Linda Futral Sells Coweta, Heard, Meriwether & Troup

Apologies in advance as the graphic is not that great but this is a map of the Historic Downtown District of Newnan, GA.

Come follow along with me as I take you to 23 of our historical places.

1. Willcoxon-Arnold House--this impressive home was constructed of hand-made brick in 1852 as part of a 1200 acre plantation known as "Shadowlawn". It is now the home of Hillcrest Funeral Chapel.

2. Sargent-Estanich House-- Built in approximately 1840, this Federal style home is one of the most perfectly proportioned houses in the county. This was the home of co-founder Harrison J. Sargent for the Willcoxon Mfg. company on Wahoo Creek.

3. Welch-Parrott House--This home was built in 1843 by James Welch the co-founder of the Newnan Herald.

4. W. B. W. Dent-Scott House--This home was built by William Barton Wade Dent in 1851. His brother built a similar house on College Street.

5. College Temple Building--This was originally part of College Temple, a private school for girls from 1853 to 1889.

6. College-Temple-Smith House--This is another portion of College Temple. It is said to have housed the first printing press in a Southern College.

7. Dent-Walls House--Built in 1854 by Joseph Ephriam Dent this Greek revival home has four large fluted Doric columns and a cantilevered balcony. This home was completely restored in 1980.

8. Arnold-Arnall-Shapiro House--Built in 1835 by the president of Wahoo Mfg. Co. and the director of Newnan National Bank.

9. Culpepper-McKoon-Sandlin House--This home was designed by a German architect for John Culpepper.

10. Brewster-Barnett House--Built in the 1860's this home was specifically adapted for the handicap needs of Major Penn Brewster. Brewster lost a leg serving in the Confederate Army.

11. Storey-Buchanan-Glover-Sumner House--Built in 1830, this home was originally a cottage owned by Edward Storey. He sold to his brother-in-law the distiguished Hugh Buchanan in 1850 and in the mid 1850's it was the headquarters for Gen. Joe Wheeler during the Battle of Brown's Mill.

12. Orr-Thornton House--This home was originally built in the country but was moved to it's present location in the late 19th century.

13. Terrell-Jones-Hobbs House--This is probably the oldest standing home in Newnan. Built as a small cottage in 1828 by Joel Wingfield Terrell. It has been added to and moved and sits at its present location since 1981.

14. Berry-Merrill-Boyd House--Built in 1840 this home was moved to its present location in 1974 but retains its original plaster medallions, simple mantels, and wide pine floors.

15. Ware-Headly House--This home was costructed in Lagrange in 1850 by Captain Dan Ware. The house was completely restored and moved to its present location in 1950 by the great-great nephew of the original owner.

16. Storey-Hollis House--William Storey was a plantation home that was dismantled in 1850 and brought by mule. It is said to be the first home on a fully brick basement.

17. Lee-Hackney-Banks House--Built in 1850 by Sanders Walker Lee a Captain in the 7th GA Regiment in the Confederate Army. It was purchased and restored to its glory in 1946 by the Banks family.

18. North-Young-Rosenzweig House--Built in 1852 as a Greek Revival home it has undergone a number of changes over the years. Updated to Victorian in the 1880's, then all touches of the Victorian were removed in 1918 and it settled back into a Greek state. Originally the home of Dr. Abraham Columbus North, a Confederate Army surgeon. The Young family bought it in 1918 and in 1980 it was rescued from its deteriorating state and painstakingly restored.

19. Hackney-Passolt-Cox House--This cottage was built in 1860. Then bought by the Passolts which were headed up by the superintendent of Newnan Water and Light Company.

20. Reese-Cheek House--Built in 1856 by Dr. J. T. Reese. The first telephones in Newnan connected this home with the Reese Drugstore in Downtown Newnan. Once condemned it has since gone through restoration and remains a fine example of Antebellum Architecture.

21. Banks-St. John House--This home was built around the mid 1950's. It was owned by the Banks family for 75 years and now houses a place for special events.

22. Cole-Roberts House--This home was built in 1850 by the founder of the R. D. Cole Mfg. Co. which supplied most of the materials for building homes in the area at this time.

23. Coweta County Courthouse--Built in 1829 the courthouse has served many purposes from being a hospital in the War Between the States to now being a museum.

As you can see by our little tour this is truly the City of Homes. We are proud of our homes that were spared in Sherman's march through GA. The court square is beautifully decorated at all times of the year and there are any number of shops to visit as you take a tour through our town.

