Welcome Park Avenue Properties New Raleigh Property Manager, Debbie Schmitt
Debbie has been in the real estate industry since 1987 as a licensed Broker. Her love for exploring new areas and an intense desire to be home with her children led her to leave a lucrative career in corporate America.
Over the years she worked with her husband as a Realtor team in new home sales and general brokerage. She took a detour to set up and run relocation departments within different Century 21 offices in the Triangle. During that time Debbie was a member of major organization such as ERC, INRELCO, and was president of Carolina Relocation Council. This role expanded into Business Development which involved marketing a strategic project to corporations. As the economy changed, so did Debbie’s role in the real estate arena. Back in sales, she worked with REO companies on foreclosures and short sales.
Debbie joined Park Avenue Properties after meeting with owner, John Bradford. PAP’s structure and business model so impressed her, she has decided this is her final career move.
In her spare time, Debbie coaches competitive gymnastics, acro-dance, and loves scrap booking!
Get in touch with Debbie, here.
Welcome Park Avenue Properties New Bern Property Manager, Jamie Yezarski
A native of New Bern NC, Jamie attended Campbell University and UNCP where he competed as an NCAA wrestler and studied English, before continuing his education in Exercise Science at East Carolina University.
Jamie has successfully worked in real estate sales and management for over ten years, building a successful local brokerage prior to joining the Keller Williams family in 2008. A graduate of the Realtor Institute, Jamie was attracted to Keller Williams’ unprecedented commitment to agent education. Beginning his career with a strong focus on bank-owned properties, Jamie quickly gained experience in re-sales, and new construction & development, while focusing on investors and real estate as an investment vehicle.
Jamie believes in the power of building wealth through real estate and personally maintains several income producing properties. Most recently Jamie has formed a strategic partnership with Park Avenue Properties, the premiere property management company in the east, and is excited about the additional opportunity to serve his community.
In his free time Jamie enjoys reading, exercising, spending time with his family and dogs, and coaching youth and high school wrestling throughout eastern North Carolina.
Get in touch with Jamie, here.
2011 Top Producers and CLUB Winners Announced
Park Avenue Properties announced its 2011 Top Producers and CLUB Winners for Real Estate and Property Management. Shannon Edwards, Diane Hoare, JJ Morse and Rich Tomasini were award recipients on the Real Estate side. Bridget Holm, Kelly Rich and Jennifer Stoops received the honor on the Property Management side. Park Avenue Properties awarded the CLUB Winners with a 5 day vacation cruise to the Bahamas. 
Firm Owner Named Business Person of the Year
DavidsonNews.net: John Bradford, owner of Park Avenue Properties, LLC in Cornelius, received the 2011 Robert T. Cashion Business Person of the Year. The award was presented by 2011 Chamber Chairman of the Board Robert Reed and Bobby Cashion, representing his father Robert, for whom the prestigious award is named.
Mr. Bradford started Park Avenue Properties as a side business while working full time as a sales executive with IBM. The firm continued to grow, and Bradford eventually left IBM to continue working toward his dream of owning a successful Property Management and Real Estate firm. The agency has grown from 60 properties managed in 2007 to over 1,000 properties managed by the end of 2011. Park Avenue increased its property management and real estate business by 50% in 2011 and expanded their property management business into three additional regions: Raleigh, Myrtle Beach, and Memphis. In 2012, the firm’s expansion plans include Charleston, Columbia and Greenville, SC.
In addition, Park Avenue Properties was ranked No. 7 in both 2009 and 2010 by the Charlotte Business Journal among Real Estate Firms for the total number of transactions closed. A community minded firm, Park Avenue Properties held its second annual Haunted House in conjunction with Latta Equestrian Center to benefit local charities. Attendance nearly doubled from its inaugural year with approximately 4,000 people in attendance. All the event’s profits were donated back to the community in various ways such as Habitat for Humanity and Pi Kappa Phi’s Scholarship Foundation.
Bradford is a Cub Scout Den Leader, served as a PARC Commissioner and was elected in November 2011 as a Cornelius Town Commissioner. He serves on the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and is highly involved in his industry serving as the Southeast Regional Vice President for the National Association of Property Managers in his second term. Bradford has served as Vice President and President of the local Chapter.
Addressing the business, community, and elected leadership present at the meeting, Bradford stated, “Receiving the Robert T. Cashion Business Person of the Year Award is a wonderful surprise and honor. It serves as evidence that our firm’s hard work over the last five years has earned us the right to be in the company of other successful local business owners and past recipients of this coveted award. Jennifer Stoops, Regional Sales Manager, has played a pivotal role in our firm’s success as well as the continued support from my staff and family. The Town of Cornelius has been very kind to our firm and we are delighted to give thanks by ensuring that Cornelius is the home of our regional headquarters for many years to come.”
