OTT Award for May

Fallonia reported the demise of a classic Lake Boone Trail house in summer of 2007. Well sir, the successor is on the market and can be had for a cool $2.49 million.

Take a look around the hood and you will find the price point of the surrounding homes range from $500K and up. Can't find a million dollar home on that stretch, nor a 1.5M house. So what is this?

Here is where FP gets a little hot under the collar. Is this really about revitalizing Raleigh, or is it about replacing Raleigh?

One would think a compatible updated home ranging to the 3/4 mil mark might be a boon(e) to the street, but an outlier like this, with so much investment involved, is not sitting pretty, it is sitting loud.

What happens next?

• Will it look out of place? or
• Will it determine the look of this area?

• Will it attract another similar venture to validate its price in that location?
• Will it sit unsold, like the one on Glenwood, waiting for that special buyer who wants to take a risk on the most expensive house in a less expensive area?

One thing is certain:

• It will change the land / house price equation for the residents of this stretch.

Neighbors will welcome or reject this development. There is no way it will just slip in to the existing fabric unnoticed.

See Losing Lake Boone Trail for more hyper-ventilation.

$2.5 M? Even FP is shocked.

Over the Top Award for January 2008

This month's OTT award goes to No Oaks on Claremont.

Just when you think the top has been reached, along comes another contender. We at OTT have been concerned for sometime about the "gone wild" effect that the redevelopment on Claremont has stirred. In previous posts, we have highlighted the contrast that the riverhouse and showboat style homes bring to a street where new homes have already been built in an updated craftsman design. A lovely house, I am sure, but the location on a .38 acre wedge in an R-6 neighborhood seems odd, at best.

R-6 / .38 acres
Deed Date 9/26/2007 Pkg Sale Price $395,000
Heated Area 1,212

Assessed Value
Land Value Assessed $261,000
Bldg. Value Assessed $119,111
Total Value Assessed $380,111




It is important to note that the house getting the squeeze next door is now assessed at less than the purchase price of this property. Their land is now twice that of their house. Do you think they have a chance to get fair market value for their house and land?

I believe the compensation for their eventual sale would be higher if there were bigger and better homes on either side, which would mean their house would have real value. These ultra large new houses (on their right, on their left, and in front, and behind) are grossly impacting this resident's right to enjoyment of their investment. I can only conclude that we cannot count on others to do the right thing, therefore some zoning ordinances need adjusting so that in-town neighborhoods can enjoy orderly and predictable changes that enhance their neighborhoods. From that, all people profit; from this, one person's profit is someone else's loss.

Sign of the Times

This is a "modest" project, as these things go; the price is high executive. At its original price of 1.25 million or so, it was CEO. There is a whole lot of house tucked into this .26 acre lot. This price drop is in the same range as the other recent sales on Anderson Drive. Informal research shows that the morethanamillion dollar houses have lay vacant for months and months (and years in some cases) and sell when they have reached a substantial price drop. The current penalty is about $300,000 below asking price after about 6 months.

Ironically, some of the nicer belowamillion dollar houses have sat empty a long time too. Their starting prices are around $750-850K, which makes them moderate in this neck of the woods. With the Oaks up the way in the same price point, there is much competition.

Note to builders: that river-house style home is not cutting it. All three are still empty. Who knew?

But if I see one more faux stone clad traditional transitional with a 3 car garage in the front yard going up, I will swoon.

More about infill

(Fall 2003)
Infill--Having It All
by Marita H. Gilliam

Of late, the trend to infill-new residential development within established neighborhoods-is picking up speed. Developers and homeowners are racing to find attractive lots inside city limits throughout North Carolina. Suburbanites' return to city living, according to urbanists, has many motives: tree-lined streets with sidewalks, nearby shops, offices, bus stops, schools, churches, movies, and parks. An established neighborhood has all of its infrastructure intact-sewers, power, police, and fire protection. It also has old houses, front porches, alleys, and friendly, walkable neighborhoods.

So what is good infill? I think of it as building a home on a lot previously vacant or on a lot on which the previous house is an eyesore to the neighborhood. The newly built house complements that neighborhood in a variety of ways: architectural style, setback, height, bulk, and other details that make it blend in with the community. But actual infill, in many cases, falls short of this definition, such that some cities want to legislate standards.

