The Rabbit Hole-Hello! Are you down there?

From The Charlotte Observer, Steve Harrison, this morning.

The city of Charlotte is considering eliminating garbage collection for more than 135,000 condominiums, townhomes and apartments, a change that would save $3.4 million, officials said. But the city’s discussion of the issue has prompted an outcry from condominium and townhome residents, who likely wouldn’t get a tax cut for the 

reduced service.“That doesn’t make it fair,” said Elizabeth Wallace, president of the Renaissance on Carmel II Homeowners Association. “This would impact thousands of people.”

City officials say the change would better align it with other cities. If City Council approves the reduction, it could go into effect later this year.

In addition to questions about property tax fairness, the change could impact low-income families, making it more expensive to live in the city.

A goal of City Council is to make the city more affordable, especially as some older neighborhoods gentrify.

Charlotte charges single-family homes $25 annual fee for picking up trash. Condo and apartment developments pay the $25 for each unit.

That doesn’t cover the cost of the service, however.

The city has estimated the true cost of garbage collection for single-family homes is $186 a year. The cost for apartments – which use large dumpsters – is about $55 per unit.

The city uses general fund money, which is mostly funded by property taxes, to pay the difference.

Under the plan being discussed, the apartments and condos would no longer pay the $25 annual garbage fee to the city. But there hasn’t been any talk about lowering the property tax rate to compensate for the lost service. The city also wouldn’t provide apartments and condos with the pickup of bulky items.

Condominium, townhome and apartment dwellers might then have to pay higher fees to their homeowners association to pay for a private company to pick up their trash.

“Residents should not be punished for their housing choice,” said Bryan Holladay, who works in government affairs for the Greater Charlotte Apartment Association. “It is not equitable that multifamily would only receive some of the city services while single family gets all the city services.”

Assistant City Manager Hyong Yi said the city is trying to determine what’s the appropriate level of trash service to provide.

“We provide a level of service that most other cities don’t provide,” he said.

Holladay said that may be true. Be he believes those cities pay for garbage through fees, not property taxes.

Not all townhomes and condos would be impacted. Duplexes, triplexes and complexes with no more than four units would still receive city trash pickup.

The proposal would classify larger apartment, condominium and townhome complexes as commercial property, which don’t currently receive garbage collection.(Apartments have the option of using the city for trash collection. The city uses a private contractor for apartments.

The city has struggled with the best way to pay for trash collection.

The city’s decision to use a blend of fees and property taxes for trash pickup makes it difficult to make changes to trash service.

Yi said the city may have a future discussion about the best way to pay for trash collection.

The city is planning two meetings about the issue. The first is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center in room 267.

This is exciting for me. And Condo CanDo® is beside herself. We only hope I can improve the quality. What is important is the date. Many of the articles I clipped have the published date or a handwritten date and some have none but I can come close by reading the article. This is history and I think interesting given where South End is now and the futures of condominiums. Tony Pressley was a visionary and also courageous . He was the person responsible in large part for claiming the brown fields, cleaning it up and Presto! Gave us South End. Here is his vision and I really like them because they are classic, workable for Live Work and urban. Thanks, Tony!

Rendering of 400 North Church with marketing text.My experiment continues.I took the rendering through Publisher to get the surprint.I want to scan news articles as OCR and pass through word so they are more legible.If you know an easier better way, please let me know.Have some articles in the Condo CanDo®  Archivesthat would be super to publish here with photos or sketches.Hang on. Thank you.

400 North Chruch, The picture is from long ago. I loved the courtyard most and the great mail boxes
 inside, like The Plaza in NYC

If at first you don't succeed, try and try again.

 I have been scanning and piecing news reports of 400 North Church Street when it launched and before but somehow keep running into headwind.This is a normal occurrence when I start a project without knowing what I am doing.

 So stay tuned, please, I'll be back.

Oh, let me write one thing about this project, when we were completing our offer, we discovered that then, the parking spaces were leased and belonged to the bank. This is important because above all....you must read the documents. And another recent example, a woodsman and world traveler found a town home he liked along with the Mrs. but...his truck overhung the driveway, it is a big gorgeous truck, but somehow not well received.
Or allowed.

