other key indicators of future home building activity: single family permits, which surged by about 8 percent. That was the second straight monthly gain in permits - and points to at least moderately higher starts in the coming six months to a year.
On top of the good news about new construction, which has clearly been the weakest segment of the housing market since 2007, we also got some other positive reports last week:
Consumer confidence, which is extremely important for home buying, was up again for the fourth consecutive month, according to the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment survey.
Even retail sales were up slightly -- and that's an important sign that people are slowly coming out of the shell they've been in since last Fall, and are now starting to spend money again.
The latest inflation readings -- both the Consumer Price Index and the Producer Price Index -- were down slightly in May. Despite rising gas price, a dollar bought a little more in goods and services last month than the month before. That's good.
The National Association of Home Builders now projects that the current recession will end in the second half of 2009, with a one point five percent growth rate in the overall economy between July and December.
Finally, mortgage rates took a slight dip last week after several weeks of increases. Fixed thirty year rates averaged about 5.5 percent last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, after climbing to 5.6 percent the previous week.
Many lenders had actually been quoting much higher rates - all the way to 6 percent - because of inflation fears in the bond market. We've definitely got to keep our eye on mortgage rates, but otherwise the rebound appears to be underway.
Source: Yahoo Real Estate
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Triangle to Grow Rapidly in the Coming Years
A recent article projects amazing growth for the Triangle in the coming years...
Joe Lanier is no stranger to the Triangle. He grew up in Sanford and received undergraduate and law degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After law school, Lanier moved to the Washington, D.C., area, where he stayed for the next dozen years – starting both his career and a family. But he never forgot about his roots in the Triangle, which grew bigger and more sophisticated in his absence.
Last year, Lanier and his wife, Amy, decided that Raleigh’s mix of big-city opportunities and small-town Southern living was too good to pass up. They left Alexandria, Va., in December so he could take a job at the local office of the law firm SZD Wicker.
“To us, this is the best of both worlds,” says Lanier, who now lives with his wife and three young children in Raleigh.
Research conducted by Triangle Business Journal’s parent company shows that Lanier and his family will have a lot of new neighbors moving into the area over the next decade and a half. Using federal data, Charlotte-based American City Business Journals projects that the three-county Raleigh-Cary metro area will be the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country in the period that began in 2005 and ends in 2025.
During that period, ACBJ says, the Raleigh-Cary population will explode from 953,093, to almost 1.9 million – nearly a 100 percent increase, or a growth of 3.5 percent per year. Based on the ACBJ projections, Raleigh will rise from being the country’s 51st largest metro area to its 38th largest in 2025.
ACBJ projects that the second-fastest growing metro over that period will be Provo, Utah, followed by Fort Myers, Fla.; Ocala, Fla., and Austin, Texas. Other projected fast-growing North Carolina metros are Charlotte, No. 8 on the growth list with a projected 75 percent increase in its population, and Wilmington, at No. 18.
The four-county Durham metro is projected to increase its population by 32 percent, to 604,663, in 2025. That would make it the 62nd fastest growing area in the country.
All of those potential new residents have local leaders thinking hard about the infrastructure that will need to be added over the next two decades.
“We’re attempting to get ready ... we’re not ready yet,” says Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker. He says the most recent draft of the city’s comprehensive plan, which is updated every 20 years, focuses on encouraging developers and planners to build up – not out.
Meeker thinks that a key to combating sprawl is improving transit, both through additional bus service and the construction of a rail system. He wants to make sure the area can grow without choking on traffic.
That’s a problem that Lanier encountered in Alexandria. He says his eight-mile commute to work in the morning sometimes took as long as an hour. Lanier now can get to work in 15 minutes.
Wake County Commissioner Joe Bryan points to efforts in the works that are designed to improve the area’s transportation infrastructure, such as the Triangle Expressway toll road and a proposal in the General Assembly that would create funding for local transit expansion. And he points out that citizens have stepped up to the infrastructure plate in years past by approving bond issuances related to education, libraries and open space.
