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Monday, June 10, 2013
First-ever Fort Caswell historical excavation is under way
Although in its early stages, the first archeological investigation of Fort Caswell is already yielding clues about the past of this former outpost, originally built to shore-up America’s coastal defenses following the War of 1812.
The archeological field school from William Peace University has taken on the site for a month-long dig, in cooperation with the owner, the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. The N.C. Baptist Assembly runs camps, retreats and programs from a complex of modern structures scattered between remains of the old fortress and batteries dating back to 1827.
While Fort Caswell saw little in the way of major action, it played a role in the Spanish-American War, Civil War, World War I and World War II. The Confederate army seized the fort during the Civil War and destroyed part of it toward the end of the conflict. It was used for training and U-boat searches during World War I. Fort Caswell was a naval patrol, communications and submarine tracking center during World War II.
While it is a highly visible part of the landscape of the lower Cape Fear, the fort’s distant past has never before been probed.
(Some articles from The State Port Pilot newspaper are used on the stateportpilot.com website, but represent only a portion of material that is included in the print edition and e-Pilot online, both of which are available by subscription through this website.)
“There has been no scientific, archeological research done on this fort or the batteries,” said Thomas Beamon, anthropology instructor at Wake Technical Community College. Beaman and William Peace University anthropology assistant professor Vincent Melomo are co-directors of the investigation.
The team is investigating the site as part of the Baptist State Convention’s effort to have it listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The goals include documenting the cross-shaped citadel that makes the fort architecturally unique. The 100-by-40-foot structure was burned when Confederates abandoned the fort in 1865, but how or why the rest of the structure fell is unknown.
Researchers hope to define some of the missing corners of the fort and probe another unique feature—both wet and dry moats. Another interesting feature attributed to the fort was that it had some sort of plumbing system that ran from the citadel to outside the original walls.
The team hopes that its work also will reveal more about what daily life was like for the men who endured isolation, heat, insects, disease and the constant threat of death.
“This is the only opportunity we’re going to have to really look and see what we can find from the old fort,” said Jim McKee, a Southport resident and historian at Brunswick Town/Ft. Anderson State Historic Site. “It’s a great mystery, and there are still people alive who were stationed there.”
The work is slow and methodical. Grids marked by lines place every artifact, and the pieces are all collected gently by hand, inch by inch. Some members dig while others haul soil, and still others work sifters and sort the findings.
McKee said it’s possible the investigation will also include sweeps with metal detectors.
Beamon said the crew had located a corner of the original citadel, a promising find. They will keep digging until they hit the living surface where soldiers worked, and continue into the undisturbed subsoil.
So far they have found buttons, glass, nails, an original fireplace, grape shot (fired from a cannon), spikes and a woman’s brooch. Beamon described the work as like unwrapping a puzzle “piece by piece.”
Once all the artifacts are washed and cataloged, they will be returned to the assembly.
“Tom and I are immensely grateful for the opportunity to work on this important and fascinating historic site,” Melomo said. “The field school has been a great success so far, and we are looking forward to more exciting finds as we continue to uncover the past and hopefully explore the Civil War-era layers over the next two weeks.”
Article From State Port Pilot
Ken Keegan
Real Estate Broker
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Foreclosure sales fall to lowest level since 2008
Sales of bank-owned properties last quarter hit their lowest level since early 2008, according to a new report.
There were 101,371 distressed sales during the first quarter of 2013, RealtyTrac said Thursday. That accounted for 21% of the total market, down from 25% a year earlier.
During the height of the foreclosure crisis in early 2009, 45% of all homes sold nationally were foreclosures. In many locations, such as California's Central Valley, foreclosures weren't just a big share of the housing market, they were the entire the housing market.
Related: Best deals on real estate
The most striking trend in distressed property sales now is the decline in short sales, according to RealtyTrac spokesman Daren Blomquist. These are deals on homes that are worth less than what sellers owe to the bank. Banks okay the sales to prevent the home from going through the costly foreclosure process, and forgive the unpaid debts. Nationally, short sales fell 35% in the first quarter, compared with 12 months earlier.
