Realty World Heritage Realty is proud to announce that we have taken our marketing efforts to another level. Understanding that our unique market is down due to the economy, inflation, and most importantly the fact that our main buyer pool, Floridians are suffering their worst real estate market in decades. During 2004 to 2006 when real estate was booming across the country and especially the mountains of Western North Carolina we would estimate that over 90% of our buyers were from Florida. We are still seeing Florida buyers, but obviously in reduced numbers.

So, as we continue our traditional marketing methods including local print advertising, internet blasts, open houses, direct mail, etc. We have also reached "over the pond". During the month of May we are running an ad in a British magazine called "A Place in the Sun". We had the opportunity to meet some folks from the magazine out in Las Vegas last November at the National Association of Realtors Convention and were very impressed with their publication.

Recognizing that the US dollar is continuing to plummet against overseas currency it is a great time to buy for overseas investors. This is happening in bigger markets in the US especially in Florida. It is our goal to tap into the UK and European market of investors and inform them about Maggie Valley, Waynesville, and all of Western North Carolina. With our temperate climate, four seasons, and abundance of activities it is just a matter of getting the word out to overseas investors. We believe once they get here they will be "sold" like so many other visitors.

"A Place in the Sun" calls themselves "The UK's Best-Selling Overseas Property Magazine" and they have a very good distribution base. The magazine features properties and destinations to buy real estate all over the world. At this time we are trying to convince the editor that a feature on our area would be very helpful to its readers. If you want to email him and let him know how beautiful an area it is please email Richard Way: richard.way@brooklandsgroup.com . We would love for him to feature our area and your comments may assist in convincing him that a feature is warranted.

Results? Well it may be to early to tell and like any print ad there is no way of telling how many people actually viewed the ad. Or is there? With the power of the internet, our website, and google analytics we can track how many people are coming to our site, how many pages they visit, and how long they stay on the site. Incredibly, we can also track what countries and cities within the countries the users are coming from. Since the add has come out our hits from the UK have increased 45-50% in the first two weeks of the release. This does not tell us how many viewed the ad, but with the increase it does tell us that some readers saw the ad, clicked on our site, and searched for a while. With a shelf life of 6 weeks we are eager to see how many more "hits" we get from the UK and beyond.

As Realty World Heritage explores other marketing avenues and continues to think "outside the box",we are excited to see if we can attract buyers outside of our traditional areas. The word "globalization" has been a buzz word for the last few years and I believe that we will see more overseas investments outside of the traditional markets and within lesser known areas. The power of information exchange and the internet strikes again. We would love to hear your comments!

Thomas & Christine Mallette, Owners/Brokers of Realty World Heritage Realty had the distinct pleasure of serving as judges for the 2008 Melange of the Mountains event held at the Balsam Mountain Inn on Thursday March 26.

Thomas was a judge for the salad, seafood, and dessert portion and Christine used her vast tasting skills for the soup, meat, and dessert dishes. It may have been the best jobs Thomas or Christine have ever had!

The event is four years old and was started to give more exposure to Haywood and Jackson County eateries. The following eateries participated in the event this year: Coffee Zone, The Sweet Onion, Maggie Valley Club, Nico's Cafe, Balsam Mountian Inn, The Gateway Club, Sycamores on the Creek, Waynesville County Club, and Harrah's Cherokee Casino.

And the winners are.....

Best Salad: 1st Place: Nico's Cafe 2nd Place: Maggie Valley Club 3rd Place: The Sweet Onion

Best Soup: 1 st Place: Balsam Mountain Inn 2nd Place: Harrah's Cherokee Casino 3rd Place: The Gateway Club

Best Seafood: 1st Place: Maggie Valley Club 2nd Place: Harrah's Cherokee Casino 3rd Place: Balsam Mountain Inn

Best Meat: 1st Place: Nico's Cafe 2nd Place: The Gateway Club 3rd Place: The Sweet Onion

Best Fowl: 1st Place: Harrah's Cherokee Casino 2nd Place: Maggie Valley Club 3rd Place: The Sweet Onion

Best Vegetarian: 1st Place: The Sweet Onion 2nd Place: Balsam Mountain Inn 3rd Place: The Gateway Club

Best Dessert: 1st Place: Balsam Mountain Inn 2nd Place: Balsam Mountain Inn 3rd Place: Nico's Cafe

If you did not attend be sure to make it to the event next year. The event is open to the public and it is incredible!

