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Grins and Gripes
Delighted or dismayed by something in your community? Share your thoughts in 40 words or less
online: nwobserver.com e-mail: grinsandgripes@nwobserver.com Grins & Gripes are published based on available space and editor’s discretion.
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Jason at Tire Max (Stokesdale) for helping me check under and behind my back seats for “Tom & Jerry” mice taking up residence in my car, all at no charge. We didn’t find them but he enjoyed the challenge. Liberty Wesleyan Church for another awesome fireworks display. It was sorely missed last year. Thanks, from your neighbors on Price Mill Road. The future PTA President at Northern Elementary. The Haines family and the Henson Farms’ neighbors for the thoughtful send-off of our son, Parker, to the USMA at West Point. It meant more to us than you know. Summerfield residents who do their own research on proposed local development and instead of listening to the very vocal, in-your-face minority and their lies, attend meetings and review the information for themselves! Towns of Oak Ridge and Summerfield for planning Music in the Park events. Sure did miss these last year, and it’s great to have them back! Love the music and seeing neighbors and others from my work and home community. Cyclists who... well, just cyclists. Homeowners of $800,000+ homes who think they now speak for all of Summerfield. Citizens didn’t want your 140 houses built in their backyards either, but now you want to stop all development. Hypocritical! Guilford County Schools for its handling of online learning. These students have never been online before and now their GPA has to suffer because of it. I watch my student struggle not only academically but mentally. Those who are okay with allowing water and sewer in Summerfield. If this is allowed, then apartments, strip malls, traffic and noise will also be allowed. Summerfield will change forever and not in a good way. Keep Summerfield rural! Employees of the grocery store in Summerfield who park in the first few spots of the rows. Those spots should be for customers.
Outside the …
The following reader-submitted GRINS and GRIPES express opinions about state and/or national topics, and have been separated from the other grins and gripes as a courtesy to those who do not want to read others’ opinions on state and/or national political and other non-local topics in a local newspaper. GRINS to... GRIPES to...
Independent thinkers who reject unapproved vaccines. Veterans of the Gulf War are struggling with lupus, MS, blindness NEW Location in Kernersville Quick Lube no appointment needed for oil changes & state inspections Hometown Auto and paralysis as a result of the anthrax vaccine. These side effects manifested years later. Keep your needles off my body.
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The absurd concept of “gun violence.” Mine have never once exhibited any violent behavior. Meanwhile, in gunfree London two teenagers were stabbed to death on one day (July 5). What’s next – “knife control”?
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“Every time a house comes on the market, there are 10 buyers waiting on it,” said Tim Atkins, an Allen Tate agent in Oak Ridge. He met with colleagues earlier this week to discuss ways to help clients sweeten their off ers to sellers.
Offering more than asking price isn’t always enough. Another option for buyers is offering to pay sellers the difference if their offers exceed the lenders’ appraised value of the houses, according to Atkins.
As an example, if the buyer agrees to pay $400,000 for a house and it appraises for $380,000, the buyer would pay the seller the $20,000 difference.
The scarcity has discouraged some homeowners from listing their property, putting even more downward pressure on supply, real estate agents said.
“I have several sellers who want to list their houses, but they have to find a place to go first,” Keller Williams Realtor DeDe Cunningham said.
The COVID-19 pandemic is partly responsible for the shortage, according to agents and home builders. Early in the outbreak, health concerns shut down much of the economy, including real estate, home building and manufacturing of building and household products from lumber to appliances. As the economy reopened, buyers flocked back into the housing market, outnumbering sellers and contributing to an undersupply of houses.
In a report last month, the National Association of Realtors said the growth of the U.S. housing inventory has slowed over the past 20 years, creating an “underbuilding gap” of 5.5 to 6.8 million housing units.
“We’re going as fast as we ever have,” said Casey Johnson, of Johnson & Lee, a customer homebuilder. The company is building eight spec houses in the Northwest and Northern Guilford school districts priced from $350,000 to $650,000.
Johnson said he expects to get offers for some of the houses in the next few weeks, despite prices higher than a year ago due to rising costs of materials still in short supply. In northwest Guilford, houses including land that sold for $160-$170 per heated square foot a year ago are now fetching about $200 a square foot, he said.
While lumber prices have eased, other prices continue to rise, such as a 45% increase for vinyl siding since the start of the year, Johnson said. Oriented strand board that goes on roofs and in walls has climbed to about $44 a sheet from $8-$10 a year ago, he said.
As a result, housing prices have jumped in northwest Guilford. In the first five months of the year, the average price of a house in Oak Ridge and Summerfield climbed 13.1% to $490,121 from $433,517 a year earlier, according to the Greater Greensboro Realtors Association (GGRA), citing Triad Multiple Listing Service figures.
Through May, the average price of a house in Stokesdale advanced 13.7% to $345,265 from $303,545 in the first five months of 2020, GGRA said.
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The shortage of housing, especially for those in the price range of $300,000 and less, has prompted some buyers to make offers without even seeing the listings, Gillespie said.
After looking unsuccessfully for a resale listing for several months, a single mother working with Allen Tate affiliate Betty Smith decided she’d prefer to buy a newly constructed house.
She found a northwest Guilford neighborhood where she’d like to live, Smith said. But it’s unlikely to work out for her because she’s on the waiting list with 120 other people for the final 30 lots in the development.
“There are 90 people who will not get a lot,” said Smith, president of Smith Marketing in Summerfield.
GGRA’s report of housing activity in May illustrates the demand for housing. Buyers paid 101.3% of asking price in Oak Ridge and Summerfield during in the market for houses under $300,000, Cunningham said. They’re waiting and hoping for the market to cool.
the month, compared to 97% of asking price a year earlier. In Stokesdale, houses sold for 101.9% of asking price in May, up from 98.7% in May 2020.
This past May, the inventory of houses on the market in Oak Ridge and Summerfield dropped 73.5% to 1.3 months from 4.9 months a year earlier, GGRA said. In Stokesdale, the percentage sank 60.7% to 1.1 months from 2.8 months.
As the listing agent for The Farm at Oak Ridge on N.C. 150, Cunningham said all of the houses under construction in the subdivision are sold.
Earlier this week, a bidding war for a single-level townhouse with a twocar garage south of Oak Ridge illustrates the competition, Cunningham said.
The listing sold for $300,000, which was $35,000 over asking price, she said. The buyer who emerged from about eight bidders agreed to pay all cash, put down $25,000 in earnest money and another $15,000 in due diligence fees.
The rising prices have put some buyers on the sidelines, especially
Mortgage rates are forecast to edge up during the remainder of 2021. Fannie Mae, the governmentsponsored mortgage loan company, estimated that, on average, fixed rates on 30-year mortgages increased to 3% in the just-completed second quarter, up from 2.9% in the first quarter. It predicted rates will remain steady at 3% in the third quarter and rise to 3.2% in the fourth quarter.
Atkins, of Allen Tate, said many of his clients feel fortunate when sellers accept their offers, even when they pay more than asking price. Whether such investments pan out isn’t guaranteed, he said.
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