Archive for the 'Miscellaneous' Category
An Un-Insurable Home?
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Milton Real Estate, Miscellaneous, Roswell Real Estate
Well…sort of.
I learned something new yesterday and I have to admit, I still can’t believe it’s true. We have a buyer under contract to close on a foreclosure by the end of the month. Of course, with foreclosures you have the ability to perform an inspection but typically they are purchased as-is. Banks usually won’t make repairs. Prior to the closing one of the last things on a buyers list that usually gets done is lining up their home-owners insurance. By the time buyers get around to contacting their insurer we are well past all the due-diligence and contingency periods.
Shocked!
So, we all were quite amazed when the buyers insurer told them that there was a previous claim on the property for a new roof, which was paid out to the previous owner. No proof of repair was ever provided to the insurance company so the claim was still “open”. Because of this, the buyers insurer said there was pre-existing damage that had been paid on and they would not insure this home. That’s right, they would not insure the home. After checking with other insurance providers we realized that this was the answer we were going to get everywhere.
The sort of part….
What they will do is provide insurance but the repairs must be completed within 60 days of closing. We’re in the process of negotiating with the bank to reduce the sales price of the home by the amount of a new roof and we feel pretty sure that we’ll get that amended. But I have to believe there are more than a few homeowners out there who took some insurance money without making repairs. In any case, this is something that will need to be clarified during negotiations moving forward and some well crafted stipulations will be added to our contracts.
This was news to us and I thought it might be news to you. Has anyone run into this before?
Posted by Bob Strader | Currently No Comments »
Crossroads at Crabapple Antique Fest Gets Bigger and Better
categories: Crabapple, Miscellaneous
This past Saturday was the Crossroads at Crabapple antique fest and what a perfect day it was. As I understand, it was started in 1969, but I have been coming for the past few years and it really has grown into a great event that the Crabapple community can be proud of.
Apparently there were over 50 juried artists and as many antique dealers with a wide display of furniture, art and collectibles. There were also great local artists playing bluegrass and country music. Local Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops were there selling food to raise money and the Olde Blind Dog Pub was selling their famous Irish Stew and Corned Beef as well!
Crabapple continues to create a great community atmosphere with unique and original shops and restaurants. It is no surprise that many people moving into area choose to live in and around Crabapple.
Posted by Bob Strader | Currently No Comments »
Matilda’s Music Under The Pines - A Hidden Gem in Alpharetta
categories: Local Information, Miscellaneous
I’ve run into more than a few people lately who have said, “I’ve heard of that, it sounds like fun I should really go”. Well the concert series runs through the end of October so if you haven’t yet, you should really check out Matilda’s Under the Pines one Friday or Saturday night before then.
If you don’t know about Matilda’s, let me paint you a picture. Just south of Alpharetta, on Hwy 9 there are a collection of funky little cottages full of artwork, painted furniture and crafts from a wide range of local artists. Mary Jane Potter has created something you won’t find anywhere else and once you visit you’ll wonder how you ever missed it (although you’ve probably driven by it a thousand times).
Easy, Casual and Fun:The music usually starts around 8:30pm every Friday and Saturday and it’s $10 ea. to get in. There are tables and chairs or you can bring your own, along with a picnic basket of food and the drink of your choice. But if you decide to go at the last minute, don’t worry. There is great barbecue for sale - just bring your cooler and stroll on in.
This past Saturday the Barn Rats played some great bluegrass and the weather was perfect. In this economy who isn’t looking for an easy, inexpensive, fun night out? An how cool is it to relax with a glass of wine or cold beer and listen to live music being played on the front porch of a little shack in Alpharetta? I’m looking forward to hearing some blues this weekend. Oh, by the way, your dog is welcome too! If you go, let me know what you think and say hi to Mary Jane (on the right below)!