Robert Parten moved to the area from West Palm Beach, Fla., in late January. “The quality of life is better here, that’s for sure,” says Parten, who works in IT support at PortBridge Internet in Cary.
Sourced from: Triangle Business Journal June 12, 2009
As always, for any questions about your real estate needs, reach out to us.
We're here to help.
Chuck Hinton (919) 422-4841 (919) 469-6504
Cindy Leonard (919) 868-4661 (919) 469-6505
http://www.chuckandcindy.com/
Joe Lanier is no stranger to the Triangle. He grew up in Sanford and received undergraduate and law degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After law school, Lanier moved to the Washington, D.C., area, where he stayed for the next dozen years – starting both his career and a family. But he never forgot about his roots in the Triangle, which grew bigger and more sophisticated in his absence.
Last year, Lanier and his wife, Amy, decided that Raleigh’s mix of big-city opportunities and small-town Southern living was too good to pass up. They left Alexandria, Va., in December so he could take a job at the local office of the law firm SZD Wicker.
“To us, this is the best of both worlds,” says Lanier, who now lives with his wife and three young children in Raleigh.
Research conducted by Triangle Business Journal’s parent company shows that Lanier and his family will have a lot of new neighbors moving into the area over the next decade and a half. Using federal data, Charlotte-based American City Business Journals projects that the three-county Raleigh-Cary metro area will be the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country in the period that began in 2005 and ends in 2025.
During that period, ACBJ says, the Raleigh-Cary population will explode from 953,093, to almost 1.9 million – nearly a 100 percent increase, or a growth of 3.5 percent per year. Based on the ACBJ projections, Raleigh will rise from being the country’s 51st largest metro area to its 38th largest in 2025.
ACBJ projects that the second-fastest growing metro over that period will be Provo, Utah, followed by Fort Myers, Fla.; Ocala, Fla., and Austin, Texas. Other projected fast-growing North Carolina metros are Charlotte, No. 8 on the growth list with a projected 75 percent increase in its population, and Wilmington, at No. 18.
The four-county Durham metro is projected to increase its population by 32 percent, to 604,663, in 2025. That would make it the 62nd fastest growing area in the country.
All of those potential new residents have local leaders thinking hard about the infrastructure that will need to be added over the next two decades.
“We’re attempting to get ready ... we’re not ready yet,” says Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker. He says the most recent draft of the city’s comprehensive plan, which is updated every 20 years, focuses on encouraging developers and planners to build up – not out.
Meeker thinks that a key to combating sprawl is improving transit, both through additional bus service and the construction of a rail system. He wants to make sure the area can grow without choking on traffic.
That’s a problem that Lanier encountered in Alexandria. He says his eight-mile commute to work in the morning sometimes took as long as an hour. Lanier now can get to work in 15 minutes.
Wake County Commissioner Joe Bryan points to efforts in the works that are designed to improve the area’s transportation infrastructure, such as the Triangle Expressway toll road and a proposal in the General Assembly that would create funding for local transit expansion. And he points out that citizens have stepped up to the infrastructure plate in years past by approving bond issuances related to education, libraries and open space.
Robert Parten moved to the area from West Palm Beach, Fla., in late January. “The quality of life is better here, that’s for sure,” says Parten, who works in IT support at PortBridge Internet in Cary.
Sourced from: Triangle Business Journal June 12, 2009
As always, for any questions about your real estate needs, reach out to us.
We're here to help.
Chuck Hinton (919) 422-4841 (919) 469-6504
Cindy Leonard (919) 868-4661 (919) 469-6505
http://www.chuckandcindy.com/
Friday, June 12, 2009
A New York Times Writer Spends 36 Hours in RTP...
Tell North Carolinians you’re heading to the Research Triangle, and they’ll probably ask “Which school are you visiting?” Yet the close-knit cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill are marked by more than college bars and hoops fans. Visitors not bound for Duke, the University of North Carolina or North Carolina State come to see buzz-worthy bands, dine on food from farm-worshiping chefs and explore outdoor art. From its biscuits to its boutiques, the Triangle occupies a happy place between slow-paced Southern charm and urban cool.