Changes under way at HRMC

Kim Gardner - Staff writer, The Mountaineer Publishing, Printed 3/28/08

At Haywood Regional Medical Center, the way of doing business is being examined - and changed - from top to bottom. The goal: to regain Medicare and Medicaid certification and improve patient care.

The hospital lost its certification Feb. 24. Officials are aiming to be ready for another survey as of March 31.

A portion of the hospital's cafeteria is dedicated to skills fairs, allowing staff to brush up on skills. One week of the fair was spent reviewing the basics of policies and procedures for all hospital staff, with the second fair more detailed and geared toward clinical staff.

The fairs were developed to re-educate staff in nine areas identified by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as places in the hospital that needed improvement. Nine stations were set up in the cafeteria for clinical staff to receive re-education, as well as to take pre- and post-tests on the materials presented at the fair.

"We all think it's a great thing," said Tracy Baker, a respiratory therapist. "We all have to work as a team to make sure the hospital gets back on track to take care of patients."

Baker, along with fellow respiratory therapist Michelle Caldwell, was presenting information on nebulizer therapy to Becky Murray, a registered nurse with the hospital.

All three women agreed that the training is beneficial to helping HRMC receive recertification, but to also continuously improve patient care.

"It is a team effort," Murray said.

The nine areas at the skills fair were medication administration, hand hygiene, patient complaints, fall prevention, SBAR or nurse-doctor communications, pain management, respiratory therapy, restraints and skin care.
The training is only one part of HRMC's efforts to regain certification from CMS. Officials have also reviewed and revamped all areas that were cited as deficient by CMS in February.

In a news conference held Thursday, hospital spokespersons discussed three of those areas - patient complaints and grievances, quality oversight and assurance and medication administration.

Patient complaints

In the past, complaints were handled by various individuals in the organization, and there were lapses in tracking the complaint and any resulting changes.

The hospital developed new policies and procedures to handle patient complaints and grievances, and the program will be overseen by Kim Kwiatkowski in the staff development department.

"We did not have very good structure and tracking," Kwiatkowski said of past procedures. "We have fine- tuned it so complaints don't fall through the cracks.

Complaints can be received through surveys, phone calls, letters and in-house concerns shared with staff. Kwiatkowski said the new process provides structure and accountability. She added that all complaints will be acknowledged with a letter to the complainant within seven days.

Quality assurance

The new quality oversight and assurance procedures are being headed up by Dr. Richard Riehle, the interim chief medical officer for HRMC. He said the hospital will collect and analyze data to improve hospital procedures. To ensure this happens, a steering committee will oversee the flow of data, which will be collected and analyzed daily, weekly and monthly.

"Haywood Regional is committed to excellent patient care and to continue to improve patient care, and that commitment is from everybody," Riehle said.

Data collected from the hospital will be compared to other hospitals of similar size to ensure HRMC is doing its best work.

To improve communications among the staff, Riehle said the collected data will be shared with staff throughout the institution, whether it is how processes could be better or when they are done right.

The committee will ultimately report to the hospital's governing board, who will receive training in the future, said Al Byers, interim CEO of Haywood Regional.

The training will help with "what the board needs to know and what to ask," Riehle said.

Amanda Brown will serve as the interim director of quality assessment and oversight until a person can be hired to fill the newly-created position full time.

In the past, there was a three-member governing board committee which included at least one physician, that dealt with quality assurance issues. Kate Fenner, CEO of the Compass Group, a national consulting firm helping Haywood Regional through the recertification process, said there was plenty of data collected, but little analysis or subsequent improvements made based on the findings.