Read the fine print. I'll be back when my eyes clear. 

Here she comes...
400 North Church Street!
The first of the very uptown condominiums
 and one of my very favorites, still!
And yes, I sold one of the very first
and was close by through all the construction.

Notes will follow.
From Condo Cando's® archives.

Back to work!

To the Church on the corner of Hawthorne and Central,

"Thanks, so long, it was fun, so glad to know you. Goodbye."

The church occupied an important corner. It was a crossroads of sorts. From legitimate to questionable. So it was an excellent location. The arched doorways and repeat on windows reminded me of waves sometimes and then the stained glass windows told bible stories and I would look at every one carefully or the ones I could see from wherever I was waiting for the lights to change. I never really got out and walked around.  But I could imagine over the decades I drove past either from town or to town or to the hospital, there were weddings and funerals, and sermons and prayers and hymns and wakes, and dinners and bible study and children playing and people crying and celebrating life and death. That is what I think churches do. We go in and out and stay a while, some longer than others, we eventually leave. Maybe move to the country to another church, maybe out of town, maybe we just give up and don’t believe anymore. We let go.

Then the church is empty. Then a business comes. Then it is empty again for a long, long time. I am imagining this because it changed over the years. The energy changed. The windows were sold or taken but removed. It looked abandoned. Empty. Used.

I kept thinking I should go by, take some pictures, but that intersection begs forgiveness. The night before I went I saw the final preparations and I got there the next morning, but the dismantling was in progress. I parked and walked over and started clicking. I was upset thinking here is another of our places, they are all gone or going. An older man(not older than me) was standing by one of the big crushing machines. He was about my height, had a long white pony tail and beard, wore an old leather hat much like mine and baggy corduroys much like mine, a rough wool coat, dark or dirty with big pockets, I know it well, and leather boots caked in mud, yep…he walked away and around the church…click…click…click. I was trying to draw in the blue sky, the hollow sockets and open mouth in broken brick and tattered timbers and then he was standing in front me and harshly said,”You know if something happens, the insurance won’t cover you.” I said, “Thanks, I know.”

I walked up to him and said,”Sad.” He shook his head. I said,”Another one.”

He asked not expecting an answer, “How long has it been vacant?”
I answered, “I don’t know. A long time.”

He replied, “It is falling apart. A brick could fall and hurt someone. No one wanted it or cared for it. It has been left. It is empty.”

He was right. I can complain because my city is morphing into another era and I cannot stop it.

Like aging, we can’t stop the process but we can slow it down.

 I just wish it weren’t happening so fast.

Remembering Tommy Furr, Central High School Prom 1956

Remembering Tommy Furr…

The first stop on Saturday morning around 8 a.m. is Matthews Farmers Market, then I scoot to Phillips Place and Café Monte to have breakfast with BFF, Mary. Then we are off down Fairview to Tyvola to Park Road to Atherton Market.

But after SouthPark shopping center before Tyvola, the earth movers are digging through the red clay.The tears well up quickly. This was once country. “Out Park Road.” People bought home sites and built nice ranch homes here. I remember. Tommy Furr and his family, Mom and Dad and sister moved here when their house was finished. Tommy’s Dad worked at Lance and Tommy was in Central High School and a bag boy at our grocery store. He was darling. Tommy Furr had coal black hair and sparkling blue eyes and the sweetest smile in all the world. He was a year younger than I, five years shyer and had the courage to ask a girl from Myers Park on a date. He from Central and me, well, from Myers Park.

I could see Tommy Furr this morning. See his smile, smell his young boyishness, feel his gentleness and glow from his sweet attention. He asked me to his prom and I went. To Central High’s Prom with Tommy Furr.  Now the house was gone, the landscaping gone, the  whole block was gone, getting ready for others. And I never knew what happened to Tommy Furr. And I feel sorrow that I do not know what happened to this precious young man who kissed me Prom night.

