Falmouth, MA

I remember a friend running into my office asking if I had heard that New York was under attack.

I remember wondering what else was being attacked.

I remember going home and watching the reality on TV.

I remember when the buildings fell.

I remember seeing the radar that showed no planes in the air.

I remember that a local pilot was originally scheduled to fly one of the planes.

I remembering wondering if my kids would be growing up in world at war.

I remember stories of local muslims cheering the catastrophe.

I remember being angry at the comentators who had explained how to do this after the first bombing in NY.

I remember the silence after the buildings fell.

I remember hearing the local families that had relatives in the buildings.

I remember meeting a local emergency responder who was on site 24 hours later.

I remember homes being sold to New Yorkers who fled New York.

I remember seeing the people of NY walking out of the city.

I remember somehow feeling like I knew someone personally when some of the victims were named.

I remember my dismay at the lack of value for life.

I remember.

We had the Falmouth MA Cape CodMLS tour this morning. One of the homes for sale is owned by Julia O'Malley-Keyes. The home is actually a good value, but the home is filled with her art!

While the 4 bedroom 2 bath Cape style home is cozy, and the aparently buildable lot is an interesting added value, her paintings that look like photographs are very pleasantly distracting! She has the gift of being able to make her brush appear to be a photograph.

I found her on the Internet, but the duplicates of her realistic paintings that are on her site, pale to the clarity of a personal viewing. She was actually there while we toured he home, and she had just received notice of 6 commissioned paintings for someone she called the CEO of of the Panama Canal.

If you're in Falmouth looking for art, look her up.

Her web site is: http://www.dayhillfineart.com/

It's a beautiful day on Cape Cod!

There was a car show on the Falmouth Library Lawn last Saturday. I was in town opening the office and kept noticing an unusual stream of classic and collector cars driving by. Before long, they began to park on the library lawn across from my Main Street office. I took some pictures of the array. There was a Packard, many Corvettes, and various examples of other collectibles. It was quite a selection.

On Wednesday, Trish Favuli from the Falmouth Assessor's office met with the MLS tour attendees and answered questions. Here are my notes:

The fiscal values for 2010 will be based on sales in 2008. But, the new tax rate won't be calculated until the town meeting members decide if there will be a newer higher meals and room tax. New assessments will be based on sale values. Foreclosures are not used when comparing properties in the assessor's office.

Some betterments do not show up online (nor on telnet) - so beware when researching prospective listings. The New Silver Beach betterment will be spread over 20 years, but the interest rate hasn't been determined yet. That betterment is not assumable.

When looking at assessor's info, the effective year is the last year that the building department has records of improvements. Those records are updated in October.

Happy listing and selling!

Now that summer is winding down, it's time to do all those things that you wanted to do but somehow didn't get to. Although many of the summer activities will soon give way to special fall events, there is still time to take advantage of some summer activites.

Click here for information on Lobster on the Lawn Mondays in Falmouth, MA. There's still time.