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How North Carolina Surpassed Florida As The Number One Retirement State

Florida and Arizona have long been the favorite 2 states for retirement migration. A new study from Del Webb, however, finds that the Carolinas, North and South, have usurped FL and AZ’s traditional positions as the favorite retirement destination states. This new preference is so significant that Florida is no longer experiencing a net gain in retirees. This article will concentrate on how and why North Carolina overcame Florida to become the number 1 retirement destination. In addition to trying to explain how this important shift has come about, we will also review some of the top places to retire in this diverse state. A future article will explore South Carolina.

North Carolina’s Special Sauce

A warm winter climate has traditionally been the most important reason for choosing a retirement state. That preference is a key reason why AZ and FL have always been at the top of the retirement state pyramid. Since winters aren’t all that warm in the Carolinas, North Carolina’s overtaking Florida in retirement popularity represents a profound change. The trend is so pervasive that it has spawned a new term, “half-back”, which describe retirees who retired to Florida from the northeast only to later move “half way back” home to the Carolinas. So what has changed among retirees to bring this phenomenon about, and just what is in North Carolina’s secret retirement sauce?

In a recent Del Webb survey among baby boomers on retirement preferences the top reasons for choosing where to live in retirement were cost of living, health care, climate, and opportunities for culture and recreation. Family and friends were further down the list. Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research found the same general reasons for retirement moves, but in a different order: family, financial, better location, leisure/climate, and health. Looking at these and related reasons, is there a logical explanation why boomers now prefer North Carolina over Florida for retirement?

To learn the full answer CLICK HERE

So Why is North Carolina coming out on top for retirement preference?
After analyzing all of these factors we had hoped that we would find a compelling reason why North Carolina is beating the pants off Florida in attracting retirees. Unfortunately, that is not the case. On most factors the states are about even – each one comes out ahead on a few points and behind on some others. Conclusion: there must be some intangibles at work here.

The Cool Factor
These are strictly our opinions, but here are some reasons why North Carolina’s Secret Sauce is giving Florida a licking in the retirement department:

• Florida just isn’t cool anymore. In our opinion most of us baby boomers are obsessed with fads – being cool by being in on the latest trend. Too many movies have parodied retirement life in Florida from “Cocoon” to “In Her Shoes”. A lot of people don’t want to be associated with the blue haired, shuffleboard playing set that is displayed in popular culture about Florida.
• Florida is tacky and crowded. By no means is the whole state that way, but there are many, many towns where everything is new and every store is a big box or a chain. Some people are rejecting that barrenness, along with the intense traffic and development that comes with unchecked growth.

On the positive side, North Carolina has a cool factor. Towns like Asheville, New Bern, and Chapel Hill have good reputations as interesting places to live. North Carolina represents something new and undiscovered, with the advantage of being not too far away or too different from the northeast many retirees are moving away from.

Most popular retirement towns in North Carolina
Here are the most popular retirement towns in North Carolina as determined by page visits to their reviews at Topretirements.com:
Asheville – In the western mountains – the #1 retirement spot in the country
Beaufort – An old seaport (and Blackbeard the Pirate’s retirement town) with considerable charm
Chapel Hill – A lively college town and home to the University of North Carolina
Hendersonville – Small town in the Blue Ridge National Heritage area
Mount Airy – The fictional home of Mayberry in the mountains
New Bern – Smaller and more charming, near the coast
Pinehurst – Charm and understated elegance in a legendary golf community
Southport – An active fishing village in southern North Carolina – where “Dawson’s Creek” was filmed
Winston-Salem – A larger city that is attracting retirees

Beverly-Hanks & Associates Realtors is a full service real estate firm offering residential and commercial marketing, consulting and brokerage services. In addition to the core business platforms, Beverly-Hanks & Associates has relationships with several related industry ventures including: Beverly-Hanks Mortgage Services, Cardinal Title Insurance, and Private Mountain Communities. Currently, Beverly-Hanks has offices in Buncombe, Henderson, Haywood and Rutherford counties.

To learn more about vacation and second homes call us at 866.858.2257.

848 SANDBURG TERRACE

RISMEDIA, November 24, 2010—The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury released the November 2010 edition of the Obama Administration’s Housing Scorecard (http://www.hud.gov/scorecard). The latest housing figures show continued signs of stabilization in house prices and high home affordability due in part to record low mortgage interest rates. The housing scorecard is a comprehensive report on the nation’s housing market.