Further on down Park Road on the way to market, I passed another block before Park Road Shopping Center, it, too melting under the weight of earth movers. Our red brick ranch was gone, the driveway was gone, nothing was there but the fleeting memory of my own family, my older brother in the Air Force, my younger brother in high school, my dad, a travelling salesman. They say half of the men in Charlotte left on Monday mornings, our town was growing, folks were on the move. I was working as a Relief Clerk at The Hotel William R. Barringer. A hotel much like The Plaza in NYC in style and class. A uniformed doorman, handsome waiters in white waistcoats, oriental rugs, crystal chandeliers, a place fitting for Richard Nixon and Arthur Rubenstein and Vaughn Monroe but not Leontyne Price. I had to make arrangements for her at The Alexander, the hotel for Afro-Americans, when she came to Charlotte to perform at Ovens. It was my job to drive her to the Alexander Hotel in First Ward, settle her in with her luggage. And when I did I turned and said, “I am sorry.” She looked up and nodded,”I’m okay.” I remember that moment so vividly. The shame I felt.

Further down the street, down Park, I came to Dilworth. When we came Charlotte, my dad’s boss said he must find a house in Dilworth because of the schools. Myers Park High School. And he did. And he left every week while I painted every room, tended the coal burning furnace and drove my brother to all the basketball practices. Jon  pestered me to teach him to play tennis and maybe even golf. Jon C. was and is a most convincing spirit. So we did. And on the golf course, running down a hill steeper than I anticipated with my father’s heavy golf clubs on my shoulder, I ran into a tall man. Golf clubs went everywhere and I hit the dirt, too. Only to have the tall, handsome man come to my aid. He was gorgeous and sweet and a good golfer…and dancer…and kisser.

So, this morning I remembered Tommy Furr and being his first crush, my family seeming comfortable in the brick ranch, we seemed normal, regular. And Dilworth was the best. I watched my Mother flourish as a decorator, my brother come home with the woman he planned to marry and my young brother being a great student, a tender hearted young man who still has a super sense of humor and enduring commitment to the ones he loves. He has been my hero on more than one occasion.

I see them all this morning on the way to market. I relive the seconds in the speed of a shooting star.I am warmed and charmed, delighted and moved. I cry. I laugh and I am most of all grateful.

 So much remembered and I feel the reason I am angry over all the teardowns, all the insipid dangerous over building of apartments, tearing down of houses and leveling blocks of our shops and hang-outs, the places that have made Charlotte so attractive and adorable and profitable, the world wants to come here is because parts of my life are disappearing. I am unafraid of change, I rather relish the challenges they may bring but Leo’s is gone, Kofinas Snack Bar is gone, The Hotel Barringer as it was is gone,  Charlottetown Mall is gone, Eastland is a huge gaping hole, and most of our Mom and Pops are gone, certainly almost all of our favorite restaurants are gone (read locally owned) and the airport is overwhelming in every way, especially the degrading Wilkinson Boulevard and more. I am strong enough to keep memories intact, to keep my passion for Charlotte alive and burning. And if not, I feel blessed to have been here at all. It was the best of times.

Lynnsy Logue Real Estate
408 Wilby Drive, Charlotte, NC 28270 704-651fourfourthreethree
therealestatelady01@yahoo.com

The Ratcliffe by The Green, Uptown Charlotte Jan. 1, 2002

This is short. We have been in Condo CanDo's® Archives
 all day and now this evening. Today is about the visual
 representations, please hang with us as we sort it out.

This journey is very much like the Yellow Brick Road.
One tekkie I ran into today lugging my cool Lenovo laptop,
 a small suitcase of graphics to be
scanned, asked "s'up?
Writing the history of condos?" Hmmm...

Here is The Ratcliffe,
uptown by The Green.

Did you know all the floor plans are different.?

Yes, we do. Here it is soon after it was completed.
So elegant.

The Barn, Union County 

Sometimes when we touch, the ripples break and I return.

It’s a five dollar ride through Charlotte. 

The construction cranes, the orange barrels everywhere,

 “Stop”, “Slow”,“Detour”, and rollin' rivers of red clay, 

vociferousness from a multitude of vacant sites with their

 layers of thick new gravel and the rental fences 

marking the boundaries, keeping us out, 

holding us off  at the edge, dividing us, planting stakes

 in the stones and I know our city is changing

 before our very eyes. And not by design and not by plan 

and not by a desire to be better, to maintain our 

place in distinctive and charming cities growing 

with all the aplomb of professional sports, towering headstones,

 the money lenders, the thriftless who dictate the cracker 

box apartments with the stale, stenciled design that

 pastes layers of the same torrid browns 

and military drab,the lateral stripes of hardi-plank. 