Posted by Bob Strader | Currently 1 Comment »
The Coolest Penthouse in America
categories: Miscellaneous, Stuff I like to talk about
No, it’s not in Atlanta but you have to see this, just for fun. It’s quite possibly the coolest penthouse you’ll ever see and only $25 Million! It’s located in Brooklyn’s Clock Tower building and has four 14′ synchronized clocks so you never have to set your watch. If it wasn’t so sleek, clean and modern it would be the perfect bad-guy hang-out in a Batman movie.
Now here is whats really interesting…it’s listed at more than double the highest price known to have been paid for a home in Brooklyn and more than triple the price of any condo sold. This penthouse is a 6400 sq. ft. triplex with views of the city skyline and the Brooklyn skyline. Is it worth it? I have no idea, but I know this. When you have something nobody else has, something really cool, then you can charge for it. I’ll be interested what it sells for, if it sells. If you had the money, would you buy it?
Posted by Bob Strader | Currently 1 Comment »
Snow Mountain Brings True Winter Experience to Atlanta
categories: Miscellaneous, Stuff I like to talk about
There is nothing more pathetic than a southern child hoping and whining that they want snow.
As a parent, particularly one who grew up in a "snow state" and who has the childhood memories of sledding, making snow forts, having snowball wars and, of course, bumper hitching , you feel like you are depriving your children of critical childhood experiences by living in the South. It isn’t made easier when at the sign of each snow flurry they ask: "Is it going to stick? Huh, Dad? Huh, Dad?"
Well, Stone Mountain has taken a bit of the adult guilt away with the introduction of Snow Mountain . It has been pretty cold, by Atlanta standards, the last couple of weeks, so last Sunday we scrounged every bit of warm clothing, every mitten, glove and hat and every piece of footwear that might pass as a snow boot and headed to Snow Mountain. My son wore his lacrosse cleats; effective, but not particularly warm!
We didn’t know if we would find two inches of snow or two feet. Being the guardian of dashed expectations, I warned the kids to expect very little actual snow. This is Atlanta after all. I think one of my daughters actually thought there would be snow on THE Stone Mountain itself and you would tube off the sides. That would be a heck of a ride, albeit probably your last ride.
Snow Mountain is no where close to the scale of the indoor ski areas that are so laughable in the Middle East - like the grotesque one in Dubai (financed by the American oil consumer) pictured above. However, Snow Mountain is a gallant effort at giving the kids a "snow experience."
It is essentially a tube run (seven lanes wide) down the slope of the lawn where they hold the firework displays in the summer. Jeff Davis, Bob Lee and Stoney Jackson overlook the scene from the face of the mountain. At the bottom of the tube run is a play area where kids can make snow castles, shovel snow and have snowball target practice.
Having grown up in Colorado where we have actual snow and mountains, I was a little skeptical when the family was planning the trip…probably a waste of time I thought…and everyone would get wet and cold because we really don’t have the right clothing. When we came around the corner on Highway 78 and you get the panoramic view of Stone Mountain I joked to the kids that it wasn’t snow capped!
These are our pictures from our Snow Mountain visit:
Our trip turned out to be really fun, though. It was the most snow/ice that the kids has seen in one place before and they loved it. The line for the tube run is excruciatingly long, but the tube run itself is a blast. We went from 4:30-6:30 (You can only buy a ticket for a two-hour time period), and the sun went down and the hill got very icy, as the temperature was in the high 20’s when we left.
In typical 21st century style, you are conveyed to the top of the hill by a moving sidewalk. It is all very controlled so that not too many people are on the tube run at one time. It’s not like in our childhoods where you got as many rides as you were willing to run - and eventually walk as you got tired - back up the hill. When we first got there the line for the tube run was an hour long. Later it was down to 20-30 minutes. We only got in three tube runs; however, in the only thing that matters, the family tube race, Dad won! Weight has its advantages.
