The 48 story building will begin showcasing some of it’s lighting capabilities, which includes 2 minute shows at the top of every hour beginning at 8pm tonight.

According to the Charlotte Observer, “the lights will display a default white setting from 30 minutes before sunset each evening until after the final show at midnight. The lights will come on again at about 5 a.m. for the morning commute, then turn off after sunrise.”

If you’ve been around Charlotte for any length of time than you know that this won’t be the first building to be lit of with a variety of different lights and colors, but I believe it might be the first one that has the ability to create motion with the lights.

To read more about this exciting new feature of uptown Charlotte, visit http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/08/17/1628169/duke-building-light-shows-start.html#ixzz0wtYnUQIm

1. They can’t raise interest rates on debt you’ve already racked up. They can if you are more than 60 days late on these payments.  So pay your cards on time!

2. If your card charges you different interest rates (say, 14% for existing balances, and 2% for balance transfers), they must apply your payments to the debt carrying the highest rates first.  So the faster you pay it off, the more money you save.

3. They can’t raise your rates if they find out you’ve been late on other credit cards or loans.  This doesn’t mean you credit score will not be affected, which can eventually lead to higher interest rates.  Your best bet is just to pay it on time.

4. You can no longer go over your credit limit and be charged the subsequent fees- unless you notify your credit card company in writing that you’d like to spend more than your limit.  So don’t spend more than your limit.

5. They will tell you on your bill how long it will take to pay off your debt and how much it will cost you, including interest, if you pay only the minimum each month.  This will be an eye opener, and a hard lesson for many.  Pay more than the minimum or you could possible pay on this card longer than your house mortgage.

6. Those under 21years old won’t be able to get a credit card unless they show proof of income or get an adult to cosign.  I think this is the smartest law of all!  When I was in college, you would sign your life away for a free t-shirt or can coozie.  All adults over the age of 21 take note…DON’T COSIGN

A recent story run by WCNC news station talked about the glut of lakeside homes that are available in Lake Norman, and many of them are listed at steep discounts. For example and as quoted in the Charlotte Observer,

“It’s 7,000 square-feet,” said broker Jason Noblitt as he looked at pictures of a waterfront foreclosure in Mooresville. “It was on the market for approximately $1.7 million.”

The 5-bedroom, 4 1/2-bath house is under contract now and Noblitt thinks it’ll sell for under $1 million. That’s a $700,000 discount.

“In our current market you absolutely are not going to get what you did in 2006 or even 2007. We need to look at where prices were in 2004 and 2005,” he said.”

And it’s not as if there isn’t competition either.  An MLS search showed 470 lakeside homes listed in the Lake Norman area, which means it’s a highly competitive housing market.

Of course on the flip side, if you’re looking to purchase a lakeside home, now is certainly a great time to act!

Down here in the Fort Mill SC area, it’s still most definitely a buyer’s market, but as I’ve always said, if your home is marketed and priced correctly, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t expect to get a fair value for your home.

To learn more about the Fort Mill SC or Rock Hill SC housing market, contact me today and I’d be more than happy to show you exactly what the Fort Mill SC real estate market looks like.

Typically, most road construction projects follow a ‘design-build’ process whereby contractors are responsible only for designing and building the roadway.  In this scenario, they would also join in the financing of the project as well.

This new process supposedly offers a streamlined method for completing the project that has been a hot topic since Gov. Purdue took office last year.

I for one am curious to see how well this process plays out.  Call me a bit of a skeptic, but I don’t have a whole lot of faith in a government that’s already operating in the red and current projections don’t look very promising either.

While I do believe in allowing private enterprise to help us correct many of the problems we now face, I’ll be curious to see how the back-end financing portion works out for the participating contractors.

Regardless, I think it’ll be a good thing to have the project completed, now projected to occur around 2014. This 1-485 project has dragged on for waaaaaay too long already and it will certainly help the entire Charlotte area as it continues to grow and expand.

While it all sounds like a bit of a contradiction, overall the feeling from the poll shows that Charlotte is very open to new comers as well, as it should be.  It’s very difficult to find many native Charlotteans and even some of the cities most well known people, former Charlotte Observer owner D.A. Tompkins and former Bank of America CEO Hugh McColl just to name a few. I can honestly say that’s one of the reasons I love the Charlotte NC area so much is because of the diversity brought about by people coming from all over the country. It truly is a melting pot of cultures and ideals.

Some of the areas cited as needing improvement include the quality of the schools and the economy. The economy is certainly an easy one to understand when you consider that much of Charlotte’s economy is based on the banking industry, which has certainly taken a beating over the past 18+ months.

In terms of the school systems, I really don’t know what to say about this one. It certainly is a bit of a mess and as much as I’d love to say we can see a light at the end of the tunnel I don’t know that that’s the case.

Fortunately, for those of us down here in the Fort Mill SC and Rock Hill SC area, we don’t have to deal with the Charlotte Mecklenburg School System’s troubles.  Fort Mill SC school district is rated as one of the top school districts in the state of SC and many people are choosing to purchase the new home in the Fort Mill SC area for this very reason.

Overall, I’d say that Charlotte NC definitely has a ton of great features and is a great place to live.  At the same time, the Fort Mill SC and Rock Hill SC areas offer many additional benefits PLUS we also get to take advantage of everything that Charlotte has to offer because of it’s close proximity!