This is not the language of legacy.

So today I went back. 

The air is fresher across the line. The fields are there, yes, green.

 The narrow road that leads to Union County, the backway, 

Old Charlotte Highway was where I needed to be. 

This avenue reminds me we are playing “big city”. 

Because on our fringes, our roots can be seen 

and felt and the country air breathed. I was both happy and sad. 

If you are new here you do not know our fringes. 

Where some of us go to check and make sure there

 are places where homes and barns and trailers,

 and storage sheds, and chicken coops, 

and old tractors and hundreds of pick-up trucks are 

everywhere. I love them. They are heartbeats. The workers

 are here, the farmers, the doers, the mechanics and carpenters,

 the people who are good with this Union County. 

Make me smile. Here’s to Union County!

 I feel better sitting in an old, well worn metal chair on an open porch
under a massive tree with massive limbs
 hanging unabashedly over the home,
the barn and me. 

Just for fun...Condos Galore!
From Condo CanDo's® Archives

So you know by now, I am going to the very beginning of our love
affair with the Internet as CondoCanDo® took to the skies.
And you also know by now, my affair includes my love
 of writing, photography and Charlotte.

Zip! Pow! Bam!

So, as I turn 77 this year,

 I am repackaging myself pulling from all the data

 and information I gathered before the Internet

 or as it was being birthed.

Take a peek: 

CondoCanDo® COMING ATTRACTIONS!

800 Cherokee

Carol Hall

Condo CanDo® ON FIRE!

Factory South

Gateway Plaza

St. Serrant

Tivoli

Twin Oaks

Waterford

Oh, before I forget it. Condo CanDo®'s database  along with photographs, articles and pictures plus over 300 brochures of property as it was being developed are in our library. These are not listed for sale as far as I know. I have photographed every one myself,too!This is to share Condo CanDo's®
world for the past thirty years.We have fun!Up,up and away!

CondoCanDo®
Always HOT STUFF!

Posted long ago, Sat, Aug. 30, 2003 

The Charlotte Observer

NATION'S HOUSING

Condos: The hottest form of housing

KENNETH HARNEY

WASHINGTON - Call it the Cinderella segment of the American home real estate market: Condominium apartments and townhouses are now officially the hottest form of housing -- appreciating in value at more than double the rate of conventional, detached single-family resale homes.