Original Story Here
For Many, No Rush to Home Ownership
As market slinks to a rebound, renters increasingly focus on saving cash and enjoying a life less marked by uncertainty.
Visit CharlotteObserver.com to view original article.
By Kirsten Valle Pittman
kpittman@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Sunday, Sep. 04, 2011
When Lina and Jimi Gibson moved into their 850-square-foot apartment in 2009, they figured they’d stay two years while they planned their wedding and saved for a house. Now, with the economy in another tailspin, they’re on the fence.
The couple can walk to restaurants and movies from their building in southwest Charlotte.
They have a gym and a pool, and they don’t have to mow the lawn or repair the roof.
Mostly, they don’t have to worry – like so many of their friends – that the housing market’s slide isn’t over.
“I don’t want to have a house that’s going to be worth nothing or a neighborhood that’s going to lose everything,” said Lina Gibson, 27, a bank teller. “We just want to start off strong, with no debt. We’re just being very careful.”
For decades, Americans have aspired to own homes, and everyone from bankers to government officials have worked to make the dream accessible. But around the country, particularly in places pummeled by the real estate bust, that’s changing.
Legions of homeowners remain underwater on their mortgages or unable to move because they can’t sell their house. Plenty who want homes can’t buy them because credit remains tight.
Look deeper, though, and the trends suggest a larger shift in how people feel about homeownership:
Droves of potential buyers, particularly young adults, are renting longer even when they can afford to buy, stockpiling their savings or seeking investments they see as safer, real estate brokers and economists say.
People who do buy are increasingly opting for more modest houses. Recent data show new homes are smaller – and sport fewer pricey extras, such as fireplaces and patios – than in years past.
Homeowners are staying in their houses longer. Just 11 percent of sellers surveyed by the National Association of Realtors last year had owned their home for three years or less, down from 30 percent in 2006.
Increasingly, consumers seem to be viewing their houses simply as places to live, instead of lucrative investments.
It’s not yet clear whether the shift is permanent. Memories of past recessions can fade quickly, economists say, and government policies encouraging homebuying aren’t likely to disappear, because the housing market remains a critical part of the U.S. economy.
What’s more, the reasons to buy, from the appeal of a long-term investment to the simple desire to own property, might outweigh even consumers’ worst fears.
For now, though, some experts say the American Dream has taken a back seat to economic realities.
“We’ve gone through 50 years of homeownership being the American Dream, and in those 50 years, homes didn’t do anything but appreciate,” said Bill Miley of real estate research firm Metrostudy. “The American Dream today is job security and being able to afford gasoline to get to work. It’s certainly not buying a home.”
From long shot to too easy
Homeownership is a long-held dream for many Americans, but a century ago, it wasn’t accessible for most. Often, the only way to buy was to pay cash or take out a pricey loan with a large down payment.
Government policy helped change that. From the beginning of the federal income tax, people have been allowed to deduct their mortgage interest. In 1938, the government established the Federal National Mortgage Association, known as Fannie Mae, to provide local banks with federal money to finance home mortgages, creating the 30-year mortgage with fixed interest and leading to more housing loans.
After World War II, the G.I. Bill helped veterans secure low down-payment loans with low interest rates. Suburbs sprang up, and the U.S. homeownership rate climbed above 60 percent from 45 percent in the first half of the century.
The U.S. had become a nation of homeowners.
Meanwhile, the government continued to encourage home buying through tax breaks and programs that push homeownership for low-income earners.
Then came the real estate boom. Credit was cheap and easy to obtain, risky products such as adjustable-rate mortgages crowded the market, and by the mid-2000s, homeownership rates had spiked to nearly 70 percent after decades in the low- to mid-60 percent range.
“If you had a pulse,” Miley said, “you could get a loan.”
Consumers kept buying, landing bigger mortgages and borrowing against their homes for other purchases: second homes, boats, college tuition.
Investors bought and sold homes quickly, reaping huge profits.
We know what happened next.
Still sore from ‘black eye’
Since the meltdown, the housing market continues to struggle, despite record-low interest rates and attractive prices.
Prices have fallen by more than they did during the Great Depression, research firm Capital Economics reported recently. The nation’s homeownership rate has dropped back below 66 percent.
Part of the reason the market remains weak is that some people who want to buy can’t get loans. The National Association of Realtors, for one, is calling on banks to bring back “common-sense standards” in lending, loosening what the association considers to be too-strict requirements, spokesman Water Molony said.
That would boost sales 15 percent to 20 percent, he said. He said a homeownership rate of around two-thirds of U.S. households, closer to the pre-boom norm, is more realistic than the boom-years peak, and that some people simply shouldn’t be homeowners. But, Molony added, there’s a pent-up demand among other potential buyers that could help bolster the anemic economic recovery.
“Housing got a black eye,” he said. “But it doesn’t really take away the American Dream. People still aspire to it.”
