Knoxville Tennessee Real Estate Blog

Congress has passed H.R. 3221, the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and President Bush is expected to sign it soon.

One of the immediate provisions is a $7,500 TAX CREDIT for homebuyers that have not owned a home that was their principal residence in the past 3 years.

To qualify, buyers must actually close on the sale of the home on or after April 9, 2008 and before July 1, 2009.

And, unlike some tax credits, this $7,500 must be repaid at the rate of $500 per month over the next 15 years so it’s actually more of an interest free loan than an actual credit.

Both new and resale houses and condos qualify as long as the homebuyers use it for their principal residence and they have not owned a house in the past 3 years.

The National Association of Home Builders have some great FAQs on their website

Please give me a call or email for the details and to get started picking out your new Knoxville area home.

Visit www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com to see all Knoxville TN area Realtor listings for sale.

Up the road east of Knoxville, Tennessee about 30 miles is the charming little town of Rutledge, located in Grainger County, Tennessee and the home of the annual Grainger County Tomato Festival

This year is the 16th year they’ve held the event and it seems to get bigger and better each year. The Tomato Festival is not only one of the largest festivals in Tennessee, it’s completely FREE including parking.

The 2007 attendance was estimated at over 25,000.

Tomatoes are Grainger County’s largest cash crop, bringing in over 10 million dollars in annual revenues for the Counties farmers. That’s a lot of ‘maters’ and a lot of potential BLT sandwiches so they do up the annual Festival in grand style.

Festival goers were out in force again this year for fun, food, exhibits, and of course, lots of tomatoes

Baskets full of red, yellow, and green Grainger County tomatoes were everywhere.

There were also lots of happy festival goers enjoying all the activities and great food.

One of the local real estate firms had set up shop. This is the way we sell real estate in Tennessee 😉 (well, some parts anyway).

Did I mention there were lots of tomatoes everywhere? 😉 There were also watermelons, cantaloupe, and other farm fresh product but tomatoes were the star of the show.

All sizes and colors of tomato; red, green, and yellow

We got there too late to see the tomato wars but it looks like there was quite a battle here with a whole field full of people throwing overripe tomatoes at each other.

There was also some picking and grinning with a toe tapping audience of music lovers.

This delightful lady is a regular exhibitor. I have a photo of her from last year’s festival working on the finished quilt displayed in the background. 

Sam Venable is a local humor columnist for Knoxville’s daily newspaper and the author of several very entertaining and funny books. You just know any book titled “The Great Duck Misunderstanding” would have to be  very funny. It’s advertised as: “The richest collection of great hunting and fishing humor, wry wit, verbal and cartoon slapstick from all sources, for all ages and tastes”

And there were lots more tomatoes, all sizes, shapes, colors, and prices.

There were several displays of civil war history from local Sons of Confederate Veterans ‘camps’ . These guys are full of great historical stories about the old South before, during, and after the Civil War.

There was also a great car show as part of the festival. This 1965 Ford Mustang Convertible looks just like the day it rolled off the assembly line in 1965.

This is a 1956 Chevrolet Bel-Aire 2 door hardtop; an all time favorite classic.

Another great looking Ford Mustang Convertible; these ‘pony cars’ as they were called, were a very hot seller for Ford in their day.

And of course no trip to the Grainger County Tomato Festival would be complete without a souvenier t-shirt.

This is one of the civil war re-enactors in full uniform. Each member makes and supplies his own uniform and accessories.

The 16th annual Grainger County Tomato Festival goes on through tomorrow but don’t worry if you missed it this year; it’s an annual even held on the last weekend in July so make plans to attend the 2009 Tomato Festival. I feel sure it will be bigger and better than this year’s.

Back when I got my first Palm Pilot I loved the infra red application that let you ‘beam’ addresses and information to another PP user.

My Treo cell phone has the same application and I find it very convenient to simply beam my business card electronically into someone else’s cell phone.

Unfortunately there is a flaw in that application; both parties need to have infra red capability in their devices to make it work.

Not to worry, some smart people have came up with a solution.

MyDropCard.com will email your electronic business card to anyone’s email account by simply sending their email address via a text message to Drop Card.

The account, like most of the new cool stuff, is free.

1. Set up your drop card account with your contact information. (you can have both business and personal) and you can also include your firm, name, websites,blog, social networks, and most anything else you choose.
2. To send it to someone just get their email address and text it to 41411 in this format: “drop [email protected] (that’s a space between “drop” and “name”, a real space, not an underline _)
3. Drop Card will forward to their email account your contact information like this:

This beautiful Farragut home sold for $749,900

Each Sunday in the Knoxville New Sentinel’s real estate section they print a list of property transfers from the previous week as recorded in the Knox County Register of Deed’s office.

