They are having a soft opening so lunch was free when I went by there today. A friend tipped me off, but don’t think the free eats affected my review.

They started us off with “orange rolls” which were basically an orange flavored cinnamon roll type thing. Yum.

They have a daily menu, country style or meat and three style, whichever you prefer. I got the country fried steak, purple hulled peas, and okra. It came with cornbread, they didn’t even ask. I like a place where they assume you want cornbread!

Mine was really good. The steak was not too bready. The peas were fresh and not overcooked. The okra was good, but the real surprise was the mac and cheese. I was expecting the normal runny deal but it was more like grannie’s mac and cheese casserole. It was firm and cheesy, not runny. Excellent.

According to their website, they officially open on March 2, 2010, so maybe the days of free lunch are over. But I can tell you – I will be back!

Yes!  So long broken basketball goal that has been sitting behind my fence for a year and a half !  The flyer says there will even be workers at each site to help you unload the stuff you bring.  Won’t it feel great to kiss that pile of junk goodbye (in a legal and responsible way)!

(This service is REALLY helpful to those who move into a different house in 2010 – if you’ve moved recently you know the kinds of stuff you are left with . . .)

All locations will be open  from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm.

Here are the DATES (again, these are the last Saturdays of each month of 2010):

January 30, February 27, March 27, April 24, May 29, June 26, July 31, August 28, and September 25.

Here are the LOCATIONS:

Hope Hull: Vacant grocery store at railroad tracks (Wasden Road)

Mount Meigs/Pike Road:  Belser Blvd. in Bridle Brook subdivision OR County Lot Office across from The Feed Lot

Pine Level:  Pine Level Park (across from Sikes and Kohn)

Pintlala: Pintlala Elementary School

Ramer:  Transfer Station (County Road 12, Hickory Grove Road)

For more details about exactly what can and cannot be unloaded (toxic waste, items with freon, etc.) click here or call (334) 832-1210.

For those who live within the Montgomery city limits, your bulk trash is collected every 1st and 3rd Saturday from 9:00 am – 2:30 pm at city Public Schools.  Call (334) 241-2750 or click here for more info.

Out of all options laid out before them, they chose a home in the Sturbridge neighborhood in East Montgomery.

I was just curious.  So I asked them.  Here’s why. . .

1) “Well, I hate to say this as my #1, but we got a really great deal on this house in Sturbridge. When you add up the square footage, the age of the home (built in the 1990’s, a lot newer than our mid town home was) – it was just a great buy.  It had been on the market for a long time – maybe other buyers couldn’t see past the dirty carpet.  It needed a little cleaning, but we were glad to do it for the price we paid!”

2)   “Sturbridge’s location: it is in East Montgomery, but it’s still close to the rest of Montgomery.  It’s so easy to hop in and out of the neighborhood.  I can get to Target, Publix, the dry cleaners, Jalapeno’s Mexican restaurant and I-85 in about 5 minutes.  We made the leap from ‘Midtown’ to ‘East Montgomery’ knowing that some things like church and school would be a little farther from the new home than the old home, but Sturbridge is still a really conveniently situated place.

3) “The location of our house within Sturbridge was a big deal.  It’s at the end of a cul-de-sac on a street that dead ends into the neighborhood playground.  We feel comfortable letting our kids play with neighbors up and down the street.  Because its a dead end street, there’s not much traffic, and like I said, at the end of our street is a playground, the neighborhood clubhouse and pool, plus a huge green space for the kids to play in.  Not a bad place to be.”

Thanks for sharing your story, H family!  Enjoy your new home and new part of town. Anyone else have a story to tell . . . . ?

If you’d like to know more about Sturbridge, or any East Montgomery neighborhood, give us a call.  We can show you any property in the Montgomery Area MLS, and we’d love to help you find your next home!
Click here for another family’s story about choosing a home in Sturbridge.

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.

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!

So what’s the deal?  Do people really buy other people’s used stuff? YES!  Do consignors really make money at these sales? YES!!

For those of you who have never been to one of these events, here’s how it works:

1) You can simply come and shop during public shopping days.

2) You can consign items and shop early.  There is usually a minimum number of items you must consign (15) in order to be a consignor.  Log onto the website, enter your gently used items, and print out tags.  Bring your tagged items during the “check in” days before the sale and get a priority shopping pass.  You are now part of a select group that gets to shop early AND make money from items you sell!

3) You can volunteer to work a few shifts during the sale and shop even earlier.  Workers must be consignors, and receive “payment” for their time by getting to shop before the consignors.  Volunteer requirements are varied, so check each sale’s website for specifics.

Again – these sales are huge (hundreds of consignors at each, with a minimum of 15 items to consign), and they don’t take junk.  You’d be hard pressed to find better deals on all sizes of kids’ clothing, baby gear, toys, shoes, furniture, etc, so check one out.

Kids Carousel has a spring/summer sale coming up next month at the old Sam’s Club building across from Best Buy on the Eastern Blvd. “Take-In” days are Feb.13-22, and the sale runs from Feb. 27 – March 6.  To consign, click here for the Kids Carousel website or call Stacie at (334) 286-4689.

When you get that check after the sale, you’ll be ready to start tagging for the next one!

1.) Could you give me a short lesson on “short sales”?  Are they fairly standard, or many variations?

Each deal is different, depending on seller, mortgage company, property, etc.

2.) If a mortgage is leveraged on a house or piece of property, and the owner sells “short” is the owner liable/responsible for the deficiency?

Yes. Short sales are when the seller is still the person (not the bank), but they are selling it for less than they owe to the bank. Usually, depending on the amount, the bank goes after the deficiency, either in form of a new personal note, or a suit, or a lien on other assets, whatever.  Sometimes the bank forgives a portion of the mortgage debt.