Nowhere is this trend more evident than in Raleigh and Charlotte. In fact, Charlotte has gone so far as to develop guidelines for infill. These were written so that infill users could pattern new construction after the old. Are they in use? John Rogers, administrator for Charlotte's Historic District Commission, explains: "Although these guidelines were drafted, they were never made a formal policy by City Council." In Raleigh, citywide infill subdivision standards have been written but not enacted.

Most citizens oppose the idea of being told what to do with their property. As Raleigh senior planner, Watson Brown explains: "Individual property rights supercede all other rules." Thus, developers and owners may choose any number of architectural styles and scales for their infill houses, no matter what the established character of the neighborhood might be. Often they will tear down existing housing when vacant lots are unavailable. As long as there are statutes on the books that prohibit dictating design, except where protective covenants are in place, infill housing will cause controversy.

Hastings Drive in Charlotte is a prime example. Developed in the 1940s within walking distance to Queens College and close to downtown, Hastings is a side street to Queens Road, Charlotte's signature street, and featured one-story ranches with a driveway or a garage at the back of quarter acre lots. Twelve years ago, an interior designer found a vacant lot on Hastings and asked Bobby McAlpine, noted architect from Montgomery, Alabama, to design a home for her. He did so, and the result was the designer's dream: a stuccoed, two-story French town house with a circular drive. That infill house began a trend that has continued on Hastings. It appears that one half of its homes are now infills, achieved by tearing down existing houses. Although McAlpine's design has been softened over time as moss has stained the stucco and plantings have matured, the home, along with another town house, serve as out-of-place bookends to the ranch in between. More sympathetic design, compatible to neighboring houses, might have made these infill homes more cohesive to the neighborhood. ...

This excellent resource article can be read at Preservation North Carolina.

Over the Top Award for December

The Over The Top award for December goes to Balderdash in Hayes-Barton. This historic design is of the eurofabulous influence, not historic old Raleigh. This section of upper Cowper is becoming castlefied one estate at a time.

Price: $ 3,695,000 / Bedrooms: 4 / Total Full Baths: 4 / Total Half Baths: 2 / Garage: 2-Car / Acres: .46 / R-4
Estimated Sq.Ft.: 1300 (?!) perhaps 7500... or 75,000.
House and lot purchased 7/20/2006 for $1.125M.

THIS ELEGANT 'HISTORIC DESIGN' IS NEARING COMPLETION. SLATE ROOF...COPPER GUTTERS....MARBLE FOYER...3 FIREPLACES...1ST FLOOR MASTER BEDROOM...LARGE FORMAL LIVING ROOM WITH FRENCH DOORS TO THE TERRACE...CIRCULAR STAIRSCASE...BEAUTIFUL COVERED PORCH...REAL STUCCO EXTERIOR...CLICK MEDIA LINK FOR PLANS OF THIS FINE HOME. COMPLETION 3/08'.

The history of the neighborhood, as taken from the Raleigh Architectural Survey, notes:

By contrast, the grandest of the second wave of suburbs is Hayes Barton, Raleigh's first twentieth century upper-class neighborhood. Bordered by Glenwood Avenue, Fairview Road, Williamson Drive, and St. Mary's Street, Hayes Barton is an exclusive residential district where pecan and willow oak trees shade Georgian and Colonial Revival houses along streets that bear the names of former North Carolina governors such as Jarvis, Reid, Stone, and Vance. The earliest house here dates back to June, 1920, when the suburb developed by the Allen Brothers and the Fairview Realty Company began its transformation from the cotton fields of B. Grimes Cowper. Marketed specifically towards the high end of the economic scale, Hayes Barton was named for Sir Walter Raleigh's birthplace in Devon, England.

Hayes Barton is one of several upper and middle-income suburbs in North Carolina designed by Earle Sumner Draper, a distinguished landscape architect. His layout of Hayes Barton was similar in overall character to Myers Park in Charlotte; in 1911, John Nolen, a pioneering city planner, had created the Myers Park design which was a highly influential diagram for spatial and social organization throughout the south. There, Nolen formulated components for a successful suburban enclave such as curving streets, greenway parks, streetcar transportation, and a restricted number of entrances. [35] Hayes Barton appealed to the well-to-do with its promise of privacy, large wooded lots, and commuting distance to downtown Raleigh.

