Rich Cooke

There is magic to be found in Hendersonville, NC. The natural beauty of this mountainous region draws visitors in the pleasant summer months and year-round residents love the mild winters that follow. Golfers have flocked to the Cummings Cove Golf Community located within Hendersonville city limits. The gated community of Cummings Cove offers beautiful views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, underground utilities, an award-winning 18 hole golf course, golf shop, clubhouse, restaurant, grill and lounge, sports and fitness centers that include a junior Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts and a social center. Located only 15 minutes from the Asheville Airport, Hendersonville's Cummings Cove is a modern-day Mayberry RFD with convenient access to the larger cities in the area. For more information on Hendersonville real estate, please contact me today. I'm happy to share the beauty and wonder of this magnificent area with everyone.

Southern Living Magazine invited its readers to vote on the "Best Small Town" in the South and Hendersonville claimed the No. 10 spot, with Beaufort, SC being listed as No. 1. While Mayor Greg Newman was happy with this honor, he was surprised that Hendersonville didn't rank No. 1, with its beautiful scenery, wonderful attractions and many things to see and do and jokingly vowed to "get to the bottom" of why Hendersonville. Southern Living Magazine's 2008 Travel Readers' Choice Awards are determined solely by the votes of its readers in different categories. Lee Henderson-Hill, the Executive Director of Downtown Hendersonville, Inc., acknowledged that it was an honor that so many people who not only lived in Hendersonville but passed through and visited the city recognized and appreciated its attributes.

In addition to the honor of being named one of the Best Small Towns in the South, Southern Living Magazine features the Hendersonville restaurant Flight Wood Grill & Wine Bar (401 Main St) in its January 2009 issue. A converted bank building, there are 300 bird mobiles that hover over the open dining area at Flight, food is prepared fresh from scratch, local artist paintings adorn the restaurant's walls and diners can sit on the second-story balcony to enjoy a glimpse of Executive Chef Rob Keener at work in the open kitchen below preparing the new American cuisine served there.

Are you ready to throw out your Christmas tree? From now until January 10th, you can drop your old Christmas tree off at the parking lot for Field 6 at Jackson Park for the annual Henderson County Christmas Tree Recycling event, which takes place on January 10th from 9am-2pm at the park in Hendersonville. The Environmental and Conservation Organization (ECO) sponsors this event every year to help recycle old Christmas trees into wood chips and mulch for use in home gardens and as fragant additions to firewood. ECO will be directing traffic and passing out free hot apple cider to those attending the chipping event on January 10th. Christmas tree vendors are welcome to drop off any leftover trees at Jackson Park as well. Hendersonville residents can simply leave their Christmas trees at curbside to be counted in the recycling event. Last year, ECO was able to recycle over 1200 trees in Henderson County alone. Anyone wishing to bring some of the mulch home for their own lawn and gardens simply need to bring a bag or a box to carry it in. Bring your old tree down to Jackson Park and help recycle some of Mother Nature's best work. You won't be disappointed!

Do you love playing in the snow but have trouble staying in an upright position? If skiing and snowboarding aren't your thing, try tubing. Hawksnest Mountain Resort in North Carolina has changed from a typical ski resort to a tubing only resort. This not only saves the owner money in staff and equipment, but saves the visitor money as well. It costs roughly half of a daylong lift ticket to go tubing on a weekend or holiday (approximately $30 for a 2-hour session). Hawksnest Mountain Resort offers 20 lanes for riders to run on a heavy-duty inflatable tube or raft. There are other ski resorts on North Carolina's Beech and Sugar Mountains that offer tubing runs as well, but Hawksnest is the only resort to go totally tubular. After you unwrap gifts this Christmas, take the family and enjoy some old fashioned tubing fun in North Carolina. Happy Holidays!

The Treasury Department is listening to proposals from the National Association of Realtors and National Association of Home Builders to have a wide-scale reduction in interest rates to as low as 4.5%. One of the proposals suggests that a government agency (such as the Treasury Department) could buy up 30 year mortgages below the market's fixed rate of 4.5%. Another proposal suggests that the government play a role in lowering interest rates to home buyers by as much as 1% or more by paying loan discount points or fees. The whole idea behind these proposals is to bring large numbers of people into the marketplace to stimulate construction as well as move large numbers of unsold inventory quickly. By doing so, this would help create jobs by increasing the demand for building materials, appliances, furniture, paint, etc.

This rate reduction concept isn't a new idea. It was used in the 1970's through the government's Tandem Plan. At that time, the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) bought below-market mortgages from Fannie Mae who had aquired mortgages from thousands of lenders across the country. So, instead of the private lenders and Fannie Mae eating the losses, Ginnie Mae absorbed them. This was an effort to stimulate homebuying in a stagnate market.

The most recent proposal has been to have the Treasury Department lower mortgage interest rates for home buyers. The government could then sell debt securities to bond investors at 3% and acquire privately originated mortgages at 4.5%, providing a profitable business model. For more information on how these proposals can help you in the Hendersonville real estate market, please contact me today.