SPECIAL PROMOTION FOR PAINT CONSULTS!

Special Offer on Color Consults!

Just $199 for a limited time only.

$100 discount on all exterior paint consults

for the 2013 painting season.

Visit the Historic Design Consulting website today!

Vintage 1890s advertisement  for
C.T. Raynolds Paint

The 2013 painting season has begun!  Historic Design Consulting is offering a special promotion for House Color Consults.  If you are planning to paint your Victorian home or business this summer this is a special opportunity to save extra money while restoring your property using authentic Victorian colors. If you book your color consult before October 1st, 2013, Historic Design Consulting will complete a custom color report for a discounted price of only $199.00 ($100 discount from regular price of $299).  When many consultants charge fees of $400 or even more for a color consultation, a custom report for only $199 is a real value.   If the clock is already ticking and you need your custom report in a hurry, Historic Design offers expedited consults for a modest upcharge of only $50.  To get started, please visit the Historic Design Webpage and click on the House Colors button today.  


Historic Design Consulting specializes in assisting home and business owners select color schemes that will  reflect the customer's tastes and be appropriate for the style, age and setting of their historic properties. We use period paint swatches, brochures and advertising to develop authentic, period color schemes that complement your home or business's surroundings and accent its special features.  Our reports include a custom color palette, color maps and specially prepared photos that show how your home will look when all the work is done. 


We hope to hear from you soon!

April Home Sales

How are Home sales in April so far? Lets take a look

April 1-April 27 2013=102  of these 31 were Bank Owned

April 1-April 27 2012=99    of these 17 were Bank Owned

April 1-April 27 2011=92    of these 28 were Bank Owned

April 1-April 27 2012=72    of these 4  were Bank Owned

The key number to watch is the Bank Owned sales. When that number starts to decline Home prices should start to firm up.

New Bern Real Estate-Home Sales 2013

Home sales in New Bern and Havelock through April 20-2013

Total homes sold January 1-April 20 , 2010=301

Total homes sold January 1-April 20.  2011=348

Total homes sold January 1-April 20.  2012=329

Total homes sold January 1-April 20.  2013=375

There are currently 1430 homes listed for sale in our multiple listing service. We are selling homes at a rate of about 140 a month.. A buyers market is defined as more than 6 months of home inventory. It is definitely a buyer’s market as we currently have about 10 months worth of inventory. With that said each neighborhood and price range is unique

Home sales in each neighborhood can vary greatly. Feel free to call or email me if you would like to have a customized absorption rate or a Comparable Market Analysis for your property. 

Home sales in the New Bern-Havelock market are up over last year. However, all of the increase is attributable to Bank Owned homes sold. We are still working through distressed properties in New Bern and I hope by the end of the year the worst will be behind us. Right now, about .07% of the listings on the MLS are Bank Owned. However, 33% of Home Sales through April 20 have been Bank Owned. This number has to, and I believe will, go down. 

SteveTyson55@gmail.com  

 www.NewBern-NC.Info

New Bern Home Sales

Year to date home sales through March 31, 2013

So far we have had 221 home sales in Craven County. 58 of these sales were $100,000 and under. 112 of these sales were between $100,001 and $200,000. 20 were between $200,001 and $250,000. 16 were between $250,001 and $300,000. 7 were between $300,001 and $400,000. 6 were sold over $400,000. Of these Jana and I sold 3. The most expensive sold has been $943,500. My wife Jana sold that one. 

Last year during the same time we had sold 201 homes. Only 3 were sold over $400,000 and the most expensive home sold was $450,000. 

So all in all the numbers look better but Bank Owned sales are up this year by 18. This accounts for almost all of the increase in sales this year, but I am still somewhat optimistic because of the increase in higher end sales. 

New Bern Home Sales.

For the first time in 6 years I am feeling more optimistic about the national Real Estate Market and to a lesser degree the New Bern market. While I am inclined to be suspicious about reports by the main stream media about the improvement of home sales, in select markets, the recent reports about an improving housing markets have some validity.

Jana and I recently attended a national Keller Williams convention in Dallas where we received recognition for sales in excess of 16 Million Dollars. While at the convention I spoke to agents from California, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and Florida. As you know these states were among the hardest hit by the housing recession. All the agents I spoke to in California, Washington, Texas and Colorado said the biggest problem they had right now was lack of inventory. It was a sellers market and they were getting multiple offers on homes. The agents in Nevada, Florida, Arizona, said their markets were heading in the right direction and they were in recovery. 

The million dollar question is what is driving the recovery in these areas.  Remember that these markets started to tank several years before our market did. They had tons on foreclosures coming on the market 2-3 years before we started experiencing any increase here. Recently investment companies have bought large quantities of bank owned properties in these areas, often at 50-60 cents on the dollar. Some of the investors are renting the homes which reduces the supply of homes for sale. Combine this  with an increasing population, and  new home construction at a virtual standstill, results in a shortage of inventory in some areas of the country. Another point of interest is that nationally, foreclosures are at the lowest level since 2007. Not true here, bank owned still increasing. 

In Craven County, sales are up 16%,  year to date. That is good news, however bank owned sales are also up 78% year to date. Hopefully we are flushing out many of distressed properties. Until they are out of the system prices for non bank owned will continue to be negatively affected.  I believe we are at the bottom of the market and while it remains a challenging time to sell, there has never been a better time to buy a home that right now.

If you have any questions about the market in any specific areas send me an email and we will give you a custom report of your area. 

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.