According to the Charlotte Observer’s event section:

Blues, Brews & BBQ is a competition and festival that features blues music, an array of beer samples, and some of the best barbecue anywhere. Interactive cooking demonstrations and contests are featured all day. This festival celebrates the best of the southern cuisine and southern music. Food, music, entertainment and more!

To get the complete story on this event be sure to check out the Blues, Brews & BBQ website!

According to the Charlotte Observer today,

“At the worksite, at Fifth and Pine streets, workers streamed out of the tower at the shift’s end Monday, carrying an assortment of items, such as ladders, buckets and drills, which workers often leave overnight. Workers with four subcontractors, along with half a dozen Griffin employees, said they had been told that work may stop because of unpaid bills. Employees also removed R.J. Griffin signs from fences and used cranes to hoist portable toilets and other heavy equipment to the ground from The Vue’s upper floors.”

While it’s highly unlikely the work stoppage will last long simply because I seriously doubt the Charlotte city leaders want such a large real estate project just sitting unfinished, it definitely points to the fact that the regions real estate market isn’t completely out of the woods yet.

While home sales have picked up in the lower price brackets ($100-150K) things are still a little slow in the upper price ranges.  That’s not to say house aren’t selling, it just means they’re not selling as quickly as they did prior to the current economic downturn.

“The number of initial unemployment-insurance claims fell last month, and the year-to-year increase was just 5 percent – compared with a 76 percent year-to-year jump in June, according to N.C. Employment Security Commission figures released Monday.”

While this is certainly good news to use locally in the Charlotte NC area, it mirrors information from across the country that the recession does appear to be slowing down. While there were still some 274,000 jobs lost in July, the unemployment percentage actually fell by .1% from June, which is the first time that number fell since April of 2008.

Obviously, this informatio boads well for the Rock Hill SC and Fort Mill SC areas as well as people continue to look to York County for an alternative to Charlotte NC and seeing the number of job losses slow down certainly helps our real estate market.

And in spite of all the bad news nationally, we’ve always enjoyed a relatively strong real estate market here in the Rock Hill SC – Fort Mill SC area and I don’t expect that to change any time soon!

While the Rock Hill SC and Fort Mill SC areas haven’t been hit nearly as hard as other areas across the country, and even within the Charlotte NC region, there are still a fair share of foreclosed properties available to those willing to do the work and assume the risk.

Here are 5 tips to keep in mind when considering a foreclosed home in the Rock Hill SC area:

1. Finding one has become easier

You don’t need to show up at courthouse auctions or comb through legal filings. These days many banks sell foreclosed homes through real estate agents.

To find listings, look on sites that specialize in foreclosed properties, such as realtytrac.com and foreclosurepoint.com. The local multiple-listing service often has selections as well. (The fact that the home is in foreclosure is not always highlighted in the MLS, but it’s often mentioned in the description.)

Finally, some agents specialize in foreclosures, so call your local realtor’s office and ask for a referral.

2. It’s best to buy from a bank

If you buy a foreclosed home at an auction before the bank repossesses it, you’ll have to pay in cash, and you usually cannot inspect the property. You may also later discover that there are liens against it.

When a bank takes back a home, however, it will clear any outstanding liens. Plus, when you buy a bank-owned property, you can inspect it beforehand, and you can finance the purchase with a mortgage. Leave your suitcase full of cash at home.

3. Bring in a contractor before you buy

Many foreclosed homes have been abandoned, some even vandalized, and they often require major repairs. “One mistake a lot of people make is underestimating how much work it needs and the cost,” says Rick Sharga of RealtyTrac.

To avoid getting stuck with a surprise bill, ask a contractor to give you an estimate of how much the restoration will cost and how long it will take. Many will do so for free in hopes of winning your business.

4. Bid low

Banks aren’t necessarily selling foreclosures at fire-sale prices; some are listed at market value, says Gene Hacker, a broker in Orange County, Calif. So be prepared to haggle. The bigger the inventory of foreclosed homes the bank has and the longer the property has sat, the greater your chances of nabbing a great deal, says Chris Matty of ForeclosurePoint.com.

Set your initial offer about 20% below market price – or more if your area has a lot of foreclosures.

5. Be prepared to wait

While some lenders are getting back to bidders within 36 hours, others are dealing with an enormous backlog that can hold up their response for as long as three months. While you wait, someone can trump you with a higher offer.

To boost your chances at scoring a home you love, have multiple properties in mind, and get your financing pre-approved before you bid. Even if the lender says it has another offer, follow up every week – these deals can often fall through.

These tips come courtesy of Amanda Gengler, a writer for Money magazine.

As published in the Yahoo! Real Estate news report:

“[Yahoo's] rankings looked at the 200 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., which range from the New York metro and its 11.7 million people to Olympia, Wash., with a population of 241,000. We examined each on 11 different criteria. Economic research firm Moody’s Economy.com supplied data on job growth over the past five years and projections through 2011. Economy.com also provided business and living cost data as well as income growth and migration trends.

We also turned to Bert T. Sperling, city researcher and co-author of Cities Ranked & Rated for some labor supply and quality of life information. Sperling furnished data on college attainment, crime rates, local colleges and cultural and recreational opportunities in the area.”

So even though our area has been hit with numerous after-effects of our flagging economy, it still looks as though Rock Hill SC, Fort Mill SC, and all the surrounding areas are positioned quite nicely.  And once things start turning around, we’ll be that much better off!