Medications

The third area the hospital is revamping is medication administration. Bettye Conley, who has worked as a nurse for 20 years at HRMC, said the hospital's policies and procedures regarding medication administration has been updated, with medication nursing specialists in attendance whenever medication is administered.

She said there will also be electronic directives on medication administration to help eliminate errors, as well as a thorough process to follow for medication delivery from the pharmacy to the patient.

Included in the process is patient education, Conley said. When nurses administer the medications, they will talk with the patients about the medications they are receiving, why they were ordered, if they are able to tolerate the medications and if they are comfortable with the medications given.

"We want to make sure they understand," she said.

This education process also gives patients the right to refuse medication, Conley said. If a patient refuses, then the new policy dictates that the nurse immediately notifies the physician.

A procedural change for medication administration was shifting the times pharmacists stock the Pyxis Medstation, a computerized medication tracking and dispensing system located on each nursing floor of the hospital.

Before, pharmacists would stock medications at 9 a.m., one of the busiest times of the day for nurses who were attempting to obtain medications for their patients. This caused a logjam, said Eileen Lipham, vice president for professional services. The backlog had the potential to delay the administration of medications, which was one area for which HRMC was cited by CMS.

With a new schedule in place, the backlog should be eliminated, Lipham and Conley said.

While the training and policy revisions were spurred by the decertification by CMS, Lipham said it has been a good opportunity to refresh nurses' medical training.

"Delivering health care is very complex, and is not like working at a factory," Lipham said. "With the human body, you're taking care of patients and every patient is different. (With the current situation) we said let's go ahead and reinforce the education while (the nurses) are here."

We have compiled the 2008 first quarter statistics for residential properties in Haywood County NC. We have also listed 2007 statistics for comparison.

1/1/07-3/31/07

Total Units Sold: 195
Average Listing Price:250,974
Average Selling Price: 238,199
List to Sell Ratio: 95%
Median Listing Price: 200,000
Median Selling Price: 197,000
Average Days on the Market: 139

1/1/08-3/31/08

Total Units Sold: 125
Average Listing Price: 241,653
Average Selling Price: 226,196
List to Sell Ratio: 94%
Median Listing Price: 200,000
Median Selling Price: 185,000
Average Days on Market: 156

As you can see we have started 2008 on a slower note, but from all indications our market is picking up. We have been battling the negative media reports about the mortgage and the housing industry which have caused many buyers to sit on the sidelines with the wait and see approach. With the average selling price down about $12,000 it is a great time to buy in Haywood County. We do feel like most "experts" in the media that the housing market and economy will turn around by the 3rd quarter of 2008. That being said, if you are thinking of buying do not wait to long. We do not know when the bottom has been reached until it has started going back up. If you waited, you will have missed the best prices in years!

Elk reintroduction project appears successful

Beth Pleming - Staff writer, The Moutaineer Printed 3/28/08

Despite a few unforeseen challenges along the way, the elk of Cataloochee Valley appear to be adjusting to their new habitat well, and park officials said their chances of staying look promising.

This year marks the expiration of an extended experimental period to determine whether elk populations could again be successfully sustained by the Great Smoky Mountain habitat.
Great Smoky Mountain National Park Wildlife Manager Joe Yarkovich, who has been deeply involved in the elk reintroduction project, provided an update on the elk's progress Monday night at the Waynesville branch of the Haywood County Library.

While data is still being examined to determine the herd's chance of survival, "I will say unofficially that it's a success," Yarkovich said. "We're looking pretty good. We've finally got the number of animals we wanted. We"ve got a ton of public support. Calves are hitting the ground and surviving. We're in pretty good shape for the future."

Once all of the project's data has been reviewed, University of Tennessee researchers will determine whether the experiment was a success.

Based on their models, they will make the call, then report their findings to park officials who will make the final decision as to whether it's a successful reintroduction, said Yarkovich.

