This tag is a type of two-dimensional bar code that, when used with a  mobile application, allows the user to review websites, receive messages, get access to special deals and more from the advertiser. The particular tag in the weekly Cape Gazette ad sends participates to the group’s real estate search page at lewesrealestate.com.

“It’s fascinating that it’s possible to go from medium to medium via mobile phone,” said Wilkinson. “This tag will connect newspaper readers to our website. Its cutting-edge technology that I think will benefit both buyers and sellers.”

Currently, very few real estate companies in the country have implemented this technology, and this is the first in the area.

Get the tag reader by visiting http://gettag.mobi on your mobile phone. Then test it with the tag below.

For more information about that tag application or general information, call (302) 645-6664 or visit lewesrealestate.com. The office is located at 16698 Kings Highway, Suite A, Lewes, DE 19958.

Coastal Living Magazine named Lewes in their special “The Best Little Beach Towns” issue and we’re honored! Coastal Living has featured our town on other occasions too, noting its friendly atmosphere and gingerbread appeal. You should check out the article here

All the best, Lee Ann

Delaware Today sends out surveys to clients that close during a particular year, in this case 2010, and calculate their anonymous responses. Based on the results they award local agents. I am proud to work with so many wonderful people throughout the community and am thankful to all who responded. I could not do it without you!

All the best,

Lee Ann

Aprile Millo

Dear Friends,

My family and I have teamed up with Bob Ciprietti at Touch of Italy Salumeria &
Pasticceria to form the  Prudential Gallo, REALTORS – Touch of Italy Foundation.
The foundation was created to benefit worthy organizations in our community.    
 
Viva Italia – An Evening with Aprile Millo is our first benefit concert and will take place
at the new Cape Henlopen High School Theatre on Saturday, September 25, 2010.  
 
Millo and assisting artists will delight the senses, while Touch of Italy and Nourish
will appease your appetite with a pre-performance supper. 

Tickets, priced at $100.00 and $130.00, are on sale now and can be purchased on our website at
 
http://www.operaatthebeach.com

Proceeds from Viva Italia will benefit these local organizations:

• Cape Henlopen Education Fund (CHEF)
• CAMP Rehoboth Community Center
• Autism Delaware
• Lewes/Rehoboth Rotary Club Scholarships for the Arts

Sponsorships range from $100 to $3000.00 with attractive incentives at each level.  

For more detailed sponsorship information click here. 
If you decide to help us sponsor the event, a portion of your contribution will be tax deductible.   

If you’d like to be a part of this fabulous night, please contact my sister Tricia Ratner at 302-745-4131.

I’m confident that the performance will be a sell-out.  Hope to see you all there!

-Lee Ann

The annual study measures customer satisfaction of home sellers and buyers with major national real estate companies. Overall satisfaction is determined by examining four factors for the home-selling experience: agent (44%); marketing (30%); office (15%); and services (11%). Among home sellers, Prudential Real Estate achieved a score of 760 on a 1,000-point scale and received particularly high ratings from customers in the marketing and agent factors.

PRERS Chairman Jim Mallozzi said the award speaks for the quality and consistency of the Prudential Real Estate Network. “Affiliate to affiliate, our sales professionals are the local-market experts who market and price homes right, while providing attentive service,” Mallozzi said.

Best Beach Towns Article

The Sonechas are the owners of Blenheim Builders, developers of many Delaware cmmunities including locally our own Reserve at Pilottown (inside Lewes city limits off New Road and Pilottown Road) and Bay Crossing’s 55 Plus Community, also in Lewes (just off Route 1 between where Kings Highway joins Route 1 and the Midway Shopping Center). See article below:

