Only $105,000. HUD Home: Cute Condo, 104 A5 Choptank Road

104 A5 Choptank Road in Cary is a cute 2 bedroom condo with great potential as a rental or personal home, and priced at only $105,000, in Chesapeake.

See 104 A5 Choptank Road on my No Hassle Property Search.

This HUD-Owned condo offers:

• 1448 Square Feet
• 2 bedrooms with a vaulted master suite and an office/den.
• 2.5 baths
• Dramatic vaulted ceiling in an open floor plan.
• 2nd level loft, Office/den, and living room.
• Large kitchen for the cook
• Great private deck with a lovely, wooded view.
• Heat pump heat
• Great location in North Cary.
• Exterior maintained by HOA
• Quiet location.
• Great Town of Cary services.

Bright Cook’s Kitchen

Dramatic open Floor plan with vaulted ceiling to open loft.

HUD Requires you to use a HUD-Registered agent to write and present your offer. I am a HUD-Registered agent and can serve you as your Buyer’s Agent and write your offer.

Call me to arrange your showing of this great opportunity in Cary.

Mike Jaquish, REALTOR^®

919.880.2769

http://caryrealestatesales.com/

Broker Associate

KELLER WILLIAMS_® Realty Cary NC

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HUD Case Number 381-895169            This HUD-Owned home is conveniently located near the center of Apex NC

At $125,000, It is full of potential!

It offers 4 bedrooms,2 baths, 1767 square feet of living space, all on a quiet cul-de-sac.

Two bedrooms on the first floor and two bedrooms on the second floor.

The quarter acre lot is partially fenced, and there is a covered porch and huge deck for enjoying the yard.

See the Buyer Full Sheet from Triangle MLS

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This HUD-Owned home is just waiting for your offer. HUD requires you to use a HUD-Registered agent to write and present it.

I am a HUD-Registered agent and can show it, represent you, and write up your offer. Bidding is open daily for owner-occupants, government agencies, and non-profits.

Read “Working with Real Estate Agents” from the North Carolina Real Estate Commission.

Never register on a real estate site to search for your next home.

Try my No Hassle Property Search!!

Mike Jaquish, REALTOR®

919.880.2769

http://caryrealestatesales.com/

Broker Associate

KELLER WILLIAMS® Realty Cary NC

Only $265,000. HUD Home: 307 Swordgate Drive

307 Swordgate Drive in Cary is a cute 5 bedroom home with great potential, and priced at only 265,000, in MacArthur Park.

See 307 Swordgate Drive listing on my No Hassle Property Search.

This HUD-Owned Home offers:

• 2776 Square Feet
• 5 bedrooms with a vaulted master suite.
• 2.5 baths
• Only 16 years old, built in 1995.
• Family room, Office/den, and living room.
• Large sunny kitchen with smooth-top stove
• Great deck in a lovely and private, fenced back yard.
• Natural Gas heat
• 2 car garage.
• Easy care vinyl siding
• Convenient location with Daveis Drive/Davis Drive/Green Hope School Assignments.
• Great Town of Cary services.

Bright Sunny Kitchen

Master Bath has separate tub and shower, and dual vanities

Private back yard and large deck

HUD Requires you to use a HUD-Registered agent to write and present your offer. I am a HUD-Registered agent and can serve you as your Buyer’s Agent and write your offer.

Call me to arrange your personal showing of this great opportunity in Cary.

Mike Jaquish, REALTOR^®

919.880.2769

http://caryrealestatesales.com/

Broker Associate

KELLER WILLIAMS_® Realty Cary NC

Only $151,000.  HUD Home:  208 Doves Haven Drive
HUD Case #381-831416

208 Doves Haven Drive in Apex is a cute 3 or 4 bedroom affordable home with great potential, and priced at only $151,000, in Sunset Hills.

See 208 Doves Haven Drive listing on my No Hassle Property Search.

This HUD-Owned Home offers:

• 1733 Square Feet
• 3 bedrooms, and the sitting area in the master suite could be a 4th bedroom.
• 2.5 baths
• Only 9 years old, built in 2002.
• Soaring vaulted ceiling in the living room.
• Large sunny kitchen with gas stove
• Great screen porch in a private, fenced back yard.
• Natural Gas heat
• 2 car garage.
• Easy care vinyl siding
• Convenient location on a quiet street near the community pool.
• City water and sewer services.

Bright Sunny Kitchen

Master Bath has separate tub and shower, and dual vanities

 Private back yard and sunny screen porch

HUD Requires you to use a HUD-Registered agent to write and present your offer.  I am a HUD-Registered agent and can serve you as your Buyer's Agent and write your offer.

Call me to arrange your showing of this great opportunity in Apex.

Mike Jaquish, REALTOR^®

919.880.2769

http://caryrealestatesales.com/

Broker Associate

KELLER WILLIAMS_® Realty Cary NC

The Price of Poor Real Estate Photography

I was looking at visitor statistics on my No Hassle Home Search
this morning, and one detail jumped out at me.

With over 20,000 page views so far this month, 25%, over 5,000 of those views were in Photo Galleries. I.e., consumers routinely look at the property photos when surfing the internet to search for homes. And I am sure that other agents generate more traffic than I do.
It is not unusual for potential buyers to email me and inquire if more photos are available for someone else’s listing they have found on my IDX. Then I have to explain the nature of IDX services. And, sometimes I find that the Listing agent has used the tax rolls photo, which is NEVER complimentary to the property. Ouch! for that Home Seller.

