The economy is growing and there are job gains, so consumers have the financial wherewithal to purchase homes. Sure, the rise in rates has been inhibiting buying recently. A lot of the boom markets that boomed over the last several years are cooling off and home sales are dropping. But if the economy were in a recession, this would be worse. And mortgage rates aren’t rising too high — they’re only going up to 7% by the end of the year.

The last two years of the boom were exaggerated because of lending. There were more loans, such as negative amortization loans, allowing people to put off their debt payments until later. In some metropolitan areas, this exaggerated home prices and increased them further than they should have gone. To that extent, there’s some risk in those local markets. For example, if you take any local market in California, they’ll have interest-only loans and adjustable-rate mortgages because prices got too high. If mortgage rates increase, then some of those markets are vulnerable. But the forecast isn’t for interest rates to go up significantly. I have mortgage rates going to 7%, not to 10%. (more…)

search for : mortgage rates, negative amortization loans, interest-only loans

More than years after Asheville literary giant Thomas Wolfe gave us this immortal expression, his words echo with the love and longing that a place gives us. But what about returning to a place that never was your home, a place that somehow adopts you, welcomes you back as if it were your home? If there is such a place for me, it is Switzerland. The mountains there may be snow-capped like the Rockies out West, but the rolling verdant hills and forests remind me of an unspoiled Western North Carolina — minus the haze, billboards and sprawl of box stores.

Taking the “wanderweg” (hiking trail) on a ridgeline overlooking the lake, we could see the snows beginning to melt, making for some slushy hiking. White and purple crocuses bloomed along our path and Crayola green slopes served as pasture for cattle and sheep. Plots of farmland and neatly terraced properties made a patchwork of the landscape fields. Not a single house perched atop the mountains to spoil the view. Down below was the Vierwaldstättersee, or Lake Lucerne. Rising from the lake and into the distant horizon were the Alps — forests of black and green giving way to snow-capped rocky giants in the horizon. (more…)

search for : Thomas Wolfe, Switzerland, Western North Carolina, wanderweg, hiking trail

Slow sales and dropping prices aren’t normally the stuff of real estate industry presentations. If they are mentioned at all, they are usually quickly skipped over or tempered with a quick nod to other, more positive economic signs. The housing industry, from Realtors to developers to builders, must adapt to weather the rough waters that are probably ahead for the real estate market. Homebuilders must provide products that focus on quality, not quantityt. Gone are the days when cookie-cutter designs that scrimp on design will be snatched up by buyers who are eager to get into the home-buying frenzy.

Concern about what will happen when the payments on all the loans taken out last year increase plagues many builders. If home prices do not rise significantly many borrowers with interest-only loans could be stuck with higher mortgage payments. Absent higher prices, the buyers won’t be able to refinance by cashing in on anticipated equity. It’s the loans that were taken out in 2005 that there’s an upside-down concern about. However, if those borrowers had two- or three-year introductory terms, many borrowers will manage to maintain their payments. It’s possible that borrowers could be actually helped in the next few years if interest rates — and consequently mortgage payments — come down. (more…)

search for : Slow sales, dropping prices, real estate, Realtors, home prices, borrowers, interest rates, mortgage payments

Most people probably wouldn’t readily associate the tagline, “a taste of the mountains,” with Asheville’s water system. But soon, the water that comes out of your tap could be moonlighting under the name “Blue Ridge Mountain Mist.” Water Resources Director David Hanks said the city is considering bottling water for promotional use and to possibly sell at area stores. “We’ve actually been looking at bottling some more water for quite some time,” Hanks said.

Four years ago, the city started bottling water for use by city employees. The bottling was motivated by health and sanitation concerns over the use of five-gallon water coolers by city employees working outside. Hanks said the city would probably initially truck about 5,000 gallons of treated water to the Blue Ridge Mountain Water bottling facility. The company, located near Hendersonville, bottles its own brand of natural spring water but also takes requests for custom bottling from organizations in the region. (more…)

search for : Asheville, Blue Ridge Mountain Mist, Hendersonville

Over his six-plus decades, John Santosuosso has cultivated a soft spot for outcast nations, animals, and even plants. But none of that has kept him from earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in the stock market. To the contrary, he says, those values have for nearly two decades guided him to promising companies, often in far-flung places he’s researched as a professor of political science at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Fla. To him, a country known to brokers as an “emerging market” is sometimes “a good place to put money” in a moral as well as a financial sense.

But having high ethical standards can also lull investors into complacency, according to Santosuosso. He says he held for too long his stock in Nortel, a Canadian communications firm that joined the Dow Jones North America Sustainability Index this year. He watched as a profitable track record vanished. His lesson for other ethically minded investors: Don’t get greedy - or self-righteous. (more…)

The weather warms up and the rhododendron blooms full force in June, making this the ideal time to stretch your legs on the serious climbs in the western part of the state. Most Floridians head to the Blue Ridge Parkway region around Boone, Blowing Rock and Banner Elk, just like Lance Armstrong did when his original cancer comeback flamed out with his disappointing withdrawal from Paris-Nice.

As nice as the Boone area is, we prefer the even more rural village of Bakersville, where the only choice is to stay in the Bicycle Inn (http://www.bicycleinn.com) and let mountain man proprietor Michael Davis point you in the direction of the mighty Roan Mountain. With beautiful empty pavement all around and absolutely nothing to distract you from the task at hand, you’ll make a speedy transformation from flatlander to polka dot jersey candidate. (more…)

search for : rhododendron, Blue Ridge Parkway, Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, Lance Armstrong, Bicycle Inn, Roan Mountain