17 North Roadside Kitchen

We decided to go out for dinner tonight. Actually, we both had had very busy days and did not want to cook. Now to the decision about where to eat. We have  our favorites and I have written blogs about them in the past, but tonight we decided to try 17 North Roadside Kitchen. If you are on Facebook you may have become a fan of 17 North. Thanks to Susan Cain, I did. So how was it?

GREAT! You may know the location. It is just past the north entrance to Charleston National in a place the had been a dinner and then the Charleston Pizza Kitchen…pretty good pizza, but CPK belongs to California! About 3 months ago, work started on the renovations. A new fence adds some privacy to the new patio and vegetable garden. They have added two horse shoe pits that have nothing to do with food, but could prove to be entertaining. There is a screened porch that serves as a comfortable place to eat and an outside bar. Great parking and a friendly atmosphere. Jason Hogg is the General Manager and he does a great job of making you feel welcome. Patricia and I knew Laura the hostess from Rivertowne Country Club. It was her last night an she made us feel right at home. Chris, our server was a delight.

Now all of that made the atmosphere great, but you go to a ‘roadside kitchen’ for the food and 17 North is a special place for Mt. Pleasant! The menu is friendly to both the wallet and the taste buds. Entrees are $15-18 and they taste terrific! Patricia had a salmon dish at $15 that was worth more.  I had the special brisket and was very impressed. Good location for the north side of Mt. Pleasant, good prices and great food! That sounds like a recipe for success and from the number of people we saw dining tonight, 17 North Roadside Kitchen will be just that.

It is nice to have a comfortable place to have a good meal! The new Roper Hospital will be opening soon and 17 North Roadside Kitchen will be there for everyone to enjoy.

Are Doughnuts Good for You?

I was born and raised in New Orleans, a city famous for food. In the French Quarter at either Morning Call® or Café Du Monde you could enjoy a cup of café au lait along with freshly made beignets. Throughout the city and surrounding areas you could find local bakeries like Scharf’s, or Haydel’s that made fresh doughnuts. Then, of course, Dunkin’ Donuts® offers donut holes. Doughnuts or donuts, for all of my life were imitation beignets with a hole in the middle. They were great with or without coffee and those little donut holes from Dunkin’ Donuts® were fun to eat all by themselves!

Then I came to Mount Pleasant, SC and doughnuts and donut holes had an additional definition that has nothing to do with food! That was back in 2002.

There is a little store on the corner of Ben Sawyer and Rifle Range. It is an eclectic place that offers cast concrete statures, produce and other items of interest. The little store stands out not because of the merchandise, but because of how it compares to the surrounding properties. It’s different.

I learned that the corner was a doughnut hole, meaning that it was not a part of the Town of Mt. Pleasant even though it was surrounded by Mt. Pleasant. Basically, the owner of that property had been able to avoid being part of Mt. Pleasant when the area was annexed sometime ago. It seems that some property owners could avoid being part of the town and the taxes that might be a cost of being in the town. On the surface, the property owner seems to save some tax money and is under the jurisdiction of the county instead of the town. But are these doughnut holes good for you?

The food donuts and donut holes are a real treat, occasionally! But since they are full of calories, mostly from fat, a steady diet of donuts is not good for you. What about these property donut holes, are they good for you, or me?

There are hundreds of these donut holes in Mt. Pleasant. Some are as small as a quarter-acre while others are much larger. Who responds to an emergency if it occurs in a donut hole? …Mt. Pleasant? …Charleston County? Since the property is not part of Mt. Pleasant and the owners are not paying Mt. Pleasant taxes, technically it should be Charleston County. But what if Mt. Pleasant Police, or Fire do not respond, is there a liability issue? And what if Mt. Pleasant does respond? What is the exposure to Mt. Pleasant and who pays for that response? Would Mt. Pleasant bill the property owner for services rendered?

The questions are not new. Brad Franko from Count On 2 News, did a story on 9/17/2009 that reminded us of the problem donut holes presented to fire departments responding to the Sofa Superstore fire in West Ashley. On 11/2/2009, ABC News 4’s Natalie Caula had a story about the issue in North Charleston and how it impacts property values. The Charleston Regional Business Journal Staff Writer Scott Miller wrote about the issue in the 2/4/2008 journal. None of them offer a real solution in site. I haven’t either.

What do you think? Are doughnut holes good for you? Should individual property owners have the right to become doughnut holes?

http://www.thestate.com/154/story/998138.html?storylink=omni_popular

http://www.benhagood.com/inNews/inNews55_files/Annexation_laws_under_fire_for_’shoestring’_easements_CRBJ_2-4-08.pdf

http://www.wciv.com/news/stories/1109/674364.html

Crave Kitchen & Cocktails

Last Friday, Patricia and I were getting ready for a trip to Dayton, OH to visit a sick relative. We were driving to Dayton early on Saturday, so we decided to get a nice meal at a local restaurant before retiring for the night. Craves was a great choice.

