Another pre-sale in Portofino is being built by Neil Jarman with Jarman Homes, this home is for a family from PA who have kids that cannot wait to move into Portofino. Again this is a collaboration of the builder and his wife Joy who is the designer, the new homeowners and a base floor plan that is custom built to suit their family. One of the many wonderful features of this home is the massive wrap around porch.

Lot 42 in Portofino,Clayton was just

cleared for a new home to be built by Art Kirkwood with Kirkwood Builders. The buyers of this home are from New Jersey and looked at a few neighborhoods before realizing that Portofino had everything they desired, namely, large wooded private lots, beautiful amenities like the beach entry pool, the piazza at the clubhouse and the many miles of nature trails. This is another new floor plan that came about as a result of the buyers and builder getting together and coming up with a custom built home.

In the Churchill section of Portofino, there are 3 pre-sales about to be started, JordanBuilt Homes is the very successful builder who is building beautiful custom homes on wonderful private lots. JordanBuilt built three homes to start and we have already sold two, and we have two more spec homes about to be started.

In the pipeline, all the builders have other homes that people have requested pricing on and nearly all will be starting another home shortly.

Along with all the pre-sale activity we have a few builders getting ready to start spec homes. Jason Graci with Royalty Homes is building a wonderful four bedroom, three car garage on Lot 82 in the Estate section of Portofino.
Steve Corker with Corker Enterprises has plans for Lot 12 in the Belmont section, and our newest builder Capitol City Homes has purchased five lots and will start two homes and already has a pre-sale.

Are you looking for a builder who can build you your dream home on the perfect lot and be surrounded by all the wonderful amenities that Portofino has to offer?

Call (919) 601-2268 or email David at irishdavid2011@gmail.com and I will be happy to arrange a meeting and help guide you through the process.

The problems arise when a new family moves into a neighbourhood and they won’t know what school their child will attend, some realtors are afraid that will deter people from buying homes in Wake County.

I got a call from my brother in law Jim yesterday who was in North Carolina on business and picked up the local newspaper the News and Observer to find my blog post was featured in the paper in a section about the school system in Wake County. The writer pointed out that I was using the situation in Wake County to market homes in Johnston County. That was not the intent of the blog post but merely to promote Johnston County Schools.

The writer T. Keung Hui also has a blog, WakeEd and it has received about 25 comments to date and some are quite, “shall we say direct!!!” Apparently I need to take some grammar lessons……!

T. Keung called me later in the day and explained that those comments were nothing, that the opposing side in the debate can go all out sometimes. We had a very nice conversation and I learned a lot from him.

So a quick blog about a serious topic gets in the newspaper and sparks a debate, I wonder will I sell more homes in Johnston County because of it?

There are some excellent schools in the Clayton Area of North Carolina. The schools are Johnston County Schools and like anywhere some are great and some are not so. The location of your address is what determines the school your child will go to. The county is divided into areas and if your subdivision or land falls in that area, your child goes to the elementary, middle and high school for that area.

There are 6 Honor Schools of Excellence in Johnston County, 2 Schools of Excellence, and 21 Schools of Distinction. Student achievement is among the top 20% in all North Carolina districts. The Johnston County Schools have a web site you can use to get information and maps of school areas.

Wake County our larger neighbouring county, the largest in the state have been struggling with their system of school assignments. In Wake Co. you cannot be guaranteed that your child will go to the school around the corner unless you are successful in getting them assigned to that school which is done on a first come first served basis. If the school you picked for your child is full they get bumped to your second choice and then to your third if that one is full. The 2012-2013 school year  is the first year they have tried this so it will be very interesting to see how it plays out.

Send me an email if you need more information about what the schools are like in Clayton, NC or if you need help finding the right subdivision to buy a home in Clayton.

“I don’t care for the glass shower it would make her awkward if I had to get a shirt and she was showering!”

(I don’t think you have anything to worry about, just being married to you I’m sure is plenty awkward enough!)

“Did you see the big snake on the steps?” This snake………..>

“Mommy I like this house more better than our house, you should buy more lottery!”

“Daddy, please, please, pleeeeeeeeeeeease, please can we buy this house please?”

“You said it has four bedrooms and I can only find two?” ( “that’s because you haven’t gone upstairs yet”)

“ Where’s the basement at?” ………( “that would be downstairs”)

“ Well if we bought this house I would stay at our old house and you and mommy could live here, would you be OK with that?”……………”Sure!”

“Is the builder married?”

“I could put my in-laws in the finished basement”……….and from someone else, “Oh no honey, my in-laws would never find out about the basement!”

“There is only one thing wrong with this house…….my name is not on the deed!”

“My Room!” …….about twenty times!

