Raleigh, North Carolina.  No, I am not talking about couples who are parting company but rather about those who have two or more homes and divide their living time (to various degrees) among them.  While the snowbirds have been doing their annual winter trek from colder climes to Florida’s golden shores for a couple of months once a year for many and many a year, the new breed will fly back and forth between their homes as often as once a month - sometimes more.

National Association of Realtors figures indicate that during 2004, 36% of all homes purchased were second homes.  It is not just Florida that has been the beneficiary of this second home market.  Phoenix, Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas, Nashville and most of California have been strong participants as well.  This market should continue to enjoy strong growth as some 75 million baby boomers become “golden oldies”.  Florida reaps the benefit of dual home ownership not only because of year around warm weather but also because it does not have state income tax or any state death taxes.  Texas, Nevada, Washington and Tennessee are other states that don’t have a state income tax.  Cities with mild winters and that have good air service to a lot of heavily traveled locations are naturals to participate in the second home boom as well.

 Couples lifestyles, income, types of businesses or jobs and locations of relatives also effect where they will buy second homes.  Builders who purposely develop marketing strategies for second home buyers say that second homes now have to have most, if not all, of the same ammenities the main residence has including home offices and high-speed internet connections.  They also have to factor in such senior requirements as wide doorways and hallways, elevators and access to good health-care facilities.  Condominiums are benefiting from this trend for multiple homes as well as single family homes.

There is a substantial movement of people to North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama from Florida by those who find they don’t like the Florida heat and humidity, who want to be closer to relation and friends they left in the north and north east and who like a change of seasons without the extremes of winter weather found in those states.  Because Raleigh has an excellent airport and airline flights to many major cities, three major universities within twenty-five miles of one another, is the state capital, has a major and growing position in the medical and high-tech fields and the jobs they offer, a superior highway system, is only a two hour drive from the coast and a four hour drive to the mountains, it is reaping the benefits of being a two home buyer market as well.

 If you would like to investigate living and investment possibilities in Raleigh and the surrounding areas call me at 919-696-3474 or send me an email (marvmax@mindspring.com) outlining your needs and interests and I will see that you get the information you want.

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: marvmax@mindspring.com   Website: www.JohnFish.com

Cary, North Carolina.  During the last 40 years Cary has grown at a sizzling pace; from 7,500 to 115,000 residents.  Much of this growth is due to its close proximity to the Research Triangle Park.  In fact, the August issue of MONEY MAGAZINE has an article called “Best Places to Live” in which they rate cities across America (with a population of under 300,000) on the basis of jobs, economy, safety, education,k ease of living, art, leisure and park space.  In this list of 90 cities Cary ranked number 5 over-all and had number 1 ratings for jobs, economy and safety.  All of which brings me to an article by Dudley Price in today’s Raleigh News and Observer.  In it he duscusses the real estate market for single men and, more specifically, in Cary.  While the marketing of single family homes, condos or townhomes to single family men has not been something major homebuilders have done in the past, the currently slowdown in the nation’s economy has caused some of them to be more aggressive in marketing to many different segments of the market place. 

The National Association of Realtors indicates that during 2005 married couples were 61% of the housing market, Single women 20% and single men 9%.  To digress for a moment, of single women buying homes, 60% purchased single family homes, 18% purchased condos and 17% townhomes.  Of single men - 62% purchased single family homes, 17% townhomes and 16% condos.

In Cary KB Homes is marketing some townhouses in its Twin Lakes subdivision toward the single male buyer.  And what do they build into a townhome for single male buyers?  Stone floors, stainless steel appliances and glass-walled showers.  Of the 23 units sold in the first phase, men have purchased nearly half.  KB Homes townhomes are 1,378 square feet to 1,573 square feet and cost from $155,000 to $200,000.  

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: marvmax@mindspring.com   Website:  www.JohnFish.com

Raleigh, North Carolina.  Fayetteville Street, the main street through downtown Raleigh, is reopening tomorrow to much fanfare; a parade, TV coverage and special sections in the News and Observer about the streets past history and its future commercial value to Raleigh, Wake County and the area as a whole.  Will it be the boon to business that the city fathers have hoped it will be?  Will it draw the businesses and permanent residents to the central core that they have spent much time, effort and money to promote?  While school is still out on these questions I think the time for it to work has finally arrived.

Thirty years ago this main thoroughfare was closed to traffice and promoted as an outdoor pedestrian mall.  As with most efforts to rejuvenate the downtown area, it was mostly a failure.  The lack of an affluent core population was not there and neither were the support facilities to attract and service them.  However, this area has continued to enjoy an explosion in population with a substantial portion of them people with good jobs or businesses and good incomes and with many of them needing living space in, or close to, the downtown area.  Also, more and larger buildings have been built in the immediate downtown area along with a considerable number of homes (in a broad price range) and several large and very fine condos as well with even larger and much pricier ones on the way. There is a healthy demand for these homes and condos by those who don’t want to flee to suberbia at 5 o’clock.  A downtown popuation of 20,000 is projected within the next 10 years.  Thus, the $10,000,000 spent to reopen the street and encourage business to locate or relocate to the downtown area would finally seem to be paying off rather than just another ho-hum downtown business as usual situation.

Interviews with people who live in some of the new homes and condos mostly produce rave notices.  They like the quiet, the convenience, the ability to walk and not drive to good shopping and restaurants and, of course, being able to dispense with the commute back and forth to their jobs or businesses.

New construction in, and coming to, downtown Raleigh includes a Marriott hotel, a public art project by Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa, the new Convention and Civic Center, the 31 story RBC Centura headquarters Bank, Yancy’s (a Cajun restaurant and jazz club), Progress Energy’s mixed-use tower and five or six major condos. 