New national survey data reveal that the median price of a resale condominium in the second quarter of this year was up 15.1 percent from the same period the year before. The median price of detached single-family houses nationwide, by contrast, was up 7.4 percent.
Equally significant, the gap in overall pricing between condos and traditional houses is now almost negligible. The median priced resale home in the national survey was $168,900. Condos -- once marketed as the lower-cost, lower-maintenance alternative to detached homes -- sold for just $5,400 less, a median $163,500.
Lawrence Yun, senior economist at the National Association of Realtors, the group that conducted the pricing study, said in an interview that the "condominium market historically had lagged behind" the detached single-family market in appreciation rates and sales. But now demand for condos -- and all their amenities and efficiencies -- "has been rising very sharply" both at the luxury end of the spectrum and at the entry-level, low-cost end.
The lower-priced segment "is super hot," said Yun, with condos now a major entry point into the homeownership market for first-time purchasers.
On a regional basis, the appreciation performance of condos has been most impressive along portions of the two coasts: In the Western states, prices of resale condos soared 22.8 percent from the second quarter of 2002 to the same period of 2003, to a record median price of $211,300. In the Northeast, condo resale prices hit a median of $177,600, up 21.6 percent over the year before.
In the South, the median resale condo went for $131,500, a 17.2 percent annual increase. In the Midwest, the median condo gained by just 6.3 percent to $158,900 -- the only region where condominiums appreciated at below the national average for single-family detached homes.
Overall national sales of condos hit a record high in the survey -- a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 861,000 units. The previous record sales rate was 829,000 in the last quarter of 2002.
What's behind the relatively sudden transformation of condos into the premier profit-producers in real estate?
Part of the answer, says Yun, is demographics. In virtually every metropolitan market in the country, the leading edge of the baby boomers is now looking at empty nests. The kids are finishing college or starting first jobs, and the family home is beginning to look too big.
No-maintenance, high-amenity luxury condominiums offer a reasonable way to downsize and simplify life for many of these homeowners. In fact, condominium communities often come with superior facilities compared with detached houses in traditional neighborhoods -- exercise rooms, pools, tennis courts, and no lawns to mow, no gardens to weed.
Resales at this end of the market are squeezing away the historically large differentials in median prices between detached homes and condos. But it is the sizzle and fire at the lower-priced end of the market that is helping stoke demand throughout the condo pricing continuum.
"You have a very large pool of buyers who have been brought into the (home buying) market by low mortgage interest rates," says Yun. They are newlyweds, middle-income renters who find that with rates in the 6 percent range they can now afford to own a home for the first time.
Yun says "the condo market is in a better position to capture these buyers" than the detached home segment because it offers greater numbers of lower-priced resale units with smaller square footage.
The big equity gains available from condos also might have caught the eye of still another type of purchaser -- small-scale real estate investors. Although Yun's latest survey did not examine investor purchases as a contributing factor to the national 15.1 percent appreciation rate, earlier survey data on second-home purchases suggests this might be the case.
Polling data from recent second-home buyers conducted this past spring by the National Association of Realtors confirmed that a rapidly rising percentage of purchasers are motivated by "investment gains" rather than more traditional recreation or personal use. The study found many second-home buyers fed up with poor investment returns in the stock market, and impressed by high appreciation rates in residential real estate.
Whatever the cause, here's the bottom line: Condos are now the documented profit-leaders in housing this year, yielding more than twice the percentage gains of detached homes.

February 15, 2016

There is an old saying,
                   “It was so noisy, busy, yadda yadda,
                               I could not hear myself think.”

Lynnsy Logue, Broker/Charlotte, NC

That completely explains why early morning is best for me to write. I am fresh, out of my sleep and slumber, leaving another world in which there is peace, uncluttered with the noise of civilization complete with its humor, interesting dialogues and rich visual representations.
All or almost all engaging and curious.

I really want to share what I know and have experienced about being a real estate broker. In today’s climate, a riff with flotsam, I chose to stay away lest I be influenced. On waking, I felt the larger picture, summoned
by a line from Downton Abby:

 “The law of property is the cornerstone of all civilization.”

Bingo!

And coupling with that pronouncement, I recalled a recent conversation with a young man studying for his real estate license, when asked,
                                                     “How is it going?” replied, “It is all laws.”

Yes, it is. Real estate is a conglomerate of laws and codes, and restrictions, and applications and interpretations layered with layers from county, city, state and federal. And real estate is emotional, romantic, homespun, corporate tigers, menacing profiteers, gluttonous money mongers and ruthless profiteers.

 It is also the beginning or end of a rainbow sheltering a family, children, guests at holiday, a retirement nest, a studio, a tree house, a workshop, a swing and a garden, dog and bulbs from Grandma’s house. For me, it was and is the avenue to stay in a city I have always loved, Charlotte, and have the opportunity as a woman to earn a decent, livable wage.
 I just had to work hard and that, no stranger.

And at the same time I became enamored with a complicated, intriguing, ever changing industry with a constant cast of variable characters, profound shifts, ongoing diatribes and  sometimes even touching exchanges, and all of that with
memorable and teachable moments.

These are the true lessons upon which our years of experience are built.
At least in my case. I suspect most with those who have lasted.

I  am quiet when someone says, “I have thought about real estate, I love looking at houses.”  The task as a broker, as I see it,  is to examine everything seen and unseen.
 And therein, the puzzles.

So the dreamgiver has given me a platform from which to speak: of surveys, and titles, of lead and mineral rights, of asbestos, and flood plains, of contracts and of people  not as an expert, more as a guide and/or a voice of experience.

