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Brad & Angela Lawrence - Realtors/Owners - Greensboro - Winston Salem -High Point

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Brad and Angela Lawrence - Brokers/REALTORS
Multi-Million Dollar Producers
Owners of North Carolina Homes Realty, Inc.
Website: www.NC-Homes-For-Sale.com
Toll Free: 866-220-6458
Brad's Cell: 336-909-1293
Angie's Cell: 336-909-2638
Fax: 866-233-4314
Brad’s Email: nchomes2@gmail.com
BLOG: nchomesforsaleblog.com
We serve the Whole Piedmont Triad Area!
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Statistics for NC Piedmont Triad - New Listings/Actives/Solds May 2008 vs May 2009

The following numbers are the New Listings/Current Actives for May 2009

Source - Triad MLS

County New Listings Current Actives
Guilford 790 5231
Forsyth 557 4014
Davidson 187 1386
Randolph 123 791
Davie 49 497
Stokes 39 344
Surry 61 480
Yadkin 18 121
Alamance 76 469
Rockingham 73 639

The following numbers are the sold homes in each county for May - 2008 vs 2009

Source - Triad MLS

County SOLDS May 2008 SOLDS May 2009
Guilford 582 356
Forsyth 418 305
Davidson 123 91
Randolph 74 70
Davie 50 19
Stokes 35 20
Surry 25 20
Yadkin 11 10
Alamance 50 26
Rockingham 47 30

Winston Salem New Baseball Stadium will not be ready this season.

Just read in the Winston Salem journal.

Disappointing news for baseball fans.............

Work on the stadium is at a standstill, stopped cold by ownership negotiations between team co-owners Billy Prim and Andrew "Flip" Filipowski.

Prim is trying to buy out Filipowski's share of the team. The two, business partners and brothers-in-law, have owned the team together since 2002. They have been negotiating the buyout since at least November.

Prim has said that construction will resume when the ownership negotiation is complete and that the negotiations were almost finished.

The team will play the rest of its home games at Wake Forest Baseball Park,where the Single-A Dash has been playing since its April home opener. The team, which was formerly known as the Winston-Salem Warthogs, is an affiliate of the Chicago White Sox.

Team officials had held out hope that the team would play part of the season at the new stadium, until this week committing only to games at Wake Forest's field through June.

Team officials sent a letter to people who had paid a deposit for season tickets to the new stadium with the following message: "We have now made the necessary decision to not try and play games in the new stadium in 2009 ... instead concentrating on opening in 2010 with no question or concern about the process."

People who have paid toward season tickets in the new stadium can roll those payments over to pay for tickets in the 2010 season. They can also apply the payments toward tickets to games at Wake Forest Baseball Park, formerly Ernie Shore Field.

Tax Credit Can Be Used for Down Payment

I just read this on realtor.org


Shaun Donovan, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, on Tuesday said that the Federal Housing Administration is going to permit its lenders to allow home buyers to use the $8,000 tax credit as a down payment.

Previously, most buyers wouldn't receive the funds until after they filed their tax return, and that deterred some people from using the credit. The NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® has been calling for the change.

"We all want to enable FHA consumers to access the home buyer tax credit funds when they close on their home loans so that the cash can be used as a down payment," Donovan says.

He says FHA's approved lenders will be permitted to "monetize" the tax credit through short-term bridge loans. This will allow eligible home buyers to access the funds immediately at the closing table.

Reminder of the $8,000 tax credit for home buyers

There's a nice windfall for some homebuyers in the economic stimulus bill. First-time buyers can claim a credit worth $8,000 - or 10% of the home's value, whichever is less - on their 2008 or 2009 taxes.

A big plus is that the credit is refundable, meaning tax filers see a refund of the full $8,000 even if their total tax bill - the amount of withholding they paid during the year plus anything extra they had to pony up when they filed their returns - was less than that amount.

Scenario 1: Your final tax liability is normally $6,000. You've had taxes withheld from every paycheck and at the end of the year you've paid Uncle Sam $6,000. Since you've already paid him all you owe, you get the entire $8,000 tax credit as a refund check.

Scenario 2: Your final tax liability is $6,000, but you've overpaid by $1,000 through your payroll withholding. Normally you would get a $1,000 refund check. In this scenario, you get $9,000, the $8,000 credit plus the $1,000 you overpaid.

Scenario 3: Your final tax liability is $6,000, but you've underpaid through your payroll withholding by $1,000. Normally, you would have to write the IRS a $1,000 check. This time, the first $1,000 of the tax credit pays your bill, and you get the remaining $7,000 as a refund.

To qualify for the credit, the purchase must be made between Jan. 1, 2009 and Nov. 30, 2009. Buyers may not have owned a home for the past three years to qualify as "first time" buyer. They must also live in the house for at least three years, or they will be obligated to pay back the credit.

Additionally, there are income restrictions: To qualify, buyers must make less than $75,000 for singles or $150,000 for couples. (Higher-income buyers may receive a partial credit.)

Applying for the credit will be easy - or at least as easy as doing your income taxes. Just claim it on your return. No other forms or papers have to be filed. Taxpayers who have already completed their returns can file amended returns for 2008 to claim the credit.

The $8,000 credit will bring an additional 300,000 new homebuyers into the market, according to estimates by Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors. The credit could also create a domino effect, he said, because each first-time homebuyer sale will lead to two more trade-up transactions down the line. "I think there are many homeowners who would be trading-up but they have had no buyers for their own homes," Yun said.

Who won't benefit, according to Mark Goldman, a real estate lecturer at San Diego State University, are those first-time homebuyers struggling to come up with down payments. The credit does not help get them over that hurdle - they still have to close the sale before claiming the bonus.

Many may look at the tax credit as a discount on the home price, according to Yun. A $100,000 purchase effectively becomes a $92,000 one.