Crave has been in business for about three years and continues to serve good food at a fair price. The restaurant is in the Seaside Farms Shopping Center near Target at the corner of Riflerange and the IOP Connector. Chris Dolan, the proprietor, took over the location from Just Fresh and really took advantage of the location. If you like to eat outside you have nice surroundings. There is a nice bar area as you enter. The main seating is very comfortable with plenty of space.

We have enjoyed eating at Craves on several occasions. The food is consistently flavorful. The prices are reasonable, and the service is very good. The atmosphere is inviting and Crave is a great neighborhood meeting place.  Try it, you’ll like it!

Confusion in Real Estate

Have you noticed that most of the media real estate experts seem to be confused of late? Earlier this week, on a nationally popular morning TV show, one expert said that the market had bottomed out. A few hours later, another expert pointed out that the applications for new residential building permits had dropped significantly in September indicating further decline in the housing market. In just a few hours the experts went from a slightly positive outlook to a very negative forecast! If you are depending on those experts to help you time the market, what do you do now?

The experts are feeling the effects of inertia! What do I mean? Well, when the housing market was very hot, the experts were championing the boom and forecasting continued growth in the industry. National builders were ramping up production and buying up vacant tracks for future projects. Inertia – a body in motion tends to stay in motion. They weren’t considering all of the facts that should have limited their plans for more new developments. They are at it again!

One fact seems to escape the notice of experts. People need to sell real estate for various reasons, and other people need to buy real estate for various reasons. Additionally, no one acknowledges that current home prices and mortgage interest rates make this one of the best times to buy in recent history! Home prices are down by 30% in many areas from their high in 2005. Interest rates are low and money is available to qualified buyers. Throw in the first time home buyers tax program and we have a very good market for buyers.

It is true that housing prices could fall further. It is also true that interest rates will likely rise. So what does that mean to someone looking for a new home now? What if that buyer waited for the prices to drop but interest rates increased by 1%? How would the buyer’s monthly P/I change?

Home Price	$500,000	$450,000
Amount Financed	$400,000	$360,000
Interest Rate	6%	7%
Monthly P/I Payment	$2,398	$2,395

A professional Realtor® will help a buyer to define their wants and needs, including size of home, number of rooms, neighborhood and schools. The Realtor® will match the available houses with the buyer’s criteria to reduce the time and energy spent in finding the home that the buyer defined.

Patricia and I have teamed up with buyers to successfully match them to homes in Mt. Pleasant, SC for several years. We would be pleased to team up for success with you in your home search.  If you have a home to sell, we can team up with you to help with all of the details to make that that a successful moving experience

Patricia Fuchs @ 843-425-0953

Mark Fuchs @843-364-9509

Good News in Real Estate

A great place to live!

Finally, there is some good news for real estate in the Charleston Trident area! Both the Post and Courier and The Charleston Regional Business Journal are reporting real estate sales for the month of September, 2009, saw an increase of 7% year over year. The breakdown is:

• Berkley County saw 135 transactions closed for a 7% increase. The median sale price was $150,000.
• Charleston County had 259 transactions close which translates to an 11% increase. Charleston County saw improvement in sales in Mount Pleasant below Hwy 41 and in Carolina Bay in West Ashley. The median sales price was $214,000.
• Dorchester County had 164 sales, remaining stable. The median price was $154,000.

The $8,000 Federal Tax Credit for first time home buyers may have been the reason for increased sales. Time is running out for first time home buyers to take advantage of this incentive since it is set to expire on November 30, 2009. October could see another increase in sales as a result.

This is a great market for buyers to take the advantage. Inventories are still over 10,000 units in the Tri-County and the median sales prices for the area are continuing to trend down. Combine that with reasonable mortgage interest rates and the fist time buyers tax credit. It might be your best time to get into real estate, or move up to the home you always wanted.

If you have questions about the market, or just need more information, call us. Patricia can be reached on 843-425-0953, or call me at 843-364-9509.

How Long is Long?

How long should a blog be? When is it too long? Can it be too short? How concisely one writes and still makes the point IS the point. It is like texting in long hand, don’t you think? Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Five Loaves

Well, it is obvious that I’ve started blogging again. But I have not talked about dining in awhile. Tonight I will. I have posted a Facebook comment about Five Loaves a few weeks ago. A few people responded and said that they enjoyed eating there. We visited Five Loaves tonight. My wife, Patricia, and our daughter, Heather, who is visiting from Columbus, OH, and had a very good evening.
Five Loaves is a neighborhood restaurant with excellent food at reasonable prices. Most entrees are under $18, some are $11, and on Friday night, as well as others during the week, a bottle of wine is half-price. The owner, Joe Fischbein, is personable and does a great job of making his customers feel welcomed. Our server, Flo, was terrific. She was very attentive to her tables and made her customers feel well cared for. Flo is from Argentina. She has a beautiful accent that matches the smile that is ever present. She is finishing her education in December with two majors and is looking for work as an interpreter upon graduation.
Back to the food. I had pork tenderloin stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes. Patricia had a lobster ravioli appetizer as her main course. Heather had the special risotto with portabella mushrooms and chicken. I do not have the credentials of a food critic. I am not writing a culinary review, but the food was very good. This is about the experience shared at Five Loaves and the value. I have a family that enjoys eating out on occasion and for our money it is hard to beat the enjoyment of a wonderful evening at Five Loaves.
If you have been there, how was your experience? Did you find things as I did? If you have not been there, I would recommend that you give it a try. You will enjoy the experience.