February 14, 2016

400 North Church St. Condominiums January 1, 2003                         photo Lynnsy Logue

Happiness is planning and building, too!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

This weekend, several projects on the drawing board are taking shape and that makes me happy. They work pretty much together sometimes. For instance:

Over thirty years, my real estate archives have grown and grown. Because, you see, or may know, I have a love affair going on with our city. So of course I collect information, drawings, take photos, clip articles, secure booklets and brochures about large and small projects, sometimes floor plans, sometimes site plans, and then there are the photographs. The condominium part of that passion runs about eighteen boxes which includes the announcement of 400 North Church Street (picture above 1-1-2003), the newspaper articles and the original brochure about Ivey’s conversion, how I don’t know, blue prints for Dilworth Crescent, well over three hundred folders! And the prize, the floor plans for The Ratcliffe, they are all different.

They were headed to the archives of the university, but for now, I thought I would share some with you. To do that, there had to be a better system. And there is now. Only to expand storage, the excess kitchen stuff had to be packed up and responsibly distributed to a non-profit so women somewhere can enjoy my original Corning Ware
 of over 45 years ago-intact.

The first six condominiums are selected and will be scanned tomorrow, made ready for the Internet. First on the blog (and Facebook) and then migrating to a new website on a great and updated platform. I am excited.

So today is the official 30^th Anniversary of my real estate tenure. And I am still a full-time real estate broker, still marketing residences, single family homes, farms, and of course condominiums and town homes and
working with buyers for same.

Condo CanDo®, The Real Estate Lady® and I thank you for your support and think you will be pleased with treasures from our archives….plus our spin on where we are and where we might be heading.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 12, 2016. From my archives of news articles .
This is a portion of the article and also a portion of the original artwork
 commissioned for  my special feature on Cherry.


The Charlotte Observer

Apr. 08, 2005 

Saving Cherry

Without city action, historic black community will be lost

Can Cherry, a century-old African American neighborhood of affordable housing, be preserved? It's beginning to look as if the answer is no. Unless city leaders step in, the neighborhood will almost certainly be lost to gentrification.

Cherry, which was named in 1891 but probably predates the Civil War, is a marvel of survival. For decades it offered black Charlotteans a place where they could own a small home and grow a garden. Meanwhile, all around it, farms developed into theMyers Park neighborhood, Independence Boulevard and the Midtown shopping area. Nearby property values have soared.

Cherry's land values haven't, though, probably due to the many houses in poor repair, plus lingering racism, which can depress property values in many black neighborhoods.

But unless it gets protection from relentless economic forces, Cherry will succumb. Over the years developers have bought and demolished houses on its fringe. That process will continue, with higher land values creeping farther into the neighborhood's heart. Rising tax bills will force landlords to raise rents and push low-income and elderly homeowners to sell out.

Or maybe Cherry becomes the next NoDa, with urban pioneers refurbishing its houses. That, too, raises property values. In either case, the neighborhood's low-income residents would eventually be displaced.

February 11, 2016

#1 Gonna’ jump right in …

DANGER: Open Houses are dangerous for real estate agents and brokers. Most people don’t know that because the, you know, to tell the truth, I don’t know why. There are courses and pamphlets available from the real estate commission and from the Realtor association; there was even a special class for agents to be licensed to carry a concealed weapon. I am. The other story is Open Houses are good for meeting folks who might be prospects. And yes, sometimes a house is sold at an Open House. I card Open Houses as risky. I wash my car, clean out the car, sort newspapers in the car, but I try to never be alone with someone I don’t know. And that can be women as well. The stalkers change their methods of operation.

PERCEPTION: I held an Open House this past weekend. A couple came in, whizzed around, asked about leasing the property after the sale, I asked their names. He gave me their first names and I asked for their last name. I explained the Homeowner’s Association, to their credit WISE, changed their by-laws on the cusp of the Great Recession to allow only three rentals at one time and only for a period of a year. “Jerry” called me yesterday to say he had found a townhome not on the market and the seller and he had come to an agreement, would I fill out the contract and a lease agreement for them? You know, “just point to where each would sign”, that’s all. Of course, I said “No.” PROCESS Real estate is not just a document (or 20 or 30 or more), I think it is an intention to reach a thorough meeting of the minds on all levels and make sure all parties know that. If not, explain until it is understood: obligations, dates, money, options. Thoroughness, ad nauseum.

