How To Tell If Your Real Estate Company Is Working Behind The Scenes.The Coldwell Banker Howard Perry & Walston Garner Office took a guided bus  tour of Clayton  The Town of Clayton really got behind this idea of showcasing the many many features the town has to offer to real estate agents, who better to show what a great town like Clayton to? We were picked up at the Garner Office by the town bus driven by Larry, head of the town’s Parks and Rec Dept. We were driven to the town hall and civic center which used to be the old High School and has now been beautifully transformed into a vibrant town hall, and The Clayton Center which is now a wonderful auditorium that hosts world class acts. We got the first look at the upcoming season and I was very impressed, we were told they sell 90% o... 09/26/2011

Large Lots in The Raleigh Area.If you are looking for a larger lot with some privacy, maybe some trees, it’s hard to find them in North Raleigh and Cary. But some of the best large lots for home building are in Portofino in Clayton. Portofino has lots from half an acre all the way up to five acres and more.The large lots in Portofino offer a quality of life that few communities can claim. There are all kinds of options in this 400 acre community,voted the Community of the Year in the entire State of North Carolina for 2010!We have large lots in the woods, we have large lots that are partially cleared, some lots are basement lots. There are many lots that have access to the nearly seven miles of hiking trails, some lots have a creek running through them and some lots have river access to... 09/25/2011

Buy This House, Get This Golf Cart FREE!!                    For a limited time the builder of this Super Custom Home in Portofino, Steve Corker will include a golf cart with the purchase of his house at 107 Sicily Dr.The offer is only good until January 1 2012, so you need to have a contract signed by then. Now this is no run of the mill golf cart, check out the wheels!! Golf Carts are very popular with families who live in Portofino it is the preferred mode of transport for the residents. They drive em to the pool, up to the barn to see the horses, over to the  catch and release pond to fish and of course the trails. Portofino has approximately seven miles of trails that win their way through the woods until you reach the river. It’s funny people come to live in Portofino because they... 09/24/2011

Things to do in Clayton,NC Today Saturday September 24TH 2011There are lots of fun things going on in the Clayton Area today, first of the Clayton Farm and Community Marketis held on the Clayton Town Square Saturdays from 9am- 2 pm until October 29th 2011. The market is a great place to meet local farmers, bakers etc. there are all kinds of naturally raised, organic produce etc. Sticking with the food theme down the road at St Ann’s catholic Church 4057 Highway 70 Business West they are holding their fourth annual International Food Festival. An Incrediable selection of foods from around the world will be available. Countries represented include Ireland,Italy, Greece, Guatemala, Colombia, Hungary, Honduras, USA, Poland, Mexico, India, Vietnam...plus more. There will also be music and da... 09/24/2011

Clayton Harvest And Music Festival And Classic Car Show.     The Clayton harvest Festival is under way today and will run until tomorrow Sunday from 11-4. The Harvest Festival which gets bigger every year has a carnival (scary!) a classic car show, a beer garden, petting zoo, all kinds of music throughout the days.     The Clayton Idol Winners performed earlier today and the pet fashion show was today, we did not enter Carly as it would be unfair to the other contestants!      Lizard Lick Towing & Recovery from the TV show will be on hand Saturday for autographs and pictures. Lizard Lick is a small town area near Clayton, I kid you not! Thursday night  saw the final in the Summer Concert Series and what do you know it was the last warm night we'll have for a while here in Clayton.   09/18/2011

Homes For Sale In Clayton, NC ( there are no lighthouses)   There are 536 homes for sale in Clayton, NC. Now this is the area covering the mailing designation and not the actual town of Clayton. The prices range from $45,000 to $845,000, the oldest home for sale in Clayton was built in 1893 and the newest was just finished. The smallest home for sale in Clayton is 724 square feet while the biggest is 8000 square feet....how would you like to heat that one? The least number of bedrooms is two and the most is six. There are 140 different subdivisions with homes for sale in Clayton and there are thirty three homes not in a subdivision.   (No Pineapples either!) Flowers Plantation has 47 homes for sale, Glen Laurel has 39 homes for sale Riverwood Athletic Club has 38 homes for sale, these a... 09/12/2011

Open House Etiquette......Some Pointers!So here is the deal with Open Houses, Model Homes etc. We have four houses in my neighborhood all new construction, four different builders, four completely different floor plans.Saturday and Sunday we open them up for people to take a look at, I stay in the sales office. The first thing I do when I get here is go around to all the houses and turn on all the lights, adjust the thermostats, turn on all the sound systems, TV’s etc.I unlock all the back and side doors and screen doors, (I have been locked out of houses and having to walk around to the front in socks...not fun).So, if you are taking a tour of new houses and you walk in and all the lights are on, then it is safe to assume they want them left on.If the door to the unfinished storage is ... 09/05/2011

Edenton Subdivision in Clayton, NC is located next to River Dell Elementary, just up Buffalo Rd from the intersection with HWY 42 East. It is made up of single family homes on large  three quarter acre or bigger lots. Most of the homes were built in the last ten years and there are one or two new construction homes being built.Edenton Subdivision currently has four homes for sale ranging in price from $209,900 to $244,900, there have been seven sales year to date 2011. The sales price ranged from $130,000 (foreclosure) to $242,000 which was new construction on over four acres.The average price per square foot of homes sold in Edenton year to date is $87.00 however the foreclosure is affecting those numbers, $90- $100 a square foot is probably a better range. Of the homes for sale the av... 09/04/2011