Friday
3 p.m.
1) ART INSIDE OUT
Anyone who has visited the Met or the Getty might scoff at the relatively succinct collection at the North Carolina Museum of Art (2110 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh; 919-839-6262; www.ncartmuseum.org). But the lack of tour bus crowds means unfettered access to the Old Masters and contemporary heavyweights like Anselm Kiefer. The real treat is the adjacent Museum Park, more than 164 acres of open fields and woodlands punctuated by environmental art like Cloud Chamber, a stone hut that acts as a camera obscura, with a small hole in the roof projecting inverted, otherworldly images of slowly swaying trees on the floor and walls.
5 p.m.
2) TOWER OF BAUBLE
There’s no pigeonholing the eclectic wares in this four-story indie minimall collectively known as Father & Son Antiques (107 West Hargett Street, Raleigh; 919-832-3030), and including Southern Swank and 2nd Floor Vintage. The organizing principle, if there is one, might be high design meets kitschy Americana, as the intermingling of vintage disco dresses ($18), Mexican wrestling masks ($20) and Eames aluminum group chairs ($250 to $500) attests.
7 p.m.
3) UPSCALE DINER
Memorable meals are easy to come by in the Triangle owing to its high concentration of accomplished, produce-fondling chefs like Ashley Christensen. She left one of the area’s top kitchens to open Poole’s Downtown Diner (426 South McDowell Street, Raleigh; 919-832-4477; www.poolesdowntowndiner.com) in a space that began as a 1940s pie shop. Diners sitting in the bright-red booths dig into Christensen’s low-pretense, high-flavor dishes, like a starter of lovably sloppy fried green tomatoes crowned with local pork smoked over cherry wood ($11), and the Royale ($13), an almost spherical hunk of ground-in-house chuck roll seared in duck fat, topped with cheese and perched on a slice of grilled brioche.
10 p.m.
4) CHEERS TO THE CHIEF
For most bars, a popular politician’s visit would be a game-changing boon. But the Raleigh Times Bar (14 East Hargett Street, Raleigh; 919-833-0999; www.raleightimesbar.com) was packed well before Barack Obama showed up the day of the state’s Democratic primary. The owner, Greg Hatem, painstakingly restored the century-old building that once housed its namesake newspaper and decorated the walls with old newspaper clippings, paperboy bags and other artifacts from the defunct daily. Mr. Obama bought a $2 Pabst Blue Ribbon (and left an $18 tip), but anyone not campaigning might choose one of the more than 100 other beers ($1 to $68), including esoteric Belgians and local brews you won’t find elsewhere.
Saturday
10:30 a.m.
5) ECO JUNK
The Scrap Exchange (548 Foster Street, Durham; 919-688-6960; www.scrapexchange.org) is a “nonprofit creative reuse center” specializing in industrial discards or, for those not versed in eco-jargon, a bazaar of modestly priced former junk donated by Carolinians and scavenged from local businesses that include a hosiery mill, a zipper factory and a parachute plant. Even if you’re not one of the giddy artists, teachers or theater producers who comb for utilitarian treasures, plan to spend at least an hour rummaging in a cool-struck trance through test tubes (20 cents to $1), empty fire extinguishers ($3 to $5) and swaths of double-knit polyester ($1 a yard).
Noon
6) TACO TIME
Anyone not on a hunt for serious Mexican food might drive past Taqueria La Vaquita (2700 Chapel Hill Road, Durham; 919-402-0209; www.lavaquitanc.com), an unassuming freestanding structure with a plastic cow on its roof, just five minutes from Duke’s campus. But if you did, you’d miss tacos ($2.19) made with house-made corn tortillas, uncommonly delicate discs topped with exceptional barbacoa de res (slow-cooked beef) or carnitas (braised-then-fried pork) that you eat at one of the picnic tables out front.
2 p.m.
7) RIVER WALK
One of the Triangle’s charms is that its urban trappings are so easy to escape. A 10-mile drive from downtown Durham brings you to Eno River State Park (6101 Cole Mill Road, Durham; 919-383-1686; www.ncparks.gov). Its trails pass through swaying pines and follow the river past patches of delicate purple-and-yellow wildflowers and turtles sunning themselves on low branches in the water.
