Knoxville Tennessee Real Estate Blog

Those of us fortunate to live in the greater Knoxville, Tennessee have a unique opportunity to enjoy camping and hiking in the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

There are over 800 miles of great hiking trails in the back country of the Smokies and many, many beautiful spots to enjoy.

But, there is also danger.

Hikers and visitors often become lost and every now and then, a death results.

While planning an upcoming trip to Spence Field, a very popular trail shelter and scenic camping area along the Appalachian Trail, I was reminded of one of the mysterious disappearance back in 1969 of a young boy named Dennis Martin.

Dennis Martin, circa 1969

On Father’s Day, 1969 Dennis, aged 6, his older brother, his father, grandfather, and two cousins were on their annual camping outing at the Spence Field trail shelter.

While playing nearby the boys decided to circle around behind the trail shelter and jump out to scare the adults; Dennis went around one way and the other three boys went in the opposite direction.

Spence Field Trail Shelter where Dennis disappeared.

The three boys circled the shelter, jumped out and scared the adults. They all had a big laugh about it.

Then someone asked: “where’s Dennis?”. Dennis never showed up from his side of the shelter.

Immediately the adults began searching and calling for young Dennis; no answer, no Dennis. One of the adults went for help.

Early the next day there were over 150 park rangers and volunteers searching all around Spence Field, a large, grassy area.

No Dennis, no trace, no signs, no footprints, nothing.

The search continued and grew. By the eighth day helicopters were ferrying in searchers.

The Army sent teams of Green Berets, there were local tracking dogs, and at the height of the search, nearly 2,000 volunteers beating every inch of the brush for miles in all directions.

Still no Dennis.

Dennis Martin remains missing to this day. No trace of him was ever found in spite of the massive search efforts by experienced park rangers, Army personnel, dogs, and hundreds of volunteers.

I often wonder what happened to Dennis on that day so long ago; I often wonder if we will ever get an answer.

This week (Sept. 16-23) I’m down in Destin, Florida attending the annual Tennessee Association of Realtor’s convention.

The host hotel is the Sandestin Hilton located in the beautiful Sandestin complex.

It’s sort of off season in Destin now but the weather is still very warm as is the beautiful, emerald green & blue Gulf of Mexico.

I made this photo Monday; the location is up by the jetty at the East Pass.

I love coming to Destin, it’s sort of like a homecoming. You see I was stationed here in the mid 60s when I was a member of the US Air Force. BIG changes in the area since then; lots of new condos, houses, restaurants, shopping, etc., but one thing that hasn’t changed is the beautiful beaches and lovely Gulf of Mexico waters.

Instead of staying at the convention hotel we rented a beautiful beach house and invited a friend of ours to come along. My wife and our friend entertain themselves at the beach and shopping while I’m at the convention. We also have a secluded private pool out back when they’re too tired to stroll down to the beach.

My lovely bride Charlotte is on the right with our friend from Nashville, Denise. They’re heading for another tough day at the beach.

Great convention so far. We have had beautiful weather but there are reports of a tropical depression coming in this Saturday so we’ll probably spend that day packing and doing some last minute shopping.

The convention committee did a superb job decorating; this is the entrance to one of the many classes offered. This one is by a long time real estate trainer named Howard Brinton.

We also found time to do some business. This is from the TAR Board of Directors meeting Thursday. The nice lady at the podium is our outgoing President, Jewell McKinney who will  be replaced Friday night by Mike Gaughan.

It’s been a great year in real estate for TAR. I’m on our Government Affairs Committee and we’ve been busy this year keeping track of over 200 pieces of legislation affecting real estate.

Some of the legislation we’ve tackled this year includes:

Real estate transfer taxes. Some helpful legislators in the Tennessee House Local Government Subcommittee helped defeat a local option transfer tax in Sevier County.

Adequate Facilities Tax on new construction homes. TAR opposes this narrowly applied tax in favor of more broad based taxes which are shared by all instead of only burdening new constuction home. Both TAR and the Homebuilders Association of Tennessee opposed an increase in Rutherford County which was defeated.