“The Obama Administration has made significant strides in promoting stability for the housing market and the nation’s homeowners. Through a range of swift actions since we took office, we’ve seen millions more families able to stay in their homes and a steady rise in responsible borrowers refinancing their loans or becoming homeowners,” said HUD Assistant Secretary Raphael Bostic. “But, while we cannot stop every foreclosure, we know that more has to be done to reach homeowners in distress and to help unemployed borrowers. That’s why we’re continuing to focus on successfully implementing the programs we’ve put in place—such as neighborhood stabilization funding, additional assistance on refinancing and emergency loans to help unemployed homeowners—and ensuring that help is available to homeowners as early as possible.”

“The recent reports of problems in the foreclosure process underscore the importance of helping responsible homeowners avoid the pain of foreclosure,” said acting Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability Timothy Massad. “As we implement additional program enhancements to reach more homeowners, we continue to stress to mortgage servicers the importance of making every effort to enroll eligible homeowners in HAMP and provide meaningful alternatives to avoidable foreclosures.”

The November Housing Scorecard features key data on the health of the housing market including:

-An additional one million families refinanced their mortgages in the last quarter, taking advantage of the lowest rates in history on 30-year fixed mortgages. Since April 2009, record low interest rates have helped more than 8.3 million homeowners to refinance, resulting in more stable home prices and $15.2 billion in annual borrower savings.

-As expected with the expiration of the Home Buyer Tax Credit, new and existing home sales have remained below levels seen in the first half of 2010. At the same time, home prices remained level in the past year after 33 straight months of decline and homeowners added $95 billion in home equity in the second quarter.

-More than 3.73 million modification arrangements were started between April 2009 and the end of August 2010—more than double the number of foreclosure completions during that time. These modification arrangements included nearly 1.4 million trial Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) modification starts, more than 600,000 Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loss mitigation and early delinquency interventions, and nearly 1.8 million proprietary modifications under HOPE Now. While some homeowners may have received help from more than one program, the number of agreements offered were more than double the number of foreclosure completions for the same period (1.6 million).

Data in the scorecard also show that the recovery in the housing market continues to remain fragile. While the recovery will take place over time, the Administration remains committed to its efforts to prevent avoidable foreclosures and stabilize the housing market.

For more information, visit www.hud.gov.

For more information on the Western North Carolina Real Estate Market visit: the Beverly-Hanks & Associates, 3rd Quarter Market Report.

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It is amazing how masses of people can believe something that is absolutely untrue. The greatest example of this is that at one time the vast majority of people believed the world to be flat. Today, we want to debunk another commonly held belief – that newspapers sell houses. Somehow this notion gained believability even though the facts consistently prove it to not be true.

We should know what methods perspective purchasers use to find the home of their dreams when we are selling our house. That would enable us to develop the best marketing strategy to attract a buyer. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has just released the 2010 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers*. This report is recognized by most as the best compilation of data on today’s buyers and sellers because of the enormous amount of data available at NAR’s fingertips.

Let’s look at the actual search habits of today’s buyers as reported by NAR:

It might interest everyone to know that less than 2% looked in newspapers, magazines or home buying guides when starting the search process. What do most buyers do?

We can see that buyers today want to explore their options online (combined 47%) or check with industry professionals (combined 27%). You might be ready to argue that the use of the internet is a new phenomenon over the past year or so. However, the report looks back over the last nine years. Though it is true that the percentage of those using the internet has dramatically increased (from 8% to 37%), it might interest you to find out that even back in 2001 only 9% of buyers found their home through print media (again, that number is now 2%).

If you want to develop a great marketing strategy to give your house maximum exposure, forget newspapers and look toward the internet. Where on the internet? The NAR report breaks down the most searched web sites this way:

The buyer is attracted to the type of sites that have the greatest number of listings. These sites are normally generated by the real estate industry. You should make sure your home is on as many of these sites as possible. That will give you the best chance of attracting your buyer.

Bottom Line

Print media never was a great way to market a house for sale and its effectiveness is diminishing each year. Meet with a local real estate professional and put together an internet marketing strategy worthy of your home. Beverly-Hanks.com can be a central component of your home’s marketing strategy. The Beverly-Hanks website is one of the most heavily visited real estate sites in the region with over 100,000 visitors per month spending an average of 15 minutes per visit. Put the power of beverly-hanks.com to work for you.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ8NrbI_k5I

Neal Hanks Introduces “The Keeping Current Matters Blog: 5 Reasons You Should Sell Your House Today!”

by the KCM Crew

Selling your house in today’s market can be extremely difficult. It is for that reason that every seller should take advantage of each and every opportunity that appears. Each fall, such an opportunity presents itself. This fall, that opportunity may be just too good to pass up.

