Monday, March 2, 2009

RE This Week, Snow Story, Potholes, and Some Nice Aesthetic Improvements












The photo on the left is off the first farm on the left heading east on Stricklersville Road (down a little and across the street from the old schoolhouse that's now a hairdresser's place), which I was told was close to becoming a development. I don't know if you can make out the farm equipment in the field, but, once again, I doubt that this farm-owner is going to develop any homes here this year. 

The second, middle pic is of the abandoned farmhouse on Lewisville, where Brick Meetinghouse Road (I'm pretty sure that's the street name) ends and meets 841/Lewisville Road, just south of Stricklersville Road. It's a nice place but has been unoccupied for the last four, five, six years now. Someone put a little paint on it and cleaned it up recently, and it's looking better; although, it would be nice to see someone living there.

The photo on the right is the real news. That's the apartment house on the corner of Stricklersville and Lewisville, which was for sale last summer (I don't know if it ever traded hands), but when it was for sale, there were some improvements done to it, and the biggest improvement, I think everyone will agree, is the coat of blue paint on it. I wouldn't say that this little intersection area (Stricklersville, Lewisville/841/Brick Meetinghouse) is densely populated, but the houses are a little closer together than other areas of Elk and it's sort of the back-end of the old village, and it's an area that has several really nice places, and there's just one more that looks like it's a rental currently that needs a new coat of burnt umber/yellow paint to make it more presentable.  

OK, let's talk about real estate.

Yahoo Real Estate: 110 existing and 10 foreclosures. So the inventory is down slightly; this is no surprise: I'm betting a couple to three dozen went off-market when the holidays came around, and I'm betting we'll see about 40 homes come online sometime next month when the spring buying-season begins. My guess is that this will be another buying-season that has few sales and mostly adds inventory into the game. I don't know if I'll recall, but I guess that with the big banks still struggling and making huge mistakes with our tax money (thanks George Bush! for that first trillion dollar smash and grab of Treasury funds) and unemployment high and the economy lagging (we're down to 1997 Dow numbers of below 7000 today!), there will be 170 homes and 15 to 20 FCs killing comps come Memorial Day.

Hell of a snowstorm last night and this morning. We got about 6 inches with winds about 25 MPH and temps down in the low 20s. Last week was pretty nice, and it looks like this weekend the temps are back into the normal range of 40s and low 50s during the day. The sun is certainly powerful now, and the driveway, which I shoveled around 11:30 this morning, is now almost completely dry. Can't say anything about the snow removal for this storm since I haven't left the house. I did see a truck driving along the streets at about 5 am this morning, and the road looks pretty cleared out right now. So let's chalk up yet another good job to whoever is taking care of the roads here in Elk last night and today. Good work, Guys!

On another note, the potholes are getting out of hand in some places around town. On Saturday I commented to the passenger in the car with me that none of the Supervisors must notice the giant pothole on southbound 472 about fifty feet from the southernmost end of 472. It's right outside the township building, and it's growing by the week, but I guess I'm the only one who bangs through it when I forget to navigate around it.  






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