Knoxville Tennessee Real Estate Blog

Your 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.

As a long time Knoxville area Realtor I have helped literally hundreds of families buy and sell homes. And of course since I’m fairly intimately involved with those people during their home purchase or sale I know a lot about them including where they’re moving from or to.

However I have often wondered about the rest of people moving here from other areas. Where did they move from? What part of the United States or the world were they living before they moved here?

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has a research department that investigates such things as where people come from, what sort of house did they buy, number of people in the family, and lots of other statistics.

Historic trend of homebuyers into and out of Knox County, TN

I got a copy of the latest “NAR Relocation Report” for Knox County, Tennessee to get some empirical data on just exactly where do new Knox County residents come from; the results were pretty surprising to me.

In the latest year data is available far and away the biggest number of new Knox County residents moved here from Blount County which is just next door. 817 households from Blount County are now Knox County residents.

Number of households that moved into Knox County, TN and bought a house.

Blount, Anderson, Sevier, and other area folks are invited to view all of Knox Counties Realtor listings for sale at www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com

Here’s a couple of Knox County homes that might appeal to newcomers.

Karns, 4 bedrooms, and priced at $299,900

Attractive Cape Cod style and priced at only $174,900

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The Fourth of July weekend is winding down;  only the occasional firecracker “bang” can still be heard and it’s rainy out today so I don’t expect too much will be going on.

Unfortunately the “don’t expect too much will be going on” still applies to Knoxville’s real estate market as well. The weekly figures from the Knox County Register of Deeds show 157 real estate transactions recorded in the past week; that’s about the same number as was recorded the week before.

And like all the weeks past, the figures show the lower end; homes priced below $250,000 with most of sales in the $100,000 to $200,000 range.

Knox County real estate transactions recorded provided by Jim Lee, Realty Executives Associates

With the end of June comes the end of the Second Quarter of 2009. The 2nd Quarter sales figures are usually posted around the middle of the following month along with the previous month’s sales. It will be interested to compare 2nd Quarter 09 with previous years to see how we’re doing over a longer term.

I did notice the average days on market jumped up in May to 125 days. It was 109 in April, 116 in March, 120 in February, and 110 days in January so that’s not a huge jump although it is a high for the year in what’s has been historically one of the more active sales months.

Below is a chart showing how many months supply of homes are current for sale at the current sales rates. For example on the first category, homes priced over one million dollars, it will take 43.8 months to sell just those homes assuming no new listings come on the market.

Knoxville tn homes for sale absorption rates

While most sellers are not getting top market value if they sell now, some very good buys exist for buyers able to qualify for a new loan. Interest rates are still very low, in the bottom of the 5% range, which translates into more affordable house payments.

Take a look at KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com and see if anything for sale there strikes your fancy. I have all the homes listings in the Knoxville Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service (MLS) posted there and you can search them with no registration required.

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The past week looks a bit worse than the week before with the volume of transfers down to 78 from the previous weeks 138.

only 78 Knox County Real estate transfers recorded for the week of May 10th

This market has created the proverbial “Perfect Storm” for home buyers. Lots of home for sale (Today there are 5,124 active single family and condominium homes for sale just in Knox County) and 78 recorded transactions last week so it’s very clearly a strong buyer’s market.

Financing remains in the sub 5% range for most price ranges with some great 100% financing available for buyers able to use the Tennessee Housing Development Authority (THDA) program.

Those smart folks at THDA have a new program that actually lends you up to the 3..5% of your down payment (which coincidentally happens to be the minimum down for FHA financing) at 0% for up to a year and you can repay them when you file your taxes and collect that $8,000 tax credit the federal government is offering for qualified buyers that have not owned a home in the past 3 years.  Regular conventional buyers also can qualify for the 8K tax credit as well.

All you need is a minimum 620 credit score and a debt to income ratio below 45%; call me if you’re interested and I’ll explain how it works; easy for most people to qualify.

Here’s a few listings you can buy right now that fit into this program’s guidelines.

This charming Cape Cod styled home is priced at only $129,900. Ask about $0 down financing and a principal and interest payment under $600 a month!

This excellent basement rancher is priced at only $149,900 with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a two car garage.

This charming older home was listed for $84,900 and not surprisingly just sold.

Visit www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com to see over 5,000 Knox County homes for sale as well as other nearby areas such as Maryville, Oak Ridge, Loudon County, and many others.

My wife and I are members of the Beaver Creek Cumberland Presbyterian Church (BCCPC) in Powell, Tennessee where I am currently serving a term as a Session Member (basically the Session is the Board of Directors of our church).

