David Sobotta's Blog

I am particularly fortunate in that I get to see the best of my two favorite worlds, the mountains and the coast.The scene to the left is the view from our deck above the valley where Roanoke, Virginia is located.  I have taken thousands of pictures from that deck, many of the wonderful sunrises ...

It was a little over a year ago when I passed my NC Real Estate exam.  During November and December I finished up the training to have "provisional" removed from my status. Late last January, I started seeing properties and eventually started taking duty in the office in mid-March.Prior to that I...

It has been a very busy week here on the NC coast.  The weather through Thursday was fantastic.It even got up to 80 degrees Fahrenheit over on beach on November 1.That with a combination of Hurricane Noel about three hundred miles off shore brought some great waves to the beach and lots of surfer...

We recently traveled back to North Carolina's Southern Outer Banks.  For a change it is raining. The rivers have some water in them in central North Carolina and western Virginia. It is has been a long time since we had a rainy day.Rainy days are great for reflection.My first reflection is how hi...

I thought things might slow down a little with the departure of the tourists, but that has not been the case.I have been extra busy and have a couple of closing on the horizon which is a nice feeling for a change.On top of that I made the momentous decison, at least for an ex-Apple guy, to buy a ...

I know many folks don't understand the real estate process, much less how much training a real estate agent ends up taking or how many reams of forms are involved in selling property. There is little difference in most people's minds between one real estate agent and another until they actually s...

Things are not always what they look like.  If you look at these shrimp boats in port during the height of the shrimp season, you might think something is wrong.If you are close enough to the shrimping community, you might known that you can't shrimp on Saturday in North Carolina.  "It is unlawfu...

I have never been one to run from booth duty.  I actually think that contact with the general public helps keep you attuned to customers.Just about every business I been involved with has run the risk of listening to employees more than customers.  That's a quick way to loose customers.There is n...

There are a fair number of experts being used by the media who are telling the buying public not to buy property right now because prices will come down.  That's basic economic theory they tell us.Unfortunately real estate pricing is a little more complex than that. Some prices have come down, so...

Today was a neat day.  I have some clients who read about our area on my websites.  They listed their home, got a full price offer on it and closed at the end of September.They rented a place on the water for a month while they looked of a home.  Last week we found them one.  They made an offer, ...