Now the real cool thing is,TECHNOLOGY. Buyers and sellers can be in distant places even all four of them if they are couples and DocuSign is one of the wizards that can accomplish all initials and signatures across thousands of miles in a snap.

Lynnsy  Logue, Brokeraka The Real Estate Lady ®

February 10, 2016

Real Estate

I should write more about real estate. Writing is different from real estate. Writing is where my head and my heart are connected, both defining my whereabouts, the peace and serenity of coaxing myself to the surface, out into this world, right here and allowing the spirit to dance in different time zones without any interference. Real estate is swimming in the ocean.

And I am a swimmer of sorts. Three times a week for sure, during some of the cancer treatments I went everyday even in the winter when the bubble was over the pool. I made myself go. It was a challenge. Myself challenged myself. Go!

Real estate has many faces. Limitless personalities. Varying surfaces, juxtaposed plains, unimaginable outcomes, complex partnerships, simple dreams, devouring machinations, mesmerizing. The ocean.

Very simply, it amazes me so many folks are caught up with granite and hardwood floors, with the notion that that is what we do, so I stay at arm’s length. And I am very, very careful of the stories I tell so I don’t because that is your business, your life, your money, your home. I am a guide, an advocate. I am a shape shifter. I come from the ocean.

Okay, that is your introduction. I am about to start writing about real estate. And of course my wild woman will occasionally write about where she is dancing at night.

See ya’.

February 9, 2016

Before the day is out…I think I do better at free write when I am just waking up or before I wake up. The word that stuck with me all day was “enough”. Oh, and the companion word is “stuff”. If you stop to listen you will hear them everywhere.I look at my own life. I had enough of a job that I loved and then I had “enough.” I got myself fired so I would get paid for being fed-up. Looking for a job in Charlotte in the late seventies, I would up in Oklahoma City because the jobs for women around here did not pay “enough.” And then a long term relationship ended because “enough is enough”.What is and has always been “enough” is my home. And along came “stuff”. I could not do “enough” for this nest, and I gathered. I collected. I arranged. I searched for the things, the “stuff” that made me feel better. I went beyond “enough”. My sweetest love asked, “Do you have to possess something to appreciate it?” And it took me years to realize it wasn’t the “stuff” ever, I thought it was, but it was feeling I was “enough”, for her, for the world.The French have a saying something like, “In order to know where enough is we have to go too far”.So I started letting go. Small at first, then more and more as the space and simplicity became intoxicating. One bowl, one hat. One painting, one chair. And sometimes
 looking in the mirror and saying,
 “You are “enough”.
You have all the right “stuff”.

Almost February 8, 2016
THE GAME is over…
I am assessing how I feel. Walking around turning off the lights in my home, I am thinking about our team, the Panthers. How I know how hard they worked, how coordinated as a team they are, how they will feel. Coming back home. I hope they know how special they are, what true winners they are, how they will always be heroes and how their lives will always be enhanced by this experience. Because they are winners.What I know at almost 77 years of age, we are defined by more than one day or week or even year and even as the image of who we are is forming with every word and every action, the soul is constant, the spirit grows, and the different paths we are shown and take and grow with help make us who we are and who will become or who we are as wisdom seekers who can look back and learn from what we experience. And gain from it. Winning is cumulative. It is how close we take it to our hearts and how long we hold it. And I think the lesson I learned is no matter how sure I am, I don’t know the outcome. So I try to learn to be grateful for now, this moment.I am grateful I learned somethings about football, about this team who has charmed our hearts, who have worked well, danced on the field, shown us their joy. And their disappointment and their tears. They have shown us how to get up time and time again, how to help our team mates, our neighbors, our family. They have shown us how to show our joy in having fun at/with something we love.Thank you, Panthers! Thank you and count me on being there watching the game and reading the papers. Cheering you on always. Go Panthers!

February 7, 2016  SUPER BOWL DAY!

How to take the Panthers one step further…

We follow their lead. How?