Soon after utility linkages and paved roads were installed, there was a rush to build on the 175 acres. The design of the 1920s housing stock followed traditional and popular tastes, mainly large Colonial Revival houses. The majority of dwellings are two stories tall, built of masonry, with gable roofs and handsome restrained classical details. A substantial proportion of the houses are custom designs by local architects such as Thomas W. Cooper, William H. Deitrick, Charles Atwood, Arthur C. Nash, and James A. Salter. The most prolific builders in Hayes Barton were James A. Davidson, C. V. York, Howard Satterfield, John W. Coffey, and Roland Danielson. In some cases these men built from architects' designs, but some, such as Satterfield, designed as well as built houses. Nearly half of all the dwellings in Hayes Barton were erected during the 1920s; they were inhabited by insurance agents and bankers, physicians and attorneys, salesmen and administrators, many of whom were employed in downtown Raleigh. Hayes Barton was and is an area of impeccably manicured landscapes, and pristinely maintained residences which still house some of the capital city's political and social leaders.

A drive through the neighborhood reveals a diminishing mix of housing styles. Some of the later homes were built during earlier waves of infill. These houses are meeting with the wrecking ball and houses surpassing the current median value are taking their place. Watch out for the day when the older fine homes are deemed insufficient.

The Status of Things

From the N&O ...

Raleigh City Council to weigh control of teardown replacements
SARAH LINDENFELD HALL, Staff Writer

RALEIGH - Some say a proposal aimed at reining in teardowns could be the death knell for the city's housing market. Others say it's a good temporary fix to preserving the character of established neighborhoods.

The proposal before the City Council next month would require Planning Commission approval for home additions or new construction that is 25 percent bigger than the original structure.

"We have an issue here that needs to be dealt with in a fair way," said council member Thomas Crowder, who says the proposal -- with some fixes to simplify it -- has merit. ...

From the Independent:

Taming Raleigh's teardown trend
BY BOB GEARY

Raleigh city leaders, neighborhood activists and builders are considering two options to address teardowns and infill development. The number of teardowns in Raleigh has exceeded 600 since 2002.

The old council majority wouldn't touch it. The new majority, elected in October, is wrestling with it, and it's causing the first fissure in their ranks. The issue is the rash of teardowns in Raleigh, mostly in older, inside-the-Beltline neighborhoods, and whether new McMansions should be allowed to proliferate alongside—and perhaps muscle out—the ranches and bungalows of yesteryear. ...

These two articles will give you some idea of the public policy side of this debate. The address of your city councilors can be found at the end of this blog. I encourage anyone whose neighborhood is impacted by this trend to contact the city before the Jan. 8 meeting, and encourage your neighbors to be involved as well.

If not, this will become the prevailing wind in your neighborhood:
"The reasons these tax values are up is due to the teardown lot values," [Wes] Minton said. "A half acre lot is worth $500,000, $600,000, $700,000 ... If this proposal gets approved, your lot is no longer worth that."

Revisiting Rothgeb

Several houses in the area of this rebuilders' classic have traded hands recently. Expectations for their speculations may depend on the answer to this question ... how did the house do on the market?

Still asking $1,399,000 in June 2007, the retail market price, without going over is:
HMMM ... no sale listed.

But wait, there are lights on and people living there now. It must have its Certificate of Occupancy because it has a tax value now, listed to a builder. Current standings are--

Zoning R-4 Acreage .41

Pkg Sale Date 8/17/2005
Pkg Sale Price $335,000

NEW Heated Area 5,436
Land Value Assessed $399,600
Bldg. Value Assessed $705,533
Total Value Assessed $1,105,133


Recent speculative sales on Rothgeb (based on corporate names for the purchaser) include:

2804 ROTHGEB
Zoning R-4 Acreage .37
Permit Date 11/14/2007 (could be a demolith by now)
Deed Date 10/10/2007
Pkg Sale Price $425,000
Heated Area 1,778

2809 ROTHGEB
Zoning R-4 Acreage .46
Permit Date (none at this time)
Deed Date 8/23/2007
Pkg Sale Date 5/17/2007
Pkg Sale Price $365,000
Heated Area 1,270

Breaking News

After all the speculation about Garage Majal on Glenwood ... the story on the street was that Mr X was building it for his own use, well, it is for sale.