"The decrease in short sales was a bit of surprise given that 11 million homeowners nationwide still owe more on their homes than they're worth," said Blomquist. "Rising home prices are taking away the incentive for short sales on the part of both homeowners and lenders."
Related: 5 best markets to sell a home
As home prices rise, underwater borrowers are tempted to hold onto their properties with the hope of selling at the price they paid. That way, they won't take a big hit to their credit score for failing to fully repay their loans.
Lenders are also less inclined to approve short sales, because even the prices of bank-owned houses are going up. The average foreclosure price rose 28% during the first three months of 2013, and that's given lenders more leeway to deny low-ball short sales.
If a short sale doesn't work out, the banks aren't necessarily going to lose more money on a foreclosure, Blomquist explained.
Related: 10 big, booming cities
Distressed properties still account for a high percentage of sales in some places. In Georgia, 35% of sales were foreclosure related in the first quarter, the highest percentage of any state. In Illinois, 32% of sales were bank-owned, while in California foreclosures made up 30% of sales.
On the other hand, distressed sales made up less than 7% of the market in the District of Columbia, Massachusetts and New York.
Distressed property sales will continue to shrink as fewer homeowners fall behind on their mortgages. Lenders repossessed fewer than 35,000 homes in April, a third of the number of foreclosures repossessed during September 2010.
Original Article From CNN Real Estate
Ken Keegan
Real Estate Broker
(910) 523-0903 mobile
Click here for more information on Brunswick, County Real Estate
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Home prices post strongest gains in 7 years
U.S. home prices posted their strongest gains since 2006, as the housing recovery continued to gain steam.
Prices on the S&P/Case-Shiller national index rose 10.2% in the first quarter, according to the latest report.
That marked the fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year gains, says David Blitzer, head of S&P's index division.
The strong gains over the past year may be a bit of a statistical mirage, according to Robert Shiller, a Yale economist and co-founder of the index. Foreclosure sales are down, he said, and since foreclosures sell at a steep discount, that's boosted average home prices.
Related: Best deals on real estate
But eventually the proportion of foreclosure sales will stabilize, and that will make annual price gains less dramatic.
There's another factor arguing against continued price gains, according to Shiller. Home prices are already at what he considers "normal" levels, adjusted for inflation. Even the steep housing downturn only took prices to where they would have been if they hadn't skyrocketed during the bubble.
Index co-founder Karl Case worries about the pace of new-home construction, which slowed in April. New construction is a big driver of GDP, he said, so that may be a sign that the economic recovery is flagging.
Quiz: How much do you know about mortgages?
Both economists, however, are still cautiously optimistic for two main reasons. First is the fact that near-record low mortgage rates have made home buying more affordable. The second is all the pent-up demand in the housing market after years of sluggish sales.
Phoenix recorded the largest year-over-year price spike, with a 22.5% jump. San Francisco prices rose 22.2% and Las Vegas prices grew 20.6%. New York, at just 2.6%, saw a modest annual increase.
Article from CNN Real Estate
Ken Keegan
Real Estate Broker
(910) 523-0903 mobile
Click here for more information on Brunswick, County Real Estate
Monday, April 8, 2013
Best Neighborhood
St. James Plantation will be featured as a "Best Neighborhood" in an upcoming issue of "Where to Retire Magazine."
Ken Keegan
Real Estate Broker (910) 523-0903 mobile
Click here for more information on Brunswick, County Real Estate
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Development looks at change
From the State Port Pilot:
Home construction will be taking a different approach in St. James Plantation, new real estate general manager Bobby Masters told members of the town planning board at their Thursday meeting.
New construction will focus on single-family houses and lower-density construction, with an emphasis on raising property values in St. James, Masters said.