Consumers and real estate experts say attitudes about owning real estate are changing. A recent report from Morgan Stanley, for instance, found that the U.S. homeownership rate has fallen below 60 percent when delinquent borrowers are excluded, a sign of the country’s move toward a “rentership society.”
John Bradford of Park Avenue Properties, a Cornelius real estate and property management firm, said he’s seeing more consumers hold off on buying homes while they wait for a recovery.
“I’ve seen cases of $400,000 and up, lake-front, golf community,” he said. “Some renters are thinking, why would I buy when I can rent and invest my money in other things?”
Charlotte real estate broker Matthew Tringali began to see greater demand for rentals in 2008.
Since then, managing rental properties for homeowners who can’t sell has become one of the biggest parts of his job.
“People are naturally afraid that home prices are still falling,” he said.
Even longtime homeowners have begun to doubt the security of their investment.
“When I was younger, I always wanted to have a house,” said Edwin Tetenbaum, 52, a Mint Hill homeowner who tutors, writes and does homeowners association administrative work. “If I was just starting out now, I would be kind of concerned about, well, why would I want to buy a house now if 1 1/2 years, two years down the road it may lose another 20 percent of its value?”
Hope alive for ‘millenials’
Consumers still view buying a house as a foundation of the American Dream, though, a recent Wells Fargo & Co. survey found
The study, conducted with The Futures Co., found 36 percent of “millenials” – the largest potential first-time homebuyer group – reported owning a home. Two-thirds of millenials believe they will be homeowners within the next five years.
Jon Wilkinson, 25, planned to buy a home this spring, after his wife, Linda, finishes school at UNC Charlotte.
Given the low interest rates and prices, though – their mortgage wouldn’t be much more than their current monthly rent – they decided to buy earlier.
“We’ve always rented, but we always thought we would buy a house one day,” said Wilkinson, an accountant. “That’s the No. 1 reason.”
Buyers are increasingly taking a long-term view of their investment, according to a November 2010 survey from the National Association of Realtors. The survey found that typical sellers had been in their home eight years, up from seven years in 2009 – and that first-time buyers plan to stay in their new house for 10 years. Repeat buyers, meanwhile, plan to hold their property 15 years.
Personal-finance guru Suze Orman endorses the strategy in her new book, “The Money Class,” reminding readers that a home is not a stock – and that buying with the intent to flip for a profit or to fund other goals through home-equity loans was never wise.
“The deflated home values have put an end to the prospect of home as retirement fund or college fund and raised the question of whether homeownership in fact even makes sense anymore,” she wrote. “I am shocked by the number of people I talk to who … regret the day they thought a home purchase was a great idea.”
Buyers are drifting toward different kinds of homes, too, particularly smaller, more affordable properties closer to their jobs, data from the National Association of Home Builders show.
A study last year by the group found the median size of new single-family homes has dropped to 2,100 square feet, for instance, from a peak of 2,268 square feet in 2006.
“It’s going to be a long, long time before we start seeing custom builders building very expensive homes,” said Miley of Metrostudy, the real estate research firm. “It is not an investment. It is a shelter. It is a place to raise a family. It’s a backyard.”
A season of uncertainty
Most economists and industry experts expect the housing market to rebound, though they acknowledge recovery could be a long road.
Some say that once credit standards loosen and the economy improves, consumers will turn more readily to homeownership – and that, eventually, young adults who chose to rent for convenience and security will want to buy a house and settle down.
Experts suspect the government will always encourage ownership through the mortgage interest deduction, too.
“When they talk about tax reform, that’s always on the table, as it should be, in my mind,” said John McIlwain, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C.
“But it’s one thing to mention the possibility, and it’s another thing to move forward. People say, ‘Are you going to vote against homeownership?’ It’s like being against apple pie, motherhood, etc.”
But whether potential homebuyers opt to buy in coming years or continue to hold off depends on the housing market’s strength, some say.
The Gibsons of southwest Charlotte still think they’ll probably buy a home someday. They got married last year and hope to start a family in the next few years, and they’ve already been preapproved for a home loan.
Still, they worry: One friend, unable to sell her townhome when she had to move, was forced to let it fall into foreclosure. Another owes more on his home than it’s worth. The couple are looking at homes, but they wonder if many are still priced too high.
In the meantime, Lina Gibson and her husband, who works for Carolinas HealthCare System, are contributing more to their retirement accounts and padding their savings.
They clip coupons and shop at consignment stores, a dramatic shift from a few years ago. They don’t have any debt, and they like the freedom that brings.
“We both have an American Dream that we focus on every day,” said Lina Gibson, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia.
“We want to work hard and then actually live the dream later.” KEVIN COLLISON OF THE KANSAS CITY STAR AND DALE KASLER OF THE SACRAMENTO BEE CONTRIBUTED.
Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/03/2578647/for-many-no-rush-to-own-first.html#ixzz1XDA4xJ6R
