The attached listings are provided via the Triangle MLS and may include listings from many real estate companies, including those of the developer himself.

 http://winmoreneighborhood.com/Inventory.aspx

Community Documents Attached- Subject to Developers Changes and Attorney’s Whims

http://townofcarrboro.com/PZI/PDFs/Winmore%20Design%20Code.pdf

Winmore Master plan ( 6 MB so give it about 50 seconds to load, it’s worth the view)

 http://www.winmoreneighborhood.com/Documents/MasterPlan.pdf

Winmore is a new mixed-use development in Carrboro off of Homestead Road . It’s just a hop skip and a jump to I-40 and less than 5 miles to downtown Chapel Hill’s boutiques and restaurants. The land is spectacular and not surprisingly was bird dogged by Scott Kovens, developer and one of several builders in the neighborhood. We real estate agents are in awe of the way Scott finds land, holds it until the market is ready and carefully plans a community around the natural terrain, not through it.

Winmore is expected to have approximately 96 single family homes, 86 town homes and an unspecified number of funky condos above retail stores. In other words, beautiful and functional without the Pleasantville feel. It’s hard to say where prices will fall and I don’t have preliminary condo information yet but homes should start in the 400’s and hit low 1 million mark. That’s my guess, not their stats.

This is a place where you may work and play where you live leaving your car in the garage for days on end. That alone makes me “green” with envy but for those of us who must drive we appreciate the strict green building requirements and energy efficient systems. The kids will love being so close to the elementary, middle and high schools that they can walk to and fro. The town now offers sidewalks from the neighborhood although not all the way to elementary school yet. Have I mentioned the new neighborhood pool being built, bring out the bikes, roller blades and wagons it’ll be hot again before you know it.

Photo By Fotosearch.com

Just in the nick of time for the holidays, closings are appearing like presents under the tree. New kitchens with granite counters, gorgeous master spas, media rooms for “football season” and large center islands for festive entertaining are just a few of the standard features. My clients have the green light to move in now and will begin the joy of unpacking ornaments and lights just in time to start re-packing them for next year. Oh well, I guess it’s a small trade off for an incredible, luxurious house in a brand new neighborhood. They’ll be thinking of you this summer when they take a dip in the Winmore pool and you’re cussing out your own boxes.

10 Questions to Ask a Home Inspector

1. What are your qualifications? Are you a member of the American Society of Home Inspectors or National Association of Home Inspectors?

2. Do you have a current license? Inspectors are not required to be licensed in every state.

3. How many inspections of properties such as this do you do each year?

4. Do you have a list of past clients I can contact?

5. Do you carry professional errors and omission insurance? May I have a copy of the policy? 6. Do you provide any guarantees of your work?

Halloween festival. The festival will run from 9 p.m. until 1:30 a.m. 

As always, there will be little parking available close to downtown and there will be no place for charter buses to drop off or pick up passengers.  The Town will provide shuttle bus service from four Park-and-Ride Lots to two locations downtown. Visitors are encouraged to use the shuttle buses. They will be the most convenient way to get to and from the Franklin Street area.

Street Closures:
Some downtown streets will be closed to vehicular traffic at 9 p.m.

Streets that will be closed include:

Franklin Street, from Raleigh Street to Roberson Street
Columbia Street, from Rosemary Street to Cameron Avenue
Raleigh Street, from East Franklin to Cameron Avenue (for a shuttle bus stop)
Henderson Street, from East Rosemary Street to East Franklin Street
Residential streets near downtown will be closed except to residents of those streets and their guests.

Parking:
Vehicles parked in the festival area will be towed beginning at 6 p.m.
Vehicles that are illegally parked will be ticketed and towed, with a minimum recovery cost of $103.
Parking will be available in Town parking lots, including the Rosemary Street Deck, for $10 per vehicle.
Media vehicles will not be allowed to park inside the closed perimeter.
Prohibited Items:
Alcohol will not be permitted in the festival area. All other state and local laws pertaining to alcohol will be enforced as usual.

Town ordinances and State statutes prohibit the following items in the closed area:

Alcoholic Beverages
Weapons
Glass Bottles
Paint
Fireworks and Explosives
Flammable Substances
Animals
Coolers
Items, even as part of a costume, which can be used as weapons or could reasonably be mistaken as weapons will be confiscated. This includes items made of wood, metal, cardboard or hard plastic.

Shuttle Buses:
The Town will offer shuttle service between four Park-and-Ride Lots and downtown Chapel Hill. Everyone is encouraged to use the shuttle service.

Shuttle buses will run from 9 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. The cost is $5 round-trip.

The routes will be:

Jones Ferry Road Lot in Carrboro to South Columbia Street at Cameron Avenue
Southern Village (15-501 South) Lot to South Columbia Street at Cameron Avenue
Friday Center Park & Ride Lot to Cameron Avenue at Raleigh Street.
University Mall to Cameron Avenue at Raleigh Street
For more information, please contact Officer Phil Smith at (919) 968-2760 ext.134 or psmith@townofchapelhill.org.

close to town yet private and serene

Incase you may know someone who’s looking for a house, this one is a great opportunity if you like views of nothing but nature and the sound of birds and leaves rustling. Originally built in the 1990’s the owners hired a Boston architect to design a major addition and added a fabulously open and bright family room, a new master suite and a second family room. It’s tucked into a cul-de-sac with expansive views of woods, nature and a meandering creek. It’s slightly under 3,000 feet and is offered at $438,000. Showings begin in less than a week so call me or email me if you’d like to be first. 919-929-2005. More photos will appear shortly.

If you have not driven through Winmore lately you should do so. The site for the pool and club house is marked by a large map on the street, trees have been planted and beautiful homes are reaching for the sky. My clients are building a Dixon-Kirby house and it’s even more beautiful than we imagined back at the concept stage.