"If it was looking like a failure, we may remove the elk from the park all together. If it's a success, we will scale back on our research and (animal) tracking and let the animals go on their own," he said. "In my personal opinion, things are looking very positive."

But while the results are looking good, things haven't always gone as planned.

Unforeseen problems

In keeping with the national park system's mission to restore extrapated species whenever possible, park officials in 1996 began efforts to reintroduce the once-native elk back to the mountains of North Carolina.

Park officials, working in conjunction with the University of Tennessee, determined an area with less than 10 percent canopy would be necessary for elk to survive, which limited the options for their release to two locations: Cades Cove and Cataloochee Valley. Of those, Cataloochee was most suitable, Yarkovich said. It was also determined that an adequate sample size would require a minimum of 75 to 90 animals.

Next, a five-year experimental phase began in 2000 to determine whether the Cataloochee Valley habitat could sustain the elk population long term. The plan was to release elk in three yearly increments - one herd per year from 2001 to 2003, but that didn't happen.

The first herd - including 25 elk from Land Between the Lakes, Ky. - was released in 2001, followed by the release of 27 additional Elk from Elk Island National Park, Alberta, in 2002.

But in 2003, things were interrupted when a nation-wide concern regarding chronic wasting disease stopped the movement of deer and elk between states. No animals were released that year, leaving park officials with inconclusive results due to an inadequate sample size. At that time, the experiment was extended for three years.

"The results were different than what we had in mind,"said Yarkovich. "We needed 75 to 90 animals, and we ended up with 52."

There were other challenges, as well.

In addition to an overall population that was too small, the existing herd lacked enough females, he continued.

Furthermore, due to the high density of black bears living in the Smokies, predation became a problem. Finally, although calves were being born, few were surviving, and those that did survive were mostly males.

"You can't sustain a population if babies don't survive," said Yarkovich. "Things were not going our way."
But park officials had an idea.

The solution

Park officials initiated efforts to manage predation by relocating black bears to another area of the park, about 40 miles outside of Cataloochee Valley.

Contrary to rumor, "we did not kill any bears," Yarkovich noted.

Also, the elk were learning how to deal with predators more effectively. They became less afraid to fight back, he said, and mother elk were learning how to better hide their young calves.

Unlike adult elk, calves don't put off a scent, said Yarkovich. So, the mother elk were learning to feed their calves during the mornings and evenings, then bed them down in the woods where they are well-hidden during the day. As long as they left the calves alone and didn't go near them, there was no scent for predators to follow.

The park's fire management plan, which included prescribed burns, further contributed to better calf protection by creating a more diverse, therefore better, habitat for both hiding calves and feeding.

The result

While several factors contributed toward the solution, efforts to transplant bears seemed to produce the most dramatic results, said Yarkovich.

In 2005, prior to moving any bears, the calf survival rate was at 25 percent, he said. The following year, after bears were relocated, that percentage jumped to 80 percent. In 2007, calves survived at a 70 percent rate.

Although bears have an incredible homing instinct and eventually migrate back, Yarkovich said, the time it takes them to migrate (about 11 days) seems to have been enough to do the trick.

While elk typically give birth to one calf per year, and with the increased chance of survival, park officials finally have the population size they were initially after.
Although a few years behind schedule, "we may have just got them now, but hey, we've got them," Yarkovich said.

And given all the circumstances - less predation problems, higher calf survival rate and an adequate population size, which now includes an effective female to male ratio (1.3 females to every 1 male) - park officials are optimistic, believing the elk of Cataloochee Valley may be here to stay.

What is Kiss the Pig? Well it is a fund raising event that benefits K.A.R.E of Haywood County. The kisser for Realty World Heritage is Tom Mallette and Christine Mallette is the campaign manager. The contest ends April 5th when the winner (person with most votes) gets to kiss the pig! This past weekend we had a yard sale to raise money. Take a look at the picture below and you will see it was not a stellar day for the sale. Sooo...we are going to continue the sale this weekend. If you are in town please come out and visit and buy some great stuff in the name of charity. If you can not make it please donate online by clicking HERE. It is a dollar a vote and every dollar counts!

