Portsmouth NH Real Estate Agent - Rebecca Skane, Realtor®, e-PRO®

Last night we had our monthly book club meetup and as usual, it was a success. I believe I forgot to post our last book choice which was A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. We had a very interesting discussion on the book. I still liked his first book, The Kite Runner, the best - yet his new novel was just as gut wrenching, and just as thoughtful. I think that one of the best features of his books is how much Mr. Hosseini teaches us of the former Afghanistan and how enlightened the people had been before the Taliban managed to grab hold of the country and tear it apart. I was surprised to learn how much the men in our book club had such a hard time enduring the treatment of the women. I think the men had more of a difficult time getting through the book than the women! It was primarily the men in our group who felt the most outrage and raw emotion when reading about the abuse and torture of the Afghan women. I was a bit surprised, and very happy that we live in the country we do.

I suggested this new book, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo not because I had heard about it from other avid readers, but because Barnes and Noble had nominated this novel for one of the top 10 of 2008. Here is the synopsis:

"It’s about the disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden . . . and about her octogenarian uncle, determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. It’s about Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently at the wrong end of a libel case, hired to get to the bottom of Harriet’s disappearance . . . and about Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age—and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness to go with it—who assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, astonishing corruption in the highest echelons of Swedish industrialism—and an unexpected connection between themselves."

Our next meeting is May 12! Find out more at our Portsmouth Book Club website!

Do you have a local NH (and NH ONLY) business? Let me tell my clients about you! I have a page for each town in NH on my website. I am now adding local business to those pages, for free of course!

Add Yours!

You can add your website URL, your phone numbers, a logo and even a description. You get some free promotion and I get some added content on my website. We are all happy. Moreover, my clients like to see what local businesses may be around in the town they are planning on moving to.

Portsmouth, NH Residential Real Estate Report for March, 2009

Residential - single family, condos and mobile homes.

The average seeling price in Portsmouth for the month of March was $304,107, down a bit from February and March of last year. But don't let the decrease in market price get you down. Remember, this graph encompasses single family homes, condominiums (which are typically less expensive) and even manufactured homes. Now move on over to the next graph for the WOW factor.

Now this is what we like to see! 14 homes sold in Portsmouth last month! Almost 3X more homes were sold this month than last month! Spring is upon us. It is a great time for sales and the low prices are driving buyers to buy, buy, buy!

At the end of March, there were 154 listings on the market in Portsmouth. At the current rate of sales, the absorption rate is 48 weeks. The absorption rate is the number of weeks in which it will take for all listings currently on the market to be sold.

Please visit NH Market Report March 2009 for the market report for all of New Hampshire.

Yes, you may not be a high paid executive at AIGreed, but you, too, can get a portion of the economic stimulus package.

You have probably already heard about it, but this is your official reminder to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit this year if you are considering purchasing your first new home. First time home buyers are eligible to receive a tax credit equaled to 10% of the total purchase price (up to $8,000)! So, if you buy a new home this year (as your first home), and that home is at least $80,000, you are entitled to receive $8,000. If you are a married couple you can each receive $4,000.

This tax credit begins to decline if your gross adjusted income is $75,000 or more ($150,000 for married couples). Also, to keep this credit (and not have to pay it back), this new home MUST be your primary home for the next 36 months following the close.

If you purchase and close on your first new home before April 15th, you can receive your tax credit on your 2008 taxes! But you do have until Dec 31, 2009 to buy your first new home and claim the credit on your 2009 taxes next year as well.

This really is great news for first time home buyers. First of all, the market prices might never be this low again. Second, you can get 10% off! Talk about a blue light special and coupon stacking!

The next meeting for the Portsmouth Book Club will be Tuesday, March 10th. We will be discussing the book, Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. You can find more information on our monthly book club group by visiting the Portsmouth Book Club home page. We will be meeting at the Coat of Arms in downtown Portsmouth at 7pm.

Our book club normally visits a wide range of book selections on a monthly basis. Our group members bring ideas for the next book selection and then we hold a vote so come prepared to nominate something you would love to read! This way, we are all urged to read something we might not normally pick up in the book store. Variety in our reading agenda is a must for any avid reader.

I have to admit that this month's pick is not something I would normally read. I studied the anthropology of food back in college one semester, when I fell in love with "anthro", but that was probably the last time I indulged in the anthropological studies. Normally, I indulge my time for intellectual reflection with a little sci-fi or some high fantasy. But I have to admit that I have really taken a shine to this book, it is fascinating! It reminds me of the extremely famous book (a 'staple' - pun intended - among anthropologists....), A Seed to Civilization, by Charles B. Heiser, Jr.

And if you don't finish the book, don't worry. You will meet some new friends and enjoy a few good beers. I hope to see you there!

Here is a brief synopisis of the book from the editor:

"A New York Times bestseller that has changed the way readers view the ecology of eating, this revolutionary book by award winner Michael Pollan asks the seemingly simple question: What should we have for dinner? Tracing from source to table each of the food chains that sustain us - whether industrial or organic, alternative or processed - he develops a portrait of the American way of eating. The result is a sweeping, surprising exploration of the hungers that have shaped our evolution, and of the profound implications our food choices have for the health of our species and the future of our planet."