Snow Mountain was a strange combination of southern accents and snow; lots of hunting clothing and not much gortex; and, parents who knew better and kids who didn’t. That is why it was great.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 2 Comments »
It’s Time to Make Our Real Estate Resolutions | Quality Brokerage, Statistical Reporting and Direct Foreclosure Search
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Announcements, Cherokee County, Miscellaneous, Self Promotion, Stuff I like to talk about
ALPHARETTA - This is the time of the year when we are resolving to make the coming year better than the past year.
No industry is more in need of improvement than the real estate industry (including the auto industry), both in terms of overall market conditions and in the way the industry functions (or dysfunctions depending on your perspective).
The big, national brokerage franchise is one of the elements of the real estate industry that I believe needs revamping and may be headed the way of WaMu, Bear Stearns and the Tyrannosaurus Rex. That is why earlier this year, I resolved to ditch the franchise model for the boutique model. The good news is now at the end of the year I have one less resolution to make and less change to make in the new year.
The currency of large brokerages is agents: Agents bring in the listings and buyers and earn the commissions that keep the lights on. What’s happening is that brokerages are losing their currency as agents drop out of the industry because they are not making any sales. And those agents who are still making a living are looking for more bang for the commission split dollar - or a lower commission split altogether. I’ve written before on this blog about the lack of real value a large brokerage provides to an agent who can already generate business.
Brokerage currency is dwindling. In 2008, the Cherokee Association of Realtors, of which I am a member, lost almost 35% of its members. I’ve heard it rumored that the Atlanta Board of Realtors has lost a similar amount as I’m sure other local boards have, too.
So why, then, do I sound almost happy about this?
First of all, I believe in the survival of the fittest (which is also why I try to stay fit!). The market conditions have forced some much needed fat trimming in the agent ranks. However, the real source of my happiness - and it is relief more than happiness - is that I’m not on a sinking brokerage ship any more. My new local broker, Maxsell Real Estate , is riding high in the water, which I attribute largely to embracing technology to run our business more efficiently, to having aggressive, fair compensation plans for agents, but mostly to understanding how to add value to an individual agent’s business.
In 2008, when the numbers for almost all Atlanta real estate brokerages where heading south, Maxsell’s numbers actually improved. We had 184% growth in the number of transactions over 2007 and there was 120% growth in the dollar volume of transactions.
We added, yes added, agents during 2008 (I’m an example of that) and ended the year with 40% more agents when most brokerages where losing agents. Our gross commission income was up 15% over last year. These statistics left Maxsell as the #8 brokerage in our sub-market, ahead of companies you may have heard of like Re-Max and Jenny Pruitt, and we are a small company!
While it is a relief to me to be affiliated with Maxsell, it should also give you comfort and confidence that Warmath Real Estate is part of a team that is figuring out how to survive and thrive in a real estate industry that is rapidly changing.
One of our strengths and one way we have continued to succeed in this market is our web presence including this blog. While my first resolution of putting our business on a sound brokerage foundation is complete, there are many resolutions I have about continuing to build and improve this website.
Real Estate Intelligence Portal
I actually wished to have most of this complete by the end of this year, but things always seem to take longer than expected. None the less, advances you will see in the coming month or so are a Real Estate Intelligence portal for Atlanta Real Estate reporting and statistics. What this means for consumers is that you will be able to come to this site and see updated, current reports and graphs of local market statistics, but more excitingly, be able to generate your own report and slice and dice the data based on ways that are meaningful to you.
Direct Foreclosure Search for Alpharetta and Atlanta
The second major improvement I’m resolved to for 2009 is the unveiling of our foreclosure search feature. It is currently not possible for a consumer to search online for foreclosures, shortsales and corporate owned properties as listed in the MLS. Agents can do it, but consumers can’t. The closest thing to it is something like RealtyTrac, a subscription service which is not pulling data from the MLS but rather cross-referencing various public sources of data including tax records. I plan to fix all that and allow you to directly search for foreclosures from the MLS. That’s what you want, right?
So, stay tuned as we step into 2009. We don’t fear the future, we create the future right here on this website!