5 p.m.
8) GOING WHOLE HOG
Small towns and back roads, not cities, have a monopoly on great barbecue. What makes the Pit (328 West Davie Street, Raleigh; 919-890-4500; www.thepit-raleigh.com) a striking exception is Ed Mitchell, the legendary master of the eastern North Carolina art form of whole hog cooking. Now instead of trekking 100 miles to porcine meccas like Ayden and Lexington, you can dig into pilgrimage-worthy chopped or pulled pork — made from pigs purchased from family farms and cooked for 10 to 14 hours over coals and hickory or oak — just a short stroll from the Capitol Building. A chopped barbecued pork plate with two sides and greaseless hush puppies costs $12.
7 p.m.
9) ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM
The Triangle is college basketball country, home to two of the winningest teams and some of the most rabid fans in N.C.A.A. history. But soon after the madness of March, the more tranquil local baseball fans stream into the Durham Bulls Athletic Park (409 Blackwell Street, Durham; 919-687-6500; www.dbulls.com). The Bulls, founded in 1902 as the Tobacconists, recently became the Tampa Bay Rays’ AAA affiliate. The major league-quality play comes at minor league prices ($7 to $9 a ticket).
10 p.m.
10) BIG BANDS
Nirvana played at the Cat’s Cradle (300 East Main Street, Carrboro; 919-967-9053; www.catscradle.com) for the first time in pre-“Nevermind” 1990 to about 100 people. A year later Pearl Jam played to three times as many, filling just half the standing-room-only space. This summer the Cradle, just a mile from downtown Chapel Hill, hosts acts like Akron/Family and Camera Obscura that probably won’t be playing for such small crowds for long. Ticket prices vary but $15 is about average.
Sunday
10 a.m.
11) DRIVE-THRU BISCUITS
There are several places in Chapel Hill that serve a distinguished Southern breakfast. Diners linger over gravy-smothered pork chops and eggs at Mama Dip’s (408 West Rosemary Street; 919-942-5837; www.mamadips.com) and peerless shrimp and grits at Crook’s Corner (610 West Franklin Street; 919-929-7643; www.crookscorner.com). But for a morning meal on the go that’s equally unforgettable, roll up to the drive-through-only Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen (1305 East Franklin Street; 919-933-1324), where the iced tea is tooth-achingly sweet and the main course is fluffy, buttery and filled with salty country ham ($2.02) or crisp fried chicken ($3.40).
THE BASICS
Several airlines offer flights between the New York area airports and Raleigh-Durham International Airport for as low as $150, according to a recent online search. Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill are 20 to 40 minutes apart from one another and public transportation is infrequent, so if you’re planning to visit at least two points on the Triangle, you should rent a car.
The 150-room Umstead Hotel and Spa (100 Woodland Pond, Cary; 866-877-4141; www.theumstead.com), about 15 minutes from downtown Raleigh, has a pool, an elegant adjoining restaurant called Herons and an on-premises spa that offers massages and facial treatments. Doubles are $249 to $399 (there’s often a two-night minimum).
Whether you stay in one of the seven impeccable rooms, garden cottage (complete with a porch swing) or 1700s-style log cabin at Arrowhead Inn (106 Mason Road; 919-477-8430; www.arrowheadinn.com), 10 miles from downtown Durham, you’ll enjoy imaginative breakfasts made by a co-owner, Phil Teber, and have access to six acres of manicured lawns, gardens and magnolia trees. Weekend rates start at $150 for a room with a fireplace and double bed and reach $325 for the Carolina Log Cabin.
The Carolina Inn (211 Pittsboro Street, Chapel Hill; 800-962-8519; www.carolinainn.com) is not your typical on-campus hotel. In-room massages, dry cleaning service and a lobby whose Southern grandeur extends to the hotel’s 184 rooms make it much more than just convenient lodging for parents visiting the University of North Carolina. Rates start at $168.