Our church, like other Cumberland Presbyterian churches, participates in sending our youth to a retreat at the church owned Camp Chilhowee, a 106 acre retreat in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. There are several cabins, an amphitheater, mess hall, swimming pool, and lots of beautiful grounds to hike, play, worship, and enjoy.

We feel it’s important to provide this setting away from the distractions of modern life to allow the youth to bond together, to reflect, and to find their own, closer relationship to God.

I’m not sure when the buildings at Camp Chilhowee were built, but after many years of ‘enjoyment’ by rambunctious youth and the passage of time the individual cabins were getting pretty used up.

So in 2007 we formed a committee to rebuild one of Camp Chilhowee’s cabins. Most of these cabins accommodate 16 campers in bunk beds in a dormitory style and have one bathroom.

I’m happy to say the project is now completed and on Sunday afternoon, April 19th many church members made the trek to Camp Chilhowee to dedicate our new cabin.

Our church's contribution to Camp Chilhowee, a brand new cabin that will accomodate 16 campers.

BCCPC members gather on the new cabin's porch for the dedication ceremony.

8 bunk beds and 2 full bathrooms will serve new campers.

Another CP church is undertaking to build a new cabin in front of ours and have completed demo of the old cabin and poured the footers.

Prior to the dedication church members gather at the camp's outdoor amphitheater for a brief worship service.

BCCPC Senior Pastor Reverend Thomas Sweet leads the church in song.

athletic field at Camp Chilhowee. Although it was a rainy, foggy afternoon, spirits were bright and warm.

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If you’re thinking of selling your house and it has older and outdated kitchen and bathrooms you’re probably thinking thousands of dollars to remodel and upgrade.

There is a low cost alternative to replacing bathtubs, showers, counters, etc. by simply having them professionally refinished. We sold our house in 2007. It was built in the 70s I believe and each of the three bathrooms had different colored fixtures and tile. One was yellow, one was avocado, and the other was a funky brown and gold.

After some investigation I found a company called Miracle Method of Knoxville who refinishes tiles, tubs, etc., in place with very high grade paint and totally changes the look to a clean, modern finish.The entire process, depending on how much you do, takes anywhere from 1 to 3 days. If you’re worried about durability they guarantee the finish for 5 years against peeling and flaking.

They have a showroom in the Middlebrook Pike area near Wright’s Cafeteria so you can go by and see their work firsthand.

In each bathroom they repainted the bathtub and all the tile along the walls. I installed new vanities, mirrors, light fixtures, and a new, comfort height commode along with new vinyl flooring. My total cost per bathroom was under $2,000 and the difference was enormous.

Here are some example from other projects they have done.

Notice how the dirty old pink and black tile was coated to provide a clean, modern look

Kitchen counter tops can also be refinished in place.

Counter tops can also be refinished and they even have a textured finish that imitates granite or quartz.

Dated Avocado Green tile becomes sparkling white.

Huge difference in this shower stall after refinishing.

BTW, our house sold at full price in a week. The buyers were totally blown away by the bathrooms and kitchen in a 35 year old house.

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Best wishes to everyone for a Happy and Prosperous New Year and thank you for a great 2008.

Jim Lee, Your Realtor

Image by Kitty Sonnenschein via Flickr

If you still have Thanksgiving turkey left over here are 2 quick and easy recipes to deliciously get rid of it.

One of my favorites I fixed last night.

Grilled Turkey Rubens, serves 2

4 slices rye bread

1/2 cup sauerkraut

2 slices of Swiss cheese

1,000 island dressing

turkey

Butter or apply spread to outside of rye bread, place one slice butter side down in skillet.

layer on some turkey, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and thousand island dressing.

Butter other side of bread and place on top with butter side facing up.

Grilled until toasted on one side, turn over and toast other side.

Enjoy, grilled turkey Rubens are delicious especially with a crisp pickle and some chips.

Crunchy Turkey Salad, serves 2

coarsely chop cooked turkey, from 1/2 cup to 1 cup

Mix in a coarsely chopped tart apple like Granny Smith

Throw in a handful of nuts, pecan or walnuts work best.

Fold in some low fat mayo to taste.

You can either use this on a sandwich, by itself, or put a big spoon on top of some torn salad greens.

Both the Reuben and turkey salad recipes are very easy to prepare and both are very tasty.

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www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com is another great recipe to help you find a new home, no mixing, stirring, or cooking necessary.