Good news for buyers and sellers, the mortgage industry is getting back on track with historically low rates for conforming loans, more jumbo loans and the subprime loans are being taken over by FHA loans. In other words, payments should be lower and sellers will be able to sell at reasonable prices.

Is there a state contract that agents and builders use for new construction as a standard practice? The answer is “no”. We as agents, have a new construction contract and addenda from the North Carolina State Bar Association which we can use but ultimately it’s the decision of the builder which contract he will accept. Many have their own company contracts that have been written by their own attorneys. Others will use the new construction contract and still some will use the standard Offer to Purchase and attach addenda. You should be able to discuss any of the contracts with your agent and of course an attorney is always recommended. I’d like to suggest two more ideas you might like; try to give your deposit in two to three increments. The dates should follow the builders construction schedule and he can tell you at the initial meeting (when the contract is signed) when to expect to write checks. The other is PLEASE hire an inspector to do a specific new construction inspection. It too will coincide with construction schedules. Usually it’s three or four inspections and the fee is well worth it. It’s very exciting to see a design on paper transform into a building process. Enjoy it! 

This is not a new article but I still found it informative. See below to contact the authors.

The Winmore partners, Phil Szostak, Herman Green and Bob Chapman approached the University to sell them the Horace Williams satellite tract for traditional neighborhood development. Their proposal notes the shortage of appropriately priced, quality housing in the Carrboro/Chapel Hill area, making it difficult for the University to attract and retain faculty and staff. Winmore wants to combine the two parcels into a larger joint development would optimize the “new urban” design concept, increase the availability of economical housing, and create a more walkable and integrated community. In preliminary discussions with these developers, Town of Carrboro officials welcomed the idea of a housing development with affordable housing components.

Members of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees agreed to consider the idea, but only with a greater allowance made for affordable and reasonably priced housing for University staff. The Board insisted on controlling some land in perpetuity on which it would build 96 apartments that would meet the legal definition of affordable rental housing. (Under this definition, a worker would not spend more than 30% of their income on rent, meaning a worker making $18,000 a year could only spend between $400-500 a month on rent.) The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees was also interested in negotiating a deal stipulating additional reasonably priced housing, with at least 50-60 of the for-sale units priced at $175,000 or less, and set aside for University and Healthcare System Employees or Town of Carrboro staff.

The Winmore partners must go through the process of obtaining approvals with the Town of Carrboro, dealing with traffic flows, school overcrowding and environmental impact studies. This arrangement keeps the University out of the real estate business, while providing a way to increase the supply of affordable housing opportunities for lower paid Employees.

In return for our land, UNC would receive a $1,250,000 purchase money mortgage at seven percent interest. Also, UNC would participate in 30 percent of any gross revenue over $15 million on total lot sales for the entire 129-acre development, not just the Horace Williams satellite.

The proposal for the development calls for 398 residential units as follows:

• Single Family Units 192
• Town Houses 110
• Apartments 96

The proposal also specifies approximately 50 acres of open green space will be preserved, and offered as a gift to UNC. Additional sites may be available to the University or Hospital for uses such as a child care center or healthcare clinic.There are 7,500 staff Employees on campus, many of whom make less than $30,000 a year. Why didn’t you get more affordable housing units in the deal?
The Town of Carrboro has zoning regulations that limit the number of housing units that can be built in this neighborhood. Also, Town regulations call for 40 percent of the land to be kept as open green space. And the Winmore partners are private developers whose profits are based on the price of the houses sold in the neighborhood. These factors combine to limit the amount of affordable units that can be built. The Town of Chapel Hill has similar zoning regulations, and that’s partly why houses are so expensive here!Remember, this project is only a pilot project for the University. It does not represent the only effort that the University will make to help employees find affordable housing. But when the Winmore developers presented the idea, it looked like a good way to get started.

The 50-60 reasonably priced houses will cost $175,000 or less. This figure is large, but still not as much as the $300,000 average that houses cost in Chapel Hill. And, again the University has stipulated that Winmore would include 96 affordable apartments, all for Town and University staff. So, it’s a beginning, and we’re hoping that it will bode well for future affordable housing projects.Why didn’t you sell the property for more money?
We could have gotten more money for the property if we sold it to developers that would build only expensive houses on the site, but we felt it an important point to try to increase the supply of affordable housing available for University staff in the area.Also, the Winmore partners took on important restrictions with this purchase, and that established an upper limit on how much they were willing to pay for the property.Which department gets the money from the sale?
Horace Williams was a professor in the Philosophy department. His will stipulated that all the property he owned should be used to provide income for fellowships in the Philosophy department. This includes the main 1,000-acre Horace Williams tract.

Also, an April 1999 Memorandum of Agreement between the University and the Philosophy Department called for the University to list for sale the satellite property (the 63-acre tract of land north of Homestead Road). The proceeds from the sale are to be added to two trust funds for fellowships in Philosophy.How will the University select who gets one of the units?
This process has not yet been determined.Does the University have to provide access to water and sewer for the project, or will the builder assume this cost?
Right now there is only dirt, rocks and trees on this property. The Winmore partners must handle all zoning issues and water and sewer hookup and access to all other utilities. They also have to develop all the roads in and around the development.What happens next with the project?
As I understand it, the Winmore partners will present their plans to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen in the summer or fall of 2002. If they get all the necessary zoning approvals, the University will sell them the Horace Williams satellite tract, and they can begin building perhaps early in 2003.
One important thing to remember is that there will be a mix of affordable apartments, reasonably priced houses and more expensive houses all over the entire 129-acre development. The lower priced units won’t all be concentrated just on the land formerly owned by the University.