CapeGazette.com – SBCA honors Blenheim Homes owners

The Mid-Atlantic Sea Glass & Coastal Arts Festival now has advance gate passes available for sale at Sand n Stones at 112 Front Street in Lewes. Passes are $5 and are good for both days of the show as well as allow admission to the speaker series that take place each day; passes will enable the bearer to avoid the lines to enter the events. On Saturday June 26, the speakers will be presenting at St. Peter’s Church Hall at Second & Mulberry Streets and on Sunday at the Zwaanendael Museum at Kings Highway and Savannah Road. The line-up includes:

Saturday, June 26, St. Peter’s
11:00 – Faye Stocum, archaeologist, glass from the Roosevelt Inlet Shipwreck off Lewes
1:00 – Deacon Ritterbush – aka “Dr. Beachcomb” – Collecting Sea Glass
2:00 – Pam George – Shipwrecks of Delaware

Sunday, June 27 Zwaanendael Museum
11:00 – Judith Roales, Lighthouse Lens & How They Work
1:00 – James Diehl, A History of Sussex County

Members of the Sussex County Antique  Bottle Club will be hand to help identify shards and their possible bottles of origin. A shard exhibit and identification session will be held in the Midway School House on the Historic Complex where over 30 sea glass vendors will be hand to display their wares and expertise in combing the beaches searching out these vanishing treasures.

In October 2008 Lewes hosted the North American Sea Glass Festival attracting over 5,000 visitors to the event. The great sea glass artists will be joined by other coastal artists including decoy carvers and other waterfowl artists. This event will also feature a great line-up of speakers, sea glass shard competitions and other fun activities.

Admission is $5.00 per person; a wrist band will be issued allowing entrance both days; the wristband is now available at Sand n Stones on Front Street in Lewes.

Sunday July 4th – Old Fashioned Fourth of July Activities:

Kid’s Games begin at 9AM on 2nd Street.

Decorated Boat Parade begins at 2 PM on the canal – starts at the inlet and goes to the drawbridge and back

Annual Lewes Doo Dah Parade - From 5ish to 7ish PM. Starting somewhere near Beebe Hospital and moseying down Kings Highway to 2nd Street and then back up Savannah.

I sold more properties last year than I did in 2008 and this year I’ve closed 41 sales already – about double the sales I had in 2009 in the same time period.  I pointed out last week that I”m seeing condos in attractive communities getting snapped up by investors. I”m also seeing  sales of properties that are close enough to the beach to be seasonal rentals picking up. And, as I’ve repeatedly mentioned, the speculators and builders have already been buying lots and land at cut-rate prices and building attractively priced homes for resale. 

Are you standing on the sidelines, positioned to buy – but just haven’t found the time to do the research or worked up the nerve to stick your toe back into the real estate market?  While you are waiting to see if the planets align, other investors are already out shopping like it’s the day after Christmas.

The first thing you need to do is find a local expert. Preferably a realtor with experience in the market you are shopping at, who knows the area and the people. This is more important with some higher end markets where you will not even find out about the “pocket listings” unless you know the right person.

Find someone you can trust to articulate the benefits or conversely the negatives of any property.  I’ll show you  the best properties available and I’ll explain in detail why I think something is a good investment or conversely why I don’t think some “deals” are worth the risk.

Get off the sidelines and into the game.  Call me at 302-645-6664.

-Lee Ann

“While the county has 25 towns in all, best known are the communities along the 24-mile Atlantic seaboard—from historic Lewes in the north, to artsy Rehoboth Beach, to the quiet resorts of Bethany Beach and Fenwick Island in the south…Gone are the days when the sleepy beach towns would turn off their traffic lights in the winter. Restaurants that catered to summer tourists are staying open, offering 2-for-1 deals in the winter, much to the delight of retirees.”

Even those retirees who can not afford the higher priced waterfront or beachfront properties can move a few miles inland to affordable bedroom communities filled with amenities such as fitness centers, boat ramps, golf courses and more. There they can find easily find homes in the $200,000-$300,000 price range.

