Jim Cirimele

Cirimele has received numerous awards for his work in the real estate field. In 2000, he won the Major Achievements in Marketing Excellence (MAME) award for Sales and Marketing Director of the Year, and was recognized in 2004 with both the National Silver Award and Sales Manager of the Year Award for the nine Mid-Atlantic States of the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB). He holds a number of certifications in home sales, including Certified New Home Sales Professional (CSP), Certified Marketing Professional (CMP), and the nation’s highest new home sales certification, the Master in Residential Marketing (MIRM) from the NAHB. Cirimele has acquired a number of teaching certifications, including New Home Sales Professional, Multicultural Sales Techniques and Strategies, Essential Closing Strategies, and House Construction as a Selling Tool, and he is a certified instructor and faculty member for the NAHB’s University of Housing. 

“It only takes a brief glance at Jim’s experience, accolades and professional involvement in the industry to see the value he will bring to our team,” said Van Tassel. “His ability to not only excel in the sales field but also pass on his expertise to junior members of our sales force makes me confident that customers will be satisfied with the guidance they will receive in finding their new homes, and the philosophy of professionalism around which Royal Oaks operates.”
DETAILS:

- Cirimele was drawn to the real estate industry at a young age. After many successful years in restaurant entrepreneurship, he decided to change careers and began selling homes. 

- Aside from his work in the real estate industry, Cirimele has been active coaching both Little League baseball and a local swim team. 

- A native of San Francisco, Cirimele earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), his Masters in Residential Marketing from the UCLA School of Education and his Masters in Residential Marketing from the University of Housing. He resides in Holly Springs with his wife and four children.

• Our  involvement in Operation Coming Home II.

• We live and build in one of the best housing markets in the nation and a location that often receives accolades:

2010
#1 – 10 Markets Most Likely to Appreciate (Raleigh – Cary, NC) – Forbes Magazine, September 2010

#1 – Best Places to Retire (Durham, NC) – Money Magazine, September 2010

#1 – Best Quality of Life in U.S. Large Metro Areas (Raleigh, NC) – Portfolio.com/bizjournals.com, May 2010

#3 – Most Innovative U.S. City (Raleigh, NC) – Forbes.com, May 2010

#3 – Best Place in the Country for Business and Careers (Raleigh, NC) – Forbes.com, April 2010

#1 – Most Wired Cities in the United States (Raleigh Metro Area, NC) – Forbes.com, March 2010

#3 – Five-year jobs growth (Raleigh-Cary, NC) – Triangle Business Journal, February 2010

#3 – Top small business markets in the country (Raleigh Metro Area, NC) – American City Business Journals, February 2010

2009
#3 – Best place to move to in the United States (Apex, NC) – Forbes.com, July 2009

#1 – Best place for businesses and careers (Raleigh, NC) – Forbes.com, March 2009

#1 – Fastest growing Metro area in the country (Raleigh, NC) – Forbes.com, March 2009

• The recognition and awards we have received this year:

2/15/10- Gold at The Nationals for Operation: Coming Home

4/30/10- Royal Oaks Building Group Named Building Company of the Year

7/14/10-  Royal Oaks Building Group amoung the Western Wake 100

10/12/10- Gold, Silver and Bronze awards at the Parade of Homes Banquet

10/29/10- Ranked #9 of top 25 Residential Builders by Triangle Business Journal

• And last, but definitely not least, OUR HOMEOWNERS. We are so thankful to everyone who chose Royal Oaks as the builder of your new home this year!!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

We’re excited to announce that Operation: Coming Home is hosting a Benefit Concert at the Longbranch in Raleigh to ensure that Operation: Coming Home can build more homes for deserving families in the future. On OCTOBER 29, 2010, The Johnny Orr Band will be performing with special guest, Bodell Records recording artist and honorary USO Ambassador, Jamie Tate. Johnny and Jamie are both local North Carolinians, and on top of being awesome musicians, are very committed to helping our troops both at home and overseas. Jamie’s music video for her new song, I’ll Give My All, features the 82nd Airborne Men’s Chorus and was shot at Ft. Bragg and Pope Air Force Base.

Doors open at 8:00pm, and tickets are only $10 per person, with all proceeds going to support Operation: Coming Home. Please come out and support this great cause!

Check the event out on Facebook here!

We hope to see you there!

Great question. Great, but tough. There is no real way to put a concrete dollar value on how much “green” costs OR how much it saves you. The best way to determine cost is to measure your up-front expenditures against potential future savings.