One other bill I’m delighted to say we were opposed to and was defeated, would have made Tennessee Realtors responsible for determining immigration status for everyone we sold or rented a house to.

Tonight is the convention finale. If you’re a Tennessee Realtor and have never been to a state convention you truly don’t know what you’ve been missing.

Next year we’re holding the convention in Chattanooga so make plans to attend.

One of the “quality of Life” factors that make living in an area more pleasant is the availability and ease of access to parks and recreation.

Knoxville has an ever growing system of paved greenways leading to those facilities and others such as restaurants, gardens, and other desirable destinations.

Currently there are a little over 40 miles of paved greenways in the Knoxville/Knox County area.

One of my favorites is the Third Creek Greenway which has just been extended and now begins near Papermill Road in Bearden and runs east along Kingston Pike, through Tyson Park, the UT ag campus, along Neyland drive, and ends up at Calhoun’s Restaurant below the Gay Street Bridge.

The whole thing is about 5 miles long and a great bike ride through some beautiful areas included the heavily wooded section above Sequoyah Hills.

The ultimate goal is to have a countywide greenway system to make it possible to bike or walk from most anyplace in Knox County without having to use a car or public transportation.

One huge section now underway will connect the Third Creek Greenway to the Maryville Greenway in Blount County.

It will run from the UT ag campus and the Alcoa Highway Bridge, along UT property, behind the Navy/Marine Corp training facility, another section of UT agricultural property, and on into Bount County ultimately connecting it to the already complete Maryville Greenway.

I can’t wait until this monster section is complete. Imagine riding a bike all the way from downtown Knoxville and along the Tennessee River past the Knoxville Airport, and deep into Blount County through Maryville & Alcoa.

If you would like to look for a new home along Knoxville’s ever growing greenway system visit KnoxvilleMLS.com to see all the current homes and condos for sale.

Knoxville, Tennessee is headquarters for Tennessee’s Second Congressional District whose seat is currently held by John J. Duncan Jr..

Congressman Duncan

Congressman Duncan enjoys a reputation among his fellow Congressmen as one of the most frugal which puts him high on my list of most admired Congressmen.

He sends out a periodic newsletter to his constituents with news of what’s happening in Washington. Here’s the highlights from his most recent.

Feelings against the recent, failed immigration bill Congress tried to pass were running over 50 to 1 against it according to Congressman Duncan.

The Congressman advocates more domestic oil production as a counter to high oil prices from OPEC nations.

In an interesting tidbit he says Frontiersman Davy Crockett was also a Tennessee Congressman back in his days and usually voted against almost all government spending bills. He once challenged other Congressmen to pay for a bill he was opposed to out of their own pockets. Congressman Crockett supposedly said in a famous speech: “One of the easiest things in the world to do is to spend other people’s money. And it is always much more popular to say yes than to say no. That is why the federal government is in such a big hole today.”

Obviously Davy Crockett was a forward thinker and clearly ahead of his time.

Congressman Crockett served the US Congress and the State of Tennessee as their representative from 1828 until 1834 when he was defeated and made that now famous journey to Texas and the Alamo.

Congressman Duncan has been following Davy Crockett’s fine example and getting reelected since 1988. I hope he runs again so I can vote for him again.

This past August 7, 2007 was an largely uneventful day but it was also a special day.

16 years ago this past August 7th in 1991 Doctor Tim Berners-Lee sent the first message via the world wide web (www).

Doctor Tim Berners-Lee, father of the www

Doctor Lee is acknowledged as the father of the world wide web. For his accomplishment he was awarded the Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire making him “Sir Tim Berners-Lee”.

Here’s a portion of the very first message sent across the www.

“The WWW project merges the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext to  make an easy but powerful global information system.

The project started with the philosophy that much academic information should  
be freely available to anyone. It aims to allow information sharing within  
internationally dispersed teams, and the dissemination of information by  
support groups.”