Which do you think presents that home better to Buyers and Buyer Agents? I’m picking the top one, the one I shot. And when you multiply those page views I see by the number of agent IDX sites and scraper sites, the impact of poor real estate photos is exponentially increased. Like having a bad product and going international to purposefully gain more bad press on it. Why? Poor photography going viral to diminish property interest? How is that good for home sellers?
Lack of photos, poor photos, etc, actually can be one of the worst marketing investments home sellers can make.











Social Bookmarking Service

HUD Case Number 381-937917

200 Onondaga Court in Holly Springs, NC, is a HUD-Owned Home with a great floor plan and an interior flooded with light, a large fenced yard, and a side entry garage on a great corner lot.

HUD requires you to use a HUD-Registered agent to write and submit your offer. I am a HUD-Registered agent and would be glad to represent you as your Buyer’s Agent.

Built in 2000, 200 Onondaga Court offers many desirable features:

• Great location in a great neighborhood, the Oaks of Avent Acres
• 2167 square feet, 4 bedrooms, and 2.5 baths
• Plenty of hardwood floors
• Granite countertops
• Luxurious Master Suite
• Side entry garage with overhead storage
• Sunny Breakfast Room
• Two fireplaces
• Beautiful wooded fenced yard
• Shady front porch and great rear deck
• Easy exterior maintenance

See the Triangle MLS Buyer Report.

Call or email me to see it and let’s write it up! Currently, bidding is not yet open to investors.

Read “Working with Real Estate Agents” from the North Carolina Real Estate Commission

Mike Jaquish, REALTOR^®

919.880.2769

http://caryrealestatesales.com/

Broker Associate

KELLER WILLIAMS_® Realty Cary NC

QR Codes in Real Estate

QR Codes in real estate are a hot item right now.  Using QR Codes in real estate marketing is in its infancy, but beginning to gain serious traction.
QR Codes can be used to convey great amounts of information to smartphone users who scan them.

I like the use of QR Codes for offering GPS coordinates, and since most smartphones have GPS capability, that seems like an efficient use.
But one can also use QR Codes to offer purely real estate data and information.  A listing agent can connect buyers to photos, flyers, documents, and make it easy for buyers and buyers agents to gather data they need to write an offer on a listing.

So, I am seeing more QR Codes on real estate listings in Cary.

One criticism of QR Codes is their industrial/utilitarian appearance.  Some folks call them "ugly."  There is little doubt that, with some care, a real estate agent can present an appealing QR Code.  They may never be confused with seascapes by Monet, but QR Codes can look better. The video runs nearly two minutes, but “60 Seconds” just didn’t seem adequate: 

Basements in Cary NC

Cary home buyers from other regions often are shocked that many Cary homes do not have basements, and buyers agents need to do some explaining.

There are several contributing factors to that situation.

1.  Basements are not structurally necessary, so they are luxury priced.  We just don't need them.  In the north and midwest states, it is necessary to excavate footings 4 to 8 feet below grade to get below frost depth.  We only need, by code, to bury footings 15 inches below grade, so further excavation is unnecessary.  And expensive.

2.  Many Triangle areas have high water tables on site.  Water around foundation walls  is more likely to intrude into the interior of the basement. 

3.  Expansive clay soils.  Our soils will expand and contract as they get wet and dry.  This movement can stress walls, and allow more opportunity for water intrusion.

4.  Cost of finish.  It is usually more cost effective to convert attic space and finish it than to create and finish a basement.  And the home buyers benefit from being high, dry and lit by sunlight.

Yes, you can get a basement in Cary NC.  Commonly, it will be a "walk out" basement, also known as a "daylight" basement.  one or two walls will be above grade, with exit doors and windows.  And the lot will have some slope to accommodate this.  Dugout, hole in the ground, basements are extremely rare.

Cary Homes for Sale with Basements

30 days of Real Estate Closing in Cary, as of August 17, 2011

Numbers are pretty stable in Cary real estate.  As of today, we closed 123 residential sales in the last 30 days.

Days on Market were 93 for those 123 listings.

Cumulative Days on Market, meaning that the property was listed more than once, were 115.

On July 17, those numbers were 87 and 114.

I pulled out three of the highest DOM properties, and the remaining 120 homes showed 86 Days on Market,
and 102 Cumulative Days on Market.
Fun with numbers…

Average selling price was 0.962 of final listing price.

How many cars can you fit into a 2 car garage?

What makes a garage a 2 car garage?  Or a 3 car garage?
How can you tell?

The big door in front won't tell you.  You can get a pretty big door on a pretty small garage.

We see Cary listing agents marketing 2 car garages, or 3 car garages, for their seller.  But, some garages are so tight, it is difficult to imagine parking two cars and being able to open their doors.

Or, as often done in Cary, the water heater is placed in the garage, in the parking space.  Or the builder adds a flight of stairs from the garage to the living area, and that flight of stairs encroaches into a parking space.

Et cetera…

So, when working as a buyers agent, I take a very close look at the garage layout, the dimensions, and other factors that can impact the utility of the space.  And sometimes I will tell my home buyers, "Well, heck.  That's a 4 car garage.  If you own 4 Smart cars."  In other words, you will work hard to park 2 cars in that garage.