Click here to Read Complete Article

 “Small business is the backbone of the State’s economy, and craft breweries and wineries have a burgeoning presence in the First State,” says Alan Levin, Director, Delaware Economic Development Office.  “The spirit of collaboration among tourism and wine-brew coalition partners is a prime example of how organizations are effectively joining forces to develop their business, promote the industry, and enhance the local community.”

 The Trail encompasses a collection of twelve unique wineries and breweries across the state.  Each venue is eager to welcome and educate visitors about the creation and production of Delaware’s distinctive craft brews and award-winning wines.  Wine and brew enthusiasts can embark on their journey by retrieving a Trail Map from the Delaware Wine and Ale Trail website at www.visitdelaware.com/wineandale.

1) I represent the seller for many, many properties in Sussex County, probably more than any other realtor.

2) I work for one of the top ranked Real Estate agencies (Prudential Gallo) in the area.

3) Half the people I’m related to are in the real estate business (both my parents, my sister, and my brother in law all work with me). And…we enjoy talking to each other about the real estate business whether we’re sitting at the dinner table or on Hudson Field cheering on my grandson’s baseball team. I am happy to discuss real estate with anyone at any time, because, well, real estate is one of the few topics I can safely say I’m an expert on ;-).

Anyhow, from the feedback I’ve gotten from others and also from my own experience, I’d say market activity is very high but sales numbers are not reflecting this activity. This means that a lot of people are shopping, but not a lot of them are actually taking out their wallets. Tire-kickers, fence-sitters, foot-draggers, window-shoppers, whirling dervishes…we have a lot of names for them but the end result is that buyers are moving very very slowly.

Yes, there was a recent upswing in sales due to the Tax Incentive, but the jump wasn’t nearly as high this time as with the original credit that expired in November and seems to have more to do with new construction incentives than anything else. 

The tax credit incentive seems to have lost some of its punch. Possibly buyers assumed that congress would rubberstamp a renewal of the program or else that $8,000 credit just didn’t mean enough to them.

Taking a look at the market for the past 4 months, I can tell you what is selling and what is not and where you might shop for bargains….

1) New Construction
According to the MLS database sales records, the two most popular neighborhoods in Lewes are Harts Landing and Bay Crossing.  In the last four months Harts Landing (Pulte) had eight ”closed” sales and Bay Crossing (Blenheim) had five. FYI – Closed sales refers to sales that have gone to settlement. The sales in these two communities were almost all new construction.

What do these two communities have in common? 

First, they both offer homes in the $300-$500K range.  This makes them attractive to a wide variety of buyers – people looking for second homes, retirement homes or weekend retreats are all potential clients.

Second, they are both in central locations.  Harts Landing is located a few miles west of Route 1, off Route 24.  Bay Crossing is located just east of Route 1 on Bay Crossing Blvd (about 1/4 mile North of the Midway Shopping Center). 

Third – They are both amenity rich communities.  Harts Landing offers tennis, pool, fishing pier, and bike trails. Bay Crossing is a 55 Plus maintenance-free community offering tennis, pool, fitness center, clubhouse, lawncare and even snow removal.

Fourth – Their builders are offering great incentives.  Actually, most new home builders are offering great incentives these days. That is why new construction accounts for about 30% of all home sales in Lewes this period (Jan-April 2010).

Other communities in Lewes where more than one home has sold in the last four months are all East of Route 1 or else very close to it including Rolling Meadows, Love Creek, Pilot Town Village, Edgewater, and the Reserve at Pilottown (each had three closed sales during this period). 

Homes in Sandy Brae and Village of Five Points each had 2 closed sales. These are all great neighborhoods and conveniently located.

The Lewes Historic District is rarely hurting for sales even though homes here tend to be in the higher $600-1M range. This period there were four closed sales.

What Else is selling?

Lots and Land. Quite a few lots have been sold in the last six months in Lewes in the Reserve at Pilottown and Hawkseye.  There are still good lots available in these communities and they have both experienced even further price cuts in the last couple of months (more like a price “shave” as the lot prices were already drastically cut a year or so ago in both these communities) and now range from the low $100s to the high $200s. You can actually theoretically build your dream home in either of these communities for under $500,000 - an unlikely possibility in 2007.