09/04/2011

Clayton Farm and Community Market.The Clayton Farm and Community Market is open on Saturdays from 9-2 but only until the 29th of October. If you want to avail of local produce there isn't much time left, so head on over to the Clayton Farm and Community Market on Main Street some Saturday.There are all kinds of good things for sale ranging from local honey to grass fed beef, to fresh herbs and of course seasonal produce.There are some 100% organic farmers and some that are working on it, either way they are local farmers and growers and so they don’t have to drive across the country with their crops to get them to market.There are baked goods, cakes, eggs, pork, cut flowers, all local and fresh. We had some local tomatoes which we paired with mozzarella cheese, basil from our back yard,... 09/04/2011

The Tale of Two Breads.......Simple right? Make some bread.... how hard could that be?Having spent a lot of years in the restaurant business it was always a NOGO area when it came to yeast bread or anything that needed to rise, rest, rise, fold, laydown, massage, it was always easier to buy it from the experts.I always wanted to learn the art, but never had the time.Then I came upon this easy,easy recipe, and not in a cook book, not even in a book, in a magazine...about home farms, etc. The bread on the left has 4 ingredients.  Flour, Water, Yeast, Salt.The bread on the right has 18 ingredients, some of which I have never heard of!here we go.Water, Sugar (Hu!) Wheat Gluten, Soybean and /or Canola Oil, Yeast, Wheat Bran, Salt, Enrichment (Calcium Sulfate, Vitamin E Acetate, Vitamin A Pal... 09/02/2011

Primo Pizza  recently opened at 226 East Main Street in Clayton and we had heard good things from some very critical pizza experts so we gave them a shot for a birthday party and invited even more critical pizza experts. The unanimous  decision was that Primo Pizza is now the place for pizza for our extended pizza loving family. Crisp pizza with a great sauce and loads of cheese. We also got the Pepperoni....nice. They were priced fair and they are big, a whopping 18 inches!We used to have a good pizza place here in Clayton for years but they slipped really badly, then we were going to Garner to a good place but who wants to go to Garner and they started to wain a bit also, so we are very excited we can again get really good NY style pizza here in Clayton at Primo PizzaPrimo Pizza offer... 08/22/2011

08/16/2011

The Produce Box, Got to be NC Agriculture   Kelly and I have long bemoaned the fact that we live in a state that has great farms and in a county that is mostly rural and is, it seems nurturing an organic farming awakening. And yet the supermarkets are full of produce shipped in from California and Florida, Mexico and Asia.There are many farmers markets out there, Clayton has one, North Hills has one, Raleigh has a couple, so there is the opportunity to get local produce but the big excuse …”it’s not convenient”   always pops up!So we found this great service that delivers a box of fresh local produce once a week or whenever you need it. It’s called The Produce Box and they have a cool system where they work with farmers through out the state of North Carolina and whatever is in season a... 08/14/2011

" Why can't I come in to the open house?" This is Tucker. Tucker is from Virginia and his people are thinking of moving to North Carolina. They found Portofino on their way to I95 and came in to check out the trails and some of our houses. Tucker is four months old and he is very well behaved. He came on a trail ride with us in the mule and met two of the horses Krista and Cody....from a distance, he stayed in the mule. He saw the wonderful Clubhouse where he got a drink of water and checked out the salt water pool and veranda, he peed in the grass next to the hundred year old oak trees. Then we took off to see the houses, and much as we love dogs here at Portofino, we ain't letting a dog into the new homes. In fact Steve Corker, the builder of this home had just put the final coat of v... 08/06/2011

NC Custom Homes Starts Another Home In Portofino. It is great to see David Dozier of NC Custom Homes back in Portofino building another fantastic custom home. NC Custom Homes is one of the very best builders in the area and is a member of the builder team here at Portofino along with the likes of Corker Enterprises,Jarman Homes  Kirkwood Builders, Royalty Homes and Jordan Built Homes. These builders are the best in Johnston and Wake Counties and can build you your dream home here in Portofino in Clayton, NC.David recently finished the beautiful home on Lot 72, and the homeowners are settling in and enjoying their wonderful kitchen and screened in porch and deck. The house NC Custom Homes is building at Portofino now is going to be another showstopper. Four car garage for starters, beaut... 08/04/2011

Open Houses In Clayton, This Weekend.                 There are four homes open in Portofino this weekend, we have four different builders so you can compare and contrast their different styles and craftsmanship. Steve Corker,Neil Jarman, Johnny Adams, and Art kirkwood all have their custom homes open this weekend.                     07/31/2011

  ActiveRain and Job Seekers.I wrote a post about a company called Northeast Foods  building a new plant here in Clayton on February 22ND 2010. You can read it here, Clayton Jobs Since then I have received at least fifteen calls asking about jobs at the plant, if I got their application, how do they apply for work. I even got two calls from sales people who were trying to reach the purchasing person. Today I got this email from my ActiveRain contact form and it confirms a couple of things (like we needed any proof!). “hi my name is ****** and i have filled out sevral applications to your northeast foods i know there has been a lot of applications sumitted but my mane questin was just the address of the office where i can go to, to inquire about my application. I just want to show that i... 07/10/2011

"I'd Like A Clayton & Coke Please!" 07/08/2011

Portofino Equestrian Community in Clayton North Carolina Portofino will have some of the finest equestrian facilities in the Triangle when the barn and rings are completed. They already have beautiful pastures, post and rail fences, run in sheds  that are better than a lot of barns I’ve seen. Seven miles of trails plus an additional seven to ten possible, all natural trails that follow two creeks into the woods and down to the river.There is a quality of life at Portofino that is hard to beat, whether you have horses or not, the beauty of the more than 400 acres, the impressive slate and cobblestone courtyard with an open wood fireplace overlooking the pool. The Pool with it’s Douglas Fir Pagoda which is perfect for picnics, changing rooms with granite counter-tops, outdoor shower, zero... 07/03/2011