Linda Jandura Realtor North Carolina Buyer & Seller Specialist

With high end homes sales still soft in the Real Estate Market here in North Carolina, as well as most of the country, it takes something different to get agents to visit the communities.

Last weekend the onsite sales team at Terrington in the Raleigh Cary area of North Carolina held a truly unique Broker's event by inviting a select number of agents for a HOT AIR BALLOON ride! Since I had previously visited this beautiful community,talked to the builder, Jay Summers and wrote a blog on it, I was one of the lucky one to be invited.

My husband and I were both excited at the chance to take a hot air balloon ride. Who among us has ever looked at balloons flying in the sky and dreamed of being up there, just floating in the clouds, watching the world go by?

After waiting for all breezes to calm down, the crew took the balloon out of the van and spread it on the ground.

Using a big fan, they start to blow air into the balloon.

(no huffing and puffing here!)

The children were excited as the balloon was filling up.

Finally taking off with it's first 2 passengers! Because of safety reasons, and time, the balloon only went up about 30 feet- higher than the trees.

Our turn- we floated up about 30 feet- no feeling of "taking off", only a bump when we landed.

Inside of "My Beautiful Balloon"

Our Balloon's shadow

The little boy standing with his father behind us was a little nervous about going up. I told him that we were doing it so we can always say we went up in a hot air balloon. When would we ever have a chance to do that again? His father agreed, and said that's why he was going up- just to experience it and say that he took a Hot Air Balloon Ride.

The little boy decided to be brave and try it, just to be able to tell the kids at school all about it.

Thanks to the Goldstein's from ReMax for arranging this experience.

Now that the summer is over ,

how did the Wake County Housing market fare during this national downturn?

(all numbers are provided by the Triangle Multiple Listing Service)

Compared to August 2008, which was about the last good month before the market started going down here in the Raleigh area, our current sales are quite a bit lower. At 241 closed contracts in August 2009, sales were down about 275% compared to the 2008 sales of 661.

However, the good news- homes under contract were way up from 2008!! Even with less homes on the market, to choose from, we went from 1031 homes under contract in 2008 to 1257 homes under contract last month! Does this indicate an increase in consumer confidence?

More good news for buyers. The average price for homes sold has dropped a bit here in the Raleigh, Cary, and Apex area compared to 2008.

Looking to sell your home? Need some information about what the numbers are showing in your area? Give me a call or email me and I'll be happy to talk to you about what your area is doing and what your home is worth.

Thinking about buying a home? Let me know what you're looking for and I'll create a custom search of homes just for you!

September is heralded as the end of summer, and in real estate our traditionally busiest season of the year.

After the apparent National free fall of the Real Estate Market, cushioned somewhat here in the Raleigh area by our relatively low appreciation rate of the last few year, we still like to see how the numbers add up.

With Apex being named as America's No.3 place to move by Forbes this year, has this inspired thousands to relocate here. Well, maybe not this year!

This information is for Area 15, the town of Apex proper as provided by the Triangle Multiple Listing Service.

As with the Cary Market report that I posted yesterday, the total # of homes for sale seemed to hold steady throughout the summer. However, the total # closed in August was way down. Looking at the number of homes under contract for August though, we can see that perhaps many of those will close in early September, or may not have been counted yet.

As with Cary, the average price of homes sold in the Area 15 section of Apex , rose significantly from June to August.

Like to know what the numbers say about your area? or more specifically, what your home is worth? Give me a call or email and I'll be happy to talk to you and get that information out to you.

The Labor Day holiday is over and the kids are back to school, so it's time to see how the housing market faired this summer here in Cary North Carolina. These numbers were provided by the Triangle Multiple Listing Service.

While the number of homes for sale and under contract held pretty steady for the past three months, the number of homes sold (closed) in August went down drastically. Hopefully the number of homes that went under contract in August will result in more closed sales for September.

The Good News for home values is that the average sales price has gone up dramatically from June through August.

If you'd like information about your particular area or neighborhood, email me or call me and I'll get the reports right out to you.

To Find Homes in the Cary, Apex, and Raleigh North Carolina area, follow this link.

I've written many times about Crowder Park in Apex, North Carolina.  Part of the Wake County Parks System, this 33 acres of land off Ten Ten Rd was donated by the Crowder family in 1992 to be used for the enjoyment of the people as a park.

Filled with walking/running trails, a pond, playgrounds, picnic areas as well as natural areas, Crowder park is a favorite of the residents for miles around. You'll often see families with their little children on the tricycles and playground equipment, groups of people holding a barbecue in one of the three shelters, and every kind of dog imaginable being walked by their owners.

Sunday was a beautiful day here in North Carolina; sunny, breezy, about 75 degrees. What better time for a walk in the park with my husband and "grand-dog".  Having been there hundreds of times, you'd think we'd know it pretty well by now.

However, we discovered a new trail, leading to the "amphitheatre".  We'd seen one end of this trail before, but now it was extended to make a full loop.

So off the beaten trail we went to see what we could see.  Low and behold, in the middle of the woods, what do we come across but this sight (see right).

From far away, with the sun shining on it, this almost looked like a pile of dirty snow. But let's get real, it's Labor Day in the south, no chance of that happening.

Walking closer, we could see that there were 2 huge pieces of quartz poking out of the ground.   Seems almost like the tip of an iceberg, where maybe this is only 10% of the actual rock.

I've seen a lot of small to medium quartz in the area. When the house next door to us was built we actually collected 1-2 foot sized rocks for our garden. 

This is the only rock that I've seen in Crowder Park.

From the natural shapes and edges you can almost see faces. Maybe this will be the Mt. Rushmore of Apex, North Carolina!