Franklin one of few neighborhoods/cities to keep sales strong on the fourth quarter!















As many of you read the post below, 2006 was the best year for real estate yet, with more homes sold thatn any other before. In that same post, you saw that that December was down in sales, which it was from previous months. However, Franklin had more sales than any other city in the area.

Does the media really think home sales were down in 2006? Apparently they did with all the negative talk. Here are some numbers for them to chew on.

Latest Press Release from the GNAR:

Year-to-date closings are 40,056. That total is an increase of 3 percent from the 38,879 closings reported through the same period last year. This represents a new record for home sales in Greater Nashville during any one year.

There were 3,109 home closings reported for the month of December, according to figures provided by the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors®. This represents a decrease of 7.5 percent from the 3,362 closings reported for the same period last year.

For the fourth quarter of 2006 there were 9,307 closings. That total is down 2.6 percent from the 9,563 closings reported through the same period last year.

"Nashville's real estate market continues a stretch of unprecedented growth," said Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell. "For six consecutive years, the city has set records in home sales, which is not only a tribute to industry professionals, but to the exciting things happening in our city. We look forward to another successful year ahead."

"The Greater Nashville real estate market experienced its most productive year ever in 2006, with more than 40,000 closings for the first time ever," said Richard Courtney, 2007 President of the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors. "While expecting to break a record every month and every year is unrealistic, it is very encouraging to note that December and the fourth quarter posted the second-highest closings ever during those time periods. This is further confirmation that the Greater Nashville real estate market remains active and healthy."

Well now that 2006 is over, what's going to make 2007 better?

Well for starters, get organized! My wife and I have been in our new house since the first of May 2006 and haven't really settled in yet (a newborn can get in the way of that sometimes :) Anyway, we decided that we would de-clutter, organize, and start the new year off right. Here are a few things that have made our life easier and hope you can use them too!

• 
  Put all dry foods (cereal, pasta, flour, wheat, etc) in SnapWare containers. They are clear plastic and make your pantry look great and keep foods fresh. They come in four different sizes and you can get them at Target or Kroger.
  
• Bought a wire storage hanger for the pantry door to store all spices, sauce mix packets, and other small items.
  
• Bought a variety of sizes in wicker baskets to place around the house for storage (Kitchen, pantry, bonus room, etc.). It gives each area of the specific room a clean look and feel, plus your “stuff” is organized.
  
• Used a label maker and started label all SnapWare containers, storage bins for Christmas, Halloween, Easter, etc.). We got it as a gift and have loved every minute of it. You can get these at target for $19.99
  
• Bought plastic shoe storage bins for the garage to organize all chemicals, lawn fertilizers, cleaning supplies, and more.
  
• Use a cloth (or plastic) shoe hanger for your closet and store things such as hats, scarves, board games, etc.
  
• One thing we did was to use all those “missing socks” without a mate as a cleaning rag. Now they have a use!

Start with one room at a time and do these things, otherwise you’ll get overwhelmed, trust me on this one!

Go through each room with large garbage bags and start pulling out everything you haven’t used in 2 years and throw it in the bag. As I’ve heard before, if you haven’t used it in 2 years, get rid of it.

We also added hooks (color coordinated) for some of the doors for hanging things such as kid’s towels, bath robes, and coats.

I hope this info helps and you can start the New Year off organized!