We look forward to serving you in the coming year and being here when you need us. Happy New Year! Let the opportunities flow!
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 1 Comment »
Happy Holidays - No Wreaths. More Llamas.
categories: Announcements, Miscellaneous, Stuff I like to talk about
ALPHARETTA - We started a company holiday tradition a few years ago of giving on behalf of our clients to Heifer International. No wreaths from Warmath Real Estate…we give livestock!
I just went back and reread my post from last year regarding our contribution to Heifer International and I must say: I hit the nail on the head.
I don’t think I could write a post more spot on with how I feel than what I wrote last year, so I’m not going to try. Instead, I’m going to reprint it, not because I’m lazy, but because I can’t do any better.
Before I get to that though, a couple of things are different this year, namely the economy. Little did we realize at this time last year what a tough year 2008 would be. And by many forecasts, 2009 is going to be more of the same or possibly worse. The tough times, though, make you realize how good you have it (or had it!).
Charitable giving is one of the first things to get whacked from the budget with the economy turns south and I must admit that it took me a little longer to give this year than last. However, it actually feels better to give in a down economy because you are making a bigger sacrifice yourself.
Second, each year we strive to increase our giving, so the pig from last year can step aside for the llama this year. One day I’d love to give an entire Ark . I take this from the Heifer International website regarding the benefits of receiving a Llama for those of you who wonder what you would do if one of them showed up under your tree:
When resources are scarce, it’s important that livestock don’t use up land reserved for people. At home in rough, mountainous areas of Latin America, llamas are a blessing to families with limited pasture land because they can eat the scrub vegetation that other domesticated animals won’t eat. Llama droppings help fertilize topsoil — improving crops and reducing erosion.
Women weave their llamas’ fleece into warm clothing to wear or sell. They load them up with goods for market and trek with them across rugged slopes at high altitudes. As they travel, llamas’ padded feet don’t damage the fragile terrain and their selective browsing doesn’t destroy sparse vegetation.
Llamas and their kin, the alpaca, provide Heifer families with invaluable sources of transportation, income and wool, which is prized for making blankets, ponchos, carpet and rope.
Llamas are remarkably disease resistant and require little care; they can carry small loads for distances over rugged slopes at high altitudes.
We wish all our friends and clients, past, present and future (even though you don’t know it yet!), the very best and safest holidays regardless of how you celebrate.
We are very thankful for those people who entrusted their home sales and purchases to us this year and we look forward to serving even more of you in the future. This gift to Heifer is to honor you.
Without further ado, here is last year’s post:
We are very thankful for a great 2007 and want to wish all of you, regardless of your religious faith, holiday customs or personal belief system, a joyous end of 2007 and great hope for 2008.
Not only do we appreciate that our real estate business continues to grow from last year, but even more so appreciate that we are able, by choice, happenstance or just shear luck to live in both the United States and Alpharetta.
The United States offers many fine places to live and this post is not the place to debate the merits of one locale over another. I’ll just say that Alpharetta has a lot of things going for it including relatively low property taxes compared to the rest of the country, a growing job base and good business environment and a climate where it rarely snows. You’ll appreciate that if you’re reading this in the mid-west today. But that misses the point.
During this holiday season sometimes we get wrapped up rushing around. I’m as guilty as anyone of this. In fact, December is one of my busiest months of the year for sales so I’m unusally harried. On top of that, I think that most realtors are expected to give their past clients a gift of some sort in appreciatiton. It is supposed to be "good business practice" to stay in touch with your past clients. Real estate is a referral based business after all, or so they say.