(KARE, Kids Advocacy Resource Effort. KARE creates public awareness of problems of child abuse and educates the public about services provided for children and families of Haywood County)

Like much of the country, real estate sales in Haywood County NC has seen a slow start to the year. The following stats are for 1/1/08- 2/29/08 and are for residential, condo, and townhouses.



Total listings on the market: 1,066

Listing Price Average: $370,800

Average Days on the market: 191





Closed Residential Listings during the time period: 74

Listing Price Average: $252,000 (notice the price range that is selling)

Selling Price Average: $232,113

List to Sell %: 92.1

Average Days on the market: 165



Listings that have expired: 181

Listings that have been withdrawn:127

Listings that are pending:49



For comparison to all of 07 look at the earlier blog post with the final 2007 Haywood County Stats.



A great time to buy? YES We have a large inventory of homes for better selection, intrest rates continue to be low and we hope will dip lower in the coming weeks, and prices are down!

The popular Wheels Through Time museum is leaving Maggie Valley, NC as of August 1, 2008. There is no indication of where they are headed. If you have not been to see the museum get there before they close the doors!

NEWS RELEASE

P.O. Box 790 / Maggie Valley, NC 28751

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DATE: February 24, 2008

CONTACT: Matt Walksler, Director of Public Relations

PHONE: (828) 926-6266

FAX: (828) 926-9158

EMAIL: mattw@wheelsthroughtime.com

WEB: http://www.wheelsthroughtime.com/

Wheels Through Time is Shifting Gears

(Maggie Valley, NC)

Wheels Through Time would like to extend its deepest gratitude to the beautiful mountain region of Western North Carolina that has given it the opportunity to flourish as an international center for transportation culture and history. During its tenure in Western North Carolina, the museum has become a central hub for information and interpretation of the cultural significance of the American Motorcycle, from the earliest days of the 20^th century to the modern motorcycle enthusiast of today. We thank all that have assisted Wheels Through Time in fulfilling its mission to educate and inspire a diverse, multi-generational audience as to the history of American Transportation.

In less than six years, Wheels Through Time has become a benchmark of American cultural history, hosting over 280,000 visitors from over 140 countries and all 50 states. The museum has been featured in countless national and international publications, as well as on national television on over 30 occasions. Through its high regard for hostmanship, its world-wide marketing efforts, and its world-class presentation of America's rarest transportation artifacts, Wheels Through Time will leave an impact on Western North Carolina that will be felt for years to come.

As new objectives lie on the horizon, it has been decided that Wheels Through Time will be relocating out of North Carolina. Current plans to revolutionize the museum and its programs are under way, and we look forward to sharing this progress with the world.

Wheels Through Time has been proud to be a part of Western North Carolina's tourism industry, and is honored to have served the great population of WNC as one of its most historical attractions.

(For more information and regular updates, visit the museum's website, located at http://www.wheelsthroughtime.com/.)

There has been a request for market statistics for higher end homes sold in 2007, Haywood County. Stats have been pulled from the Western NC Regional MLS for 2007 in the price range of 1,500,000 and above. During 2007 there were 11 homes on the market in this price range. Currently, there are 13 homes on the market in this price range. In 2007, (1) home sold above 1.5 million dollars. The home was listed for $1,650,000 and sold for $1,600,000. It was on the market for 245 days and was located in the exclusive subdivision; The Smoky Mountain Retreat.

What does this mean for the price range? If you have one home sell a year in a price range and there are currently 13 homes on the market the math is simple! There is currently a 13 YEAR inventory of homes in this price range in Haywood County. That is a great example of a absorption rate for a specific market. Of course the absorption rate can change at anytime, but the current market is not in favor of the higher end homes in our area. If you are looking to sell in this price range you must have the home priced properly, staged properly, and marketed properly so those few buyers that will come through to see your home will remember it. If one home is going to sell per year you want it to be yours! Please let us know if there are additional specific statitistics that you would like. We are happy to provide them!