When I posted a couple months ago about the fire-sale prices on lots inside city limits, they were already being snapped up by homebuilders and speculators. Today you can walk down to Burton and Johnson Avenues and see the result of these sales - some very nice new houses listed for sale, some are already completed. All reflect fact that the builders were able to buy those lots at a discounted price.

What’s not selling in Lewes?

Homes outside of a developed community (unless they are in-town or on the beach) are sometimes harder to sell, and therefore you may find a bargain. If you don’t miss amenities and like not being told by your Homeowner’s Association what you can or can’t build in your backyard, park in your driveway, or add to your house, this is a good place to look.

Fixer-Uppers  are also harder to sell in this market (unless they are labeled “short sale”, “estate sale” or “foreclosure” in which case they are heavily toured) so you will find bargains there.

Condos – Condos sales are still flat, particularly in smaller or older communities where they are weak on amenities or the buildings are starting to show their age.   Condo prices are now down to about what they were in 2004 or 2005 in many communities. 

Interesting Note: I update my mailing list from the tax records regularly and I have recently seen an increase in multiple properties in the Five Points Condominums being purchased by the same entity, usually with out of town addresses.  Investors are moving in to pick up these condos because they are in a newer community surrounded by amenities, easily rented, and at are still at bargain basement prices.

Next week’s blog: What’s Selling in Rehoboth?

An impressive sight  (the windmill tower stands 256 Feet High and the blades are each 144 feet long), our new windmill has already drawn lots of attention – most of it good.  Cars were streaming down Pilottown Road just to see the tower Saturday morning after being alerted to its existence by an article in the local paper. .. and word did not take long to spread that the blades were up by this morning.

One of the most important questions to local Lewes residents, and one which has not yet been answered by the Cape Gazette (where we get all our news!) – is “how loud is it going to be?” And “what about the migrating geese – have they been warned?”  Okay, that’s two questions, but I digress. 

The Gazette wrote an excellent piece (which unfortunately I can  not find online or I would link to it here) on the windmill explaining in detail how it would operate and its potential for generating electricity, etc etc.  But they neglected to address the noise issue. So perhaps it’s not an issue? Or maybe it was addressed earlier and I missed that article.

How do I know these are major concerns? Because everyone who is planning to buy or has already bought property in the Pilottown Road area of downtown Lewes has been calling or dropping by my office to find out what we know pretty regularly since this weekend.

…and the answer is  that we know as much as you do, folks, but I promise to let you know as soon as I hear anything “official”. 

I will add that someone else in my office was told (by a highly unofficial source!) that it will not violate any residential noise regulations, and that at most you may hear a swooshing sound if you’re standing right under it. 

Since it is pretty far from any houses, it seems unlikely to be an issue….but I will ask around for an official response.  Stay tuned for that, and in the meantime, enjoy the view. You can click on the photo to see an enlarged version.

If you were lucky enough to be in Lewes yesterday morning, here is what you may have encountered. These photos are all from Saturday morning April 23, 2010. 

Plein air artists scattered around town – including Steve Rogers, pictured here at the Lewes Canalfront Park; two children choosing to play on the mountain of dirt next to our new $50,000 playground instead of the playground itself  (hilarious!); Everyone standing at attention as some little kid sang the national anthem at the kickoff ceremony at Lewes’ Little League park for the 2010 season (whoever it was, they were awesome); a lonely tulip in a boat made into a planter on Pilottown Road; birds and boaters enjoying the harbor.

Delmarva Birding Weekend, sponsored by DLITE (Delmarva Low-Impact Touring Experiences) is April 22nd-25th, 2010.  Bird Counting, Paddling, Walking, Hiking, Drinking, etc.  

Go here for more info. http://delmarva-almanac.com/index.php/contrib/birdingweekenddates