Switching from Incandescent to Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFL)

• Up front investment: CFLs cost around $6, incandescents are about $1.50
• CFLs use 75% less energy and last 10 times longer
• Can save more than $40 in electricity bulbs over the course of its lifetime

 If you have 10 bulbs in your home, your initial investment would be $45 more for CFLs, but you would re-coup your cost in the lifetime of just 1 bulb!

Replacing Old Appliances with ENERGY STAR Qualified Models

• An ENERGY STAR refrigerator is around $80-$100 more expensive than a comperable model that is not ENERGY STAR qualified.
• To be ENERGY STAR qualified, an appliance must use 20% less energy than a standard model
• According to the ENERGY STAR website, if you replace an appliance from the 1980s with a new ENERGY STAR version, you will save up to $100/year on utility bills!

Building an ENERGY STAR Certified Home

• Some builders charge upwards of $5,000-$10,000 in up-front costs to construct an ENERGY STAR home versus one that is built only to the 2004 International Residential Code (Full Disclosure: Royal Oaks Building Group builds 100% ENERGY STAR Certified homes and is currently NOT passing any of those costs onto the homeowner. Base prices have not changed.)
• When building an ENERGY STAR Certified home, contractors must use better insulation, a properly sized HVAC system, sealed air vents, duct work and windows, and are required to have the home inspected twice during construction by a third-party rater. Materials used must be more energy efficient than code requires to meet ENERGY STAR standards.
• Savings over the lifetime of an ENERGY STAR home
  • 5% discount on ALL Progress Energy utility bills
  • HVAC system is at least 25% more energy-efficient: BIG savings
  • One ENERGY STAR certified home is the energy-saving equivalent of
    • Planting 200 trees
    • Parking a car for 2 months

Unfortunately for all the accountant readers, there is no hard and fast way to calculate how much money it costs to go green – but the savings is measurable! What kinds of savings have you come across in your effort to go green?

When you talk about green building, three questions usually come to mind: what does it mean, what does it cost, and how does it affect me? All great questions, and the answers are simpler than you think. Well, sort of.

Green building has no specific definiton. There are so many different ways to incorporate green practices into the building process, all with varying degrees of cost and environmental impact. One of the biggest ways to build green is to increase the efficiency of a home’s building envelope (the barrier between your home’s conditioned and unconditioned space) By doing this, you gain control of how much of the air inside your home goes out, and vice versa. Did you know that in most homes built to code, 25-30% of your conditioned air leaks out of the home? That means that for ever dollar you spend on air conditioning during July, you might as well have thrown a quarter away. I probably don’t have to tell you that July NC temperatures are HOT, and that A/C is expensive. Wouldn’t you rather have spent that money on something that would actually keep you cool? The temperature and humidily level inside your house will stay much more level, and you will use less energy to keep it that way. Sealing your envolope also goes a long way in sound proofing (you’ve got better insulation from floor-to-floor) and in keeping mold spores, allergens, bacteria particles, and pests out.

Building green also means incorporating renewable resources, more efficient heating and cooling systems, fresh air intakes, and energy-saving appliances. When purchasing new appliances, look for the blue ENERGY STAR label. These products are designed to help save energy and may also save you money in the long run, too. You can also use CFL bulbs in light fixtures.

What does it cost, and how does it affect you? Well, you’ll just have to come back next time and find out!

(Photo source: Paradigms for Progress http://bit.ly/duB9Bb)

Mirrors are so much more than a way to admire a particularly great hair day or to make sure you don’t have food in your teeth before an important meeting. Mirrors are an invaluable, and often inexpensive, way to spruce up a room that may need some new life brought into it. I solicited some decorating advice from Julie, and she offered up some fantastic tips on decorating with mirrors.

1. Brighten up a room: If you want to spice up a room that doesn’t offer great natural light, mirrors can help.Put a large mirror on the wall opposite a window. When light streams in, it will reflect off the mirror and brighten up the room. If your room configuration doesn’t lend itself to that, you may also try putting a lamp or candle in front of your mirror – it provides the same effect. You can also take an old window frame, swap the panes of glass for mirror tiles, and hang it on the wall. Add curtains for detail, and you’ve created the illusion of natural light.

2. Make your room look bigger: Mirrors give the illusion of space, and can make even the smallest rooms look open and inviting. Put a mirror directly in the line of vision of someone entering a room. You may also group a collection of smaller mirrors together to create the same effect.

3. Mirrors Match Everything: Mirrors are like a great handbag or pair of black pumps. Even if you decide to re-cover your couch or buy a new shower curtain, your favorite mirror still matches your new design style.

4. Think Outside the Wall: Don’t limit yourself to the wall – get creative! Put an octagonal or square mirror plate in the middle of your coffee table and place candlesticks or a lovely vase on top. Line the back of a shelf with a mirror to display collectables. You can also use a mirror pane as a backsplash above your kitchen sink to protect paint from errant splashes of water.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall – your versatile design accents all! How have you incorparated mirrors into decorating your home?