3.) Does the mortgage holder have to approve the sale?

Yes, or they will not release the mortgage lien on the property. If they didn’t, the buyer would be buying a property in Montgomery with a mortgage (that is higher than the property value) already on it. You do NOT want to buy a property unless all liens are released or at least disclosed.  The buyer’s lawyer / closing attorney should discover and disclose all of this.

4.) How is it different from just walking away from a mortgage and allowing foreclosure?

A short sale is usually attempted before foreclosure. I say “usually.”

Each one of these is very different. In general, the bigger the bank that is owed, the harder it is to pull off the short sale. Like I had a buyer that put in an offer on a short sale on a waterfront home on Lake Martin. After about 75 days, the bank finally responded – NO. No counter offer, no nothing. 75 days (of the bulk of the summer) – wasted. On the other hand, a small local bank is able to pull off short sales and foreclosures rather effectively because there are real people making decisions quickly instead of talking (when you can get them on the phone) to a person in a cubicle in California.

Recently I read a great article in USA today, saying only 23% of short sales go through.  From my experience, I would say that it a pretty accurate number, if you include all offers made to all short sellers (like above).

5.) Are Montgomery short sales usually good deals?

Maybe.  Just because it’s a short sale or foreclosure does not necessarily guarantee that it is a good deal. You still have to go through the same thought process to make sure the value is there as a buyer.

6. What takes so long?  Why do some banks “drag their feet” so much with a short sale?

From talking with my friends in the real estate industry, this is a nationwide thing, not a Montgomery thing.  The short sales process is slow.  In fact, a Realtor I know in Tampa complimented me for getting it done under 120 days.

Again, the large banks are the ones that usually take a while to process a short sale.  In that particular case, it went like this:  on Day 1 the seller sends (fax only) the signed contract to the bank.  It takes 10 or so days for the bank to “process” the receipt.  Then they assign it to a representative.  Then the representative takes 14 days or so to contact you after that.  So really it was day 24 until the seller could talk to a person that told him “OK we’ve received your fax.”  Then he might ask for additional forms, say, another tax return from the seller, or some other such paperwork, that the seller might have even received.

Once the seller faxes those in, you guessed it, it takes about 5 days for the rep to confirm receipt.  Then he might ask for the contract again.  But – we’ve already sent that – right?  Well, I need the XYZ form…  These types of conversations go on and on for 3 or 4 weeks.  Then the rep (if you’re lucky) will call the listing agent to talk it over. Then maybe the bank will make some sort of counter offer or even accept the contract as is.  But any decision, any correspondence takes 3 or 4 days to send in, receive, and confirm receipt. It can be maddening, especially to the buyer.

Therefore my big advice to Montgomery short sale buyers is: Patience is part of the price you pay.

Again, I stress, this pain involved is usually directly related to the size of the bank. Emphasis on usually.

Own in Montgomery, and considering a short sale?

Please contact me at the number or email at the top of this page.  I would be glad to walk you through what will likely happen, and help you consider your options.

Hey you – reader – have any questions about Montgomery real estate?

Please let me know – I love to write blog posts on readers’ specific questions.  If you have one, chances are many people are thinking the same thing.  Help us all out, and ask away, either by commenting below or dropping me a line.  Thanks!

If you’re considering a Montgomery Public School magnet program for your child next year (2010-2011 academic year), get your applications in by January 29, 2010.

Need an application?  click here

Want to know more about magnet schools in Montgomery?  click here

Have any words of wisdom for families applying for a magnet program?  Leave your thoughts in the “comments” box below. We’d love to have your feedback.

I took the pictures above on a quick drive-through yesterday afternoon to give you a feel for the homes in the neighborhood. The homes in Wyndridge are on the pricier end of East Montgomery real estate.  Today (January 19, 2010) there are 14 homes listed for sale in Wyndridge ranging from $299,900 (2148 sq. ft.) to $689,900 (4885 sq. ft.). Neighborhood amenities include tennis courts, ponds and sidewalks, and landscaped common areas.

Wyndridge is accessed off of Halcyon Boulevard, making it VERY close to the Shoppes at Eastchase, Peppertree shopping center, the Sturbridge neighborhood and I-85.

Something unique to Wyndridge is the live children’s nativity during the Christmas holidays.  Children from the neighborhood take part in recreating the nativity scene, and are joined by live animals brought in for the occasion.

To see any of the homes for sale in Wyndridge, or any homes in the Montgomery area MLS, give us a call.  We’d love to help you with your house hunt!

It’s a Lowder Development (think Deer Creek and Woodland Creek neighborhoods on Vaughn Road), so if it seems very familiar, you’re right. It’s most unique feature is its proximity to I-85 – just off the I-85/Mitylene exit.   On the google map below, StoneyBrooke is red marker “A” (Deer Creek is “B” and Woodland Creek is “H”).

There is a large common area with a pond and picnic pavilion, plus a large playground.  The neighborhood is divided into pods according to lot size (50′, 60′, and 70′ lots), and has sidewalks and landscaped “greenscapes” throughout.  There is no pool or neighborhood clubhouse.

StoneyBrooke has existing homes for sale plus lots for building new homes.  As of today (Jan. 7, 2010) asking prices for the 6 homes available on the Montgomery Area MLS range from $192,000 (1655 sq. ft.) – $269,900 (2,433 sq. ft.).

If you like new construction and a walkable neighborhood with amenities,  plus you want to be super-close to I-85, StoneyBrooke might be a good fit.  Give us a call – we can help buyers with any listing in the Montgomery Area MLS (and it costs buyers nothing more to have a Realtor working for them).