While I wanted to write about the Gamecock experience this weekend and what this football team has done to the energy level in Columbia, S.C., I kinda need to take advantage of the timing of some new listings as it relates to my last post.  That said, Thursday night I typed about the low number of homes currently for sale in King’s Grant.  Since then, three more homes entered the marketplace.

The houses are located on Airy Hall, Foot Point, and Mackay’s Point (pictured above).  Prices are $495ish, $599ish, and $650,000, respectively.

Call or email fjones@cbunited.com or amandaqpayne@live.com if you’d like some details.

Thank you for letting the post below to linger another day!

Side note:  Wow.  Just WOW, to the USC Gamecocks.  There are athletes, and there are premiere athletes.  Then, there’s our Jadeveon Clowney.  #7 is just awesome.

Thank you!  FJ

Given all the inventory in the real estate market, nationally and locally, it feels a little odd to type about a neighborhood that can’t keep up with demand. Enter King’s Grant…

Like every neighborhood during the real estate boom, King’s Grant went haywire.  When the lull hit, however, King’s Grant sported 18 active listings.  Ugh.  While I obviously still “believed” in the neighborhood, the active listing count had me a little worried.

Fast forward to today: King’s Grant is effectively “Sold Out.”  With the exception of one, everything in the$400’s, $500’s, and $600’s is Under Contract.  Two homes in the $700’s are Under Contract, and one just closed for $915,000. Wow…

The action in King’s Grant is hard to explain.  Is its success due to, “buzz?”  Is the fact that KG feeds into popular Brennen Elementary that strong?  Could it be the fact that it’s the only downtown neighborhood with a human at the security gate?  In my guesstimation, it’s a heterogeneous cocktail of all the above.

The reason for this post is to make known King’s Grant is hot. While the sales prices aren’t bringing what they did during the boom, inventory is definitely moving.

This all said, I know of two homes that are about to hit the market in KG and a few others that would consider selling.  If you or anyone you know is interested in this neighborhood, please email fjones@cbunited.com or amandaqpayne@live.com .  Futher, please contact us if you’re aware of anyone in King’s Grant interested in selling their home or lot, as we may have a buyer “fit.”

Thank you!

FJ

Tuesday afternoon many of us learned Bryan Stirling will serve as Governor Nikki Haley’s Chief of Staff.   My first fleeting thought was, what a well deserved opportunity for our friend Bryan.  Second: Good move by Team Haley.  Third:  South Carolina may be the big winner.

Here’s where I’m coming from on the latter.  I don’t know the former Chief of Staff, Tim Pearson.  I do know he carries a political label (naturally), which he duly earned during Haley’s primary run and general election.  As he’s to be credited with a big win, this label may have hindered relationship building between the governor and legislature, Democrats and Republicans.  I think Bryan will bring more of a policy focus to the job.  After all, there’s a big difference between politics and actual policy, and this may smooth an edge.

Bryan Stirling and I have known each other for almost 15 years.   From this, my guess is he’ll bring a kind of steadiness and an unlocked quality/feeling to the governor’s office.  Legislators and policy wonks, Democrat and Republican, will at very least feel they have an ear to communicate to the executive branch.  Gov. Sanford and Haley seemed to have struggled with this over their terms, respectively.

Bryan and I have a professional relationship, as well.  When he worked with The McMaster Law Firm and MG&C Law, many of my buyer clients retained him as their closing attorney.  Smooth, honest, steady (there’s that quality again), every time.

A big, “Well done” to our friend, Bryan Stirling.  Moreover, in my bias, hiring Bryan instantly changes the tone of South Carolina’s state government, which is good for all of us.

Thank you!

FJ

In the last few weeks we’ve watched the development flair up between USC’s Coach Spurrier and The State Newspaper’s Ron Morris.  As a USC alumni and Gamecock fan this is frustrating to watch, at best.    As a local fella that casually reads about his favorite college football team, but ‘gets’ the larger picture, it’s just plain awkward.

For the sake of time, I’ll touch on one instance of frustration.  A few weeks ago Spurrier called Gamecock fans out for leaving the ballgame early.  If you remember, it was a noon game, and as we all know the visitor’s side of Williams-Brice Stadium can get pretty sweaty.  Morris, in turn, wrote a diddy about how USC should get out of the SEC if they don’t want to be forced into noon games.

Does Morris have a right to write such things?  Sure.  Should he?  Depends on who you ask.  Conversely, was Spurrier wrong in trying to whip up the base into staying in the stadium longer?  No.

