What’s going on in 2010 with Knoxville TN area real estate?

Posted by Jim Lee, REALTOR® @ 6:08 pm, April 18th, 2010  

Have a question about real estate in the greater Knoxville, TN area? Please ask; there are no dumb questions, just ones you need answers to. Please feel free to call or email any questions to: [email protected] or call 865-693-3232

Time for an update since the first quarter statistics for 2010 are now available. Let’s see how we did and which direction Knoxville area sales and home prices are headed.

First of all April is almost over now and that is the end of the $8,000 tax credit for lots of homebuyers. I believe this incentive has been driving between 30-40% of our market for the past several months. It will be very interesting to see what the trend is for the 2nd quarter of this year after it expires.

Local weekly sales dropped a little this week compared to last week. The Knox County Register of Deeds reported 159 transactions for the week of April 18th compared to 188 the past week of April 11th.

Knoxville TN area real estate sales for the week of April 1th, 2010

Week of April 11th, 2010

Knoxville TN area real estate sales for the week of April 18th, 2010

Week of April 18th, 2010

As both graphs indicate, the lower price ranges remain where the action is; from $100,000 to $200,000 with sharp dropoffs once you pass the $300,000 threshold.

And here’s the first quarter of 2010 compared to past first quarter figures. Still nowhere close to where we were a few years ago but a modest increase from last year’s first quarter.

Knoxville tn real estate listings sold for the past 10 1st quarters

1st quarter of 2010 compared to past 1st quarters

260 more homes sold in the first quarter of 2010 versus 2009 but still a whopping 43.3% lower than the peak year of 2006.

Lack of jobs growth remains an issue for the house market. According to the US Department of Labor’s latest stats,  in March the number of unemployed was little changed at 15 million and the unemployment rate remained at 9.7%.

Economists want to believe the economy has turned the corner but housing remains the bellweather indicator to confirm that belief and it isn’t showing broad and/or sustained growth just yet.

“Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke called housing a “critical” challenge to the economy. “We have yet to see evidence of a sustained recovery in the housing market,” Bernanke said in a speech on April 7.”

It will be an interesting next few weeks and whichever direction we head is likely an indicator of the the housing market direction for the remainder of this year.

On the plus side for buyers there remains a large supply of homes to choose from. Currently in the greater Knoxville, Tennessee area you can view 11,763 great houses and condos for sale at www.KnoxvilleHomeSearcher.com and I will be happy to help you become the owner of one.


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7 Gardening mistakes to avoid

Posted by Jim Lee, REALTOR® @ 2:56 pm, April 18th, 2010  
Lawn irrigation system at a homeYour irrigation system can bring disease and rot to your lawn if improperly set. For best results, water in 40- to 60-minute intervals two to three times per week. Image: Rain Bird Corporation

Gardening is just about the simplest do-it-yourself home improvement work there is. If you can dig a hole, turn on a spigot, and snip a dead flower off a vine, you’ve got the basic skills down. Still, you do have to make some judgment calls, so it helps to know the ground rules, so to speak, that can help you avoid making some rookie mistakes.

Mistake #1: Making changes too soon

Take the excitement of buying a home, add a nice stretch of spring weather, and you get a lot of enthusiasm for doing yard work. That’s great; seize the day, but don’t jump into wholesale landscape changes, like pulling out plants or reorganizing the layout quite yet.

“That weed that you want to yank out in the spring might turn out to be a gorgeous fall-blooming vine,” says Gary Blondell, owner of Gary’s Gardens, a nursery in Severna Park, Md. Plus, it takes time to learn the landscape and figure out exactly what changes make sense.

Avoid this by: Living with the landscape for a full year, so you can observe it in all seasons.

Mistake #2: Planting too close together

You buy a wheelbarrow full of young shrubs and perennials and plant them in a pleasing arrangement. But if they look properly spaced now, they’re actually way too close together.

Unless you’re creating an evergreen hedge, when the idea is packing things tightly together, the immature plantings will grow into each other in a few years and struggle to compete for sun, water, and soil nutrients. You’ll either have to dig them up and transplant them—or possibly throw them away.

Avoid this by: Following the spacing requirements on the plant label—even though the results will look absurdly sparse at first.

Mistake #3: Planting without a plan

Putting in new garden beds without a long-term landscape plan is like tiling, painting, and wallpapering your house before you figure out your future remodeling plans: There’s a good chance you’ll have to undo your efforts in the near future.

Avoid this by: Drawing a simple, bird’s eye view sketch of your yard, and figuring out the rough location of any future construction—additions, patios, outbuildings, pools—so you can plant around them.

A good local nursery or home improvement store can help you with your design. Or you can hire a landscape designer to create a starter plan for as little as $250 to $500. Find a professional at the Association of Professional Landscape Designers or the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Mistake #4: Neglecting the root ball

Even the hardiest plants need a little help getting their roots established in their new locations. But just turning on the sprinkler every day to douse the foliage isn’t enough to ensure that they get the nutrients and hydration they need. You have to get the water to a plant’s nerve center—the root ball below ground—or it’s going to be stunted or short-lived.

Avoid this by: Placing the hose near the root ball and setting the water to a trickle for about 20 to 30 minutes. Do this twice a week—more during hot, dry spells—for the first four to 12 weeks. Choosing the right irrigation system can help with this task while saving water.

Mistake #5: Ignoring your yard’s sun conditions

Too many nursery shoppers pick plants based only on looks—not the growing conditions they need, which are almost always indicated on a label wrapped around the trunk or a marker pressed into the soil. “They put a sun-loving perennial under a dense tree or something that wants partial shade out in full-day sunshine,” says Blondell. “It looks great for about a week, and then it begins to die.”

Avoid this by: Watching the spot where you’re going to put the plant and estimating the amount of sun it gets over the course of the day during the growing season. To translate that to the language on plant labels, use this key:

Full Sun 6 hours a day or more
Part Sun/Part Shade 3 to 5 hours
Shade Less than 3 hours

Mistake #6: Misusing irrigation systems

An automatic irrigation system is a luxury that allows you to keep your landscape hydrated throughout the growing season with almost no effort. Unfortunately, with the wrong settings, it can also bring disease, root rot, and an untimely death to the plants in your landscape.

“People tend to set their systems to come on for 15 or 20 minutes each morning,” says Blondell. “That provides a nice saturation of the surface, but not a deep penetrating soak to reach the roots of large shrubs and trees.” And a deeper soak is better for the lawn, too, because it promotes deep root systems.

Avoid this by: Watering for longer intervals—say, 40 to 60 minutes—only two to three times a week. Check with the company that maintains your irrigation system for local recommendations.

Mistake #7: Not budgeting for landscaping during construction projects

Whether you’re building a house or an addition, the bulldozers that excavate the job and the pickups that park on the lawn will damage the grass, trees, and shrubs. And the new building configuration will call for new landscape plantings.

Unfortunately, homeowners don’t often include money in their budgets for this work. So you wind up with a beautiful new family room, screened porch, or solarium, with a few azaleas thrown in around the foundation as an afterthought.

Avoid this by: Allocating 10 to 20 percent of your construction budget to the landscape—both hardscaping and plants—or at least making plans to spend that money as soon as possible after the construction job is complete.

A former carpenter and newspaper reporter, Oliver Marks has been writing about home improvements for 16 years. He’s entering his second summer at his house and has big plans for upgrading its scraggly foundation plantings.

via houselogic.com