WEST JEFFERSON NC MOUNTAIN PROPERTY

87.5 +/- Acres Available For Residential Subdivision Mountain Development, 7 miles from West Jefferson, NC

Paved Road and Bridge Built To State Specifications.

Average of $23,000 per acre.

This Property Should Retail For Approximately $50,000 to $60,000 per acre.

ALL PROPERTY HAS LONG RANGE MOUNTAIN VIEWS

Contact Greg Stikeleather, Broker, 704.880.5247

or

email Greg at grstike@charter.net

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Wherever you look, the story is the same. House prices are in free fall. What are the facts? According to the S&P/Case-Shiller national index, house prices fell by 14% in the year to April 2008! Those of you who like history will know that’s a faster fall than the Great Depression of the 1930s. I always like to be encouraging.

So what’s going on? Well, a lot of people convinced themselves that buying property was a sure-thing investment. Buy today, sell tomorrow with a big gain. That made it a no-brainer to buy your own home. Unfortunately, two things happened. The was a boom in the construction industry which produced more houses for sale than there are buyers. Secondly, the credit crunch has made banks more cautious in lending money.

The result? Negative equity! Lots of people who owe more on their homes than the homes are worth. How does this affect the home insurance policy? Not at all! Well, that’s perhaps a little optimistic so let’s explore. Homeowners insurance is designed to replace your home if it’s destroyed. The value of the cover is therefore not the sale price but the cost of rebuilding. So, no matter how much your home falls in value, it makes no difference to the premium. Except that there are more national statistics to worry about. According to the latest figures published up to July 2008, US inflation is at a twenty-seven year high. The Labour Department monitors the producer price index (PPI), that’s prices at the wholesale level. That rose by 9.8% in July.

So you should care because? Because the prices of bricks and all the other stuff needed to repair or rebuild your damaged home just got that much more expensive. Worse? There’s no sign price inflation is going to slow. So, when it comes to renewing your home insurance policy, it would be wise to get two or three online quotes from “reputable” builders to revalue the policy. Without this precaution, you might find yourself underinsured, even on a small claim. But if you get hit by a hurricane or some other natural catastrophe, you may not be able to afford rebuilding if you don’t have the savings to bridge the gap between the insured amount and the actual cost of rebuilding.

Vacation property, an investment for retirement or a permanent residence, this Lake James waterfront home may be your dream property.

The beautiful water front home is located in a private community with spectacular views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It has a double deck boat dock, an enclosed boat garage and a private ramp to launch your own watercraft. The home was built originally in 1972 and totally renovated in 2002. A four car detached garage was built in 2002.

There is a total of 264 ft. of water front. Beautiful three tier sea walls accent this elegant home. Hard wood and tile floors, modern appliances and vaulted ceilings are only a few of the amenities that capture you with this home.

Private dock permit.

List Price: $1,800,000
Flexibility: Willing to finance
Acreage: .75 acres
Type: Waterfront

Floors: 2
Bedrooms: 4
Bathrooms: 4
Sq. Footage: 3700
Garage Size: 4.0
Year Built: 1972, totally renovated in 2002
School District: Nebo

Suitable Use: Residential

Topography: Rolling
Road Frontage: Private Road
Location: Lake James, Burke County, NC

Amenities: Waterfront, Fireplace, Central AC, Alarm, Wood Floors, Gas Range, Patio, Wheelchair Accessible, Nature/Bike Paths, Boating, Controlled Access, Spa/Jacuzzi

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search for : Lake James waterfront home, Blue Ridge Mountains, Lake James, Burke County, NC

A lot of credit cards have the right of substantially raising rates in case one misses a payment, or commits any other financial fault.

Just lay on your cash loan or a mortgage. Pay off your electric bills. Transcend your credit limit. Permit rating of your credit to get lower of what the credit card company supposes an acceptable level or be considered to be bearing too much liability.

Instead of paying 9% on your debt, you all of a sudden are paying 28% or even more.

Review the conditions of your contract, in order to pull out if your credit card company has the right of getting universal non-payment rates. Some of the companies are telling their customers of those penalties exactly on their monthly bulletin. Other companies send notice, with the bill or in a mail, to supply with that information. You also might phone your credit card company and ask.

If it is absolutely legal for them to do such things, it is absolutely legal for you to discover a credit card company that doesn’t.

The option is making certain you aren’t doing anything that would double, triple or quadruple your cash loan rates.

The two common conditions for being thrown into default are tardy payments and dropping credit scores to any creditor, according to the Consumer Action inquiry. The first thing to concentrate on is being on time, since being tardy also lowers your credit score.

One way of avoiding this is setting up automatic payments through your bank. Usually you can do it online. Thereby the bank distributes all your habitual monthly checks. Make certain you permit adequate time for the payment to vacate your account and reach your creditor by the needed date.

You will have more time on finding credit card companies that treat you properly, and enjoy the advantage of not worrying as much about the dark side of your card.