Source: New York Times
Friday
3 p.m.
1) ART INSIDE OUT
Anyone who has visited the Met or the Getty might scoff at the relatively succinct collection at the North Carolina Museum of Art (2110 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh; 919-839-6262; www.ncartmuseum.org). But the lack of tour bus crowds means unfettered access to the Old Masters and contemporary heavyweights like Anselm Kiefer. The real treat is the adjacent Museum Park, more than 164 acres of open fields and woodlands punctuated by environmental art like Cloud Chamber, a stone hut that acts as a camera obscura, with a small hole in the roof projecting inverted, otherworldly images of slowly swaying trees on the floor and walls.
5 p.m.
2) TOWER OF BAUBLE
There’s no pigeonholing the eclectic wares in this four-story indie minimall collectively known as Father & Son Antiques (107 West Hargett Street, Raleigh; 919-832-3030), and including Southern Swank and 2nd Floor Vintage. The organizing principle, if there is one, might be high design meets kitschy Americana, as the intermingling of vintage disco dresses ($18), Mexican wrestling masks ($20) and Eames aluminum group chairs ($250 to $500) attests.
7 p.m.
3) UPSCALE DINER
Memorable meals are easy to come by in the Triangle owing to its high concentration of accomplished, produce-fondling chefs like Ashley Christensen. She left one of the area’s top kitchens to open Poole’s Downtown Diner (426 South McDowell Street, Raleigh; 919-832-4477; www.poolesdowntowndiner.com) in a space that began as a 1940s pie shop. Diners sitting in the bright-red booths dig into Christensen’s low-pretense, high-flavor dishes, like a starter of lovably sloppy fried green tomatoes crowned with local pork smoked over cherry wood ($11), and the Royale ($13), an almost spherical hunk of ground-in-house chuck roll seared in duck fat, topped with cheese and perched on a slice of grilled brioche.
10 p.m.
4) CHEERS TO THE CHIEF
For most bars, a popular politician’s visit would be a game-changing boon. But the Raleigh Times Bar (14 East Hargett Street, Raleigh; 919-833-0999; www.raleightimesbar.com) was packed well before Barack Obama showed up the day of the state’s Democratic primary. The owner, Greg Hatem, painstakingly restored the century-old building that once housed its namesake newspaper and decorated the walls with old newspaper clippings, paperboy bags and other artifacts from the defunct daily. Mr. Obama bought a $2 Pabst Blue Ribbon (and left an $18 tip), but anyone not campaigning might choose one of the more than 100 other beers ($1 to $68), including esoteric Belgians and local brews you won’t find elsewhere.
Saturday
10:30 a.m.
5) ECO JUNK
The Scrap Exchange (548 Foster Street, Durham; 919-688-6960; www.scrapexchange.org) is a “nonprofit creative reuse center” specializing in industrial discards or, for those not versed in eco-jargon, a bazaar of modestly priced former junk donated by Carolinians and scavenged from local businesses that include a hosiery mill, a zipper factory and a parachute plant. Even if you’re not one of the giddy artists, teachers or theater producers who comb for utilitarian treasures, plan to spend at least an hour rummaging in a cool-struck trance through test tubes (20 cents to $1), empty fire extinguishers ($3 to $5) and swaths of double-knit polyester ($1 a yard).
Noon
6) TACO TIME
Anyone not on a hunt for serious Mexican food might drive past Taqueria La Vaquita (2700 Chapel Hill Road, Durham; 919-402-0209; www.lavaquitanc.com), an unassuming freestanding structure with a plastic cow on its roof, just five minutes from Duke’s campus. But if you did, you’d miss tacos ($2.19) made with house-made corn tortillas, uncommonly delicate discs topped with exceptional barbacoa de res (slow-cooked beef) or carnitas (braised-then-fried pork) that you eat at one of the picnic tables out front.
2 p.m.
7) RIVER WALK
One of the Triangle’s charms is that its urban trappings are so easy to escape. A 10-mile drive from downtown Durham brings you to Eno River State Park (6101 Cole Mill Road, Durham; 919-383-1686; www.ncparks.gov). Its trails pass through swaying pines and follow the river past patches of delicate purple-and-yellow wildflowers and turtles sunning themselves on low branches in the water.