We apply what they teach us to our everyday world. Follow me please, this way.

The bottom line is the bottom line. Our world is about money larger than the good works of which there are many. I want to think about long term. The days and weeks we could have where we are all talking about the team, the game, the excitement from chicken wings to flags on cars and even me in a Panthers hat. Together.

It is a big picture like the Super Bowl.

Select one elementary school with the lower scores.
Put the best pre-K and elementary teachers here.

Invest the money to make the school clean, pretty, safe, with great playgrounds, a good cafeteria with good healthy lunches for all. Engage the parents, the neighbors, the neighborhood, the nearby churches, city services. Because this is a test. An investment. It will take time maybe. Good teams take time.
And hard work, practice, defeat, disappointment, mistakes.

Are there grants available? Companies who would invest in an experiment like this? It is done for trial drugs, how about the health and welfare of our children and our communities all the while building a base for being a revenue producer,
a community enhancement, a gift to all of us?

When it works this is what can happen: the children get a better start, the teachers meet their passion, the parents get some help, the churches get more involved
and it becomes “the village”. Not easily, not without pain.

When it works, the school district gets healthier, when that happens, the neighborhood becomes stronger, the housing improves and homes are sought after and real estate values improve and the tax basis strengthens. Can you imagine if our schools were like the Panthers what our city would look like? Be like?
 And the very best part, our children get a chance, a real chance.

We start at the bottom and work our way up. Not easily, not without struggle,
not without the nay sayers, the penny counters, but with the dreamers,
the workers, the players, the coaches, the cheerleaders,
the quarterbacks and line men, the team. All of us.

We are sure to win…then watch out world! 

February 6, 2016

Fast forward

How could we know? How could we have any idea? We try to stay on the tracks, hang on through thick and thin as they say, do what we think is expected, play by the rules, sign the promise, keep the faith, be true to oneself and let go, learn to let go.

I have stood here before. Twenty seven. Alone. I knew it had to be done so I came here, stood here, said,”yes, this will be okay.” Sign the bill of sale, take the paper. I have stood here before where my mother’s ashes would be placed when she died. She was dying. Someone needed to plan. I am looking at the signature, my twenty seven year old’s signature, signing for my father, my brothers, my grandmother, me, her daughter, her friend.

The world changes from an inflatable ball to a life raft. From the zodiac to an iceberg, from the iceberg to a polar bear looking for food for her babies in her homeland that is shrinking because of where I stand, where our ashes and bodies go because we cannot let go and scatter the ashes back to the earth.

And the pattern has been set from long ago. To build pyramids or anoint caves, burning pyres, digging graves, lowering the casket, or sealing the ashes in a metal box and placing them in a place where there are others in a hall made of marble and a floor made of marble and large stained glass windows and row after row and hall after hall of small name plaques made of bronze to last forever and forever where I am standing.

And the legality of perpetuity is as ominous as the place where I stand. Forever. I try to unravel what was made legal. The rite to occupy the space, not own, but interment. To inter is “between”. And because we are human, interment is described other than real estate. The right to interment.

So when I try to unravel what I started and signed in my father’s name, it is not so easy. My mother died and he remarried. He died and was interred here, before the place I stand. His second wife now has the rights of interment. She died and the rights go to her children, if none, her siblings, and then their children. It looks like I may not be able to wipe the slate clean as intended.

Hold on. I doubled back a year later or less and bought the crypt below hers. Only one row away. I would be there with her. That is grief, that is not only hanging on, that is sadness and terror. Alone.

We go on. Standing here every day does not move me forward. I leave and do not go back. There is no place for flowers. The walls are marble. There are row after row and after row of small bronze plaques with the dates of birth and death. It is too final for me. I leave. I do not come back until today.

The good news is we got them out. My brother was slow in letting go. But we did. He took them to Virginia, my mother and grandmother and father. He strew the ashes on a hill in a most beautiful small town cemetery, a hill overlooking the valley not far from where we lived. And I followed with a basket of dried flowers from my garden and glass marbles of all colors and scattered where I knew their ashes were. This was the first time I could take flowers that would be close, scatter glass marbles for headstones, lights for the heavens to see. Free.

We are free. We let go.