Apparently smart runs in Doctor Lee’s family, both his mother and father were mathematicians and worked on the team that built one of the world’s first computers.

While working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, Doctor Lee saw an opportunity to marry the then cumbersome Internet to TCP and DNS ideas and in his words: “ta-da! - the World Wide Web.”

© Copyright 2007, Jim Lee, All rights reserved

Why? Because it’s time for the 15th annual Grainger County Tomato Festival! (July 27-29th)

My wife and I will be making our annual pilgrimage this coming Saturday to spend the day enjoying this fun for all event (I have other agents covering my business in case you can’t wait until Monday ).

Organized in 1993 the Tomato Festival has grown into a huge undertaking to showcase the Grainger County Tomato crop, area artists, craftsmen, and other local enterprises. Today it’s one of the largest local events in the state of Tennessee.

Here’s an aerial photo from last year.

This year’s festival features the always popular “Tomato Wars” with lots of overripe tomatoes as ammo. Teams are formed to pelt each other with the squishy veggies. I’m not sure how they determine a winner but everyone comes away dripping tomatoes pulp and juice all over.

Everyone is nice and clean at the begining of the Tomato Wars.

In addition to the tomato fights there is a beauty contest, car show, civil war reenactments, arts, crafts, music, food, and lots of good clean (except for the Tomato Wars participants ) fun for all.

If you’re a fan of good tasting tomatoes, Grainger County grows some of the best around. Started in early season in seemingly endless rows of hothouses, Grainger County Tomatoes are among the first ‘homegrown’ products to hit the markets in early spring and they continue to produce until first frost.

UPDATE: Here’s some photos I took at the festival today. It was great with record crowds and lots of fun things going on.

Here is the Knoxville News Sentinel’s coverage of the Tomato Wars

The Knoxville Area Association of Realtors have released their June 2007 sales report; you access it here.

Looks like volume was down a couple of hundred units over the past month of May and days on the market (time to sell) was up slightly to 90 days. Total volume of homes and condos sold was 1,483 units versus 1,608 units in May of this year.

I talked with my “go to” mortgage banker Debbie Nieto today and she told interest rates were still in the high 6% range with the benchmark 30 year loan at 6 7/8th fixed rate.

Debbie Nieto

There is a great selection of Knoxville, Tennessee and surrounding area homes for sale. If buying a new Knoxville area home is in your future you can view all our area Realtor listings at www.KnoxvilleMLS.com.

Go have a look, pick out a few, and give me a call, we’ll go have a look at them and you can pick one out.

One of Mother Nature’s most fascinating events is underway in the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

In the Elkmont campgrounds areas tens of thousands of fireflies (lightning bugs to the local folks) are beginning their annual mating ritual.

The fascinating part is that huge groups of these amorous insects begin flashing in almost perfect synronization in hopes of attracting the attentions of a female firefly.

According to scientists a female firefly will start blinking her light from the ground or under a bush. Soon big bunches of male fireflies will begin gathering and after just a few minutes they all beging blinking their lights simultaneously.

It’s a wonderous sight to behold as the dark woods light up with thousands of tiny lights all blinking in unison; great for children of all ages.

The annual light show usually runs through June and sometimes into early July. If you’ve never seen them in action it’s a great way to spend a summer evening with the kids (or without them) .

Because of the hundreds of visitor this annual show attracts the National Park Service has prohibitied private vehicles in Elkmont from June 8th through the 16, peak viewing times. Trolley service is available from the Sugarlands Visitor’s Center just outside Gatlinburg and a round trip ride is only $1.00.

Here are some tips on firefly watching etiquette.

Flashlights disrupt the fireflies and impair people’s night vision. The light show is best when you:

• Cover your flashlight with red or blue cellophane.
• Use your flashlight only when walking to your viewing spot.
• Point your flashlight at the ground.
• Turn off your flashlight when you find your viewing spot.
• Don’t catch the fireflies and stay on the trail at all times. I know it’s a tempation for the kids but please restrict your firefly catching to your background; others want to enjoy these special fireflies too.