This is a wonderful home in Portofino, Clayton’s premier neighborhood. The four bedroom home is on a three quarter acre lot, it overlooks the wooded trail system. There are two bedrooms downstairs and two upstairs. The master suite is luxurious and features a huge closet, jacuzzi tub, oversized shower, dual vanity, tile floor.
There is a great bonus/theater room with surround sound subwoofer and room for games , pool table.
If you are looking for a four bedroom home in Clayton, just outside Raleigh then you will need to see this home. At $459,900 it is priced  well below its worth.

The zip code was named #10 in the country by Business Week Magazine for having the most affordable housing and best schools.

As usual the traffic at the Johnston County Parade of Homes has been wonderful, this year has seen great crowds of people checking out the new homes on display. The Johnston County Real Estate market is certainly heating up compared to a year ago.
There seems to buyers coming from all over the United States to live in North Carolina and Johnston County. I recently met folks from California, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, Ohio, every day it seems I come across someone relocating to North Carolina.

The Johnston County Parade of Homes has about twenty homes to see, anywhere from great town homes to estate homes like award winners Steve Corker in Portofino and Art Kirkwood in Flowers Plantation and, wonderful family homes like Neil Jarman’s Gold Award Winner in Mill Creek West.
The prices range from $150,000 up to $600,000 and there are some great ideas in these new homes, you will see the latest in lighting, entertainment energy saving products. Landscaping ideas are also abundant as the builders spare no expense to showcase their entries. You will see homes on large lots, small lots, wooded lots, cleared lots. Foundations from slab to crawl space to finished basement.

Typically when you buy a Parade Of Homes entry you are getting a bargain as the builders want to impress the judges by putting as much in the home without raising the price too much, ask any builder and they will tell you that to build the same house again is going to cost more.

Johnston County, North Carolina is seeing some growth and has done for some time as the land in Raleigh and Wake County becomes more and more scarce, coupled with the fact that Wake County Schools are going through a huge school assignment issue. Johnston County has low taxes, excellent schools,  a good industrial base and job growth, plus you get so much more for your money here than in Raleigh or Cary.
The Johnston County Parade of Homes is April 14,15 21, 22, 28,29 Saturdays from 10-6 and Sundays from 1-6, hope to see you out there.

The wonderful  North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Downtown Raleigh will be opening the newest wing on Friday April 20th, Earth Day by the way. The grand opening will be a 24 hour extravaganza of music, street performers, dignitaries and scientists on hand to explain some of the new exciting exhibits…… and the whole event is free.

The 80,000 square foot extension has added programs and features like the SECU Daily Planet where you can view images from the natural world on a 40×40 foot screen. There is a model submersible where you can take a virtual tour under the ocean and hear scientists discuss their work on deep-water corals.

There is a section called the Window on Animal Health where visitors can watch and interact with scientists, veterinarians and pre-veterinary students conducting animal handling, animal checkups and minor surgeries. You will be able to ask questions as they perform checkups on the animals, that’s pretty cool!

There is an exhibit called the WRAL Researching Weather Platform, an interactive display that will have weather balloons, wind/water gauges and lots more to explain weather to visitors, something that seems we all need to know about these days.

There are all kinds of exhibits to see in the new Nature Research Center as well as the rest of the Museum Of Natural Sciences and general admissiom is FREE.  Regular Hours are Monday- Saturday 9am-5pm and Sunday noon-5pm. The museum will be closed from April 8th – April 20th to prepare for The Grand Opening of The New Nature Resarch Center.

I am not an expert in taxes, (just paying them), but I was curious to find out if a federal pension would be taxed if you were to retire in North Carolina, so I went to the NC Dept of Revenue’s website.

There are a lot of variables on there and of course everyone’s case is different, the main point I got from the website was whether you were vested in a pension plan before Aug 12TH 1989.

So I imagine being a federal employee with a federal pension, how much tax you will pay in retirement will have some bearing on your decision. We can certainly take care of the other stuff….You know the great weather, affordable housing options, golf, beaches, world class hospitals,low property taxes, all of these we got here in North Carolina. The taxing of your pension, now you will be the best judge of that issue.

Clayton, NC Walking Trails

The Town of Clayton, North Carolina has  been working on their walking trails for a while now and they are brilliant. The town of Clayton, NC needs to be commended for it’s commitment to open space and recreational facilities and the walking trails are a great example of that.

The trails start at the bottom of O’Neill Street where there is currently a gravel parking lot, remember if you go now, they are still working on them! The black top trails then wind along crossing over a couple of bridges reaching the Neuse River and following the banks of the river to the new footbridge.

The trails then go under Covered Bridge Road and that is approxiamtly two miles, I am told they go for another two miles over near the Riverwood Subdivision, but time did not allow me that trip.

I walked Carly and met dog walkers, joggers, bike riders, moms with strollers, serious runners…. it’s mostly flat. Eventually the trail system in Clayton will connect with the Wake County trail system and from there walkers will have access to the Raleigh Greenway system, which consists of miles and miles of trails.

How cool to be able to ride a bike from Clayton into Raleigh.