5 p.m.
8) GOING WHOLE HOG
Small towns and back roads, not cities, have a monopoly on great barbecue. What makes the Pit (328 West Davie Street, Raleigh; 919-890-4500; www.thepit-raleigh.com) a striking exception is Ed Mitchell, the legendary master of the eastern North Carolina art form of whole hog cooking. Now instead of trekking 100 miles to porcine meccas like Ayden and Lexington, you can dig into pilgrimage-worthy chopped or pulled pork — made from pigs purchased from family farms and cooked for 10 to 14 hours over coals and hickory or oak — just a short stroll from the Capitol Building. A chopped barbecued pork plate with two sides and greaseless hush puppies costs $12.
7 p.m.
9) ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM
The Triangle is college basketball country, home to two of the winningest teams and some of the most rabid fans in N.C.A.A. history. But soon after the madness of March, the more tranquil local baseball fans stream into the Durham Bulls Athletic Park (409 Blackwell Street, Durham; 919-687-6500; www.dbulls.com). The Bulls, founded in 1902 as the Tobacconists, recently became the Tampa Bay Rays’ AAA affiliate. The major league-quality play comes at minor league prices ($7 to $9 a ticket).
10 p.m.
10) BIG BANDS
Nirvana played at the Cat’s Cradle (300 East Main Street, Carrboro; 919-967-9053; www.catscradle.com) for the first time in pre-“Nevermind” 1990 to about 100 people. A year later Pearl Jam played to three times as many, filling just half the standing-room-only space. This summer the Cradle, just a mile from downtown Chapel Hill, hosts acts like Akron/Family and Camera Obscura that probably won’t be playing for such small crowds for long. Ticket prices vary but $15 is about average.
Sunday
10 a.m.
11) DRIVE-THRU BISCUITS
There are several places in Chapel Hill that serve a distinguished Southern breakfast. Diners linger over gravy-smothered pork chops and eggs at Mama Dip’s (408 West Rosemary Street; 919-942-5837; www.mamadips.com) and peerless shrimp and grits at Crook’s Corner (610 West Franklin Street; 919-929-7643; www.crookscorner.com). But for a morning meal on the go that’s equally unforgettable, roll up to the drive-through-only Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen (1305 East Franklin Street; 919-933-1324), where the iced tea is tooth-achingly sweet and the main course is fluffy, buttery and filled with salty country ham ($2.02) or crisp fried chicken ($3.40).
THE BASICS
Several airlines offer flights between the New York area airports and Raleigh-Durham International Airport for as low as $150, according to a recent online search. Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill are 20 to 40 minutes apart from one another and public transportation is infrequent, so if you’re planning to visit at least two points on the Triangle, you should rent a car.
The 150-room Umstead Hotel and Spa (100 Woodland Pond, Cary; 866-877-4141; www.theumstead.com), about 15 minutes from downtown Raleigh, has a pool, an elegant adjoining restaurant called Herons and an on-premises spa that offers massages and facial treatments. Doubles are $249 to $399 (there’s often a two-night minimum).
Whether you stay in one of the seven impeccable rooms, garden cottage (complete with a porch swing) or 1700s-style log cabin at Arrowhead Inn (106 Mason Road; 919-477-8430; www.arrowheadinn.com), 10 miles from downtown Durham, you’ll enjoy imaginative breakfasts made by a co-owner, Phil Teber, and have access to six acres of manicured lawns, gardens and magnolia trees. Weekend rates start at $150 for a room with a fireplace and double bed and reach $325 for the Carolina Log Cabin.
The Carolina Inn (211 Pittsboro Street, Chapel Hill; 800-962-8519; www.carolinainn.com) is not your typical on-campus hotel. In-room massages, dry cleaning service and a lobby whose Southern grandeur extends to the hotel’s 184 rooms make it much more than just convenient lodging for parents visiting the University of North Carolina. Rates start at $168.
Source: New York Times
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