I’m typing about this single incident on purpose, as the accusation about poaching the basketball program for players is a, “He said, he said,” and the attempt to parallel Spurrier’s program to the debacle at Penn State is not much more than shock writing.  I am, however, looping them all together as a, “What’s all this about?”

As I’ve typed before, Spurrier doesn’t need this.  Sure, he loves coaching, winning, and we think he likes it here, but he’s been there and done ALL that.  Like he said the other day, “I’ll head to the beach.”  Who knows if he’d leave the program, but why are we even here??

Here’s where I’m coming from.  We’ve got something going right now.  Spurrier has changed the culture at Carolina, and we like it.  USC’s brand has vaulted exponentially, which not only recruits football players, but more and better students, as well.  Further, Columbia is a different city with a new atmosphere.  Further still, as USC is South Carolina’s flagship university, we’re a different state.

Gamecock football is finally a force to be reckoned with, and quite frankly it’s a lot of fun.  That said, constantly watching someone rip apart the root of what got us here is, honestly, is hard to watch.  If one must write because that’s the job, that’s one thing.  If one is writing for a “gotcha” story or shock value, that’s another.  To illustrate, it’s like a crowbar in the cogs of the Gamecock fun factory.  In sum, it’s a major BUZZ-KILL!

PS:  One day we’ll see a bar in 5 Points named, “The Crow Bar,” or “CrowBar.”  Not bad!!

A few days ago we listed a stellar build-able vacant lot on Forest Lake. Repeat: not “in” Forest Lake, but ON Forest Lake. 748 Spring Lake is a super-long lot, with a soft slope towards the lake.

The pic above is Amanda tromping through the overgrown foliage on the property. She didn’t know I took this pic, and may be a little miffed I’m throwing it on the blog. Miff’ness nothwithstanding, I think it’s a pretty good illustration of what we’re doing on any given day. After all, if you know us, you know Amanda has a little vogue’ness about her. That said, the woman hustles at the job and as you can see, not afraid to do the less than glam stuff to make things happen.

About ten feet behind her, I’m pretty much ruining a suit. We’ll see what Tripp’s Fine Cleaners can do with it, but this blue window-pane(er) may be shot. Ugh, but that’s part of it.

748 Spring Lake is an extremely long, spacious lot. If you know downtown Columbia, the two most popular/largest lakes are Forest Lake and Lake Katherine.

Over the years I’ve heard many stories from Columbia natives about how they learned to ski on Forest Lake, and even more reminisce about after work booze cruises. Not a bad vision for property only minutes to downtown Columbia. What I’m getting at, is property surrounding Forest Lake is considered by many to be the most valuable real estate in Columbia.

Call or email fjones@cbunited.com or amandaqpayne@live.com for plats, specs, or anything else. Further still, feel free to do a ride by or walk the lot. 748 Spring Lake is offered for $250,000.

Thank you!

FJ

Given as much fun as everyone has on Saturday afternoons during Gamecock football home games, it irks me to no end to get in the stands and hear a constant “C’mon! Connor is terrible!,” or “You’ve got the best back in the nation, dumba**! Give it to Lattimore!” (we all know he’s the best, but he can’t run it every down). I almost want to challenge these folks to coach in their local Pop Warner League, and try and go 6 – 5. Good luck.

Honestly, what I’m leading up to is one of my ultimate pet peeves. I don’t know what it is, but when a fan yells, “Spurrier!  You’re an idiot!!!” over and over again, I just squint my eyes and shake my head. Here’s why it kills me inside. If Steve Spurrier is such an “idiot,” WHAT DOES THAT MAKE US???

I’m “just sayin’,” here, but to repeatedly yell how stupid a guy is just so dumb in itself. After all, Spurrier’s a multi-millionaire, plays golf whenever/wherever he wants, eats the biggest steaks whenever he wants, has a national championship ring, has a household name, is begged to sign his name on fake white footballs, and on and on. The yeller, on the other hand, is sitting in a $35 – $55 seat on the zero yard line, after drinking watered-down vodka red bulls in a parking lot for three hours and has a sweaty butt.

Even further, when “Idiot” is belted out over and over, the rest of the section awkwardly looks at one another shaking their heads, almost communicating via mental telepathy, “Dude. Dude…”

I’m not sure why this irks me so much, but its the same thing with presidents and presidential candidates. When someone barks at me, “Bill Clinton is an idiot,” or “Bush/Obama/Romney is an idiot,” I put my hands in my pockets and say, “Oh, OK…”. You know the rest.

