The News & Record and other outlets are reporting that Caterpillar will be opening a plant in Winston, bringing hundreds of jobs. This is another “get” for the area, along with HondaJet and an American Express data center is good news.

One step at a time, right?

_____________________________________________________________
The thoughts & opinions are mine. The quips that fall flat are someone else’s. Please feel free to shoot me an email with a question or a good joke.

And remember, real estate agents aren’t bad. We’re just drawn that way.

Of course, Money Magazine is referring to things economical, not climatological. In this case, it seems our city has a hot housing market, and they provide a map of the country with comparisons:

Click to view larger image (PDF)

This may come as something of a shock to the owners of the 3200+ properties currently on the market in Greensboro, but it indicates that, as rough as things may feel now, we’re better off than many other places in the country.

And we take good news however we can get it.

_____________________________________________________________
The thoughts & opinions are mine. The quips that fall flat are someone else’s. Please feel free to shoot me an email with a question or a good joke.

And remember, real estate agents aren’t bad. We’re just drawn that way.

Here is a view of it, with thanks to Mike Fuchs at The Bargain Blog. (Click on it to go to an interactive version on the News & Record site.)

Map of Greensboro Yard Sales for July 17, 2010

Happy bargain hunting!

_____________________________________________________________
The thoughts & opinions are mine. The quips that fall flat are someone else’s. Please feel free to shoot me an email with a question or a good joke.

And remember, real estate agents aren’t bad. We’re just drawn that way.

To figure what your tax bill is going to be when it is mailed out later this month, find your municipality – for example, Greensboro – and multiply that total rate (1.3699) by the tax value of your property, in hundreds. That is, a tax value of $100,000 would mean you multiply the tax rate by 1000. (If you don’t know the tax value of your property, go to the Guilford County Tax website and pull up your address)

This rate is slightly lower than the 2009 rate of 1.3274

The upshot is, if your house has a property tax value of $100,000, your tax bill this years will be $1,369.90. Last year it was $1,327.40.

It’s rare but not unheard of that property tax rates decline one year to the next. In Guilford County, tax movement in the rate is usually fairly small, whatever direction it goes.

It’s when property values are reassessed that things get really exciting. That is done only once every eight years in Guilford County, so there is the chance for wide differences from one valuation to the next. The next revaluation will occur in 2012.

Hmmm. The same year the Mayan calendar says it’s all going to end.

We should be so lucky, right?

[UPDATE: My friend, the very smart Realtor Candice Joyce, commented on this post with the following:

That’s the rate per $100 of assessed tax value so don’t forget to place a decimal point before last two digits…..or divide value by 100 then multiply by tax rate=same result.

Thanks, Candice. (Math. Ick.)

_____________________________________________________________
The thoughts & opinions are mine. The quips that fall flat are someone else’s. Please feel free to shoot me an email with a question or a good joke.

And remember, real estate agents aren’t bad. We’re just drawn that way.

No, it’s not the study of grandmothers.

It’s the study of other tiny things.

Greensboro is where two universities – NC A&T and UNC Greensboro – are joining to create a school offering degrees in nanoscience and nanoengineering. This article in the News & Record explains it all very well.

I’ll just say that this is another milestone in Greensboro’s transition from mills and tobacco fields to industries that are just starting out. We like that.

Maybe the next thing will indeed be a center for the study of grandmothers. They sure can be odd little creatures.

This is all quite preliminary and it may not come to be. But the fact that such a power house is thinking of a $120M investment is further proof that Greensboro and the surrounding communities can look forward hopefully.

That’s my pleasant Friday morning thought. Now, back to work.

I will say that I’ve heard of Justin Bieber. But that’s because I heard a story on BBC World Service on (via WUNC, the NPR station to which I listen) that an American has developed a program that will erase or block all references to the young Mr. Bieber from a computer. He must be a big deal if the BBC is talking about him and if there are people actively trying to escape him.

At any rate, the fact that the Greensboro Coliseum has snagged the pop star is great.

And I’m thankful I don’t have a 12 year old daughter right now because it’s going to be a long wait until December.

(BTW, according the The News & Record, he performs December 15th and tickets go on sale June 12th.)

For decades, most of the denim worn in the world came from right here. Cotton was King and thousands of people worked in the mills, supported their families and went about their lives. But it’s been a minute since those mills put out the miles of threads, yarns and fabric that clothed the world.

Now, it seems, data is the new denim. At least around here. At least maybe.

I wrote a few days ago about some of the things happening around here that make for a nice balance to all the dreadful news we get. One of those things is the fact that American Express has chosen Guilford County for its new data center. Now, reading the paper, I learn that some folks who know about these things think this might be just the beginning of a really BIG DEAL for this city.

Apparently data centers like to be around other data centers and having the substantial one from Amex may attract others.

We like that about data centers. We dig it very much.

Andy & Opie go fishing. "The Andy Griffith Show" is something we love to claim in NC. Some other things, not so much. But times have changed in Greensboro.

For those who are unfamiliar with Greensboro, particularly those from far flung parts of the country, it might be easy to think we are a city that resembles something between what one would see on the Andy Griffith Show and a Tennessee Williams play. And while we have our share of goofie characters, front porches and long, hot summers, we aren’t a city of homogeneous citizens.

In addition to our diverse general population, there is the fact that City Council just hired a new city manager, Rashad Young.

There are a few points to be made about Mr. Young’s hiring.

One is that he’s black. Another is that he joins our mayor, Yvonne Johnson, who is Greensboro’s 1st black mayor. And Mo Greene, superintendent of Guilford County Schools and Tim Bellamy, Greensboro Chief of Police, both black.

But the biggest point may be that the race of these elected and appointed professionals isn’t considered big news around here. (Well, it might be to a few. Like I said, we have characters, and we have folks with little character. Which means we’re like every other city in the world.)

But in general, we’ve continued to go about our respective lives, whether enjoying a cold local brew at Natty Greene’s, attending a silent protest against a regional conference of neo-Nazi’s held here (who knew they held conventions?) or just heading down to the ol’ fishing hole.

And, by the way, it’s still not a good idea to put a cat on a hot, tin roof. Then you get anything but a ‘silent’ protest.

_____________________________________________________________
The thoughts & opinions are mine. The quips that fall flat are someone else’s. Please feel free to shoot me an email with a question or a good joke.

And remember, real estate agents aren’t bad. We’re just drawn that way.

Photo Credit: Jerry Wolford (News & Record)

The topic of FedEx coming to Greensboro has been news for a long, long time. And it’s been noted in this space a few times.

Time for another update.

Looks like the package delivery company’s operations will be ready to hit the road – or sky – running as soon as the economy is clearly on the way back up. The huge construction job of getting an additional runway in place to accommodate the planes and all the safety and navigation systems required are just about done.

Not only will this give FedEx the facility it needs for operations, but the enhanced systems will help Greensboro’s Piedmont Triad International Airport (PTI)the goods it needs to give Charlotte and Raleigh a run for their money.

This News & Record article about it gives good details.

And, not for nothing, but didn’t I tell you to learn the work ‘aerotropolis’? Cause, like I wrote before, whatever that is, we’re one.

_____________________________________________________________
The thoughts & opinions are mine. The quips that fall flat are someone else’s. Please feel free to shoot me an email with a question or a good joke.

And remember, real estate agents aren’t bad. We’re just drawn that way.