All about Northwest Arkansas Real Estate with Nicky Dou: February 2009

142 Carver in Har-Ber Meadows... Beautiful custom built home with over 3600 ht.sq.ft. & 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, Sunroom, Bonus Room and more! Built in 2004 with no detail left out. Two fireplaces (one in the Master Suite, other in the Living Room), gorgeous hardwood floors, custom trimwork and glazed cabinets... RIGHT ON THE LAKE!!! Harber Meadows is a Master Planned Community located off of HWY 412 West in Springdale. Visit www.harbermeadows.org for more information regarding this one of a kind neighborhood. Lovely parks, fountains, lakes and more are some of the reasons why so many call Har-Ber Meadows HOME!

Just listed, this Stunning Lakefront Home in Harber sits on one of the largest lots in Harber Meadows. .67/acre lot all fenced in with a lake as your backdrop!!!

visit Nicky Dou's website @ www.NickyDou.com/142Carver for more information and photos of this amazing home.

For more information about homes in Harber Meadows or in Northwest Arkansas - Contact Nicky Dou... email @ nicky@nickydou.com or give her a call at 479.236.3457. Nicky is the #1 Century 21 agent in the State of Arkansas for 2008! Let Nicky find your dream home for you!!!

I took this photo up on Mt. Sequoyah and just thought I should share it with the world... Mt. Sequoyah is one of the most beautiful places in Fayetteville in my opinion. There is such a variety of homes, too. They do go quickly if they are priced reasonably... For a list of homes available in the Mt. Sequoyah area send me an email at Nicky@NickyDou.com and tell me what your price range is and I will send you emails when homes come available here!

Mt. Sequoyah in Fayetteville, AR is one of the most sought after areas to live in Northwest Arkansas. Homes range from the low 200,000's to over a million and if priced right sell quickly. There are many architecturally unique homes in the Mt. Sequoyah area including works from James Lambeth, Faye Jones, Warren Seagraves and other great Architects. I have listed and sold a few great James Lambeth homes up here...

Mt. Sequoyah is located just minutes from downtown Fayetteville and Dickson Street!

Mt. Sequoyah Conference and Retreat Center in Fayetteville, AR

Demographics and map of Mt. Sequoyah in Fayetteville, AR

Visit www.NickyDou.com for information about Real Estate in Northwest Arkansas!

 A few more photos...

Tracy Hoskins' 140-acre Park West property is located on the north side of I-540 off of HWY 112 in Fayetteville, AR. Park West has been identified by the Green Infrastructure Planning Group as a remnant wet prairie.  Hoskins has agreed to conduct wet prairie restoration activities on the property and has contracted Bill McKinney's Wildland, Inc. to conduct a controlled burn on Park West. This will increase native plant species.  Fire is the primary vegetation management tool for restoring and maintaining grassland habitat. 

Hoskins prescribed burn at Park West to initiate wet prairie restoration activities.  This should aid in meeting the objectives of the Green Infrastructure Planning Group by creating and maintaining green hubs that are connected by links.  Hoskins' Park West property border the Audubon property on Clabber Creek.

Fire set for February 22, 2009

There has been a lot of talk regarding Park West in the past years. Hoskins is a good friend of mine and I know this project will be a success. He is commited to doing what is best for the land, the community and the environment. Kudos Tracy!

Paradigm Development is also building Oakbrooke - the Craftsman style homes you may have noticed going up off of Mt. Comfort Rd. Click here to ready my recent Blog Post about Oakbrooke. Call Nicky Dou for more info. on these projects! 479.236.3457

OH and don't worry - Fayetteville is not "on Fire"... the real estate sales are though!!! Be sure to visit www.NWAFiresale.com for all of the great "Firesales in Northwest Arkansas!" including Bank Repo's, REO's, Foreclosures, Relocation Properties and more...

So I attended a Realtor.com class yesterday that was held at the Cosmopolitan hotel in downtown Fayetteville. I was thrilled by how many Realtors in Northwest Arkansas attended!

