Widening of Brawley Highlights

Project Highlights
Sidewalks will be built on both sides.

Sharp curves along Brawley School Road will be improved.

The median will prohibit left turns into and out of individual properties along the project. Motorists will be prohibited from making left turns into and out of some of the intersecting roads with Brawley School Road. At these roads, motorists will be required to turn right onto Brawley School Road and proceed to the next intersection where they will be permitted to make a left turn with an allowable U-turn.

Traffic counts on Brawley School Road range from 7,800 to 31,900. Traffic counts are expected to reach 9,200 to 44,700 by 2030.

Two sections of Brawley School Road will be widened. Construction on the first section began the week of November 3, 2008. This 3.8-mile section is from south of Southfork Road to east of Williamson Road. Construction on the next section is anticipated to begin in Spring 2009. This section will be widened from Williamson Road to Talbert Road.
Lane closure restrictions are as follows:

Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Brawley School Road from South Fork Road to Blume Road

Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Brawley School Road from Blume Road to Williamson Road

Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Williamson Road

Completion Date: Summer of 2011
Estimated Cost: $25 million
Project Team: Rea Construction of Charlotte

John Cook - Resident Engineer
Phone: (704) 876-3543

New Home Construction Reaches Record Lows While Sales Rebound : Move Trends Real Estate Blog - The Leader in Online Real Estate : Move Trends Real Estate Blog

New Home Construction Reaches Record Lows While Sales Rebound : Move Trends Real Estate Blog - The Leader in Online Real Estate : Move Trends Real Estate Blog

Have you been to Kerrigans Ice Cream store yet?

Although the Brawley traffic can be exhausting it is nice to see the incredible growth in this area and a great place to take a break is at Kerrigans ice cream, a family owned and operated neighborhood Ice Cream Parlor. They are located in the area next Family Video and Sebastano's on Brawley School Road. Kerrigan's offers an inviting atmosphere that is a throw back to the 1950's, complete with soda fountain decor, music from that era, and good, old-fashioned service. It's a great place to host a child's birthday party as well and the ice cream is yummy! The Petroski's have done a great job, plan to give them a visit if you haven't already.

One banks’s solution to the Housing Crisis and excess supply: Demolish the homes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsgOaCZ2Lag&feature=player_embedded

national median existing single-family price was $169,000, which is 13.8 percent below the first quarter of 2008

click on the link to read this article
http://www.realtor.org/press_room/news_releases/2009/05/metro_area

New Listing Away from Brawley School Traffic!!!!

123 Meandering Way~Lochmere

Wonderful home in a great family neighborhood; home boasts 4 bedrooms 2 & 1/2 baths, large upper master suite, lovely great room open to your private backyard. Walk to School of Excellence LKN Elementary and avoid all Brawley School Road traffic!! Very few homes for sale in this neighborhood!
$219,900
MLS# 855357
2,118 sq. ft.

Wonderful playing field and playground across the street!!

News on the Increased Traffic on Brawley School Road!!

Here is a quote from Natalie Kelly, Asst. VP for Brawley Middle School

"Here is todays data: Six buses arrived to school late. To avoid loss of instruction time, we used our new Late Bus schedule which adds time to first period.
Of the 940 Brawley students scheduled to be bus rider, 720 rode the bus.We had 169 car riders and 116 of these live in The Point area.

If we combined Woodland Heights and Brawley car rider data, the total for today is 538 car riders. These car riders created a Jam Density of 1.6 miles on Brawley School Road.

In on another words, if we line-up these cars bumper to bumper, this line stretched 1.6 miles. To quote James Lovell, Houston, we have a problem here. Fortunately, our problem is not life threatening like Apollo 13, but the huge concern for everyone is student learning and to do this we have to get our students to school on time.

The DOT engineer has confirmed the problem is not the traffic light timing. It is not construction. The problem is the recent increased in the volume traffic. Remember, there are 30,000 cars per day that travel this road."

what are your thoughts on the recent traffic jam?

Housing Price Charts

Case-Schiller Index

U.S. home prices continued their multiyear slide in February, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price indexes, but they did stop their 16-month streak of record declines.
Fifteen of 20 major metropolitan areas posted price declines of more than 10% from a year earlier with the Sun Belt continuing to be hit hardest. Nationally, home prices are at levels similar to the third quarter of 2003. Charlotte prices are down 9.3% year over year but more interesting is that over the last 6 months the index for Charlotte is down 10%. Our area was one of the last to fall (peak in prices was August 2007) and really looks to have accelerated as price declines in the last 6 months are more in line with early cycle declines such as Boston. Our area is co-dependant on other areas of the country such as California as that once million dollar house now at 650k-700k, the move to our area is not as attractive as it once was and the recent price declines reflect the fact that there are fewer buyers today. If you are fortunate enough to be a buyer I have a few deals that I consider amazing, let me know.

New Listing in The Point! Great Neighborhood!!

105 Harwick Ct. ~ The Point!
Spectacular home in a very desirable neighborhood in the Point, Great Loc! Cul-de-sac, open field! Beautiful entry way; dual staircase; his and her office on main w/built in. Fabulous gourmet kitchen with views of lovely landscaped yard and great room w/ FP. Enjoy the evening in the screened in porch or venture upstairs to the large rec room/teen suite.
MLS# 835139
$764,000
4 Bedrooms/ 3,800 sq. ft.
Contact: Annie Livingston
704/996-2744~ www.annielivingston.net
Boat Slip & Swim Tennis Membership Included!!

