I have made some minor changes to the site to help navigation and to promote the objective of improving market conditions for the Durham luxury market.  Quite often people find blogs such as this through search engines. Blogs with frequent posts and links from other sites eventually work their way up the search engine ranking and that is starting to happen. The first priority is to reach sellers with a message about employing more sophisticated marketing techniques in a post-boom market where there are more sellers than buyers.  Inevitably this also attracts potential buyers. Therefore it is important that the blog not just preach about the importance to the market of promoting our luxury neighborhood, it has to do it.

The first, and most important thing is to begin posting information about the various neighborhoods and their amenities. The post on historic Hope Valley is the first post with that focus. Secondly, a “category” box has been added to the sidebar so that someone exploring the site can go directly the to topics that most interest them.

Finally, a report is being developed that will be offered free through a link in the sidebar to buyers interested in the Durham Luxury Market.

I’ve just added a link to the website of the Hope Valley Neighborhood Association to the “blogroll” on the left sidebar of this site. Don Stanger, the current president of the association informs me that there are some upgrades to the site in the works that will include over 100 pictures which have been taken to support the neighborhood’s application for National Historic Register status. The current homepage has links to two stories in the News and Observer written by Durham journalist/historian Jim Wise about the history of Hope Valley and current efforts to preserve and document this history. One of the stories has a fabulous anecdote about a couple that recently relocated from San Francisco and why they bought a home in Hope Valley. I urge anyone interested to read the story themselves. What I found very interesting was that they intended to tear down the 50’s colonial on the lot and build one more suitable to their lifestyle but compatible to the surroundings. The point is they bought the neighborhood not the “shelter” represented by the old house. It would be interesting to know how this couple learned about Hope Valley but I’d be surprised if it was from a buyer agent located in Wake or Orange counties where almost 20 times the number of luxury homes were sold than there were in Durham.  Because there are so many agents in these two markets it makes sense that they would get the biggest share of potential buyers, especially those who haven’t already indicated a community preference. The Durham Luxury Real Estate Report available from a link in the left sidebar details why these less tangible benefits must be communicated in the marketing materials for any luxury home on the market along with reasons why the agents should show homes in Durham.

Of course, it’s historical significance isn’t the only thing that makes Hope Valley attractive.  Ironically, according to Jim Wise it was originally placed where it is to be beyond the trolley line to discourage those without automobiles from moving there. Now, of course, it is very convenient to the major employment centers and the best shopping in the Triangle. The existance of an active and involved neighborhood association also says a lot positive about the community. And then there’s the Hope Valley Country Club…but more about that in another post. 

In his very popular book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Steven Covey tells a story about a man who comes to him at a seminar and confesses that he does not love his wife anymore and wants Covey’s advice.  Covey tells him to love her.  It takes a little more conversation for Covey to make the point that love is a decision. Now, I most emphatically do NOT endorse this as a way to pick a mate, but I do think it makes sense to embrace the community that you live in, or for Durham listing agents, the community that you are trying to make a living in. (more…)

There’s lots of blogging going on now in the real estate industry. Unlike this blog, a good deal of it is meant for real estate professionals. Cruising through some of these sites this morning I came across two articles that were thought provoking enough to interrupt what I had planned to do and write this.

One article cited a 2006 Harris Online poll on trusted professionals that ranked real estate agents near the bottom of the list just ahead of stockbrokers but lagging behind insurance agents and auto mechanics. Doctors led the list in trust but were “completely trusted” by only 50% of the respondents. The blogger’s conclusion was that nobody wants to completely leave major decisions about their health, finances or beloved possessions solely in someone else’s hands. (more…)

In my conversation with a mortgage executive in Cary last week (that’s not him in the picture,) he questioned me about the wisdom of focusing on the luxury market in Durham. I believe he used the expression “tilting at windmills.” Why focus on one of the few stagnant segments of what, until recently anyway, has been a robust market? Is Durham generally still stuck in a decades long ditch that it won’t get out of in my lifetime? Unfortunatly, this reflects a widely held view around the Triangle that makes climbing out even tougher. It was hard to argue that Durham was ready to lose its rough and ready reputation when the day before our lunch I could see the police helicopter hovering for hours over a nearby neighborhood while police were trying to flush out the young thug on parole who was eventually arrested for murders of a Duke student from India and the UNC student body president. Like the still festering lacrosse case, this brings unwanted worldwide negative attention. Still, these are my reasons for sticking with Durham… (more…)