Got a $2,300,000 windfall -- this one is for you. If you need to make payments, then a $500,000 down-payment will get you to the $11,000 a month range, 30 years. I think the SECU still requires 25% down and a 25 year loan, so if you are a state employee, those numbers will be higher.

Gotta warn you about the neighborhood, though. Some houses on that block are for sale in the $800,000 range.

For all you budding entrepreneurs, here are how the numbers add up:

Purchased price, 2005: $385,500
Newly appraised values:
Land Value Assessed $453,600
Bldg. Value Assessed $99,000

If you do the 3x flip, then $1.15 million would have been the expected price range. If you take $2.3M and divide by 3, you get $766,667, but the land was half that, so my guess is that the build cost plus the land equals half of the asking price.

Nice flip, sir. Those 7500 square foot houses have been a shortage in town.

Fallon Park Update

318 Avon



Zoning R-6
Acreage .18
Permit Date
10/8/2007
Permit # 0000070471
Heated Area 1,207

Transfer Information
Deed Date 9/27/2007
Pkg Sale Date 9/27/2007
Pkg Sale Price $285,000



From Closing to Demo Permit: 2 weeks. As of today, using R-6 setback footprint, footings have been poured.

Fallon Park Update

Reaves Street Teardown 12/07/2007
The ink dried on 10/15/2007. The trees were in the truck by 12/10.

Why is every body always picking on me ...
--Wooly Wooly

Infill Debate and the Planning Commission

Does this say Bloomsbury to you?

For those of you following the game of dodge ball the city is playing on the teardown field, the ball was bounced out of bounds today.

The plays so far: the planning department made some strict recommendations, which were tossed to the city council, who sent the problem back to the planning staff, who came back to the Council with 3 more plays, who tossed the whole matter to the planning commission, who stopped play today, and then kicked it out into the netherlands. Last we saw, a City Councilor was trying to find the ball to get it back into play.

The WRAL report is here. They say the total is now 600 homes. Fallonia is within one mile of 2 dozen of these. Just this month the average teardown activity is one a week.

A exploratory drive on Runnymeade will show that there are 9 new houses in a row at the start of the street, then a scattered situation of new houses as the street continues. There is no doubt in my mind that once the activity begins, it trends through the area until the old houses begin to look like they do not fit. Soon these will be new very expensive neighborhoods.

This is a sad state of affairs. This issue will be revisited at the January 8 City Council meeting. If you are concerned about things on your street, the time is here for letting the City know how you see this issue.

Big Bucks on Buckingham

A trip down Buckingham to Yarmouth to Westwood in Coley Forest reveals some interesting developments there. This neighborhood is one of Raleigh's hidden treasures, a thoroughly wooded, settled suburb dating back to the 50's and 60's. Because the houses are larger than the inner ring recovery-era houses, this neighborhood has been home to growing families for decades.

It looks like the building boom began as it usually does, a small dated house on a large lot (or two) gives way to a new larger home. Then it happens again, and again, and before you know it, Big Foot arrives.

Once this level of contrast begins, the real estate game is on. Like the Gold Rush, the momentum rises and the speculators arrive, loans in hand, to cash in on the opportunity.

There seems to be a money tree growing in our midst. Neighborhood by neighborhood, house by house, our way of life is challenged.

It raises important questions. I hope we have the guts to ask them.

Take a Sunday drive down any of the roads on our Magical Missinghouse Tour and the envision Raleigh of the future -- is it a place you will call home?

Over the Top Award for November

November's OTT award winner is Chateau Chêne Blanc. Almost complete, this home takes its place on a 1+ acre lot alongside other generously-sized properties on White Oak Rd. The land beneath this house is recently valued over $900,000. No record of the purchase price is available, it is zoned R-4.




OTT reported the original home's disappearance in June and September. Part of a continuing change on the major avenues, the mix of older homes and several new Over The Top houses and subdivisions are doing everything but blending together these days.

