In its press release, the FOMC noted that the U.S. economy “has continued to pick up” since the September FOMC meeting and that housing market activity has increased.

It’s the third consecutive post-FOMC statement in which the Fed speaks optimistically about the U.S. economy – a signal that the recession is likely over.

The economy isn’t without threats, however, and the Fed identified several in its announcement, including:

1. Ongoing job losses for American workers
2. Reduced fixed investment by businesses
3. Ongoing challenges for the financial markets

The overall tone remained positive, however, as inflation appears to be held in check.

Also in its statement, the Fed confirmed its plan to hold the Fed Funds Rate near zero percent “for an extended period” and to honor its $1.25 trillion commitment to the mortgage bond market.

The Fed plans to wind down its mortgage market support over the next 5 months, reaffirming its March 2010 exit date.  For now, Fed support helps hold mortgage rates down.

Mortgage market reaction to the Fed’s press release is negative overall.  Mortgage rates are rising.

The FOMC’s next scheduled meeting is December 15-16, 2009.

Many of these deaths occurred in homes with no smoke detectors or no working smoke detectors.

When detectors fail, it’s often because its batteries are dead or missing. Therefore, make a point to test your smoke detectors annually.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Have somebody go to the farther point of the house from the detector
2. Push and hold the testing button for 5 seconds to activate the alarm
3. Confirm the alarm is audible by all parties

You should also buy smoke detector aerosol and spray it directly into the device.  This will simulate a real fire.  If the alarm doesn’t sound, the smoke detector will fail when it’s needed most.  Replace the device immediately — even if it beeps when you push the Test button.

Smoke detectors are inexpensive and essential.  Make sure the devices in your home are working properly.  Test them at least once per year.

Owen Glen is located in the Beautiful North Georgia Mountains just minutes north of Blairsville, GA. It is a 350 Acre Gated Master-Planned Community. There will be Architectural Guidelines as well as protective Covenants and Restrictions. As of now those guidelines and covenants have not been finalized. They did mention that the Architectural Guidelines would favor “Mountain Traditional”  but not leading to anything definite in plans. Home sites will be from 0.75 acres to larger 5 acres lots with golf, wooded and mountains views.

There are plans for several amenities for Owen Glen. The biggest of course is the Old Union Golf Course. This is a Denis Griffiths designed course, who by the way is the only American to design a golf course in St. Andrews Scotland. It opened in Summer of 2009 and I have had the opportunity to play Old Union and I can honestly say that it has the potential of being my absolute favorite course to play in all of North Georgia. It is a 7,667 yard championship length course, Par 72 with 5 sets of tees. There will be a practice facility with double tiered 400 yard grass range, two separate short game target greens, as well as a full putting green. The Golf Shop has plans to open by the end of 2009, but they are currently working out of a temporary trailer. There will be PGA Golf Professionals  on hand to offer lessons and clinics.

Other amenities include miles and miles of walking and biking trails, trout fishing in Ivy Creek, and future plans of a picnic area complete with playground, pavilion, Owen Glen Community House, as well as tennis courts and a pool. Nearby you can enjoy Lake Nottely, Lake Chatuge, and Lake Blue Ridge. The North Georgia Mountains are full of hiking and mountain biking trails, charming historic towns filled with unique dining and shopping experiences, mountain streams and rivers for rafting and fishing, festivals and the list just goes on and on.

If you would like more information on Owen Glen, or I have already peaked your interest enough to want to look into a Weekend Discovery Package, please Contact Me, or give me a call at 706.994.8686. This is a Bank Owned Property and I would greatly appreciate it if you would allow me to offer you the information on Owen Glen, but only if you first learned of Owen Glen from this website. A quick registration and you will be on your way to finding out all there is to know about this great Mountain Community. I promise you, my family and I will be grateful that you did.

Thank You so much for taking the time to learn a little more about this great new community in our North Georgia Mountains. Please come back and visit me on “The Porch” anytime that you see fit. You are always welcome.

Make it a GREAT day!

That’s all for the negative, isn’t that nice? Now for some good news. The number of Homes Sold in Blairsville Georgia continues to climb. Union County home sales are up 18%, which sounds a lot better than if I were to say 4 more than October of 2008. It is still positive news any way you slice it. The Residential Inventory in Union County is decreasing each month, down 15% or 137 fewer Homes For Sale this October. The number of Homes that are Under Contract or that have gone Pending is also up 7%, a change of 2 from last October. With new construction still very slow, our number of new properties listed are way down, 37% which is 40 less new listings than we had a year ago. This may not sound like good news, but I actually believe it is. We have  a lot of old inventory that we desperately need to get rid of so that more and more new construction can begin again. Finally, our Absorption Rate is down 17%. This tells us the number of months that it would take to sell all the Residential Inventory that we currently have at current market conditions. Right now that number is 23 months.

Thanks so much for coming up on “The Porch” for another North Georgia Mountain Market Report. I really appreciate it and hope that you do come back again real soon. If you know of someone looking to Buy or Sell North Georgia Mountain Real Estate, I would be grateful if you would pass along to them My Contact information. Even better, forward them this post or a link to The Front Porch View.

