Jim Lee, Knoxville Tennessee Realtor®

It’s Labor Day weekend in Knoxville.

The University of Tennessee won it’s home football season opener yesterday, today is Boomsday, the huge street fair/party climaxed by a spectacular fireworks display, and we have some real estate news for the 1st week in September.

The Knoxville County Register of Deeds reports 156 closed real estate transactions in today’s Knoxville News-Sentinel. That number has been about the average for most every week to date for 2009. We keep hearing talk about “Pending sales up”, “real estate activity increasing”, and so forth but it doesn’t seem to be translating into closed transactions and those are the only ones that really count.

Here’s Knox County’s numbers for last week; total closed transactions from the Register of Deed’s office: 156

As usual the mid to lower price points dominate the volume of sales with the hot ticket for the year remaining the $100,000 to $150,000 range.

The clock is running down fast on the $8,000 federal tax credit that lots of new homebuyers have been taking advantage of. It expires November 3oth, 2009 and that’s for a closed transaction, not just being in the process. With lenders taking from 30 to 45 days to process a loan these days you need to plan on having your target house under contract not later than October 15th to ensure you don’t come up short of time.

www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com is the place to begin your home search. As a 30 year veteran of the Knoxville area real estate market I will be glad to answer any questions you may have about the tax credit, the market in your neighborhood, or any other real estate related question.

Jim Lee, 865-693-3232 or email me; Jim@JimLee.com

Every since it was called PhotoShare many years ago, I've been a huge fan of www.VisualTour and their virtual tour products.

Now they've made a good thing even better by adding a new "Link Builder" feature that let's you create big variety of custom links AND as a bonus, very impressive ads specifically designed for CraigsList.

Here's how it works. Step 1 of course it to log into your Visual Tour account and select a listing you want a tour for. After that it's pretty much all downhill as you follow the easy steps.

First, choose what type of link you want.

I chose "This tour" for a specified tour only.

Next choose "Where would you like to place this link?

I'm choosing "My website" and clicking "Next". Your next choice is "How would you like the link to appear?"

I'm selecting the large graphic with the large house photo and clicking "Next". The next choice is: "How would you like your tour branded?" Which means how much of your contact info do you want on the virtual tour itself. Some MLS's are sticky about contact info appearing on a virtual tour.

I'm selecting the first option, "Full branding" because I like me best. ;) click "Next"

"Would you like the link to open in a new window?"

Yep, I do want a new window, and click "Next"

And this is what the finished product will look like. You can easily paste this code into your blog, website, or most anywhere else you want

And the copied code creates the finished link below. Clicking it will open up the virtual tour for that property.

Total time to create one of these custom links, about 1 minute. Cost of unlimited Visual Tour virtual tours, $29.95 per month for UNLIMITED tours.WOW factor for you; PRICELESS!

I use mine for lots of other things like emailing photos to out of town customers, clients, their spouses, etc., which they can then email on to their friends with my smiling face alongside their house. Also neighborhoods, points of interest in your town, you name it. Create all the virtual tours you want to only $29.95 a month.

The National Association of Realtors says: “For the first time in five years, existing-home sales have increased for four months in a row.”

The July sales figures are out from the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors so let’s see how the Knoxville area real estate market did last month.

I see a total of 1,044 sales reported in all price ranges, days on market (time to sell) 118 days, the median price of a 3 bedroom home holding pretty steady at $137,300, 4 bedrooms $267,000, and $144,500 for condos.

One of the many great things about living in the Knoxville, Tennessee area is it's close proximity to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

There are many very scenic and beautiful sections of the park but one of my special favorites is Cades Cove. Going from Knoxville through Maryville and Townsend to the Cove is about a 40 mile drive but because of the narrow, windy roads in the park allow about an hour for the drive one way.

"The Cove" as it's known to local folks was originally a pioneer settlement first homesteaded by John and Luraney Oliver around 1818. The Olivers and their descendants lived in the Cove until the Park was established in 1934.

Cades Cove is a very special place to me for a personal reason as well. My lovely wife Charlotte and I were married here almost 20 years ago. We had a very simple ceremony back in the woods beside Elijah Oliver's cabin one frosty February morning. In attendance were our minister, one witness, and about 20 deer who dropped by to see what was going on.

A lot of the original buildings have been preserved by the national park service to illustrate how life was back in those days. One of the very enjoyable things you can do in the Cove is to ride your bike around the 11 mile loop road that circles this scenic valley.

This past Saturday I took my bike up to the Cove and set off about 8:00 am to ride the loop. I got a bit later start than usual and there were lots of other bikers either on the road already or getting ready to go. There are also usually quite a few walkers and some runners as well; no exception today.

It's a great ride with several pretty good pulls up hills that get your heart pumping. Since it's getting pretty close to fall I saw several bears up in Oak trees stuffing themselves with Acorns in preparation for going into hibernation soon.

This looked to be a pretty young bear. He was busy stuffing food into his mouth and oblivious to everyone below his tree watching and taking pictures.

The Cove also abounds with lots of deer and it's not unusual to see as many as 100 or more during your tour.

This little spike buck just looked like he stopped and posed for my camera. Wildlife in Cades Cove are very used to visitors and it's usually easy to get some terrific photos of bear, deer, wild turkey, and other wildlife.

One cautionary note; these are wild animals and there are no bars between you and them like in the zoo. This is also their home; you are the visitor so please respect them, don't try to get too close, and above all else DO NOT try to feed them or touch them. It is against the law and the park rangers will cite you or arrest you on the spot if they see you. It also does harm to the animals by teaching them to go to humans for food instead of finding it on their own as nature intended.

Here's another shot of some Cades Cove deer having breakfast. This photo is from a previous visit.

If you're visiting, the Cades Store has a bike rental for you. $4.00 an hour for coaster bikes and $6.00 for geared models. I highly recommend the geared models for an extra two bucks unless your name is Lance Armstrong.

Riding the loop road takes anywhere from 2-4 hours depending on your fitness level and how much sightseeing you do along the way. I recommend taking your time and enjoying all the Cove has to offer.

If your time is short there are also two roads, Hyatt and Sparks Lanes, you can cut through the middle of the Cove and finish much quicker.

From early May until late September the Cove loop road is closed to vehicles on Wednesday and Saturdays until 10:00 am. I strongly suggest planning your ride during these times especially on Wednesdays if you can arrange your schedule.

Cades Cove is a very, very popular destination and the loop road is typically clogged with vehicles especially during the summer and a bear sighting brings all traffic to a halt.

We usually try to hit the road on Wednesdays just at first light. That's the time the most animals are out feeding and the crowds are almost nonexistent then.

Enjoy your ride, take along plenty of water, stop and enjoy the views often; I guarantee it's a ride you will remember for years to come.