BTW, this lack of blend is duly noted on the City-Data Forum. After a wonderful description of life ITB, it concludes with this advice:

Be advised that living ITB comes with a cost premium. You will get less house (s.f.) than elsewhere. You will pay more per s.f. when you buy or rent. But, for those of us who think life is more about what happens outside our immediate property than inside, I highly recommend you give it a good long look.

Then a poster adds this:

I have read a little about tear down neighborhoods - problems with large homes over shadowing smaller older ones. Are certain neighborhoods more prone to this??

Some neighborhoods have fought for historic designation to ward off such vile activity. However, there are some neighborhoods where the existing home is in such bad repair that the cost of fixing it up is higher than scraping and building new. In these cases, you might see an appropriately scaled new home in a historic district.

If I were trying to avoid the most amount of scraping, I'd avoid Anderson Heights (Anderson Drive and White Oak Rd area). There is a lot of this sort of activity going on there mainly because there are lots of small homes on large lots near some of the most oustanding homes in the city. However, it's not just the small homes being scraped. Sometimes big homes are torn down in favor of even bigger, fancier ones. When they are done, there won't be any small(ish) homes in that neighborhood.
As for the neighborhoods that see less of this activity, I'd say that Cameron Park, Oakwood, Mordecai, Boylan Heights and Glenwood/Brooklyn are safer bets.

That takes us back full circle. I will miss the graceful older homes and the people who graced them.

Coming Soon, to a Neighborhood Near You

A local bi-political blog has opened the question of whether efforts by our city to deal with the issues of infill and refill in Raleigh's older neighborhoods is an effort to control growth in town disguised as neighborhood protection. In the post, the author suggests that it is "an odd thing" that any one would oppose redevelopment of existing neighborhoods with new higher priced homes. He suggests a building moratorium may be afoot.

To prevent further damage to Fallonia's sensitive inner balance, the following response was posted.

You raise a serious question here, but are minimizing the problems that can occur when a stable older neighborhood is changed drastically by new development. For the city to retain it's beautiful older charm, willy-nilly rebuilding is not in its best interest. A home that is built with respect to its neighbors will not elicit the same outrage as a home that is built only to maximize its profitability.

There is a balance to maintain so that people who have invested in living in their homes are not driven out because of rising valuations based on the recent sales of bigger homes in the neighborhood -- and the unpleasant conditions that constant construction brings.

For example, if the teardown movement gets next door to my house, the money I have invested in renovating my much smaller home may not be realized when I sell. Do I continue to care for my home (fix the foundation, pay big money to prune the trees, replace the windows) or do I just let it fall apart since it will be torn down now that the new neighborhood is unaffordable to me and my kind?

If everything unique about the city goes in the landfill, is the city still unique? Meeker and the city council are charged with care for the whole city, and this includes historic buildings, tree-lined streets, property and values. The dollar does not outweigh respect, and if some of the new infill was built with more consideration (and there is much that is built respectfully and creatively), it would have passed less noticed.

But this is not strictly about property rights or infill. Everyone in Raleigh needs to be paying attention, it can happen in any neighborhood if older well-priced stable communities can go down. What is going on is a turnover of ITB property to the highest bidder. Raleigh is not special in this regard, but to keep a mixture of population and housing near the city core, there will need to be some revision of the current code.

Atlanta did a good job of this. The architects and home builders worked with the city to come up with a better code for existing neighborhoods. The only way they were brought to the same table was thru a moratorium, however. Interrupting the flow of cash may be the only language that brings better outcome for all. [see Atlanta Infill Task Force on this blog]

From where I sit, the city would not want to cut off the flow of cash to them by being too strict in town, but could this be about trying to bring reason to the table?

If you have not done so, please let our City Councillors know your thoughts on this subject. A link is provided at the end of this frame.

Your way of life depends on it.

Let's Reminisce

Frequent arguments For teardowns revolve around the obsolescence and size of older houses. Fallonia contends that more often the house is in the way of the desired lot. Stories exist on this blog about each of these examples, but I am re-posting some here together to help form the bigger picture.