Contact Elizabeth Carter, 336.973.5594 or Greg Stikeleather, Broker, 704.880.5247 or email eacarter@charter.net

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The magic letters stand for a Health Savings Account and this represents a different way of solving the health plan problem. In effect, the HSA is self-insurance with tax advantages, allowing you to pay immediate medical bills, save for the future and provide protection for when you retire. You start off with a High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP). Because of the high deductible, the premiums are usually significantly less than for a more conventional policy. The idea is you pay the money saved into the HSA. Why should you do this? Well, the supposed advantages are that you control the account. You decide how the money is to be spent. If you have a standard plan, you’re always waiting for the insurer to rule on whether to pay out on your claim. With an HSA, you no longer have to wait, you can authorize immediate payment. You also control how the money is invested. With a standard policy, you rely on the insurer to invest everyone’s premiums to make them grow.

An HSA is not a product you buy. It’s a savings account run by individuals (not couples). All you need to be able to open an account is cover from an HDHP meeting the current rules. The plan does not have to be in your name so long as you have cover, say, as a spouse. Note you can have other policies to pay some of your health costs for disability, long-term care and specific diseases. But you are ineligible if you have already signed up to Medicare or, as a member of the armed forces, you have Tricare. It’s up to you to check what you are allowed to have. Your employer can set up a savings plan (although you cannot have both an HSA and a general HRA at the same time) or you can go to a bank, credit union, insurance company or one of the other bodies able to act as a trustee or custodian. A minimum deposit is usually required. You don’t have to be employed to run an HSA although, if you don’t file for Federal taxes, you cannot get the tax relief.

Put simply, this is a reasonable flexible and tax-efficient way of providing health insurance for yourself. But it has one key advantage. Although you cannot borrow against the money saved, you can make a one-time transfer from an IRA into an HSA, and the money from the account passes like a cash inheritance when you die. So unlike the usual health insurance premiums which are “lost”, savings remain savings. The big question everyone who is eligible must ask is whether they want to self-insure. Obviously, if the savings are inadequate, the HDHP will potentially pay out. That policy is safety net but the coverage is limited. So you have to judge which works better for your family’s circumstances. If you feel confident that there will always be enough available to pay for treatment during your life, this is tax free savings with you in control of the investment. But if you don’t want to take the risk, a comprehensive health plan for the family may give you better peace of mind.

Like many retirees who own their home or condo, we have decided to undertake a remodeling project. Our place is twenty-five years old and looks it!

We’ve been thinking of this project for some months, giving ourselves time to use our favorite source, the Internet, to do a bit of researching on just how to get the best remodeling job for our dwindling dollars.

So, here is our list of the “smart steps” towards our home remodeling project.

• Pick our remodeling products beforehand, making a list of building materials, flooring, paint, appliances, etc.
• Set a budget
• Select our contractor, hopefully a firm with many years of experience, membership in the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, and check their references
• Once we’ve selected the contractor, visit one or more of their current job sites, look to see if it is clean and safe
• Ask for and examine a Certificate of Insurance from the contractor that shows that the firm maintains a current Workers Comp policy along with General Liability coverage
• Insist that the contractor provide us with a detailed contract before the work begins
• Pack our valuables and breakables, storing them in a rental warehouse to keep those items safe during the remodeling project.

We’ll be adding to this list during our remodeling project. Stay tuned for updates and maybe add your comments that describe your experiences.

When people are young and healthy, they can live for the now, enjoying life as it comes, thinking only of tomorrow when it’s unavoidable. This is the mayfly time when the young and beautiful fly free of responsibility. Sadly, this time is all too short. Gravity soon catches up with people and they fall back down to the ground and see new roles developing as parents. Suddenly, health matters and what was put off must now be considered. So most people go online, use one of the search engines and find the cheapest policy going. That will do. It’s a policy. It will do the job. Then the renewal date comes around and there’s no need to review and reconsider. There’s a policy. That will do. Except not everyone is organized. Not every remembers their partner’s birthday. Not everyone remembers the renewal dates on their insurance policies. Most of the time, people get away with it. They get around to it before anything happens. But failure to renew can be life-threatening. What makes it worse is that it need not be your life that’s threatened. Suppose it’s the life of your child.

Let’s start again. People should take responsibility for their lives and plan for tomorrow. Although it’s all right to shelter under your parent’s health plan whilst you’re young, there comes a point when you have to begin to establish your own track record. Paying your own way when you have the means is the right thing to do. But that does not mean simply accepting the cheapest policy. As with everything in life, you get what you pay for. The basic cover fails when you have more than a basic illness. So read the policies before you choose which one to buy. This is more than looking down a list of diseases and disorders. Think about what you really need. If you fall seriously ill, you need treatment and income replacement if you cannot work. You also need continuity of cover. It’s no good waiting to find out whether your policy is going to renewed or the premium hiked. This is something you should think about when you take out your first health insurance policy or renew whilst still healthy.

Health insurance is something you should try to get right. Never look at a list of diseases covered without also looking at the exclusions and exceptions that might deny you cover. Yes, there may be a lot to read and the language is not designed to make it easy. But taking the time early on saves a lot of pain later. There is also one other very important warning. Always be honest and complete in your disclosures. If you have some medical problems, disclose them. If the insurer finds out you have been economical with the truth, it has the right to cancel the cover. That covers all the main points. We remind you that you may have the right to claim tax relief on the premiums. That should be the bonus after you have put the right policy with the right health coverage at the right price in place to protect you and your family.