Carolina Homes Unlimited

We are proud to announce that Dennis Polk & David Henry have been awarded the Top Producer – Team Closed Volume award for the Asheville Market Center  for the month of November 2017!  With over 300 agents and teams working in our office, it takes a large volume of production to win these awards.  We are thankful for the support we receive from our wonderful clients and the staff at the Keller Williams Asheville NC market center.

Occasionally we hear comments from home buyers & sellers about Zillow’s Zesimate for a property.  For the most part, sellers in our area understand that Zillow does not factor in long range mountain views, the price differential for above grade vs. below grade square footage, flat acreage vs. acreage so steep you’d need to be part goat to navigate the grade.  Locals in our area have become familiar with the unique properties we have and the lack of cookie cutter homes in sprawling communities.  Buyers on the other hand, coming from areas like Texas or Florida where national homebuilders are the norm, tend to place a greater value on the Zestimate from Zillow and often think in terms of price per square foot.  Having lived in Florida for 40 years, I’m familiar with the large tract communities with 700 homes or more.  A Zestimate for a home surrounded by similar size homes, built within a year or two of each other and with very similar features, tend to have a Zestimate that might be more accurate.

After all, Zillow itself admits to a national median error rate of about 8 percent, which means that half of the Zestimates are off by more than 8 percent. So for homes with Zestimates of $400,000, only half those homes are going to sell inside a range of about $368,000 to $432,000. The other half is worth more or less than that range. And that’s a $64,000 range!  I don’t know about you, but I’d want my real estate agent to be a bit more accurate than a $64,000 spread if I was buying or selling a home.

And here’s the icing on the cake!  According to a recent publication on Inman.com (written by Teke Wiggin), Zillow’s CEO, Spencer Rascoff, sold his house for 40 percent less than his Zestimate! The sales price was $1.05 million and the Zestimate was $1.75 million! This shows the real value or “lack of value” of today’s automated home pricing valuation programs. When a discrepancy this large comes into play, there is something to be said of the value we as licensed real estate professionals can provide to our clients. (Sources in links.)

On June 14th 2016 we listed a home for sale in Weaverville, NC.  The property appeared on Zillow with all of our listing data, our contact information and a Zestimate for $462,263.  One June 15th 2016, the Zestimate was updated to $495,610, an increase of $33,347 or over 7%.

 

One of the reasons I love Asheville, NC is the opportunity to live with nature.  Asheville is known to have plenty of wild life lurking around, and I don’t mean the folks at the drum circle on Fridays.  We’ve seen bobcats, rabbits, turkeys, coyotes, and lots of bears on our property.  The bears are awake!!!  Check out this bear walking down my driveway, I run through the house and out onto the front porch.  I catch him as he walks through the yard.   Sorry the video is a bit shaky.

You may have seen a recent story on WLOS about the bear that walked into a home to eat a bag of chocolates left on the counter.  The home owners woke to sounds of something crinkling in the kitchen, only to find a bear eating the chocolates.  They shot video of the bear walking down the hall towards their children’s bedrooms and the bear opened the door to the bathroom.  Fortunately nobody was hurt.  Keep in mind, bears can open most doors and if you have lever style door handles, they are really easy for bears to open.   Last year my cousin that lives in the Riceville area had a bear climb through the kitchen window and take a bag of trash out the back door.  Bears are smart!

My next door neighbor is involved in a bear study.  They tranquilize the bears and put on tracking collars to learn the habits of the bears.  Tom recently told us of a neighbor in the area that was feeding the bears, and clapping to let the bears know the food was available.  It used to be if you clapped really loud, the bears would run away, but not anymore.  They have learned it means food!  You shouldn’t be feeding bears, much less interacting with them.  Below is a photo of Tom with one of the bears in the study and two cubs in my front yard.

 

 

 

NAR General Counsel Katie Johnson has made a video to help educate buyers about how to avoid being caught up in a wire fraud scam during their purchase of a residence.  And if you are selling a home, you need to be aware of certain procedures too.  Probably the most important thing you will do in a real estate transaction today, is understand the risk of wire fraud and learn how to protect yourself.  Please take a moment to read this and watch the short video.  It could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Thieves are getting smarter and smarter and have found that real estate transactions can yield a huge amount of money very easily.  Here’s how they do it:

• First, they hack into someone’s email.  It could be the buyer, the agent, the escrow/closing attorney, or even the lender.  They monitor the emails waiting for the right time to strike.
• The thieves create official looking signature blocks, official looking wiring instructions.
• Just prior to closing they will send the buyer an email alerting them of a last minute change to the amount of funds the buyer will need to wire for the closing.  The “thieves”, which I think is too nice of a word, changes the wiring instructions and the wire is sent to their account.  The money is gone forever!
• When you are ready for your bank to initiate a wire transfer for your closing funds, you should call the receiving escrow/closing office on a verified phone number and once again verbally confirm the wiring instructions.  You should NEVER forward wiring instructions via email, you likely received them encrypted from the closing office.  Our office will never send wiring instructions via email!
• If you are a seller and receiving your funds from the closing office via a wire transfer, be certain you verbally give the information to the office OR better yet, bring your wiring information to the closing and hand it to the attorney.

If you think it can’t happen to you, you’re wrong.  This has happened to buyers in the Asheville area, and it is happening all over the US.  As REALTORS®, we are doing our absolute best to educate our clients.  If you receive an email from someone you don’t know, don’t click on any of the links.We will review in detail what you should and shouldn’t be sending via email, and if you aren’t sure, please ask us!

 

Each December, Keller Williams Professionals raises money for local charities.  Through corporate sponsorship and Keller Williams agent sponsorship, the event is successful each year raising thousands of dollars.  This year the total going to various charities was over $30,000.  As agent sponsors, Dennis Polk and David Henry participated, and their contribution this year was $677. going to Manna Food Bank.  This donation will provide approximately 1800 meals!  “We are committed to giving to our community each and every year.  We participate in the annual Keller Williams Red Day by donating a day of work to a local charity and volunteering throughout the year as well.”  If you are new to the area and would like information about giving back to the community, let us know, we have contacts with many local organizations that need both volunteers and financial support.

To find out more about Manna Food and how you can participate, visit their site:  http://www.mannafood.org/