Masters has replaced Bob Duffy, whose plans for the development, which makes up the vast majority of the Town of St. James, had included more semiattached homes, townhomes and similar structures, as well as clusters of smaller detached homes.Duffy resigned in February, saying at the time that the move was amicable and due to different visions about how to proceed.
Bill deBruin, director of development and construction for St. James Plantation, recently announced that he was leaving as well. Masters will oversee both areas for the immediate
future, he told the planning board Thursday, and will focus on inishing plans for development in the Seaside area, while focusing more on single-family
homes.
“I think in the immediate future, we’ll probably trend more toward lower density. I know there was a lot of talk about condos, townhomes, et cetera, but I think in the immediate future it’ll probably go the other way,” he said. He noted that construction at Harbor Walk had just inished, with 12 units on the market in what was probably the best area in the development to locate condos.
“Smaller, single-family building is well-received, and the way those are priced, we would be hard-pressed to build a condo and put it on the market for cheaper than small single-family buildings.”
“We don’t want to build a product that’s purely price-point,” he
continued. “Everyone got killed
in the crash, but prices are starting to come back and they will
come back irst in places like St.
James, with the amenities complete, sewer complete, et cetera.
It’s a livable, viable, breathing
town.
“What we’re going to be trying
to do is push those values back
up to, quite frankly, where they
need to be. We’re not interested
in producing a cheaper product
where someone comes to look
just for the prices,” Masters said.
“We’d rather sell less for more
than more for less. Our goal is
to provide a diversity of product
and pricing so we can hit various
niches of the market; we want
to position ourselves where our
prices are above the rest of the
market, because we’re above the
rest of the market.”
Development in Seaside will
likely continue as it is now, he
said, with smaller but detached
homes. If development does
return to multi-family at some
point in the future, he added, it
would be more likely in the areas closer to the Midway Road
bridge corridor or N.C. 211.
One of the largest markets
of buyers in St. James Plantation right now are what Masters
called “pre-retiree,” or people
who are not quite to the point of
retiring and moving yet, and are
often wanting to buy a lot and
come later to build a home.
Keeping an inventory of vacant
lots as well as completed homes
will help the development appeal
to both markets, he said, adding
that he envisioned a cooperation
between the development ofice
and building companies, possibly offering model streets in
areas of new development mixed
among the vacant lots.
“People are starting to see
prices going back up again,” he
said. “People who have been trying to decide if the market has
bottomed out start seeing it tick
up, and that gets a lot of people to
make that decision.”
The development ofice has
been “slammed” with tours for
prospective buyers, he added,
with numbers up from previous
years.
Town of St. James assistant
zoning administrator Judy
Hughes said she had approved
ive building permits that day,
and that total permits were up
to 62 for the quarter; in the same
quarter of 2012 the town issued
35 building permits, and 141 for
the year.
“It’s amazing to think that this
pace can continue, but it’s very
positive,” she said.
Ken Keegan
Real Estate Broker
(910) 523-0903 mobile
Click here for more information on Brunswick, County Real Estate
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Boomerang buyers return to market after foreclosure
Interesting Article from CNN Real Estate:
Borrowers who lost homes to foreclosure during the housing bust are starting to buy again.
Since the housing bubble burst, 4.8 million borrowers have lost their homes to foreclosure, and another 2.2 million gave them up in short sales, according to RealtyTrac. While many are still struggling to recover financially, a growing number are starting to bounce back -- and they are looking for a new place to call home.
Susan Edwards and her husband, Dave, lost their Palmdale, Calif., home in 2010 after Susan's severe arthritis made it impossible for her to work her medical device sales job.
The medical bills soon piled up and the couple could no longer afford their $2,300 monthly mortgage payment. In addition, their home's value had plunged 40% below the $325,000 mortgage balance.
"We were living under such pressure," she said. "We looked at the numbers and knew we had to default."
After the foreclosure, Susan's credit score had taken a 70-point hit; Dave's score fell even further.