Elegant brick two story closed at $357,500

I noticed this Sunday, July 13th, there was almost 3 pages of real estate transfers totaling 144 sales in Knox County alone. This would not include Maryville, Oak Ridge, or anything in Loudon county or the surrounding area.
The breakdown went like this:

• $500,000 to $1,000,000  12 closed sales
• $300,000 to $500,000     10
• $200,000 to $300,000     19
• $150,000 to $200,000     22 sales
• $100,000 to $150,000     35
• $50,000 to   $100,000     25
• $0         to   $50,000       21

Closed this past week for $218,000

This cute Cape Cod closed for $125,000

This budget priced 3 bedroom home sold for $82,500

To find a great home for you and your family pay a visit to www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com to see all the greater Knoxville area homes for sale; there’s one there for you.

The figures from the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors June home sales are out and the news remains positive for the Knoxville area.

This beautiful Farragut home with pool sold for $499,900.

The median home price increased a little over January of this year from January’s $144,000 to a June figure of $145,000.

The average sales price increased from $161,800 in January to $162,900 in June.

This 4 bedroom home was listed for $159,900 and will close this month

The average days on market (time to sell a Knoxville home) dropped 10 days from 105 in January to 95 days in June.

This Farragut basement rancher had four bedrooms and sold for $155,000

The biggest jump was in the January over June sales volume. In January we sold 783 residential homes and condos. In June that number jumped to to 1,176 which is a 50% increase in Knoxville area homes actually sold and closed.

With the year half over now our home sales totals are 5,376 closed sales through June of 2008.

This totally refurbished 4 bedroom home in the Cedar Bluff Road area sold for $184,500

And here’s some more good news; there’s still 6 months left in this year if you want to get on the bandwagon with 5,376 of your fellow Knoxvillians and buy a new home, www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com would be my recommendation for a place to start. 😉

This impressive home in Whittington Creek was a good buy at $500,000.

Time for a little personal horn tooting folks.

Each year Realtor Magazine conducts a survey of real estate offices all across the United States to find the top 100 firms compared nationally.

I’m proud to announce that my company, Realty Executives Associates of Knoxville once again placed in the Top 100 survey in 2 categories.

Ranked by 2OO7 Transaction Sides: Number 59 Realty Executives Associates Knoxville, Tenn. 6,248 transaction sides

Ranked by 2007 Sales Volume: Number 94 Realty Executives Associates Knoxville, 1,218.9 (in millions)

A transaction side is one half of a one real estate transaction. There is a buyer side and a seller side for each sale.

If you have a Knoxville area home you’re thinking of selling or if you’re thinking of buying as well I would love to talk with you.

Get free home selling tips and see all Knoxville area Realtor listing at my website: www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com

Friday, August 18th is the start of early voting for Knox County.

My wife and I love the convenience early voting offers. No long lines normally, just walk in, register, vote, and you’re outta there.

Just for fun I timed myself one time and I was in and out in less than 15 minutes and that’s without rushing in any way.

For those of us that might need some practice or familiarization with the e-Slate voting machines Knox County now uses here’s a link to their website that you can practice voting on.

The Knox County election commission has 10, count em, 10 early voting sites ready to go in varying locations all over the County.

Here’s a list of locations:

• Knox County Courthouse
  Room 218 • 300 Main Street
• Five Points Village Plaza Shopping Center
  2364 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue
• New Harvest Park
  4775 New Harvest Lane • near East Town
• Halls Recreation Center
  6933 Recreation Lane • off Crippen Road
• 235 W. Young High Pike
  next to Wood Realtors
• Downtown West Shopping Center
  1645 Downtown West Boulevard • Suite 29
• Farragut Town Hall
  11408 Municipal Court Drive
• The Silo (Northshore/Pellissippi Parkway area)
  9409 S. Northshore Drive
• UT Center – Main Floor
  1502 W. Cumberland Avenue
• Powell Library
  330 W. Emory Road

Open daily except Sundays from 10:00 am until 6:00 pm, early voting is the best deal for people to cast their ballots in a long time.

I encourage everyone to get out and early vote from July 18 through August the 2nd and avoid the lines and hassles on election day; your vote counts just the same and it’s so much easier and convenient.

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