Realtor.com is a great website and does offer some great packages. I had never had any sort of "enhanced listings" until I joined Century 21 Exclamation Realty last November. Now all of my listings are "Enhanced Listings" which means I am maximizing the on-line presence of my listings (all of my listings) on the most popular real estate website on the Internet. This includes 25 JUMBO photos, full motion video (when applicable), headlines and property descriptions so consumers will look at my listings longer.

I found out at the class in Northwest Arkansas only 23% of homes in our area are "Enhanced listings" on Realtor.com. OK - so here is the deal though. After looking at the Realtor.com website - I think of the 23% that is currently "ENHANCED" on Realtor.com only about 5-10% of those actually have gone in and "enhanced the listings". What does this mean? Realtor.com pulls information from the Northwest Arkansas MLS database and will automatically put it on Realtor.com - however if you have the "Enhanced Listings" it is the agents job to go in and change the headings, upload an additional 9 photos, video, virtual tour, etc. It is mind boggling to me - that people will pay the big bucks to have these "enhanced listings" and then not go in and enhance them. Granted... if an agent does not do anything - the home will still appear more enhanced than others - they have a nice border around them and it does have 16 photos (if 16 photos were put into the MLS system which is all it will allow). I feel that if you have this service you should utilize it to its fullest. I honestly pulled up many listings that have ZERO photos. WHY WHY WHY would someone NOT have a single photo on their listing. WHY WHY WHY would a seller be OK with this? CLICK HERE TO VIEW ONE OF MY ENHANCED LISTINGS on Realtor.com (This is a home I currently have listed in Pinnacle).

Anyway.... The class was good and I hope that some other Realtors in Northwest Arkansas will see the power of technology in their marketing! The speaker touched on using Face book, My Space, and YOU TUBE in their marketing as well. I have been utilizing all of these methods (not so much My Space anymore - I like Face book better) for over a year now and have had a great success. He did not talk about Active Rain, which I feel is one of the most important and best tools for Realtors on line...

So the class was free (sort of, I mean I ended up buying sonething)... I suggest Realtors attend if they are in your area (especially if you are looking to purchase any of the Realtor.com products) they did give a nice discount yesterday. I purchased some of the "FEATURED HOME SPOTS" which are one step higher than the "SHOWCASE LISTINGS" these show up around the entire page of listings when consumers do a search in a specific area. I am excited to offer yet another great service to my sellers and get even more exposure for my listings!!!

They also had a program which sold out quickly - and was pretty expensive; purchasing spots on the Realtor.com pages for Northwest Arkansas "Banner Ad's". I did not sign up for this service. WHY? Well it is mainly for the agent to get their name out in front of buyers and sellers (which believe me I like to do) however I work hard to put out good information across many places on the web including my website www.NickyDou.com which is a Number1Expert site and has so many great features, my ActiveRain Blog http://nickydou.activerain.com/, Face book, You Tube, and many many other sites on the Internet. I guarantee my sellers will get "THE MOST EXPOSURE" on line... I may not be getting the most exposure on Realtor.com, but my listings will be and to me that is the most important thing! I prefer to spend my marketing dollars advertising my listings, not myself!!! It is a great idea, though and I do wish those that signed up for the banner ads great success!

ATTENTION DEVELOPERS & INVESTORS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY

Take a look at this 38 acres located in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Great land at a great price!

visit www.NickyDou.com/fayettevillelandforsale for more info; its a direct link to Nicky Dou's website...

Watch the Video Slideshow below!

I can not believe my ears yesterday and today as Wal-Mart announced its layoff of over 700 employees in Northwest Arkansas. This is also effects the vendor community that deals with Pharmaceutical and Apparal which happens to be a couple of my dearest and closest friends. I live in ultimately - one of the best places in the world - Northwest Arkansas... "Home of Wal-Mart" and as Wal-Mart has brought much of the growth and wealth to our area - now it is hard to swallow that they will make an impact like this on so many families... I hate to hear it.