Continued
Ken Keegan
Real Estate Broker
(910) 523-0903 mobile
Click here for more information on Brunswick, County Real Estate
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Lots on the Brunswick market indicate stabilization of land market
The N.C. 211 corridor in Brunswick County was arguably ground zero for the housing bust that ravaged the Wilmington area.
The 15-mile stretch from U.S. 17 to Southport is lined with zombie developments – partially finished subdivisions, some with large tracts of vacant lots or raw land.
No one is saying a building boom is coming back there any time soon, but a local commercial real estate firm has more than 1,600 lots under contract along the highway that may take a large chunk out of the N.C. 211 inventory and help stabilize the Brunswick County land market.
"It's such a large portfolio of lots that we did see interest from large investment funds, national builders, regional builders and also saw a lot of interest from smaller private equity funds," said Brian Eckel, principal at Cape Fear Commercial, who along with Paul Loukas and Hank Miller listed the bank-owned properties.
Off the market
And even though sale of the land may not result in immediate construction, "any time lots are transferred away from a bank to an entity that has the ability and the specific business plan to hold the lots off the market until the market is ready to re-absorb them is extremely positive news for the entire real estate and construction industry," Eckel said.
Six subdivisions are under contract along N.C. 211 – Richmond Hills, Old Georgetown, Mill Creek Cove, Brookstone, Rivergate and Sandstone.
Mill Creek Cove is complete with clubhouse and swimming pool, Eckel said. Some of the other subdivisions are partially completed, while others are merely lots, he said.
Less inventory means that the market is stabilizing.
Northern Brunswick County, particularly the Leland market, has been attracting buyers willing to go into subdivisions and complete promised amenities such as clubhouses and pools, real estate experts said.
D.R. Horton, the nation's largest home builder, recently bought the bankrupt Hawkeswater subdivision adjacent to Belville Elementary School for $5.5 million. Horton is said to be searching for others and has already purchased lots in subdivisions in New Hanover.
Pent-up demand
What's helping the market for lots in the Wilmington area in general is "is the pent-up demand for new construction housing here and across the country," said Pete Frandano, a commercial real estate broker with Southport Realty and a former president of the Brunswick County Association of Realtors.
"It makes sense again to build because the costs of the lots have come down," Frandano said.
Lots in the wooded section of Oak Island, for instance, were in the low $200,000s at the height of the real estate boom and now they are at $25,000 to $35,000, he said.
Still, Brunswick is awash in lots and vacant land purchased in the middle of the last decade for prices that even then were inflated.
Five years' worth
In January 2012 there were 65 months of lot inventory in Brunswick County, said Steve Candler, CEO of the Brunswick Realtors. In January 2013, it still was nearly five years' worth. That means that it would take about five years to sell the lot inventory at the current sales pace.
And that's just the number of lots on the multiple listing service.
Frandano ventured a guess that the number of bank-owned lots in Brunswick that are not being presented for sale are double those that are listed, though he added that "if you polled 10 commercial brokers you would get 10 fairly wide-ranging answers."
"Some lots were priced at $60,000 and are going to be picked up in bulk transfers at $5,000 to $10,000," said Hector Ingram, of Ingram & Co. appraisal firm in Wilmington.
Attracting builders
Builders and developers are being drawn to land now because of the low lot prices they can build for the current market, Ingram said.
If you can sell only $250,000 houses, the maximum a builder should pay for a lot is $45,000. That means the profit is much bigger if the lots can be bought for less, Ingram said.
Interest from builders and investment funds is certainly not limited to Brunswick County. Pender and New Hanover counties also are participating and New Hanover is just about recovered from the land bust as developers are now buying vacant land not yet divided into lots, Eckel said.
"For all three counties, I've watched the market fall since September 2008 in lots and subdivisions," he said. "Since September 2012, I can see that the market was stabilized and prices have started to slowly increase for the first time in four years."
Original Article
Ken Keegan
Real Estate Broker
(910) 523-0903 mobile
Click here for more information on Brunswick, County Real Estate
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