Anyway, WOOHOO for the Gamecocks. We all had a huge time tailgating and watching them go off on our new SEC buds. I also had a big time knowing the “idiot” Spurrier notched another big win, and the “terrible” Connor Shaw banged out 20 straight completions.

I know the name-callers in the stadium are fired-up and half-lit. I’m just sayin’, if you’re bold enough to call Spurrier a dumba$$, it may be mirror time. I’m not defending Coach Spurrier, but he’s not an idiot. If he is, then…

Last month the Coldwell Banker United brass announced another fun listing contest. Once again, the rules are this: we are to attach a business card with each listing turned in, which is then placed in a fish bowl. At the end of the two-month period, a card will be pulled from the bowl. The winner will receive an iPad. Nice!

As you can see from the pic above, sporting the “30” puts us in a good position to win the prize. Time will tell! To clear things up, the contest is company-wide which includes 100’s of Realtors, within three regions (Charlotte, Columbia, Charleston), having one winner for each region. The pic above is of one office (Midtown) in one region.

While I’m not a huge fan of this kind of thing, it’s a good opportunity to illustrate what’s really going on. What I’m getting at, is that many folks think we concentrate on the higher-priced properties ($500K and above) in downtown Columbia. Not true.

From a branding perspective, I can understand how one can assume that we concentrate on “the big stuff.” Is it kinda cool to blog about a landmark home in a historical neighborhood? Sure!… but its not nearly as fun as putting a red “SOLD” sign on a listing, no matter the price. After all, the goal is to make buyers and sellers happy, at all price points. Truth is, our inventory represents every price level of the Columbia, SC, real estate market. That said, on a day-to-day basis we concentrate the same amount of time/effort on all of our clients.

Example 1, 2, & 3: this Sunday, I’m hosting an Open House at 2711 Mills Drive from 2 – 4PM. Early next week we’ll be hosting 30 – 40 Realtors for an Agent Open House Luncheon at York Drive and Concord Drive. All three of these are offered between $150,000 – $184,900. There ya go…

Getting back to the picture above, I’m proud of our production. If you know me, you know all too well that I’m chomping to wake up in a few hours to add to it.

You may find this mildly interesting, but the last time CBUR held a two-month listing contest we posted 49 listings, while our closest friendly competitor threw down 15, respectively. Did we win the iPad? Nope!

This weekend we decided to try something new.  Saturday afternoon we decided to take our three year old, Finley, to see the Gamecocks play!!!

Given the 7PM kickoff and mild temps, we thought this would be a perfect game to introduce her to USC football.  We were a little wrong, and a little right.

Arriving at The Coop around 5:30 was perfect.  She had a great time hanging out with the other kids, and it gave Jen and I some time to get a little tailgating in and hang out with friends.  After a lot of hype, high fives, and fist bumps, we made our way to the stadium and up to the seats.

Then the fella hit the microphone, the band cranked up, and the fireworks popped.  BANG…that was it.  It was just too loud.  Sweet girl kept switching between our laps, hiding her little face in our chests.  To put it in perspective, not only did we not make it to “2001,” we didn’t even last long enough to watch Cocky go nuts in his cage.  Sure, it was a little bit of a buzz kill, but no big deal.  After all, like her daddy, some fans just prefer to tailgate!

On the way out of the stadium we decided to visit Mr. Black (my late wife’s dad).  Sweet girl lasted about five seconds in his lap before the crowd went nuts and scared her again.  Again, no big whoop.  I’m just glad they got to hug each other’s neck, even for a moment.

The pic above is a scene on the way OUT of Williams-Brice Stadium, as the first seconds ticked off the game clock inside.  A big “Thank You!!,” to the “Tompkins” name on the Cockaboose above for the tickets that allowed us to take Finley to the game.

While Finley wasn’t quite ready for the actual, “stadium experience,” she had a BIG time overall and we have some new family memories of her first Gamecock football game.

Unlike her mom and dad’s record, she’s 1-0 as a Gamecock football fan.  As the saying goes, these aren’t your daddy’s Gamecocks!

We’ll be back!

Today a buddy of mine wrote on Facebook, “Had no idea so many of my friends were foreign policy and national security experts. Good to know…” -Michael. BoOM! Nail on head.

I’m not writing this to ruffle any feathers, take sides, or offend anyone. That said, I’ve noticed a load of chatter and opinion regarding who’s what, what should’ve happened, and what’s what about our foreign policy. To be blunt, most of us pretty much don’t know anything about foreign affairs or national security, and we’re not supposed to.

