My Triangle Good News

NC state tax credits for purchases related to renewable technology almost quadrupled in 2008 over 2007 according to info from the NC Dept of Revenue. Tax credits worth over $2.12 million were processed. There were 397 claims in 2008 versus only 268 were claimed in 2007. These claims included both residential and business credits.
The tax [...]

The Raleigh-Durham area has finished on top in a study designed to determine how several prominent Southeastern cities compare to each other.
The study, which was commissioned by the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, ranked cities in five separate categories as well as in a composite ranking. The Triangle, which placed either first or second in each [...]

A report by the Brookings Institution that gauges the impact of the recession on metropolitan America has listed the Raleigh-Cary metro area as the strongest in North Carolina, and among the top 40 in the nation.
Brookings’ MetroMonitor ranks the nation’s 100 largest metro areas based on their economic performance as judged by six key indicators [...]

Housing inventory is at a 7 1/2 month supply.
2- Nationwide building permits are less than 500,000 units, but absorption of housing is at 1,100,000 units (annualized).
3- Locally, builders are only replacing homes at 40% of the annualized rate.
4- 55% of Americans have not purchased a home in the last 7 years (sounds like an [...]

The number of Triangle homes sold in April was down year over year, but new data from the Triangle Multiple Listing Service show a couple of welcome trends.
First, while the 1,623 homes sold last month represented a 30 percent drop from the 2,324 sold in April 2008, it is the highest monthly total posted in [...]

Reward Builders, Inc., with brokerage by Dream Living New Homes, has put two homes under contract since Friday with one spec in 12 Oaks and another spec in Highcroft Village for a total of four specs under contract in the last five weeks.

Catherine and Dale Armstrong reported that their our daughter Vanessa is graduating from Elon University Cum Laude with a major in Mathematics and a minor in Economics (with more on this to follow next week).

Bill Murray, General Manager of HandCrafted Homes in Henderson reports that his son Patrick graduated with honors from the Univ. of Southern California recently with a degree in Opera Performance (recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and will be spending a year in Vienna, Austria) and was asked to sing the USC alma mater for 30,000+ [...]

Good News from the members of The McDowell Team (Steve and Della) who just celebrated their 36th wedding anniversary with a lot of those years having been spent in the mortgage industry supporting Builders.

Hank Wall of Wood Wise Design & Remodeling was inducted into Remodeling Magazines Big 50 on May 15, one of the country’s top fifty remodelers of 2009.