Just because you’ve driven past Chantilly Parkway on Vaughn Road does not mean everything that lays before you is part of the Town of Pike Road, AL.  Even passing through the light at CVS on Vaughn and Pike Roads is not a clear threshold to the municipality of the Town of Pike Road.

It’s just not that simple.

The map above (from the Town of Pike Road website, click on it to enlarge) shows the patchwork that is east Montgomery County.  The map below (from the City of Montgomery website) details city trash pickup days, and on the lower right hand side of the map the patchwork of Montgomery City/Montgomery County/Town of Pike Road is evident here, too.

How does this affect the east Montgomery house hunter?

For example, you could research a home on Saw Tooth Loop in the Woodland Creek subdivision.  The neighborhood is across Vaughn Road from Bridle Brook, which is a Town of Pike Road community.  The street address for homes in Woodland Creek say “Pike Road, AL.”  But this home is actually zoned for City of Montgomery amenities: sewer, trash, schools.  Unless current zoning changes, it would not be zoned for a future Pike Road School.  Confusing?  Sure.

In 2008, in the neighborhood of Merry Station, all but one of about 20 homes were incorporated into the Town of Pike Road.  One home was zoned Montgomery County.  How did the homeowners figure this out?  They had to do a little research.  That home has since been incorporated into the Town of Pike Road.

So why does it matter? Different reasons for different buyers.  Some might prefer City of Montgomery services?  Some might want to be zoned for the possibility of a future Pike Road school system? And designations can sometimes be changed . . .

The main point if that if you have a preference, you’ll need to do a little digging.  Looking at the street address alone will not suffice.

The folks at the Town Hall in Pike Road are a big help.  So is having a knowledgeable Realtor working for you.  Give us a call and let us do the digging for you.

Montgomery, AL, like any real estate market, will always have its share of people selling their property themselves – aka For Sale By Owner or FSBO (pr FIZZ-bo).  And that’s fine with me.  I am not one of those realtors that looks down on FSBOs.  I think it is up to me as a real estate agent to prove to the FSBO prospect that I will save them time and make them money if I list and help sell their River Region home or lot.

That being said, there will always be a segment of people that choose to sell their real estate themselves, without the help of an agent.  So I figure I might as well be helpful in case the FSBO experiment doesn’t go well, maybe they’ll call me.  They often do.

I read a great article for advice to FSBOs in the Wall Street Journal.  Click here to read it.  It had a lot of helpful sales strategies for FSBOs.

I would add to the article these suggestions to anyone selling their Montgomery property themselves:

3RiversRecon’s Tips to any Montgomery For Sale By Owner:

1.    Get Your Own Website – Go to a domain seller like godaddy.com and buy your own website address.  If your home’s address is 123 Montgomery Street – buy www.123Montgomery.com or whatever is available.  The shorter the better.  I do this for all of my listings.  Use this on your flyers and advertisements.  If you advertise your home on something like fsbo.com, its website will be something incoherent like www.fsbo.com/e34h3449ir4827 – no buyer can remember that, especially one who has been driving around looking at homes for hours.  Once you have bought your site through godaddy, go to the control panel and choose “domain forwarding” to point the site to the long one at fsbo dot com.  That way anyone who types 123Montgomery.com in their browser will be taken automatically to the fsbo site.

2.  Buy Custom Signs – Those “For Sale By Owner” signs you buy for $3 at WalMart might be appropriate for your used go-cart that you put out on Highway 231, but do you really think it conveys the right image to someone you are asking to spend $200,000 for a  home ?   Make them double sided for greater visibility.  I would go ahead and buy 2 so that you can switch them out to avoid being faded or dirty.  Also be sure to get an “info tube” thing at WalMart or Home Depot so you can put some flyers with your sign.

