How did New Construction do in 2012?

New Home Sales in Craven County for 2012

                                                 

Home building and land development is a very important industry in Craven County. It provides employment for quite a few folks and each home built or parcel of land developed  adds to the tax base. Additionally, think of all the other jobs home building affects. Although I have been a licensed Real Estate Broker since 1979 I built homes for 15 years. It is a tough, demanding, and risky business. But at the same time it can be a very satisfying way to make a living. I still proudly point out the homes I built when I pass by them with real estate clients.

So, how did new construction fare in Craven County in 2012 as compared to prior years? Let's take a look.

2012=223 new homes sold

2011=228 new homes sold

2010=297 new homes sold

2009=300 new homes sold

2008=328 new homes sold

2007=504 new homes sold

2006=676 new homes sold

2005=679 new homes sold

2004=288 new homes sold

This is as far back as I can go with my research but I would guess the number of new homes sold  in 2003 was around 230 and 2002  around 215.

Below are new homes sold in 2012 by price range.

$100,000-$150,000=43

$151,000-$200,000=110

$201,000-$250,000=58

Over $250,000=12

Who bought these new homes?

I am going to take a SWAG and say that at least 60 percent of new homes were purchased by active duty military and another 10 percent by civilians that work on Cherry Point. I came up with this number by looking at the areas where the homes were sold and using my knowledge of the particular neighborhoods. I bet I am not off by much. Think Cherry Point is not important to this area? Think again. Please note that these numbers do not reflect any custom homes built that were not entered into the MLS but I have not seen many custom homes going up in the past year. 

2012 was the seventh straight year that the number of new homes built have decreased. I am fairly confident that we could break that trend in 2013. Lets hope so

If you have any questions on this data please feel free to contact me at 514 9157..

  

Historic Paint Colors for the Victorian Home: Part Two

Special Offer on Color Consults!

Just $199 for a limited time only.

$100 discount on all exterior paint consults

for summer 2013 painting season.

Click HERE for details or visit the Historic Design Consulting Website today! 

To view Part One of the Victorian Paint Colors post, click HERE.

In a previous post I described my process for selecting historic paint colors for 19^th century homes and businesses.  Rather than relying on so-called “Victorian” color collections from modern paint manufacturers such as Behr or Sherwin-Williams, I use period color swatches.  This way I can be sure to consider the same colors homeowners did 130 years ago and offer my customers a truly authentic color palette.

Color swatches printed on cards, however, were an innovation and widely available only after the Civil War.  So, how do I select colors for older homes?  First, I read what designers and architects wrote about house colors in the 19^thcentury.  Andrew Jackson Downing, Samuel Sloan and many others wrote in detail about  selecting paint colors and how they thought a paint scheme should be arranged.  By working my way through these primary sources I can get a good idea how Victorian homeowners and designers picked their color palettes.

Second, I need to know how paint was mixed.  When I read Downing's descriptions of paint colors such as drab or fawn it is essential to know which pigments were used so I can imagine how the paint might have looked.  Since painters tended to be a conservative lot who mixed paints using familiar recipes,  you can often look at later color swatches to get some idea of older paint colors.  Learning about these paint recipes and pigments is a reliable way to reconstruct an early color palette.   

19th century paint was mixed using four basic ingredients: linseed oil; white lead; turpentine and pigments.  Many of the pigments used before 1875 were earth pigments, or pigments mined or refined  from soil.  In other words, earth pigments are pretty colored dirt.

  

Here are a few examples that were commonly used in the 19th century.

Indian Red is ferric oxide that was originally mined on the Indian Subcontinent (thus its name).  Other deposits of ferric oxide have been discovered all over the world and several have names, including English Red or Venetian Red, that indicate the place of their origin.  Since this pigment was relatively cheap, barns and industrial buildings were frequently painted with paint containing Indian Red. 

Raw Umber is also named after its place of origin: Umbria, Italy.  It is a medium brown pigment refined from clay containing ferric oxide and manganese.  Raw Umber was widely used in the 19th century. 

  Pigments could be baked in ovens to drive out water and cause them to darken.  Compare this Burnt Umber sample to the Raw Umber sample above.

Burnt Sienna is a limonate clay containing ferric oxide that was originally mined around the city of Sienna in Tuscany, Italy.  

Other pigments, such as Prussian Blue and Chrome Green, were commonly used.  Unlike earth pigments, these pigments were produced in factories.  Although found in many paint recipes, several of these manufactured pigments were fugitive, meaning they tended to fade or discolor in sunlight.  This is why few 19th century houses were painted bright blue or purple since these paint recipes usually contained fugitive Prussian Blue. 

Earth pigments proved to be durable and were widely used until the 1870s when they began to be replaced by new pigments made from the by-products of the nascent petroleum industry.   This is why the bright, saturated colors commonly used in the 1890s on Queen Anne homes look out of place on earlier Italianate and Gothic Revival examples.    

For information about color consults for your historic home, visit the Historic Design Consulting website and click on the House Colors button.