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in the Coweta, Heard, Meriwether, or Troup areas, call me at 678-633-0458. You may also want to visit my website by clicking on my logo for more information.

Putting your home on the market can be a stressful time. You have to get it looking ready, you have to keep it ready, and you have to price it right. In today's market these three things are what gets a home sold.

If you are using a real estate agent to get this done, the seller's listing agreement can add to that stress if you do not know what is in it and why.

This document is a legal binder between you and the brokerage the agent represents. It is not something to be taken lightly. Most agents will use the standard agreement for their area but it is your responsibility to understand it.

In order for you to be more comfortable with this document I am going to go over the basics here.

First, we have the term of agreement. The longer the agreement the more it benefits the agent because it allows them to find a buyer in a weakend market. But if homes are not selling quickly the longer term can hurt you the seller. Your property becomes stale unless your agent is proactively generating traffic. So, you the seller want to make sure that you have an agent that will market your home and get it sold in the least amount of time possible. Whether you go 3, 6, or 12 months on the terms you can always extend the agreement if you are satisfied with the agent.

Next, we come to how your agent will get paid. This fee is negotiable but as a general rul you can expect to pay between 5 and 7 percent. Ask what the agent will do in order to get this fee. What levels of marketing are included? Some agents will discount their fee to get the listing but you need to know if they are going to discount their marketing efforts as well. Once this fee is set it no longer becomes negotiable. Some agents may take a lesser fee for service if the contract is within just a miniscule fraction of working, but don't ask them to re-negotiate during the contract phase.

During this period of writing the listing the agent will ask you to fill out two forms. One is a disclosure statement and the other is the MLS Input sheet. The disclosure statement is a legal document that lets potential buyers know things about the home, i.e. when the roof was put on or repaired, if the septic tank has been serviced, etc. The MLS Input sheet is a document that the listing agent will use to input your home into the MLS system. If you are keeping the antique chandelier in the dining room it needs to be removed and a new light fixture put into place. Most agents just have you fill in the last page which is where it states what will remain with the home. The rest of this form is mainly for the agent to use for describing your home, the legal description of your home, directions to your home and things like that.

Lastly, the agent will want to take pictures of the home so that they can add them to the MLS and all their other marketing tools and place the lockbox. It is very important that you have the home in showing condition on the day the agent arrives to get the papers signed so that all the pictures come out looking great! Ask to see the pictures when they are done. Also, ask them to retake any you would not find appealing if you were the buyer seeing these on the internet and in flyers. Have a key available and a place to hang the lockbox if you do not want it attached to your door.

Now, sit back and relax and let your agent go to work for you! Expect that there will be and should be communication on a regular basis from your agent. Weekly emails or phone calls on what is happening and what they are doing to get your home sold. Even if there has been no activity expect to hear from them.

Call me at 678-633-0458, if you are looking to buy or sell real estate in Coweta, Heard, Meriwether, or Troup Counties. Not ready to talk to an agent yet, then please visit my website by clicking on the logo to the left.

I didn't grow up with brothers but I had plenty of boys in the neighborhood to pal around with that is until spring hit. When I was little, I couldn't figure out what had happened to all my playmates. It would seem that on the first warm day they would all disappear. I adapted by taking up playing ball in the field near our home, helping my best friend Mark perfect his pitching by playing catcher, and by taking up softball on the girls church league.

Baseball gives us a sense of the past. It makes us yearn for spring and the first crack of the bat.

In Coweta you need to know about baseball. Our roots run deep in baseball and we are proud of it. Two men whom many of you won't know grew up here and spread their wings to the major leagues. Don Lassetter and Bill Ayers were both born here. Don joined the St. Louis Cardinals in 1957 and Bill was with the NY Giants in 1947.

From little league to the majors is a long way to go but the hopes and dreams of those playing the game are just that and they start out in the little leagues around our fine community.

The Newnan Youth Athletic Association is just one of the organized places for our T-ballers to start. The picture of the fields at the left will take you to the associations homepage where you can get directions, sign-up times and fees, etc.

Sharpsburg also has a wonderful youth team check out the link for their homepage.

These two groups are the finest groups one will find in our community for organized baseball in the spring. The age limit is 14 for these groups which is understandable since we don't want to interfere with the boys as they start out in Jr. Baseball at the high school level.

Speaking of high school ball, oh my do they have fun. Three great teams to cheer for and if you don't have kids this age, take in a game just for the fun of it. These boys take their baseball super serious and who knows you might just see them in the majors one day.