(photo courtesy of Champagne.chic )

Nintendo Wii

Yep, you read that right. Buying a home is an awful lot like buying a Nintendo Wii. You get sucked in by the sticker price (recently reduced from $249 to $199 – nice!), so you decide to take the plunge. What’s a couple hundred bucks for a lifetime of playing with your adorably trendy Mii? (who, strangely, has no arms, but can hit one heck of a home run).

 Here’s the problem. A Wii only comes with one game, one remote, and one nun-chuck. If you are a reclusive bachelor with a penchant for tennis or golf, you’re golden! If not, there are a whole lot of other costs to consider. You may want extra controllers. What about a Wii Balance Board so you can get in shape? Guitar Hero? A carrying case? Extra games? By the time all is said and done, you can easily spend upwards of $1,000. Now that you’ve quintupled your expenses, it may not sound like such a great investment anymore.

 Buying a home follows exactly the same principles. You sit down and decide how much you’re willing to spend, get pre-qualified, look at homes in your price range, find the home of your dreams, and live happily ever after.

 No?

Unfortunately, many people focus solely on the sales price of a home, and forget to factor in other expenses. More goes into it than a monthly mortgage payment! You want power, water, and air conditioning, so you have to add that to your monthly expenses. You need to insure it, furnish it, and maintain it, which also comes with a price tag. You may have been qualified for the price of the home, but all of a sudden, your investment is higher than you anticipated and your home becomes far more of an expense than you may have been willing to take on.

 What’s the solution? Change your mindset. Instead of focusing on the home’s selling price, focus on how much of an investment you are willing to make on your home each month. Once you have settled on a number you feel comfortable with, speak with a lender. He or she will be able to take that number, do some quick calculations based on interest rates and the life of the loan, and come up with a price range that will better suit your needs. You’ll have managed your expenses so well that you may be able to buy yourself a new Wii as a welcome home gift! Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too?

 Let us know! Did you consider any of these things when purchasing your home?

 11. Helpful hint: I almost never go into kids’ rooms.

 12. You’re right: I won’t have enough time to break into that safe where you keep your valuables. But if it’s not bolted down, I’ll take it with me.

 13. A loud TV or radio can be a better deterrent than the best alarm system. If you’re reluctant to leave your TV on while you’re out of town, you can buy a $35 device that works on a timer and simulates the flickering glow of a real television. (Find it at www.faketv.com.)

 14. Sometimes, I carry a clipboard. Sometimes, I dress like a lawn guy and carry a rake. It’s pretty much my goal not to look like a crook.

 15. The two things I hate most: loud dogs and nosy neighbors.

 16. I’ll break a window to get in, even if it makes a little noise. If your neighbor hears one loud sound, he’ll stop what he’s doing and wait to hear it again. If he doesn’t hear it again, he’ll just go back to what he was doing. It’s human nature.

 17. I’m not complaining, but why would you pay all that money for a fancy alarm system and leave your house without setting it?

 18. I love looking in your windows. I’m looking for signs that you’re home, and for flat screen TVs or gaming systems I’d like. I’ll drive or walk through your neighborhood at night, before you close the blinds, just to pick my targets.

 19. Avoid announcing your vacation on your Facebook page. It’s easier than you think to look up your address.

 20. To you, leaving that window open just a crack during the day is a way to let in a little fresh air. To me, it’s an invitation.

 And one more for good measure!

 21. If you don’t answer when I knock, I try the door. Occasionally, I hit the jackpot and walk right in.

 Sometimes, we get a little lazy and forget to protect ourselves like we should. It’s also fun to past our adventures on Facebook and Twitter to inform our friends and casual acquaintances of all the great things going on in our lives. Sounds great, but it’s also a little like putting a banner on your roof that says “I’m not here!” Just remember: taking a few extra minutes to safeguard yourself and your belongings now might save you a lot of trouble later.

Photo Credit: http://rooseveltislander.blogspot.com/

 Now, less than two years later, we are thrilled to announce that we are going to do it again! Plans have been chosen and vendors have been contacted, and we are looking forward to the adventure of providing another deserving veteran with a home that can only begin to say thanks for his or her sacrifice, hard work, and dedication. Please join us on the journey!

 If you would like to participate in Operation: Coming Home 2, you are welcome to contact me at jmcfadyen@royaloaksbg.com or Andy Ladner at aladner04@hbawake.com of TREAC-V, the HBA and the US Veterans Corps. We would love to hear from you.

Photo credit: Operation: Coming Home