Inman Post

November 25, 2008

Inman news is a real estate industry site “Where Real Estate and Technology Connect.” There are usually blog-like discussions going on about various topics in the real estate industry. This morning’s lead article was nominally about how real estate offices must shrink (to reduce costs) but was really more handwringing about where the industry is [...]

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A Real Marketing Plan

November 15, 2008

When I first got my real estate license I assummed that my many years of marketing experience and the knowledge I had acquired renovating and flipping a couple of condos would be a good basis for my new career. I was mistaken. I didn’t fit the profile at all of what the industry considered a [...]

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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 [...]

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The Least of Us

October 26, 2008

A time for cheerleaders Bob Ashley’s column in the Herald-Sun this morning is a wrap-up of the year’s designations for Durham from a variety of sources. We’re among the best places to retire, ride out a recession, get a great meal, start a business and on and on.  The one thing Bob recounted that struck [...]

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Paralysis

October 25, 2008

The decline of an icon The spectacle of a New York bank, Citicorp, and a San Francisco bank, Wells Fargo, picking over the bones of Wachovia is enough to make you sick. In the late seventies I spent two years working for Wachovia in Winston-Salem as the product manager for retail deposit services. When I [...]

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Market Report 3rd Qtr 2008

October 3, 2008

_____________________________________ Bucking the Trend? Amidst all the terrible economic news it might be surprising to learn that the luxury home market in Durham may have held its own during the 3rd quarter of the year…or at least it hasn’t gotten any worse. During the quarter, 12 homes listed for over $700,000 sold, compared with 8 [...]

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It’s Time for Football!

October 1, 2008

My first visit to Durham was almost 45 years ago when I was a high school senior and was being courted as a football recruit by all the Triangle ACC schools and a number of others as well. The planes were propeller driven and they rolled steps out to the runway apron to deplane passengers [...]

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Can Food Bring us Together?

September 22, 2008

For many years the contrast between the vibrancy of the luxury home markets in Durham and those in Chapel Hill has been stark. Chapel Hill has boomed and Durham typically has two and a half years worth of inventory on the market. The joke was that the best thing that could happen to the Durham [...]

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Festival Weekend in Durham

September 16, 2008

There is so much that has happened in the last few years that is driving the revival of Durham’s image that it is sometimes easy to forget that there are some things that have been around for a good while that have kept the momentum going even when things slowed down. Two of these annual [...]

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Mid-Quarter Update

September 9, 2008

I usually wait until the end of the quarter to take a look at the quarter’s activity in the Durham luxury home market but it’s been an interesting summer in some ways. The summer is usually not particularly active but since July 1, six homes in the $700,000 or more category have closed and another [...]

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Share This

September 5, 2008

I just added a new feature to Durham’s premier luxury home blog, a “plugin” called “Share This.” You will now notice that at the bottom of every post and page appears a small icon that looks like a “v” laid on its side. If you are into social networking on the web you can put [...]

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More Site Changes

August 24, 2008

Regular visitors to the site may notice that the blog is no longer front and center on the home page. Those of you who read the posts via a RSS feed in a reader like Google Reader may not notice anything. But in place of the blog the new landing page for anyone going to [...]

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Challenging Negativity

August 14, 2008

There’s a very interesting post over at Reyn Bowman’s blog about the sources of negativity about Durham. Reyn, of course, is the leader of the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau and for 20 years has researched and documented the sources of negativity about the Durham community.  One conclusion is that much of the word of [...]

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Ella Fountain Pratt

August 5, 2008

Ella Fountain Pratt died last week at age 94. The Herald-Sun front page story on July 30th chronicled her long and enduring impact on the arts in Durham. When I came to Durham in 1984 to be marketing director of Central Carolina Bank, the bank was small by regional or national standards but still one [...]

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Another Durham Treasure

July 29, 2008

For over 20 years Reyn Bowman has been the leader of the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau and nobody has spent more energy urging the citizens of Durham to shed our sheepishness and confront those from neighboring communities who badmouth living in Durham. Lots of stuff is coming on line to brag about but some [...]

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