Language in Flux

I listened to Bob Edwards on NPR last week. Actually, I listen to Bob on a regular basis and this particular day really caught my attention. The discussion was about how modern shorthand is changing how language is used and understood. The examples used were text messaging and Twitter. Both require the user to be concise and find a way to communicate what they want using fewer characters than standard written communications. When texting started you were charged by the number of characters included in your text. Twitter limits the user to 140 characters. Characters also included spaces so a user needed to be clever about how to contract a word without losing the words meaning.
One of the panel members took the position that these contractions were changing the way language is used and it might be detrimental to communications. In fact, this panel member thought that it would be detrimental to the educational system in particular. Another panel member took a different position. That panel member pointed out that language is not static and changes over time. That panelist suggests that what we are seeing is language in flux and that it is nothing that should cause concern. Aren’t contractions such as “Aren’t” a form of shorthand?

The Lagoon in City Park

I am torn between these two positions. I remember when I first was exposed to acronyms in the business world. Initially, I couldn’t make heads or tails of some written correspondences because of the acronyms. Over time they became second nature and as long as I limited the use to the communities that used the acronyms, all was right in the world. I do have trouble with acronyms that are new to me and much of the shorthand in texting takes a bit of time for me to figure out. But overall, I’m OK with the changes I’ve seen in my lifetime.

What about you? What’s your opinion? Please let me know.

Social Media and The Real Estate Studio

OK, so I ‘ve been a little slow getting back to my blog. I do have an excuse or two, but who cares. There is something I wanted to share with you. I attended a training session this morning at The Real Estate Studio at 214 King St., in Charleston, SC and learned quite a bit about Social Media. This was part of an ongoing education process sponsored by Dunes Properties to help people better understand how Social Media can be a tool with value, rather than another passing fancy that is a waste of time.
Kristin B. Walker was leading the discussion. You might have heard of Kristin from some articles written about her recently. Seems Kristin has a blog, Charleston Inside Out, that she uses to promote bicycling in downtown Charleston. So why does that make Kristin an expert on Social Media? She’s not and that is the point. Social Media has taken on a life of its on and is changing the landscape of communication and relationship building. The training was more like a developmental lab where ideas and concepts were thrown on the table to see what would stick. One thing became very clear to me. While the means of communicating are changing, the principles of communication remain the same. What Social Media really does is facilitate discussions, or at least that’s what seems to happen.
Whatever Social Media venue you use the objective seems to be the same. You want your voice to be heard on a subject and you are interested in what others have to say about your opinion. The venues provide for orderly discourse, you complete a thought in writing, someone reads it and hopefully understands what you meant, and then they can comment or not comment on what you wrote. It is a civil discussion even when there is dissent…and there will be dissent…because the discussion is in writing and in the safety of cyberspace.
Back to that waste of time statement in paragraph one. What I find about Social Media is that many users are not sure about how powerful Social Media can be and so they do not use it to do anything other than to post little about even less. Who cares about the treat of the day or drink of the day or …Mafia Wars! It just isn’t what I want to spend time on when I log on to Facebook. So I need to be selective about who I select as friend, and so do you. I want to use Social Media to listen, learn, and maybe interact with people who are interested in things that interest me. That’s what I am learning about Social Media. How about you? How do you use Social Media? What do you think makes it useful?

The Boathouse on Isle of Palms

Last evening, after a great day of activity, my wife, Patricia and I decided to have a pleasant evening out. Patricia has had to work extra hard this past month because I had surgery on my left shoulder and have not been able to do a lot of my normal chores. She has had to drive me to follow-up doctors appointments and other appointments that I would normally do on my own. All of that in addition to what she normally handles from day to day. I am back to driving and it was time to have a nice evening out.
We decided to enjoy our time together at the Boathouse on the Isle of Palms. It was the perfect choice. With the sun setting and a gentle breeze, we enjoyed our wait for a table. Once seated, the food was the topping for a wonderful evening. This is a great time to enjoy the Boathouse. The rooftop bar has views that go on forever and the temperature is just right. We had a great evening and enjoyed fresh seafood from a local merchant. Who could ask for more.
Have you visited the Boathouse lately? What did you think? Let me know if you had a good experience.