All-in-all, living in downtown Raleigh is well worth investigating for anyone who is or will be working downtown and well as those looking for a good investment.  A properly selected condo unit could produce a handsome return for the judicious investor.  If you would like to investigate this possibility contact me.  Once I know what your interests and parameters are I will develop information for you that will be keyed to your particular objectives.  I also work closely with a local mortgage banker who is very knowledgeable and who has assisted many of my clients in the purchase of local, coastal and mountain properties and well as the refinancing of other out of state holdings in order to make their purchases work.  Please feel free to call me at any time (919-696-3474) or send me an email (marvmax@mindspring.com) and we will work together to provide you with information of value.  Also, don’t forget to visit my web site - www.JohnFish.com.

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: marvmax@mindspring.com   Website: www.johnFish.com

Gibsonville, North Carolina.  The Wright Brothers started it all at Kill Devil Hill.  Since that historic date all manner of flying machines have come and gone.  While flying boats are still used in some areas, most are venerable equipment whose origins go back thirty years or more and so, for the most part, have passed from our thinking and interest.

Taking a trip by plane, train, oceanliner, or your family fliver can each be enjoyable or just a way to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible.  Depending on how old you are and the range of memories you have, you can lament the passing of going from coast to coast on a train or (for the most part) sailing to Europe on a majestic ocean liner.  While I would remind you that most of the time, when we did do those things, we complained about the time it took and the poor service we received.  However, as time passes memories tend to blur and we trumpet the luxuries of the time we had to relax and enjoy our travels and the services received that were good.  The thought of going across Europe on the Orient Express (which you can do again for far more shekels than it used to cost), the romance of doing so, the individual attention you receive and the storied territory you travel through makes doing so an adventure - not just a trip. 

 Speaking of the romance of travel, while I never had the good fortune of doing so, traveling to the Orient on a China Clipper has always been at the top of my list of those things I would like to have done.  Unfortunately, Pan American had hardly established that service when world war II broke out and the technology that followed very quickly made sea planes and sea plane travel a thing of the past.  Now, however, there is a renaissance of sorts going on in that busteling sea plane capital of the world - Gibsonville, North Carolina.  Two entrepreneurs with a love of airplanes and the ability to make a buck will be modifying and also building new variations of the Grumman G-21 Goose.  When production starts the plant should be able to produce one sea plane per month.  It is anticipated that demand can reach 50 planes per year. While that doesn’t exactly make it a Boeing assembly line it will service a very real need and produce a nice profit.  For more details about the company in question and a quick trip to both the past and future - see the July issue of Business North Carolina.

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: marvmax@mindspring.com   Website: www.JohnFish.com

Raleigh, North Carolina.  The three oldest and best known names in real estate are location-location-location.  While certainly not true in every situation it comes close enough to being a law of business to be worth taking seriously when talking about projects that are existing, under development and proposed; especially when the developers in question have well known and respected credentials. 

 Raleigh’s RBC center is the home of the NHL’s Hurricanes and is surrounded by - not much of anything.  Well, the north Carolina State University Carter Finley stadium is nearby but for purposes of supporting commercial infrastructure it doesn’t count.  This doesn’t mean, however, that there is not VERY attractive land close-by just aching to be put to that commercial use.  As area residents interested in such things well know, there is 168 acres of mouth-watering land that was purchased by the developers of one of this area’s best know residential developments - Preston - in Cary.  These developers, namely Tim Smith and Bubba Rawls, purchased the acreage in 2004 from the State of North Carolina for $14.5 million. In turn, they are selling it in two separate tracts to Raleigh’s Lichtin Properties and Atlanta’s Post Properties.  In the iterim Tim and Bubba sold the property to another company they control for just over $27 million.  What will Lichtin and Post pay?  Stay tuned!  What can be said is that Lichtin will start a 100,000 square foot office building later this year and Post will get underway with retail, apartment and condominium buildings having 300 residential units the first part of 2007.  Post indicates their project will be patterened after their Riverside community along the Chattahoochee River in Atlanta.  Considering the need for development near the RBC Center these developments are a natural.

John Fish (919) 696-3474    Email: marvmax@mindspring.com    Website: www.JohnFish.com 

Raleigh, North Carolina.  I get emails and calls from people who are interested in living in and/or investing in the Raleigh/Durham/Research Triangle areas. One of their main questions is as to whether I can provide them with some kind of proof of the areas growth. That I can do in many ways. A new one is provided by the U.S. Census. It discloses that, of the cities having 100,000 or more residents, Raleigh was number 6 nationwide and number 1 on the east coast in numerical growth between July 2004 and July 2005. During that period Raleigh added 14,000 new residents. Thus, as of July 1, 2005 the Raleigh body count was 341,530. Oh yes, six other Wake County (Raleigh is in Wake County) towns of less than 100,000 experienced even greater growth! And the beat goes on. This year’s numbers are looking even greater.

 See this fabulous golf course home on My Favorite Homes on my web site.

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: marvmax@mindspring.com   Website: www.JohnFish.com 

Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.  Welcome to the premier Raleigh-Durham online real estate blog.  It is designed to inform consumers on how to be a pro in the real estate market and avoid common pitfalls that are costly. It is also designed to keep you informed as to what is going on in residential and commercial real estate throughout the Triangle area.  The articles and tools throughout the site are FREE, with zero strings attached. My name is Johnf Fish; I cover Raleigh, Cary, Wake Forest, Apex, Morrisville, Garner, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, Knightdale, Louisburg, Zebulon, Clayton, Wendell, Durham, Chapel Hill, and surrounding areas. 

John Fish (919) 696-3474   Email: marvmax@mindspring.com   Website:  www.JohnFish.com