I had lunch yesterday with a mortgage executive at his office in Cary. He had read the post a few days ago about the drastic price reduction ($23M to $12M) of what is still the most expensive listing in the Triangle. It turns out the original owner was an acquaintence of his and he had attended a political fund raising event there back in 2000. Because I’m neither a gossip nor a journalist who has checked his facts, I’m not going to share the story details. I will say that the home was built the way it was with a purpose in mind beyond shelter or a comfortable home, a point common to many luxury homes that is often overlooked in their marketing. (more…)

In the last post I talked about the $23,000,000 listing in Raleigh that was reduced to $12,000,000 in January.  Even at $12M it’s still the most expensive listing in the Triangle MLS. But there are markets where that’s run of the mill. The picture here is of an estate in Lake Tahoe that is listed for $100,000,000. I follow a couple of other blogs on luxury homes in other areas of the country and I saw this on one of those. If you are interested in who buys this kind of home I can recommend a book recently published by Robert Frank entitled Richistan:A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich. By and large this blog won’t address the fraction of 1% of families with the resources to buy this kind of property but I did find it interesting how the writer described it because it provides an illustration of how “post-boom” listing agent/marketing directors must do a better job of positioning all properties, but especially luxury properties. (more…)

When I wrote the Durham Luxury Home Report for 2008 (which is available through a link on the sidebar on the left) the most expensive listing in the Triangle Multiple Listing Service (TMLS) was an estate in North Raleigh that was listed at $23,000,000.  This property had been on the market at that price since September. On January 8th the price was reduced to $12,000,000, a reduction of almost 50%.  What’s this about? (more…)

In the free report available from the link on the sidebar I mention that I wrote much of the report during a period that I was also involved in a Rotary Club project to build a Habitat house in east Durham. Yesterday I attended a dedication ceremony for that house and one directly across the street that was sponsored by several Durham congregations. Everyone involved in these projects including the full time Americorp volunteers, are there to help folks struggling to realize the American Dream of home ownership.  However, it also became clear to me that a possibly unintended consequence is that it helps the whole community by giving it something to be proud of.

Anyone who hasn’t ventured east on Main Street from downtown in a few years might be surprised how the corridor is being transformed. These Habitat houses are on Franklin St. which runs parallel to Main for a few blocks on either side of Alston Avenue. The west end of Franklin ends at the old Golden Belt plant which is being transformed by Andy Rothschild’s Scientific Properties into a mixed use facility for an emphasis on the arts, especially studio space for artists.  For anybody interested in a very detailed review with pictures of what this is all about, I recommend another blog called “BullCityRising.” A link to the site is on the left sidebar and you can go directly to the post last month about Golden Belt by clicking here. If you explore the whole blog you will see that it covers this kind of development much better than either of the two local newspapers. It is this kind of information that must be reported over and over again to burnish our image and improve our real estate markets.  If you are interested in what else Habitat has going on in Durham, click here.

Why do the luxury homes in Wake, Orange and even Chatham sell more readily than those in Durham? For the most part, access to major highways, the airport, shopping, healthcare and the major employment centers is just as good or better. Convenience is a good thing but it can be trumped by a community’s image.  The “Marketing Directors” or listing agents of luxury homes in Durham must do their part to change Durham’s image to improve the market for these homes.

My siblings and I have talked about a commune since the 60’s and when I shared this picture with them we decided that this was a good way to create and organize the living spaces. I’m not sure how this group worked out the plumbing, but maybe the real purpose was art and not function.  If it is art then that’s what makes it similar to luxury real estate. (more…)

Nature takes over

One of my first memories of downtown Durham (when “downtown” was still lower case) was of a fox running down Chapel Hill Street past the empty storefronts where the Civic Center is now east towards the post office. I’d just moved to Durham to become the Marketing Director of Central Carolina Bank.  I’d left a position with a much larger bank in downtown Richmond and an office in a brand new building with a spectacular view of the historic Virginia state capital that Thomas Jefferson designed. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The fox seemed to symbolize nature reclaiming the barren streets of my new community. (more…)