Richmond Area Housing Statistics for 2Q 2011

Richmond Area Housing Statistics for 2Q 2011

Hanover Avenue

Active Listings	<$100K	$100-$199K	$200-299K	$300-$399K	$400-$599K	$600-$899K	$900K & up	Total Q2 ’11	Total Q2 ’10	% Chg
Hanover	3	185	267	156	92	32	11	746	868	-14%
Henrico	171	887	505	126	125	69	31	1914	2102	-9%
Richmond	414	541	283	108	79	35	25	1485	1581	-6%
Chesterfield	124	928	667	278	189	59	15	2260	2663	-15%
Pending Sales	<$100K	$100-$199K	$200-299K	$300-$399K	$400-$599K	$600-$899K	$900K & up	Total
Hanover	12	102	109	54	17	2	2	298	241	24%
Henrico	132	388	240	121	102	33	6	1022	1005	2%
Richmond	187	188	126	52	52	22	13	640	724	-12%
Chesterfield	128	468	281	141	79	29	3	1129	1067	6%
Sales	<$100K	$100-$199K	$200-299K	$300-$399K	$400-$599K	$600-$899K	$900K & up	Total
Hanover	11	87	84	39	17	1	2	241	254	-5%
Henrico	158	357	199	84	77	25	3	903	1062	-15%
Richmond	167	167	110	58	39	23	11	575	724	-21%
Chesterfield	108	433	234	118	55	19	4	971	1111	-13%
Aver Sale Price		Q2 2011	Q2 2010	% Chg
Hanover		$     247,370	$   269,153	-8%		Informaton Furnished by Richmond MLS
Henrico		$     221,153	$   249,290	-11%
Richmond		$     226,667	$   205,695	10%
Chesterfield		$     219,204	$   231,405	-5%

The Tea Party

Whether you like or hate the members of the so-called Tea Party movement you have to respect them. They told the voters that they were not going to vote for any new taxes and they did exactly that. Its a shame and a sham that most politicians don’t do as they say.

Federal Budget 101 – Eye opening analysis!

from an email I recieved:

Federal Budget
101

The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is so we created a breakdown of federal spending in simple terms. Let’s put the 2011 federal budget into perspective:

• U.S. income: $2,170,000,000,000
• Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
• Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent of
  the budget)

It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Let’s remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget
for the fictitious Jones family.

• Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
• Amount of money the Jones family spent: $38,200
• Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
• Amount cut from the budget: $385

So in effect last month Congress, or in this example the Jones family, sat down at the kitchen table and agreed to cut $385 from its annual budget. What family would cut $385 of spending in order to solve $16,500 in deficit spending?

It is a start, although hardly a solution.

Now after years of this, the Jones family has $142,710 of debt  on its credit card (which is the equivalent of the national debt).

You would think the Jones family would recognize and address this situation, but it does not. Neither does Congress. The root of the debt problem is that
the voters typically do not send people to Congress to save money. They are sent
there to bring home the bacon to their own home state.

To effect budget change, we need to change the job description and give Congress new marching orders.

It is awfully hard (but not impossible) to reverse course and
tell the government to stop borrowing money from our children and spending it
now.

In effect, what we have is a reverse mortgage on the country. The
problem is that the voters have become addicted to the money. Moreover, the
American voters are still in the denial stage, and do not want to face the
possibility of going into rehab.

 

Politician Income

The income of all politicians … should be fixed to the people they ’serve.’ In other words, if we do well they do well … they would fightover companies opening here instead of other countries, and wouldn’t they battle to get employers to pay better wages and benefits.

An Editorial from Outside Sources

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at theUniversity of
Edinborough, had this to say about the fall of theAthenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannotexist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the  most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”

“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.”
The Obituary follows:

Born 1776, Died 2012
It doesn’t hurt to read this several times.

Last Presidential election:
Number of States won by:   Obama: 19   McCain: 29
Square miles of land won by:   Obama: 580,000    McCain: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by:    Obama: 127 million  McCain: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:  Obama:13.2
McCain: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: “In aggregate, the map of the territoryMcCain won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.
Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income
tenements and living off various forms of government welfare…”
Olson believes the  United States  is now somewhere between the
“complacency and apathy” phase of Professor Tyler’s definition of democracy,
with some forty percent of the nation’s population already having reached
the “governmental dependency” phase. If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal’s – and they vote – then we can say goodbye to the USA  in fewer than five years.

Nags Head Condo Available

Not going to be able to use one of my beach weeks. Have a 4 BR/3 bath oceanfront condo at Milepost 13.5 in Nags Head available for the week of Aug 5 – 12 or for the weekend of 5-6-7th. Contact me for details. Click here for a visual tour.

Being an Old Fart

If a guy named Ron Fleming asks to do work in your yard…. avoid him like the Plague.

Grand Daddy

Obit Nicknames

The older I get the more religious I become about reading the obituaries. One of the things I noticed here in Richmond was the habit of putting nicknames in there with the regular names. In the past month or so we have seen Sleepy, Butterball, Pudding, Booty, Bus, Smokey, Juice and Stretch all pass away. Seems I am not the only follower of this practice. In the New Orleans Times-Picayune these obits appeared: Click Here  and in the Pittsburgh Post this article appeared: Click Here. Funny stuff. And then there is this from the Queen: Cecelia Rivenbark speaks.

R.I.P. Hambone

We’re All Gonna Die Someday

Well they can all kiss my ass lord
They can all kiss my ass
If they want to kiss my ass well they better make it fast
‘Cos we’re all gonna die someday  ~ Kasey Chambers

Been an odd twelve months in that there have been some loses of some that I would call friends but more of the peripheral kind. Most fairly sudden, one with cancer. Dan Thomas was an interesting guy. Worked in marketing and was an avid golfer. He and I served on the country club board together. Dan was a little head strong and we had our share of differences of opinions. But I think we both respected each other and had the best interest of the club at heart. He was sharp of wit. Rick Santackus moved to the area to own a jewelry store. Nicknamed “The Hammer’ because of his golf style, Rick was fun to be around. Always so positive and a little bit of a charmer to the ladies. I guess when you sell jewelry you need that gift. Russ Palmore was a well respected attorney in Richmond. A brother to some friends, listened to them extol his exploits and successes. Was very involved in the church. Always a little mischeif in him but when it came time to fight the fight in the courts he left no stone unturned. Even came to me once asking about construction equipment (when I was in that industry) for a case. Only a couple years older than me. This past week Catherine Williams was in a tragic accident. Only 37, same age as my oldest son. She was a delightful, attractive young lady that was a former neighbor. Always called me ‘Sir’. Never could break her of that. She was raised to be a lady and she was.  Had been through a lot in the past year. Leaves behind a young daughter. All these folks went too early but they all were a small part of a lot of people’s lives and a big part of the lives of their families. They are missed in many ways.

I used to read the Sports Pages and the Comics, now its the Obits I turn to. Its like the news and comics combined. While it does sound morbid I check their ages first, where they live second, and third if I know them. The ones I have known I try to remember the interesting things about them and how they impacted my life. The fourth thing I check is their nicknames. That’s the comedy. More on that later.