by Paul Cook | No Comments | Contact Paul Cook w/ Questions
Is there value in a knowledgeable real estate agent? Is there a value associated with working with someone who can give real insight and help for someone buying or selling a home? What are your beliefs when it comes to Realtors? What are your requirements when you look for one to work with?
As a fellow agent of mine, Michael Costigan, once said on a commercial a few years ago- “I am applying for a job…I want to be your Realtor.” What a perfectly simple description of the situation.
Truth be told, most home sellers and home seekers work via two avenues- “word of mouth” and “availability”. A couple becomes interested in moving to a certain area and begins to research the area both by looking online and driving around. They might find a few homes of interest. At this point they need the help of an agent. They might call on the listing sign and begin to work with a listing agent or they might speak with a friend who says “I used so and so real estate agent” and off they go.
I really hope that this site is and will become a bigger and more valuable resource as time goes on. But the thing about it is that this site for me is also a job application. Who else would be better suited to turn the unknown into the known than someone who spends at least two hours a day researching the homes, schools, activities?
I am applying to become your Roswell GA Realtor. I just thought you should know.
November 8, 2009 | Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tagged: roswell ga homes
by Paul Cook | No Comments | Contact Paul Cook w/ Questions
Six years after it was approved by mayor and council, the Midtown Redevlopment Plan has finally gotten the green light from the state and should break ground before the end of the year.
“We anticipate construction to begin around Thanksgiving,” said City Administrator Kay Love. “This project will go a long way in ‘refreshing’ the look of the Highway 9 corridor and we hope it will spur others on to revitalize existing properties and encourage redevelopment of those that are poised to do so..”
The project includes sidewalk improvements, a textured center turn lane, drainage improvements and beautification of GA Hwy 9/Alpharetta Street from Norcross Street to Mansell Place through enhanced landscaping.
The streetscape project will also include three short raised landscaped medians near Norcross Street, Woodstock Road and over Hog Waller Creek to aid pedestrians in crossing the street. Decorative lighting fixtures and an enhancement to the Hog Waller Creek crossing to replicate a decorative bridge are also part of the project.
The total cost of the project is estimated at $3 million. The city was awarded a grant of $2.2 million through the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Livable Center Initiative. Love said the city will pay approximately $750,000 in local matching funds.
The long delay in implementing the streetscape plan has frustrated city officials and left many area business owners and residents wondering if the project would ever come to fruition.
Love said the time lapse was due mainly to obtaining plan approvals from the Georgia Department of Transportation and acquisition of rights-of-way.
“The changes in leadership at GDOT and their financial issues over the last couple of years have greatly impacted the project,” she said. “This $2.2 LCI federal funding never was in jeopardy but seemed to be caught up in the review process as GDOT tried to sort out the delta between approved projects and available funding. During this time our environmental approvals became stale and had to be redone.”
Love and City Councilman Rich Dippolito said GDOT board member and Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Brandon Beach assisted in shepherding the project through the final approval process.
“This project was birthed by a redevelopment task force, of which I was a member, and it’s the reason I initially got into politics,” Dippolito said.
Bidding the project to prospective contractors is estimated to take between eight and ten weeks. Site work will begin as soon as the contract is finalized and construction is expected to take about one year to complete.
Source: Joan Durbin, Roswell Neighbor
October 1, 2009 | Filed Under: Roswell News, Uncategorized
Tagged: roswell ga news
by Paul Cook | No Comments | Contact Paul Cook w/ Questions
Fulton County Schools took two significant steps last week as results of the 2009 Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports were released.
According to Susan Hale, communications director with Fulton County Schools, not only did 82 of the school system’s 94 schools (87 percent) achieve AYP compared to the state’s average of 79 percent but the gap between north and south county schools achieving AYP continued to close.
Ms. Hale said 12 Fulton schools, five less than the previous year, did not make AYP. However, that number could decline in the next few weeks as summer school CRCT retest results are calculated.
“AYP is a key piece of the federal legislation known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB),” she said. “Its purpose is to have every American child proficient in math and reading by 2014.”
Eight Fulton schools which missed AYP during the 2007-08 school year achieved AYP this year.
In addition, Sandtown Middle has now met AYP for the last two years and was removed from the “Needs Improvement” list.
However, 12 county schools missed the AYP mark this year after achieving it last year.
Of those, seven have to offer students supplemental services, such as tutoring, while Creekside and Tri-Cities also must offer its students public school choice options due to missing AYP for two or more years.
The AYP trends also reflect the gap between the south and north county schools, Ms. Hale said.
Although, as a unit, south county schools missed AYP this year “they aren’t missing the mark by much,” she said.
For example, she said, College Park’s Love T. Nolan Elementary, where most students come from economically disadvantaged households and are on the school’s free or reduced lunch program, missed achieving AYP this year by only four students.
Source: Bill Baldowski- Roswell Neighbor
July 22, 2009 | Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tagged: roswell ga schools
by Paul Cook | No Comments | Contact Paul Cook w/ Questions
With the perfect mixture of technology, housing and amenities, Roswell and Alpharetta are two of the top spots for relocation according to a new book.
Peter T. Kilborn is the author of “Next Step, Reloville” and found that 72 percent of Alpharetta residents and 71 percent of Roswell residents had lived in another state five years before he collected the data in 2007. According to Kilborn, this is prime evidence for an influx of people relocating for employment reasons to the area.
Bill Keir, economic development manager for Roswell, said amenities are a huge draw for employees to relocate to the area.
Read the rest of this entry »
July 8, 2009 | Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tagged: roswell homes
by Paul Cook | No Comments | Contact Paul Cook w/ Questions
News and Notes: Saturday, October 3rd, 2009:
9:00AM: Good morning everyone and thank you for visiting. New Roswell GA Homes update coming up shortly. Have a great weekend.
First, if you are serious about searching for homes in Atlanta then you really need to have a custom home search page created. The custom search can handle most any situation from a very generic home search to the most specific requests. Click on the Organic Search Page link to submit your request. I guarantee it will save you at least one hour a day online rummaging through MLS sites. You will also be the first to get notification on new listings. MLS updates their system around 6am each day. The email notifications go out as soon as those updates are completed. MLS portals don’t update till later in the afternoon. So, there is a chance you will see new listings 24 hours before others depending on when they check listings each day. 24 Hours is a huge advantage on the great new listings especially once the market turns more in favor of sellers! There are many other great features of the Organic Search.
If you are currently selling or contemplating selling your home…I would encourage you to read the brief entry about Getting Your Home Sold which is on this site. Are your agents using a professional photographer? Are they having the home staged? What are they doing to market the home? Open houses are not a good alternative to an effective marketing campaign. Is the information in MLS accurate? I would guess that 90% of the homes that are coming on the market now have issues with their listing profiles that will affect their ability to be sold. Typically, it is one of the items just mentioned. I would be happy to speak with anyone about my home marketing plan.
I have also completed creating a link on the front page of this site to my Roswell Home Buyers Book which is now available for download. I have a feeling that the Home Buyers Book will be the most popular feature of this site once it is available.
Click here if you would like a map based search of Roswell, GA or other parts of Atlanta.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions regarding your home search.
June 10, 2009 | Filed Under: Roswell Homes, Roswell News, Uncategorized
Tagged: roswell ga homes