Many of us love politics and current events, and watch a lot of TV for as much information as we can inhale. Having an affection for current events and politics, however, doesn’t make us experts on foreign policy or national security.

It bothers me to no end when policy makers publicly declare an exit strategy or promise an evacuation date. How could any declaration be true? Why wouldn’t any faction use this information against their enemy? Consider this: what if President Lincoln or General Lee publicly proclaimed, “You know, we’re coming up the Black River in August, and if we don’t reach our objective by late August we’re coming home.” It just doesn’t register.

Remember when Geraldo drew a map with a stick in the dirt revealing where American troops were located in relation to the enemy, on national cable television (CNN)?  Seriously? The camera man should’ve hit him in the head and stepped on the dirt map.

Consider this, too. If Osama bin Laden had been on Twitter the night he was killed, he might have fired up a nearby jet pack and flown away (or whatever). If you didn’t know, before the American Navy SEALs dropped into bin Laden’s compound, someone Tweeted about the helicopters overhead, which could’ve altered the mission and reversed the outcome.

What I’m getting at is, just because you’re passionate and watch a lot of FOXNews or CNBC, or follow some influencial folks all day on Facebook, you’re not experts at pretty much anything regarding foriegn policy. It’s ok, as none of us are supposed to be.

In short, when we Blog, Tweet, or “Update” our Facebook pages with sound bites about national security and the like, it’s an obvious grab to tear down the other side at any expense. After all, most of the folks reading the posts are educated enough to know that you don’t know all of the specific details of much of anything, and therefore the post is strictly and blindly partisan.

Even further, the seemingly most outspoken folks have no idea where our military bases are, the amount of ammunition in the area, the culture, the vehicles available, the govnernment structure, the topography, international law, local customs, or even what they eat. Some of this matters, and some doesn’t, but what I’m getting at is that it’s just not as simple as “Kick His Ass, Sea Bass! WOOOOOOO!”

Again, I’m not typing to ruffle feathers. I simply want my friends to know how their comments are coming across to their friends.

Since we had such a good time in Charleston last weekend (minus the jellyfish), this weekend we decided to visit family in the Upstate of South Carolina. 

As we entered Anderson, SC, the first thing we noticed was the new school on Highway 81.   HUGE!  The second, and perhaps more important, is there’s now a Starbucks Coffee Company Store in Anderson, South Carolina.  I know it took forever, but I can’t fight it anymore.  The store is right there on Clemson Blvd.  I saw it, and it was a glorious sight!

After a great time with family at “Mimi’s” house on Whitehall Rd., we decided to spend the Saturday night in Greenville.  Once again, downtown Greenville delivered. 

Here’s the scene.  After getting settled at The Hampton Inn, we all decide to take a walk.  It was 10:15PM and we were strolling around Main Street with a three year old…with no problem.  

I don’t mean to over do it, but this is a testament to downtown Greenville.  We strolled, ran, held hands, walked across bridges, looked at waterfalls, and yelled under tunnels.  I think we walked up to no less than four weddings, of which, Finley decided to crash by dancing and bobbing to the beats while waving to guests. 

Greenville has uniquely positioned itself to produce such a venue.  I can’t think of any other South Carolina city that can boast this atmosphere.  Don’t get me wrong, Charleston has it’s awesomness, and we all love Columbia, SC, but downtown Greenville has it’s own knack of things.

The pics above are the vantage point from just under an elevated deck from our friends at Coldwell Banker – Caine.  Jealous!… for two reasons.  1) I’m a venue guy, and I’d love this view from my office every day.  I didn’t have my “fish-eye” lens today, which would have done the view better justice.  Even so, you get the idea. 2) If my office was this close to everything going on like our friends at “Caine,” my network-o-meter might break off the hinge.

In short, Coldwell Banker-Caine’s office has a beautiful, prime location.  As we stood under their deck, Jennifer even asked, “Do you think you could get a job there?”  Ha! 

After leaving GVegas’s Starbucks with a Venti Double-Shot, we made our way to Clinton for a late lunch at Jennifer’s parents house.  Yum!

In all, we had a great time in South Carolina’s Upstate.  We don’t go often enough, and each time we visit has us chomping to get back.  Growing up in Anderson, SC, I would’ve never thought Greenville, SC would become a “destination” type city.  I was wrong.

Once again, WELL DONE, @ downtown Greenville, SC!