Hot Off the Hot Potato

A Post on Talking About Politics reveals someone's view of the inner workings of the zoning text changes to be be discussed at the Nov. 20th City Council meeting. This wording matches a document being sent throughout the builder and development community. There is a movement afoot to derail this approach to saving the character of our older neighborhoods. Expect a crowd and a contentious debate as Raleigh wrestles with the definition of growth.



Without some text changes, growth will continue to mean this.

Over the Top Awards for October

This month's Over The Top award goes to:

Xanadu on Oberlin

You know the one.

Just so you know, that 1.23 acre tract is zoned R-6, which allowed the 13,022 (heated) square foot house to use a maximum footprint. You can see how that looks quite easily by tracking the depth and girth of this project from the road.

This property changed hands twice, first in 2003 and then again in May 2005. Looks like the occupancy permit for this single family home will be coming up soon, the landscaping has begun.

To help you with perspective, 3 doors down is St. John's Baptist Church, which weighs in at 2 acres and 16,773 square feet.

Million Dollar Babies

There are now 9 over-a-mil ready-to-buy houses within a mile of my modest homestead (actually I think my home is quite nice, but the scale is changing dramatically, so I guess I am living in a future teardown in someone else's mind).


There are also two tornout lots available for approximately 500K each. One of these lots had plans for a 5000 square foot private home, those plans were abandoned after the teardown. (see several stories in June and July).

Two in the 1.25-1.5M range have sold this summer; the on-sale prices were $1.1M and 1.15M.

The replacement house for the poster child for teardowns on Anderson has a SOLD sign already on its new build. I am thinking it is less expensive than its half-sibling, dubbed "Entertainer's Paradise " by their builder cum real estate company. That house has a price tag of TBD, BTW.

This means that over on the sidestreets of Anderson, there are still 5 spec castles in the over 1.25M range, and some have sat vacant a long time (a year is a long time, right?). The over-a-mil spec house on Cooleemee has been in process since before Tropical Storm Ivan blew through.* Unsold: 6 out of 9, 2 out of 2; shooting too high? We are looking at approximately $10 million dollars at stake here.

And this does not include 3 properties in process on Claremont.

* The original speculator on this property was fined for his failure to secure the site against runoff. During Ivan, a red stream flowed from this construction site to Fallon Creek for days.

Another one down

The second teardown on Cooleemee was completed this week. The house sat next to the May OTT award winner, which, by the way, is still for sale.


The house sold for $300,000 on 9/28/2007. 926 square feet, built 1950, on .25 acres. Renovation in 1990.


The first thing to go was the trees.


Cooleemee was part of a rezoning effort in the 1980's -- from R-6 to R-4 to match the buildout of the neighborhood. Imagine how this would look if these houses were built even closer to each other and the street.


So, will it be a compatible structure with the existing neighborhood, or the imposing new neighborhood they are building on top of us?

Fallonia holds out hope for an undermilliondollar house here. But she is not putting money on it.

Confusing Claremont

The first street in this neighborhood to undergo "revitalization" was Claremont. Young couples were moving into new houses that were built in the style of old bungalows, with more size and amenities. Builders were working their way up and down the street a house at a time. The downside was the loss of affordable housing, the upside was the new houses had nice setbacks and yards and attempted to blend with the older tone. It was a little odd to see craftsman-style homes replacing homes that were built after WWII, and some in the early 60s, but teardowns-aside, respect for other values was in the right direction, something that has not been observed in many rebuilds.

Concern for original houses remained, though, whether the house next door would also bite the dust as the new neighborhood appeared. It's a size thing, you know; this row is now in play.


Then some other forces entered the mix. As the land rush continued, million-plus dollar homes began appearing. Three of three are still empty at this time. Note the unique blending of home styles as individual speculation continues.

And now, across the street from another perfectly unfitting 3 story river house, comes not one, but two new large builds. One is clearly intended to be a mansion. The other merely a very large house. Le Manse is being squeezed in between a new bungalow and beautifully kept older ranch. This one goes for another style, huge and genteel is the best I can come up with. It kinda dwarfs most of the other new houses.



This ranch is the vine-ripened tomato in a huge speculator all bun sandwich. Best I can tell, the only way they offended the gods of fate was to settle in and love their homestead. Surrounded on all sides and their view across the street obliterated, by what market rule do they get protection?