Cindy Seaton

BRYAN, TX — Well, I’m not really doing any major structural repairs…No one will notice if I add-on a little room here…The city is just out to make an extra buck on my renovations. Yes, we’ve heard all the excuses for not pulling a permit on your little bathroom upgrade.

Think about it from a community position, though. If you don’t visit the City of Bryan website to apply for a permit, you’re jeopardizing your good neighbors in the loss of utilities or phone services. The city makes it so easy now to mail in the short form I highlighted from the city website in the previous sentence.

There are more construction items requiring work permits than I have room or time for here. Some upgrades you might not think about are:

Water heater replacements

Sprinkler irrigation systems

Carports

The guys at the city are the experts on our safety codes. If you have a question as to whether or not a permit is necessary, call Greg Cox at 209-5010 or visit www.Bryantx.gov for answers.

Legally, the only reason you don’t have to disturb our friends in Planning and Development is if you are painting, installing cabinets, adding a children’s playscape, building a short fence, or placing a small storage shed on skids. Everything else has a safety concern…hence the need to call.

BRYAN, TX -- Have you ever been driving around a Bryan or College Station neighborhood and wanted to know how much a house is selling for but you didn’t want to “bother” the agent or they weren’t there when you called?

WE HAVE THE ANSWER!!!

Call 979-764-2121 and enter the street number and you can HEAR information about that house. ANY PHONE - ANY TIME!

If a Bryan College Station home is available for sale in the MLS YOU CAN HEAR IT! It doesn’t matter if Century 21 has it listed for sale or Coldwell Banker or Remax or ANYONE!

BRYAN, TX — The Texas Municipal Power Agency encourages homeowners to use electric lawn mowers rather than gas to promote cleaner air. They are offering vouchers worth $150 toward the purchase of an electric-powered machine, corded or cordless.

You’re thinking, I gotta push this reel mower or work my way around power cords? That’s a big sacrifice for clean air. Well, Black and Decker does have a handy 24V battery mower but it will only cut up to 1/3 of an acre at a time. Then there’s a solar powered cordless from Solaris - that sounds neat.

Either way, you only have until August to pick up a voucher, or until they run out. Sears associates will hand them out to customers with a current driver’s license or your BTU bill. For more information on these and other rebate programs offered by the local utility company, call or email…

Happy Gardening,

Cindy Seaton, REALTOR

P.S. Check back next week for my commentary on community chickens!

BRYAN, TX — Now that the university students are out for the summer,

you can try new restaurants around town without waiting in a line ;) Actually, I can’t give them a hard time - the students are the reason why our local economy is so insulated from the extremes shown in the national news stories.

Back to the menu…There is one place in town that you need to visit, tucked away at 110 Dominik near Texas Avenue in College Station.

It is Shiraz Shish-ka-Bob, an Iranian restaurant with various ka-bobs with rice and vegetables, humus, and flat bread. The owners finished-out a former photo store/donut store very nicely. It sits near Blue Baker and Gumby’s Pizza.

The restaurant is named for the city Shiraz in southwestern Iran known for poetry and arts. We’ve been several times - my favorite ka-bob is the lamb. In the Aggieland of chicken fingers and BBQ, Shiraz is divine. The sodas and regular beverages sit near the cash register, but I recommend asking for their hot tea. It is dark and wonderful - don’t know the name. But I am learning Arabic. Oops that’s another story for another time.

And, if you are ever in need of Egyptian food,

email me and I will direct you to an enthusiastic Arab woman with amazing stories and authentic North African fare.

Happy Home Hunting,

Cindy Seaton, REALTOR

BRYAN, TX — The numbers don’t look fabulous. But what we see in the Brazos Valley is the effect of the fear in the market- from the stock market decline and horrible national news. Bryan-College Station is in an insulated community but we still see some of the affects of the national news.

By insulated, I mean that BCS has A&M University and great growth. Add to that, the state of Texas has the number one economy in our country. Plus, even when the rest of the nation had huge increases in their real estate markets, we prospered and remained in the middle, not seeing gigantic increases in values. And now when the rest of the nation’s prices are adjusting and depreciating, we have remained in the middle, not seeing huge decreases in values.

In fact, prices show that they are appreciating here…

Item 2009 2008 Change

# Listings in Inventory 1, 188 1, 351 -12.1%

# Closed Sales 91 132 -31.1%

Average Sales Price $172,928 $169,261 +2.2%

# Volume $15,736,430 $22,342,476 -29.6%

Days on Market 130 126

These numbers refer to Single Family home sales, comparing this year to last year.

So what is going on right now? It depends! We are seeing the higher priced homes being reduced to get them sold. We are seeing the homes in the $120 - $150K in College Station that are in good condition and good areas, selling right away. Right now we have more buyers than we have good properties to sell.

Financing is a little more of a struggle than it was a year ago BUT THERE IS MONEY AVAILABLE! Buyers need decent credit and they need a small down payment but that can come in the form of a gift until your $8,000 tax credit is received! Call if you need info on this gift from Barack.

What am I always saying? Don’t listen to a reporter to obtain information on one the most important financial decisions of your life. Get a good lender and a great realtor for the facts!

Happy May!

Cindy Seaton, REALTOR

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