Take a break from the stock and real estate markets!

Friends and Neighbors,

You’re invited (encouraged) to come see “Pointless” at The Wine Loft in Mooresville this Saturday night, April 25, from 8 PM until midnight.

“Pointless”, a fun band from The Point in Mooresville, plays a mix of 80/90s rock and dance tunes.

The Wine Loft – Mooresville, a lovely, new bar/restaurant with nightly specials, is located in The Village at Byers Creek Center, 3 miles West of I-77 on Hwy 150, at the intersection of Hwy 150 and Perth Road.

Shortcut to: http://thewineloftmooresville.com/

Mark your calendar for Saturday, July 18. “Pointless” will be performing from 7-9 PM at Birkdale Village Shopping Center in Huntersville (Center Court Fountain Area).

Come join the fun. We hope to see you there!

“Pointless” (Darren Zino, Peter Livingston, Mark Hillman and Rob Bobinski)

The Farms homes for sale

The Farms community currently has 28 active listings available and 2 conditional; listings. Prices range from $449,000 to $1,175,000.

Interest Rates

My husband, Peter is an investment advisor, he sent this out to his clientele and I thought it pertains to housing as he sees us in "The Last Great re-fi"

Here’s a chart that’s disconcerting relative to future inflation as measured by the CPI index. Interest rates will correlate to the CPI, so as gov’t spending goes, so goes CPI and so goes rates. However, this is not an immediate effect, the CPI is not going up tomorrow, this is something that is longer term out, but at this point looks to certainly be in the cards, unless new information down the road changes this. Just as we saw and alerted you to the “last great bond rally” by via the inverted yield curve that started in late 2006-early 2007 and has always preceded every recession, we now see very high odds of future inflation from unintended consequences of Government action and that is something that is also now present in a very steep yield curve that has preceded every recovery and again this is out 1-3 years and we now suggest we are seeing “the last great refi” of perhaps your lifetime, this may persist for the remainder of the year or so but soon thereafter inflation will push rates up. Lock up long term rates while they are on sale!!

Price Changes

144 Union Chapel in The Point lowered from 2mil to 1,950,000 yesterday

Latest sale in The Point

A sale of a waterfront home on Great Point Dr. took place today in The Point at $239 per sq ft. This home also included a full equity membership. Good deals for buyers out there.

Local School Profiles

Learn more about Brawley Middle School, grades 6-8 click here

http://www.ncreportcards.com/src/schDetails.jsp?pYear=2007-2008&pLEACode=490&pSchCode=308


Learn more about Woodland Heights Elementary K-5

http://www.ncreportcards.com/src/schDetails.jsp?pYear=2007-2008&pLEACode=490&pSchCode=390

Learn more about Lake Norman Elementary k-5

http://www.ncreportcards.com/src/schDetails.jsp?pYear=2007-2008&pLEACode=490&pSchCode=336

Exit 32 Coming Soon!!

Mooresville officials have said the new exit 32, off Langtree, will be open in July and expect that this will help ease traffic on Fairview by Lowes headquarters. Should also ease some evening commuter traffic getting off at exit 33.

Local Home Sales

YTD thru yesterday here are some local stats from MLS

The Point has had 3 homes go pending and 5 closed with prices ranging from $575,900 to $1,625,000. One home that sold was a waterfront for about $225 per sq foot. Interestingly, the home has two other good data points, it's recent sale is about 8.5% less than a sale in 2006 and it's current sale was about 10% higher than it first sold in February 2004. Given that prices from 2006 continued to rise in our area until their peak in 2007, these price points look pretty realistic to current market conditions.


The Farms neighborhood we've seen 1 home go pending and there have been 4 homes sold with prices ranging from $412,000 to $730,178. Prices per sq foot ranged from $95 to $186.

The Harbour at The Pointe has seen 3 homes sold this year with no current pendings. Prices in this very nice neighborhoood have ranged from $310,000 to $1,150,000. Interestingly, the latter home sale was at $183 per sq ft and waterfront. This beautiful home was on the market for only 21 days. Days on market can be a good indicator of value as we are in a buyers market. If you are looking to sell your home, it needs to be priced for today's market not 2007.

AIG name change?

Hearing AIG may change their name to IOU! The Witch Hysteria that took place in Salem MA in 1692 forced this town to change its name to Danvers in 1752!! How do I know such odd info, because my husband Peter, was born, raised and lived in Danvers for 40 years, until we moved here in 2004.

Iredell Land Use Meeting Notice

Meeting: Monday, March 23 to discuss the new Iredell 2030 Land Use Plan. The meeting will be conducted as a drop in review from 5 to 8 PM with a brief presentation at 7 PM. It will be held at the Mitchell College Mooresville Center, 219 N. Academy Street, Mooresville in room 123.
I encourage you to attend if you are interested in the proposed land use and zoning plan for Iredell County visit the website www.co.iredell.nc.us/Departments/Planning/upcoming.asp they speak of The Iredell 2030 Horizon Plan: Preserving culture and heritage, protecting the environment, coordinating government systems. Cooperation, Diversity, Respect, Vitality. This sounds like it will be a great meeting - a lot of hot topics - Conservation and Growth how do the two work together? share your thoughts!