Below are five reasons you should consider when pricing your house to sell in the next 90 days. Meet with your real estate agent and mortgage professional today and see whether it is the right move for you and your family.

1. Entering this time of year, the buyers are more serious.

We all realize that buyers are not quick to pull the trigger on the purchase of a home today. There is no sense of urgency with the supply of eligible properties at all time highs. However, at this time of year, the ‘lookers’ are at the stores doing their holiday shopping. The home buyers left in the market are serious and are more apt to make a purchasing decision. Less showings – but to more motivated purchasers.

2. If you are moving up, you can save thousands.

To read the entire article Click Here

To learn more about the Western North Carolina real estate market visit Beverly-Hanks & Associates’ Quarterly Market Report

Trulia Contributing Author: Tara-Nicholle Nelson

Buying or selling a home is a funny endeavor (but not ha-ha funny - puzzling funny!).  It’s your biggest purchase ever, but unlike many smaller purchases, making an offer on a home can feel like pulling numbers out of a hat.  And selling’s no easier - the stakes are so high, and the market’s so tough that you want to take any offer you can get, but at the same time, it’s difficult to know whether you’re leaving money on the table when you do finally sign on the dotted line.

Buyer’s remorse often arises as soon as you get the contract back with the seller’s signature on it - that desperate hope that your offer will be accepted instantly plummets into an “oh no - they took it - I must have offered too much!  I’ll bet I could have gotten it for $X thousand less!”  If you’ve experienced this, rest assured that the same evening, the sellers were feeling the same thing: “Oh no, if I’d held out, I bet I could have gotten more!”

The best way to manage the emotional freak-out of both buyer’s and seller’s remorse is with information;  here’s how to know whether or not you’re getting a good deal when you buy or sell your home.

1.  Know what ‘good deal’ means TO YOU: Is a good deal getting the home of your dreams, over multiple offers, at a price you can afford? Is it buying a home for 30% less than its current owner paid for it?  Is it getting a bargain, meaning you get a discount off what the home is worth on the open market?  That’s what people call having instant equity, and is possible when the seller’s situation, the property’s condition, your shrewd negotiating skills or your exceptionally good looks (!) enable you to get a home for a price lower than the price similar properties in the area are selling for or lower than it appraises for (the latter of these is less frequent, as many appraisers simply do not make a practice of appraising homes for much more than the purchase price agreed to by the buyer and seller in the transaction.  Oh, and btw, you won’t know what it appraises for until you agree to a price and get into contract!)

If you’re selling your home, know what your own top priority is - is it to move your home quickly, so you can buy at today’s bargain basement prices and interest rates?  Is it to get every single dollar you can out of the house?  Is it just to divest of the home and get closure as soon as possible, because you’re struggling to keep up with the payments?

What is a great deal to one buyer or seller may not be to another, because real estate is about life - and whether YOUR real estate outcomes are good or bad is about YOUR life!  So, the first step to knowing whether you’re getting a good deal is to know what your own personal priorities for the transaction are.

2. Do the math - compare “your” price to other benchmarks. The price you agree to pay or accept for a home is meaningless in a vacuum; to understand whether it’s a “good” price, you’ve got to compare it with a few pricing  benchmarks.

The most important of these benchmarks is also the most difficult to get a handle on: the market value of the home.  The definition of ‘market value’ is the price a qualified buyer is willing to pay for the property in an arms-length, open-market transaction; the best way to estimate market value is to look at what similar homes in the area have recently sold for. (The more similar, the more nearby and the more recent - the better.)  To compare the price you’ve negotiated with the fair market value of the home, check out recently sold, similar homes on Trulia.

Also, ask your real estate broker or agent for what’s called a Comparative Market Analysis on the home you’re making an offer on (if you’re a buyer), or an updated CMA using recent neighborhood sales (if you’re a seller).  If you’re buying, the ideal situation is for your negotiated purchase price to be at or below the home’s value as indiciated by the comparables and the CMA; if you’re a seller, your goal is to receive a price at or above the market value.  (To be sure, if you’re a seller on today’s market, it’s an equally worthy goal to get your home sold - at all! - in many markets.  So don’t get hung up if you’re not getting right around - or even slightly below - what you think your home is worth.)

