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My family is going this weekend to view houses. They plan on looking at some from the parade booklet and others not listed. Are there any recommendations for houses under 350 and any active adult communities? How are the following areas, Knightdale, Wake Forest, Morrisville, Durham, Garner, North Raleigh?
Active communities that I am aware for adults would be Heritage in Wake Forest, they have plenty of homes under $350,000. North Raleigh you have Bedford/Falls River off of Falls of the Neuse, I don't know much about Knightdale, Morrisville, Durhamster or Garner. West Cary area has homes in that price range and decent amenities, mostly off of Hwy 55 just south of RTP.
I used their new iPhone app to locate and find homes. The app is a great idea. However, in practice, it could use some finessing. For example, you can mark homes as Favorites, which is useful, but then you can't see your grouped Favorites on a map to help you plan a driving route. You can see it alone on a map, and there is a main map which spots ALL the home results from a filtered search, but you can't filter it for Favorite homes. So it was clumsy to navigate place to place. You would need to enter Favorites into your personal GPS system, instead. But I'm sure NEXT years app will iron out the shortcomings. I liked not having to carry around the big magazine of Parade homes!
I saw a $700,000 house today and had a good chuckle when I went inside. They painted all the trim various dark colors and some walls and ceilings were painted strong bold in your face colors. I don't know what they were thinking. It destroyed the look of an otherwise extremely nice house.
I visited several more Parade neighborhoods all around the county today and found one thing in common amongst all of them. High pressure sales people. They'd cut me off no matter which way I went and wouldn't stop yacking the entire time. I think they may be under a lot of pressure to try to make some sales. I've never seen the sales people in this type of attack mode in past Parade of Homes.
I visited several more Parade neighborhoods all around the county today and found one thing in common amongst all of them. High pressure sales people. They'd cut me off no matter which way I went and wouldn't stop yacking the entire time. I think they may be under a lot of pressure to try to make some sales. I've never seen the sales people in this type of attack mode in past Parade of Homes.
That's funny, we went to a lot of Parade of Homes as well and we didn't have any pressure from the sales agents there, albeit there were maybe 1 or 2 other people looking at the same homes. What homes did you attend Wheelwright? Where? Who were the agents?
I did notice there were Parade of Home signs in the 5 County area that were not advertised in the N & O, all the homes were spec homes and many I noticed have been on the market for well over a year, some as long as 3 years. You can find many of these homes online on Willow or even the MLS.
I think the best time there should be a "Parade of Homes" would be when families are usually relocating which could be early Spring or just before school starts in August.
The million dollar homes were immaculate and the prices on them have been dropped with all the extra incentives for appliances, upgrades and etc., lots of people visited the homes, to "visit" not many serious buyers, I guess it was something to do instead of watching football all day or people looking to upgrade their current home only to get ideas of what's in style now.
So do they offer tour bus transportation between neighborhoods or do people just have a guide and then visit which ever ones interest them? I live in a new community just outside the beltline on the west side of Raleigh (Athens Grove) and noticed signs up on the model for the parade of homes. I also saw an increased amount of traffic in the neighborhood this weekend. I'm extremely happy with our new home, our neighbors, and where we're located, but I guess to each his own...
I was surprised people were saying the sales staff was being so pushy. I would think that's the wrong attitude to have in this economy. If I would've been pushed, it would have really turned me off on the neighborhood.
We went to some of the higher end houses in West Cary and were asked to take our shoes off or wear booties over them. That was no problem, but once inside one of the homes, we were asked to fill out forms and the realtor talked our ear off before we even had a chance to look around. I was honest and told her we were only here to browse and really wasn't looking to purchase a home at this time, but she still described the home to us in detail and kept pressuring us about what we were in the market for. I thought the parade of homes was set up for people to just come in and look around, with no pressure from sales associates. This was my first, so maybe it wasn't clear. I did go to a few others, not sure exactly where I was, just kept following signs. I don't think I saw a home I wouldn't love to call my own. Love the neighborhoods they were all in too.
We went to some of the higher end houses in West Cary and were asked to take our shoes off or wear booties over them. That was no problem, but once inside one of the homes, we were asked to fill out forms and the realtor talked our ear off before we even had a chance to look around. I was honest and told her we were only here to browse and really wasn't looking to purchase a home at this time, but she still described the home to us in detail and kept pressuring us about what we were in the market for. I thought the parade of homes was set up for people to just come in and look around, with no pressure from sales associates. This was my first, so maybe it wasn't clear. I did go to a few others, not sure exactly where I was, just kept following signs. I don't think I saw a home I wouldn't love to call my own. Love the neighborhoods they were all in too.
I'm glad it wasn't just me. I didn't find it this way in past years and hope it isn't this way next year.
Most of the Agents that are in the parade homes are new agents, hoping to pick up clients.
Some are the onsite agents from the neighborhood.
I doubt any are under some type of "pressure" to sell any of the homes they are in.
Different Agents = Different Personalities. I've never known anyone to use "sales tatics" to get a home sold. It just doesn't work that way, at all.
Vicki
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High Grove Parade of Homes