For more information on the schedule for the high schools click on the link of each of their mascots below!

Newnan East Coweta

Northgate

Of course all these great guys are dreaming of the big time and putting their all into every game. So, I am proud to say that the next step for them might just be the new minor league team that will call Gwinnett County Georgia its home. The planned opening day is yet to be announced but it will be in 2009. This will be a wonderful new venue for this great American pasttime and I for one am looking forward to checking out a few games even though it will be a little bit of a drive.

Coweta also has been called home to the likes of Dale Murphy and Steve Bedrosian from the Atlanta Braves. Clicking on the picture of Dale will take you to the homepage of the Atlanta Braves.

As you can see, baseball and community go together like ice cream and apple pie. It is downhome Americana at its very best.

If you are looking to buy or sell in the Coweta, Heard, Meriwether, or Troup areas, please give me a call at 678-633-0458 or visit my website. It will be my pleasure to assist you!

Ah, Georgia red clay just freshly turned squishing between the barefoot toes of a child on a warm spring day.

This is how I started out as a child. Watching my father turn the tractor row after row getting it ready for planting season. Georgia is famous for its red clay and while that has its benefits it also has some drawbacks. My father and grandfather would hash over the best ways to combat this and mostly what they did was to grow a crop and then at the end of the season till this back into the soil. By doing this it added much needed nutrients to the red clay and made it better for growing their crops the next year.

Planting by the changes in the moon or lunar cycle was a big deal for my Grandfather as it still is today with many farmers. If you would like more information on this kind of planting please click the picture as it will take you to a great article on the subject.

The tractor will link you to an article on spring gardening packets. If you are just getting started with designing and planning you garden, check it out, you might find some really great tips in this article or the ones that are linked to it.

My dad and grandfather grew an assortment of different vegetables from potatoes to tomatoes, but my favorite had to be the Silver Queen Corn they planted every year. Dad still plants a healthy crop of this every year so that mom and I can stock the freezer full of corn.

Georgia is also known for a few other crops that are grown throughout the state. You can find an abundance of (that's cotton if you didn't know), (peaches), and our infamous (goobers, is what my dad calls them).

I feel blessed to have grown up and learned the value of string beans, shelling peas, and shucking corn. I knew where our meats came from too.

We had for our pork meat and we had Black Angus cows for our beef. Often times we got treats like deer or quail if dad happened to be lucky when he went hunting.

By far though my favorite time on the farm was when I was riding my horse. We acquired Chief when I was 12 and I spent every chance during the next 4 years riding.

Chief was an Appaloosa and could race like the wind.

We still farm to the extent that my father's age will let him. Fresh homegrown tomatoes, corn, butter beans, peas, and beans. We have a bluebery field which is where I had my first upclose encounter with a black runner snake.

From the time I was able to walk I have had my toes in the soft turned Georgia clay. If you would like more information on buying a farm in Coweta, Troup, Meriwether, or Heard counties, please give me a call. There are agricultural tax breaks that you need to be aware of as well so having an experienced agent who knows farming will help you in the long run. You can find more listing and buying information at my website. I look forward to hearing from you soon!

The weather is perfect for a little adventure here in Moreland, Geogia. This is the home of the Newnan-Coweta Airport. What was once a small time airport that housed single engine and a few twin engine planes has expanded and is now home to some small jets.

Alan Jackson (the country singer) flies his in regularly to see Mama Ruth. Local businesses are using it to bring in clients that want to skip the hectic pace of Atlanta's large airport. But that is not what I want to talk about today.

Today is about adventure and for a small fee you can have this one and it is a blast. You see the airport offers rides in their single engine planes. Kids love this as a special birthday trip. I personally have a friend who houses his plane here at the airport and this is the only way I have ever flown. First time was a doosy as he had just finished his pilots training and it was one of the first solo flights he had taken. We went over my house, over several other areas of the county, then out over West Point Lake where he decided it was a good time to practice some stall technique. I was not amused but it was a great time.

Located just 6 miles south of Newnan this little airport is a special find for all ages. Upcoming in the late spring they will host their annual airshow. Vendors will be set up to sell their wares and you can see all sorts of planes from the twin engine to old fighter planes to Red Baron styled planes.

Below are a few shots of some children getting ready for a ride and after they have landed. If you are up for the time they had head on down to the airport and see about setting up a time to go up, up, up in the air.