In this gift giving area, I tend to take a different path and wanted to take a moment here to reiterate how fortunate we are to live the way we are able to in Alpharetta. Any world-wide social or economic organization like the United Nations, UNICEF or World Bank can provide all sorts of statistics on the relative poverty of the rest of the world compared to how we live in the U.S. and Alpharetta. For instance, half the population of the world lives on LESS than TWO DOLLARS A DAY . That is about $700 a year compared to Alpharetta where the U.S. Census reports we live on about $40,000 a year PER CAPITA. (The U.S. per capita income is half the Alpharetta per capita income, which is one reason we are fortunate to live in Alpharetta. The median HOUSEHOLD income in Alpharetta is almost $100,000 per year almost double the US household income.)
As for literacy, a BILLION people entered the 21st century not able to read or write. In Alpharetta, 95% of us have high school educations (compared to 80% in the U.S.) and 57% have a college degree or higher (compared to 24% nationally.) The world statistic is that 1% has a university degree.
By some reports 80% of the world’s population lives in poverty and 20% of the population is in conditions not befitting a human. In Alpharetta, there are 1,785 people (260 families) below the U.S. poverty level; that is only 5% of Alpharetta’s population but still startles me as unacceptable. (The U.S. poverty rate is 24%).
All this is to say that if you are a client of ours or in any way affiliated with Warmath Real Estate, you won’t be receiving from us a box of chocolates or holiday wreath that is dead on arrival. Instead, we are 
continuing our tradition of giving to Heifer International on behalf of all our clients. Heifer is an organization that helps reduce world-wide hunger by giving livestock in the broadest definition of the term (water buffalo, llamas, chickens, honey bees, goats, pigs, sheep and of course, heifers) to needy recipients. The recipients must, in turn, pass on the gift by giving one of the offspring of their animal to someone else. Heifer’s work creates long-term, environmentally and socially sustainably solutions that I am, one, philosophically aligned with and, two, pleased to continue to support.
It is our pledge to continue to fund Heifer each year in honor of the patronage of our clients. And even if we didn’t sell a single house in a year, we would still give to Heifer!
Our slogan is: "No wreaths, more pigs!" We wish you the very best holiday season and know that you have made someone else’s stomach a little less empty - and that is the best gift to give.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently No Comments »
Christmas Light Show at Brierfield House Raises Money and the Bar for Christmas Light Displays in Alpharetta
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Miscellaneous, Stuff I like to talk about
ALPHARETTA - In the past, I’ve highlighted Brookhill Crossing Lane in Crabapple Chase as having the most impressive lights - and the owners in the cul-de-sac still wins hands down for sheer volume of lights.
However, the Stack family has taken us to a new level by setting their lights to Christmas music that you can listen to by tuning in your car radio while watching the lights.
The show itself is a fundraiser for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and consists of a handful of current Christmas song set to pulsating and color changing lights. The technology is actually pretty cool and more do it yourselfers will likely start trying it I suspect. While watching, I got Christmas light envy and got all sorts of ideas to try for Christmas and other holiday celebrations.
The show uses led lights and DMX (no, not the Rapper, but Digital Multiplex Protocol), a technology used to control lights, moving objects, rotators, scrolling objects, etc. mostly in the theater and stage production industries. Now it has gone Santa and used to guide reindeer! That’s technological cross pollination of industries for sure.
I’m afraid I was lame and only had a still camera to take the picture above, and that doesn’t do any justice at all to the production. Better would have been a flip video, so look at the embedded YouTube video below to get an idea of what is possible with this technology.
If you want to go check out the Stack’s house in Brierfield, head down Mid-Broadwell road from Alpharetta towards Crabapple. Brierfield is on the right. Pull into the neighborhood and take a right on Locust Grove Court.
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More Information on Real Estate in Brierfield
Brierfield is not only a Christmas light friendly neighborhood, it is one of the most active and family-oriented neighborhoods in the Crabapple area. Homes are priced in the $400’s and the neighborhood has swim tennis and an active home owners association. Brierfield is in the Crabapple Crossing Elementary school district, which is one of the things that residents love the most and is convenient to Alpharetta and GA-400. If you want to learn more about real estate in Brierfield, check out this page or just give me a call.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently No Comments »