3.  Make Effective Flyers – You start by taking great pictures of your home or lot.  Then spend the money and have them printed by a high quality color LASER printer.  Go to Kinko’s if you have no color laser printer of your own.  Get them to go ahead and run 150 copies while they’re at it.  The big cost here is the setup for a new print job, each additional copy is not as expensive, so you might as well print them all at one stop.  If you’re putting the flyers in the info tubes in the signs, don’t waste a lot of space by pictures of the outside.  They know what the outside looks like.  Just use one or two so that they can easily remember which one is yours (odds are that yours is the 10th flyer they have pulled that day).  If you are putting the flyer elsewhere then include more pictures.  Most Montgomery buyers are concerned about the school zones, so highlight that.

4.  Be Available At An Instant To Talk Or Show The Home – Put your cell phone number on all advertisements.  Don’t confuse buyers by giving your home phone, your office phone, your fax, etc.  Just one will do.  Then KEEP THE CELL PHONE ON YOU at all times.  When it rings, answer it.  If you don’t answer the phone, the majority of buyers will move along and not leave a message.  If they want to see it now, show it now.

5. Call Or Email Me With Questions – Every property on the Montgomery MLS is unique, with its own special selling points to promote and challenges to overcome to a potential buyer.  If you’re stumped, give me a shout.  I am glad to help you think of an answer, even if you plan to continue to sell it yourself.

Do you have another helpful FSBO tip for the rest of the River Region?  Leave a comment below and help us all out!

One of the benefits of Pike Road living is its rural landscape.  Sure there are neighborhoods and the local CVS, but there are also fields and ponds, woods and creeks.

A future network of nature trails will showcase that beauty and connect the communities of Pike Road.  These trails will accommodate “walkers, joggers and bicyclists as well as horseback riders” (Town of Pike Road website). The Pike Road community encompasses a LOT of land, and the trail will be a way to begin to connect these areas.

A $700,000 grant has been approved to begin the project, and Pike Road has purchased property for the trail head and trail end. It’s an Alabama Department of Transportation grant program, and will take some time to complete.

According to the Town of Pike Road website, the first 14.7 miles of the trail will run from Highway 231 to Flowers Road. I don’t have specifics, but according to my google map, this is the general area below (Hwy 231 runs up the middle of the map, with Flowers Road at the red marker):

I can’t run all 14.7 miles at once (yet!), but since East Montgomery isn’t known for its mountainous terrain, at least I stand a chance with the first 5.  We’ll update you when the trail is ready for action.

To read more about the Town of Pike Road, see their official website, and see more posts from the Pike Road section of our blog.

The Town of Pike Road invites the public to its Candlelight Christmas service at 6:30 on Tuesday, December 22, 2009. The service is held annually at The Meeting House on Chapel Hill in The Waters.

If you’ve never been to The Waters, or are interested in the community life in Pike Road, this would be a great event to attend.  It’s a picturesque development year-round.  I can imagine it is beautiful during the holidays.

For more picture of The Waters development, click here

Driving through the Pike Road area of Montgomery County, AL, I saw evidence of new construction.

New construction in Lochshire

New construction in Lochshire

New construction in Cawfield

What does this mean?  I’m not making any predictions about the market, but I will say I haven’t seen much new building going on in the past year.

It’s nice to see a little real estate action.

Have you noticed new construction in your area of the River Region?  Comment below and let us know what’s going on in your neighborhood.

If you’d like to find a new construction home or any property in the Montgomery MLS, give us a call.  We’d love to help!

The Town of Pike Road has purchased the Pike Road Station shopping center on Vaughn Road. (see google map)

Now, while building prices are low,  they are considering adding a second story to the former Fine Foods Market building, creating a large auditorium area for community events. The first floor of the building will be used for Town Council offices and a meeting hall.

Here are some pics of the building:

New Pike Road Town Hall and shopping center

New Pike Road Town Hall

New Pike Road Town Hall

To learn more, click here for an article from the Montgomery Advertiser.

Providence is for those who 1) want to build a new house,  2) want to live in Pike Road, AL, but  3) still want to live very close in to Montgomery in a planned development.

Horse farm it is not.

