From the category archives:

About Durham

Our New Luxury Classification

February 15, 2010
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Let’s start with some stats
As promised in the last post, DurhamLuxRE will begin to look at a broader range of the luxury home market over a wider area in the Triangle. Specifically, we’re talking about any home listed and/or then sold for at least $450,000. Our old threshold was $700,000 and we still make the [...]

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Durham Is…

July 30, 2009
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As the chair of the PR committee for the Downtown Durham Rotary Club I often end up writing the report on the program for the weekly bulletin. Last Monday, Tom Bonfield, Durham’s new city manager and a member of the club presented the program. I’m re-publishing my write-up here because Mr. Bonfield made such a [...]

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More on School Performance

July 27, 2009
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The link below is to a story in the Baltimore Sun about the importance of schools in home buyers assessment of a community. Even folks without school age children often consider the schools as an indicator of the overall livability of a community.
This also supports the larger point that many listing agents and sellers have [...]

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More Good News for Durham Real Estate

July 16, 2009
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There are two things I’m very proud of in terms of my involvement in the community over the years. The first was the small role I played in the late 80’s in downtown revitalization getting Downtown Durham, Inc. off the ground with a coherent marketing theme. During that same timeframe as the Marketing Director of [...]

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Second Quarter Luxury Home Report

June 30, 2009

More of the Same
Pulling together these statistics on the Durham luxury home market is getting a little boring I’m afraid. Unlike our neighboring counties of Wake, Orange and Chatham, through the economic downturn Durham has not gotten worse…or better. You might see a glimmer of hope in the fact that for the last two quarters [...]

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The Tobacco Legacy

June 18, 2009

It may be ironic that sweeping legislation to put tobacco regulation under the control of the FDA has been done during the administration of a president who himself is struggling with a tobacco addiction.  But as Terry Mancour of the London Guardian points out in the article here such regulation was inevitable.
I’m no fan of [...]

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Living in Durham

June 15, 2009

US News and World Report is big on “Best of” lists to generate some readership and sometimes even some controversy. A story published earlier this month listed their Ten Best Places to Live for 2009. Number 7 on the list is…ta da…Durham.
The story is available on the USNWR website at this link along with links [...]

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Economic Indicators

June 7, 2009

Economy Up, Service Down
I have long believed that the health of the economy is inversely proportional to the quality of service in fast food restaurants. When the economy is good, service truly sucks because they are forced to hire  the dregs of the labor pool.  When the economy is bad they can be more selective [...]

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Durham on NYT OpEd Page

May 16, 2009

Bob Herbert is a columnist who is regularly seen on the opinion pages of the New York Times.  In today’s edition of the paper Mr. Herbert comments on an event that happened in Durham in 1944.  Strict racial segregation was the norm at the time, of course, but a white basketball team from the Duke [...]

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Anniversary Coming

April 4, 2009

Next Tuesday will mark the anniversary of the first post published on this blog. It was entitled “The Fox”  and was meant to set the stage for future discussions about how far Durham has come since I saw a fox running down Chapel Hill Street near the post office in Downtown Durham in 1985. To [...]

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More from Reyn

March 26, 2009

In the pantheon of Durham bloggers, Reyn Bowman of the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau is beginning to take his rightful place, primarily using this new media to extend the role of the DCVB as Durham’s marketing agency. But as his profile points out, this is his personal blog  so it also has posts about [...]

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Durham Video

February 24, 2009

Holy cow! How did I miss this. 
If you like Durham you’ll love this.  If you thought you didn’t like Durham, this might make you reconsider. If you just overpaid for a home in Chapel Hill this might be depressing.

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Durham Image Watch

February 24, 2009

A recurring theme here at DurhamLuxRe.com is the importance of bringing Durham’s image in line with reality.  For years Durham had a reputation for chaotic government, poor schools, high crime rates and a crumbling downtown.  Some of the reputation might have been deserved but much has changed and the Durham that is emerging not only [...]

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Durham Historical Calendar

December 12, 2008

I got a nice note today reminding me that not all that is great about Durham is shiny and new like the Performing Arts Center. Shelly Green, the COO of the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau emailed me that she had put a copy in the mail to me of the 2009 Historical Calendar of [...]

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Another Dog Story

November 7, 2008

Dogs have been on my mind lately.
The national news tonight ended with a story with speculation about what kind of puppy our president elect’s two daughters would choose after he announced in his victory speech that this is one promise he could keep with little difficulty. Personally, I hope the Obamas can find and adopt [...]

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