Trick Or Treat!

Well have I got a solution for you. Batchphoto is a powerful photo manipulation program that makes it easy to convert, re-size, watermark, annotate, touch-up, apply affects and rename hundreds of photos in a single operation. Instead of enhancing and adjusting pictures individually, Batchphoto lets you select a group of images, define a series of edits, and apply them in a single operation.

It is AMAZING! An absolute must for anyone who is constantly taking hours upon hours going through other inferior software products that make you re-size photos one-by-one. Before Batchphoto, it would literally take me hours to process photos for my listings. I would re-size all the photos that I would plan on using for the listings and put them in one folder, I would do the same for my Virtual Tours, and yet another for higher resolution use. It would take FOREVER! Now with Batchphoto I am done in minutes and I have so many more options that I love for use in my online social networking. One great feature that I love is the use of watermarks. I love taking photos of these beautiful North Georgia Mountains and sharing them online. Well, I noticed that many of my competitors were using my very own photos on their websites. Now that I have Batchphoto, I can put a watermark on the photos before I post them and it detours anyone from using my photos.  This is just one of many features that I have discovered using Batchphoto.

So, you no longer have to fret and pile all of those images on your memory card putting off the dreaded job of processing those pictures. Now with the use of Batchphoto, you can be done in no time and back out doing what you love to do….taking pictures! Give it a try, you will be glad you did I promise.

When: Halloween Saturday October 31st

5:30 – 7:30 P.M.

Where: On the Square in Downtown Blairsville Georgia

If you have never participated in Blairsville’s Halloween on the Square, you have to come out this year and experience it. It is nothing like you have ever seen before!

Trick or Treat on the Square with over 80 businesses, churches, and community organizations gathered around the Old Courthouse in downtown Blairsville.

There will be costume contests with “Secret Judges”, and a Food Bank Drive with prizes for people making a 6 or more can donation to the Union County Food Bank. “Haunting on the Square’” Food, Games, and lots of fun for the kids and the entire family. Don’t miss it!

2008 Halloween on the Square Video

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you have any questions or concerns after viewing the 2009 Fall Brochure, please call me at 706-994-8686 or you can simply Contact Me through this post. Sometimes the listing information can be hard to read, so if you find that to be the case, just let me know and I will be more than happy to forward to you a Full MLS Data Sheet.

As always, Thanks for visiting me on “The Porch!”

Make it a GREAT day!

For August, the Case-Shiller Index showed annual home values improving across 19 of 20 U.S. markets. It’s the first time in 3-plus years that the benchmark housing index has shown such strength.

According to a Case-Shiller Index spokesperson, “The rate of annual decline in home price values continues to improve.”

It’s yet another sign that housing may have already bottomed.

However, just because the Case-Shiller Index shows a stabilization in home values, that doesn’t necessarily make it true. This is because real estate happens on the local level and the Case-Shiller Index is more “national”. It tracks data in just 20 U.S. cities.

Homeowners everywhere else are unaccounted for.

Furthermore, even within the 20 tracked Case-Shiller markets, there’s no allowance for the natural sub-markets that exist. Some neighborhoods under-perform and some neighborhoods out-perform.

Case-Shiller treats them all the same.

Despite its imperfections, though, the Case-Shiller Index remains a helpful, broader measurement of U.S. real estate. Economists believe that housing led the U.S. into the recession and they believe housing will lead us out, too.

If that’s true, August’s Case-Shiller data is another step in the right direction.

Now for the Bad News which actually isn’t all that bad. We continue to fight against the Banks and the troubles that they are causing as well. Home values continue to be driven down mostly due in part to the Short Sales and Foreclosures. I have mixed emotions about that actually. Some of our local Banks are really working hard to involve the local Realtors, while yet others seem to want to do it all on their own. Either way, they didn’t ask to be in this Real Estate Crisis either. Yes we all know they issued a lot of Bad Loans, but if we all would have had a Crystal Ball, I am sure most of us,  if not all of us,  would be in a different situation. The Median Sales Price of Fannin County Residential Homes is down 15%. That price is $208,000, which is much higher than the neighboring counties such as Union County and Gilmer County. The Average Days on Market is also up 31% to 132 days. This is the average number of days that a Home is on the market before it actually sells. I firmly believe that Pricing is 80% of Marketing these days, and if you are not priced right, and I mean aggressively against the competition, you are likely to see your Days on Market to be even higher than that.

Below you will find detailed Graphs and Charts gathered through our Northeast Georgia MLS. Feel free to Call Me at 706.633.8186 or Contact Me if you have any questions or concerns about anything I have said in this Market Report. If I can assist you with any of your North Georgia Mountain Real Estate needs, I would be grateful for the opportunity to speak with you about that.

Thanks so much for visiting me on “The Porch,” and I hope you come back and visit me again real soon.

Make it a GREAT day!