If you fit the bill, then take the (really) short drive to the intersection of Vaughn and Pike Roads.  You’re there. (Turn south onto Pike and it’s on your left).

I drove through today, and they’ve cut in the streets and sidewalks. There’s a pretty entrance and streetlights – I’m guessing this is Phase I.  The developers are selling lots that are either 60′ by 145′ (”The Traditions”) or 100′ by 200′ (”The Estates”).  Traditions homes have to be a minimum of 2,400 square feet and Estate homes a minimum of 2,800 square feet.

The website says you can bring your own builder, and that gives buyers some flexibility.

What will the homes look like?  Providence’s brochure says they’ll have “elements  of French Country and European architecture woven into modern home designs.”  Click here to see sample house plans on the Providence website.

Is your interest piqued?  Give us a call at the number at the top of the page or contact us through the Contacts tab and we’d be glad to  help you learn more about this new development.

Put 425 Merry Way in the Merry Station neighborhood at the top of your house-hunting list.

If you watch the video, you’ll see this 4 bed/ 3 bath home is tastefully updated and the yard is worthy of it’s own video tour.  You may not need to read further before calling us for a private showing. . .

But there is more to love:

1) The home is zoned for the Town of Pike Road, and therefore will be zoned for the Pike Road public school that is currently being planned. (Click here to read more)

2) Merry Station is an old school neighborhood of 2 cul-de-sac streets.  Odds are if you drive through at almost any time of day, there will be kids running from yard to yard to play.  Their dogs will be following close on their heels, so please drive slowly.

3)  Even though Merry Way is in Pike Road, it’s literally minutes to everything you need in East Montgomery and I-85.  Click here for a map.

4) Merry Station is a completely developed neighborhood (no empty lots), and hundreds of trees fill the yards – which are all around an acre.  Here are some pics of the neighborhood so you can see for yourself  . . .

Entrance to Merry Station neighborhood

Merry Way

Driving into Merry Station

Looking down Merry Court (one of the two streets in Merry Station)

425 Merry Way

If you’d like to look at this home, or any home in the Montgomery area, please give us a call at (334) 221-5862 or contact us using the “contact” tab at the top of this page.  We’d love to help you with your house search!

It’s eye candy.  It’s like nothing else in east Montgomery, AL (okay – in Pike Road).  If you want something close to  Mayberry, The Waters is it.

Developed around the 200 acre Lake Cameron, The Waters is a walkable, self-contained community.  There’s the Town Square with shops, a restaurant, community pool and pavillion, plus fishing on the lake, tennis courts, extra wide sidewalks . . . more amenities than a typical planned community.

It’s quite rural, even though (I timed it) it’s only 3 minutes to I-85, the main drag through Montgomery.  It’s a good drive through Pike Road, but once you get there – pretty cool.  So the trade-off is a longer drive for a unique, quaint “lifestyle.”

There are loft apartments, cottages, grand homes – all with small, tidy yards and back alley parking.  Think Celebration, FL.  Very Traditional.  Very Southern.

Today, April 28, 2009, there are 17 properties for sale in The Waters (not counting lots).  They range in size from 1,200 square feet to 4,394 square feet.  Asking prices per square foot are in the $180s.  These prices are higher per square foot than most Montgomery neighborhoods, but the amenities offered in The Waters are more numerous and unique than other developments.

Check out more photos below. If you’re intrigued, call or contact us to see any homes for sale in The Waters or the Montgomery area MLS.

The Town of Pike Road had an “Education Summit” tonight at St. James United Methodist Church.

It mostly covered the nature of the school system, which will be a P.D.S. school – or a Professional Development School - more on that later.

For now, check out this video of Pike Road Mayor Gordon Stone answering the big question:

When will Pike Road have its own school system?

His answer:

Also, I was pleased to be interviewed by WSFA Channel 12 and WAKA Channel 8.  It also aired on the local Fox affiliate WCOV.

I revealed two great pearls of wisdom: 1. choice is good and 2. schools are important.

Gee, I am brilliant.