One of my sister’s best friends is moving from our area soon, up to Asheville NC. It’s a great opportunity for her, as far as her career, but I know my sister is going to miss her terribly. What an exciting time for her friend though - moving to a new place, and new challenges at work, not to mention more money and perks, and living in a complete new area than the place you’ve called home for the last 20 or so years. There are plenty of small towns around Asheville that I’d love to call home, and Hendersonville real estate in particular is my kind of real estate. Huge lots, beautiful homes with front porches, lots of trees, a small town, nice restaurants, and a great downtown area filled with shops that showcase local crafts. I love small historic towns, and I’m thinking I need to add this one to my list of places to visit the next time we’re in North Carolina to ski.

One of the other things I’d like to do, as far as planning for my retirement travel (besides our newly purchased Disney Vacation Club points) would be to buy a little land in the mountains. This website, Retire Asheville really illustrates how lovely the mountains of North Carolina are. The valley of Asheville gives you all of the views, with less of the harsh winter conditions, and there are tons of places to ski, camp, hike, fish, and enjoy other outdoor activities. We’ve been to the mountains in North Carolina a few times, and we just can’t get enough of the national parks and the laid back lifestyle.

A lot of people are planning retirements there, especially given how bad the hurricanes have been here in Florida the past few years, so now is the perfect time to buy, before prices go up. You can buy a house, or buy a little piece of land to sit on few a few years. That’s what I’d like to do - buy the land, pay it off, and then build a cabin. In the months when you’re not using your mountain home, you can even rent it out to earn extra income, since there are plenty of people who want to vacation in Asheville.

It used to be, that folks retiring from the north, and states with plenty of snow and ice each winter, came south. My home state of Florida is known for the large number of people who come here to retire each year. But other towns are starting to catch up - people are retiring at earlier ages, and they’re not ready to settle into a sedentary lifestyle. A lot of this new, younger generation of retirees are finding that places like Florida don’t really fit their needs…and they’re finding that Las Vegas real estate has a lot to offer. For starters, Vegas is an easy destination for friends and family that want to visit. Last Vegas also caters to the older crowd with golf course and age restricted communities. Summerlin real estate in particular is a big hit with people who are looking for more than just retirement. Summerlin is a huge master planned community located in Las Vegas. The community features parks, walking trails, nature areas, and of course, golf! There will eventually be 30 villages of Summerlin, and the community already has classrooms, gyms, fitness areas, and lots of other programs to keep active retirees busy.

Today’s retirees want more than a quiet neighborhood and a few citrus trees in the yard, and Las Vegas has what they want.

I had the chance to stop in Savannah, GA a few years ago, and I was completely taken with the area. I was with my mom and the kids, coming back from a trip to New Jersey. We got a nice hotel in the Richmond Hill area, and then headed into town for dinner at the mall, and then further downtown for a drive around old Savannah. I’d love to go back and be able to stay in a bed and breakfast and do a ghost tour! (I was hooked after watching Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil)

While we were there, I grabbed a real estate booklet listing homes for sale in the area, and spent hours drooling over the grand old Victorians and newer brick homes in the suburbs. Now you can check out Savannah GA Real Estate online. View every home in the MLS over 4,000 currently for sale! There’s also a tie in to Google Maps, which makes it a lot easier to determine exactly where a home is located. Can’t find your dream home just yet? Put in your criteria and save it, and when new listings matching what you want are added to the system, you’ll be altered by email. You can also be emailed when something matching your criteria has a price reduction.

No matter if you want to be downtown, in the town, or in the suburbs, or on the coast, you’re bound to find something you like in the Savannah Real Estate Marketplace!

There was a big article in the paper a few weeks ago about the number of people from Great Britain who own property in Florida. I knew we were a hot spot for visitors - we always seem to run into people from the UK at Disney and on cruises, but I didn’t realize that so many ended up buying property in Florida . (That reminds me of the time we went on a cruise and met a family from England. They didn’t take our warnings about the sun seriously and one of them got sun poisoning. What a way to ruin a vacation, eh?)

We had friends over today who transfered here from the UK for work, and like it so much they’ve bought a house and intend to stay for good. We got around to chatting about the difference in real estate and such, and it turns out that a lot of folks in the United Kingdom buy the homes here as investments, because the real estate in Florida (while not so hot now) always continues to go up.

The real estate market went from hot to not here in the past year. There was a lot of new development, which had people selling their homes like hotcakes and moving into new houses, like yours truly. Eventually, the fever died down, and now people are holding onto homes for months longer than they thought they would. We have friends who moved out of state 5 months ago, and they haven’t had a nibble on their house for sale here. I really feel for anyone who HAS to sell right now and simply can’t, do to the market saturation. There are a lot of places that will buy your house for cash, but not all are legit, so don’t take the first offer you get - explore your options. One such company, CashHomeBuyers.com will allow you to sell home for cash and move on with your life quickly. The company isn’t just one single investor - it’s a group of investors in every state in the USA, so no matter where you live, you can find a cash buyer for a quick sale, without dealing with a realtor. It’s a great option for those of you with less than perfect homes as well, because rather than put your money, effort and time into making repairs on your house, you can sign off and let the investor put in the sweat equity.

Real estate is a passion of mine. I could spend hours online looking at homes and towns. Lately, my searching has been centered on the Blue Ridge Mountain area - scouting our places for a future vacation, or perhaps a future vacation home. Ellijay real estate and the towns surrounding Ellijay, Georgia keep drawing me in. And really, can you blame me? They’ve got an Apple Festival each year in this small town, which is nestled in the North Georgia Mountains. I’m not much on apples plain, but I do enjoy apple pie, cobbler, and other sweet treats!

Technorati Tags: North Georgia Mountains, Ellijay, log cabins, Blue Ridge, Apple Festival

I caught an episode of House Hunters recently (an HGTV show) that featured a couple in the Carolina area shopping for a new home. I had to pause the show so that I could wipe the drool from my mouth. All of the homes featured cost less than mine, were as big, if not larger, were brand new, had pools, and acreage. Right about now I’m wishing my husband’s company had stores in Raleigh so that we could buy our own piece of Raleigh North Carolina real estate. It’s just amazing how different prices vary from state to state.