Many buyers try to compare the end price of their home to (a) the list price, or (b) the price per square foot.  Comparing your negotiated price to the list price is interesting, but a big gap could indicate a number of things:  you could be getting a great deal, you (or your agent) could be a great negotiator, or the seller could be very unrealistic or motivated. Same on the seller’s side - an over-asking price usually indicates an aggressively low list price and multiple offers from buyers.  If the list price is wildly different from the market value of the home, the list price-to-sale price gap may have nothing to do with getting a good deal, on either side.

Price-per-square-foot can be overly sensitive when you look at it on homes that are much smaller than larger than the homes to which you are comparing it.   A home could be 20 percent smaller than neighboring homes, but that doesn’t mean it will - or should - be worth 20 percent less; it’s still in the same neighborhood and may be in better condition.  Unless you’re comparing very similar homes that are in very similar condition, price-per-square-foot can provide a misleading picture of a home’s value.

3. Factor in the specifics of your situation: seasonality, market dynamics, affordability and the competition. If you’re buying a home in Wisconsin in the winter, buyers should expect to get a better “deal” than in the summertime.  When market dynamics indicate prices are trending upward in your neighborhood, what seems like an ‘okay’ deal based on yesterday’s prices may actually be even better than you thought - search Trulia’s Stats and Trends pages for your area for up-to-the-minute price trends in your neighborhood, or even zip code!

If you’re buying a home at a trough in prices for the last five years, with a 4.5 percent loan, that home will be much more affordable to you than it would have been in another time. If you’re a seller of a home where every other home on your block is for sale, and half of them are dirt-cheap foreclosures, that should cause you to upgrade your opinion of a slightly-below-asking offer! Buyers: if you best a dozen other offers, even an above-asking sale price can be a great price, assuming the home appraises at the purchase price and you can afford it!

4. Don’t forget any extra “bang” you’re getting for your buck. Buyers: if the seller is paying some or all of your closing costs, HOA dues, throwing in extra furniture/appliances, or otherwise sweetening the pot, keep that in mind.  Sellers:  if the buyer has agreed to a fast or slow close, at your request, or even came up a few thousand on their offer price to empower you to pay all your mortgages and liens off, don’t forget that, either.

In today’s real estate market, where sellers are constrained by their upside down mortgages and buyers are constrained by what many see as too-conservative appraisal standards, sometimes a “good deal” is simply one where the other side gives, even a little, to get you something that you want or need to make the deal work for you.

To learn more about the Western North Carolina real estate market, please read our Quarterly Market Report for 3rd Quarter.

Progress Energy Carolinas has signed an agreement to purchase the output of a new 250‐kilowatt (kW) solar photovoltaic (PV) array built by SunEnergy1 on the roof of Conrad Industries’ manufacturing facility in Weaverville, N.C. SunEnergy1 will own and operate the array, the largest of its kind in Western North Carolina. Progress Energy will purchase the entire output and use it to provide power to its customers.

This solar PV project is made possible by Progress Energy Carolinas’ SunSenseSM Commercial Solar PV program, which is designed to encourage the development of renewable energy by offering a premium price for solar power developed on commercial rooftops. Including small‐scale projects, Progress Energy has contracts for a total of more than 11 megawatts (11,000 kW) of solar power.

“We are committed to increasing the amount of solar power in our overall generation mix and are pleased to work with SunEnergy1 and Conrad Industries on this innovative project,” said John Smith, vice president of Progress Energy Carolinas’ Western Region. “We believe that solar power, along with energy efficiency and a state‐of‐the‐art power system, plays an important part of a balanced approach to meeting the challenges of growing energy demand and global climate change.”

The Weaverville solar PV array is scheduled to begin operation Nov. 1, and is expected to generate approximately 325,000 kilowatt‐hours of electricity this year. This is roughly the equivalent of the annual energy demand of 22 typical homes. The PV array will reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 230 tons, which is equivalent to the reduction produced by drivers conserving 26,000 gallons of gasoline.

“SunEnergy1 is proud to be propelling the solar industry in North Carolina,” said Kenny Habul, chief executive officer of SunEnergy1. “It is our firm belief that the environment is in need of our support. We are dedicated to the growth of renewable energy. We are also proud to own and operate this system. We encourage other solar developers to invest in the industry by owning systems – rather than just installing. We would also encourage more businesses to take advantage of the Progress Energy SunSense program, and we would be happy to offer our support and expertise.”

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