In an article in the New York Times on January 30th - "The overhaul, which has not been made public, is intended to revive one of the weakest departments in Wal-Mart's 5,000 stores: men's, women's and children's apparel, a $30 billion business for the retailer." (see full article linked below) REVIVE? How about the 1000's of people (IN MY HOMETOWN) that are losing their jobs, maybe their homes... Not the best time for this sort of "reviving" - just my opinion... Think this is what Sam would have wanted? Hmmmm, don't think so...

My thoughts and prayers go out to all families left in a not so great situation because of this. For those this layoff has effected: THINK POSITIVE - Go buy a copy of "The Secret" and keep your head up high!!! Everything happens for a reason; sometimes it is hard to figure out how and why - but do know that there is a plan and a good attitude will help you over those with a bad one.

LINKS TO ARTICLES REGARDING WALMARTS LAYOFF IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS:
The New York Times

The Local News in Northwest Arkansas... Read the full story (click here)..."Wal-Mart has told 5NEWS they "expect the changes to impact approximately 700-800 Home Office positions including merchandising, real estate, marketing and support divisions in Walmart U.S., Sam's Club merchandising and some corporate functions."

More from the local News..."One Wal-Mart employee said that a group of employees was called into a meeting Thursday morning and told they were being laid off and would receive severance pay through April."

The Morning New... I don't view this as a major retrenchment for Wal-Mart, but for the 700 families involved it's catastrophic," said Gov. Mike Beebe. "We'll have the state's displaced workers task force there to offer whatever assistance we can."

Well I have always thought that we live in the best place in the world... and that the "bad economy" wouldn't touch Northwest Arkansas and for the most part (in comparison to many other places) we have not been hurt as badly. Here is some great news... sent out in an email today from one of good friends at First National Title company!

Northwest Arkansas Positioned For 'Spectacular Growth'

Last updated Thursday, February 5, 2009 9:44 PM CST in News

By Lana F. Flowers
THE MORNING NEWS

BENTONVILLE -- New residents will move into new and vacant houses and Northwest Arkansas will return to the "spectacular kind of growth we were known for" in the early part of the decade, once the recession is over.

That was the message economist Jeff Collins of Streetsmart Data delivered to an audience of hundreds at the Bentonville/Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce banquet Thursday night.

The country has been in a recession since December 2007, Collins said, but economists did not want to be accused of being political. They didn't acknowledge the recession until after the presidential election.

Employers are eliminating thousands of jobs each week, including recent announcements that Macy's cut 7,000 jobs and Panasonic cut 15,000 employees.

Each job loss means more than one person is out of work due to a multiplier effect, Collins said. Unemployed people don't shop, eat at restaurants or visit the doctor without health insurance, so restaurant, retail and health care employees' jobs also become endangered, Collins said.

"This current recession obviously is affecting the psychology of individuals. Consumer confidence is hammered and people are afraid something bad will happen to them," he said.

Government bailouts and stimulus packages aim to put money in consumers' pockets, but that may not be the answer. Collins noted gasoline no longer is $4 per gallon but is closer to $2 per gallon, putting more disposable income in household budgets. However, people still are not spending.

Northwest Arkansas will be OK as federal dollars are directed to job creation in more populated areas. He predicted federal stimuli will result in 32,000 more jobs in the state, mostly in central and Northwest Arkansas.

Builders stopped constructing as many homes once real estate sales slowed significantly in the third quarter of 2006, but the area still saw about 5,000 new residents in 2008, Collins said.

Those residents spend money, buy houses and take up vacant office space, setting the stage for a recovery late this year or early in 2010, Collins said.

Great home for sale in Fayetteville, Arkansas!

1807 Knollcrest

• 1800 ht.sq.ft.
• 4 bedrooms, 2 baths
• .23 acres lot 
• home is in cul-de-sac 
• granite counters in kitchen and both baths
• hardwood floors
• High end luxurious at an affordable price
• Lovely Kitchen w/stainless appliances...

Call Nicky Dou today to see this home! 479.236.3457 or visit www.NickyDou.com/1807Knollcrest for more information and photos of this great home for sale in Fayetteville!