Coeur d'Alene Idaho Real Estate & Property Management

We've Moved - Please visit our new and improved blog . . .

2007-11-01T15:25:00.000-07:00

Thank you for visiting - now come join us at our main blog:

http://northidahorealestate.wordpress.com/

Enthusiastically,
Christina Ethridge
North Idaho Dream Team

WE'VE GOT IT!

2006-11-02T14:36:00.000-08:00

Cabela's officially announced today they are in final negotiations for their North Idaho store. This store will be located in Post Falls, Idaho. The store will be a 125,000 sq. ft. retail store and the showcase anchor for the premier retail shopping center being planned. This center will be called "The Pointe" and will encompasse over 800,000 square feet of shopping space.

The Post Falls Cabela's would be built in Cabela's trademark style that evokes the feeling of the outdoors. Cabela's stores are known as top-notch educational and entertainment attractions, mixing a décor of museum-quality animal displays with colorful dioramas, huge aquariums stocked with native fish and a centerpiece indoor mountain displaying trophy animals interacting in realistic re-creations of their natural habitats.
Features of the Cabela's Post Falls, Idaho, store would include:
A towering mountain replica, the centerpiece of the store's open showroom, with running waterfalls and streams, a trout pond and trophy animals in re-creations of their distinct habitats. Similar mountains, each called Conservation Mountain, have been built in other Cabela's stores as monuments to wildlife and salutes to the sportsmen and women who support wildlife conservation.
A gigantic freshwater aquarium stocked with fish native to the area.
Museum-quality representations of many wild-game species.
A deli-style restaurant will feature delicious wild-game sandwiches, as well as tamer fare.
World-class Gun Library, providing gun collectors and aficionados the opportunity to browse through a collection of examples of the gun-making art.
Indoor archery range where archers can test and fine-tune their equipment.
Bargain Cave, featuring discount prices on returned and discontinued merchandise.
A sun-drenched atrium interior featuring authentic fieldstone accents and wood furnishings.

For our investors - this means Post Falls is an excellent opportunity. Cabela's plans on opening by the Fall of 2007 and various retail tenants (including Old Navy, either Home Depot or Lowes and many other national tenants) in the shopping center will be opening anytime thereafter. They will be relocating employees and utilizing the employee base in the surrounding area, to the tune of 250 employees (for Cabela's alone). These employees need places to rent. The best opportunity right now is our Luna Ridge Townhome Condo's - the builder is providing an EXCELLENT break-even incentive opportunity for investors. Another excellent opportunity are our single family homes located in Fieldstone, a beautiful sub-division located just minutes from the Cabela's development location.

Cabela's article available here.

If you think Coeur d'Alene is on it's last development legs... think again

2006-11-02T11:00:00.000-08:00

A new 161 acre development of "upper-end" homes is being planned for Canfield Mountain. Lot sizes will be .59 and larger and, homes will start at $600,000. The views from Canfield Mountain are, in a word, awesome. You can see from Coeur d'Alene Lake to Hayden Lake and as far west as Liberty Lake. Phenomenal views.

With the plans that were revealed in the press article, this development sounds like it is well thought out, is responsible development and certainly meets the needs of buyers relocating to the Coeur d'Alene area.

I'm sick of so many Realtors!

2006-11-02T08:11:00.000-08:00

Good grief. I absolutely DO NOT blame consumers for their negative thoughts about Realtors, I'm sick of them too!

As you know, we specialize in working with investor and relocation buyers and sellers - in other words, people who are not currently living in the Coeur d'Alene area. As the "children" of David Swarat's North Idaho Dream Team are life long residents, teaching people about the area comes very naturally to us.

Imagine my disgust when the following happen:

We had clients come into town to look at investing in real estate in the area. We had met them previously in their home state and spent two days with them here in Coeur d'Alene. We know the facts about the area - we use sources that are not media and "frenzy" based - you know, factual sources such as OFHEO, Fiserv, etc. We know the facts about taxes, etc.

We encouraged them to go browsing through open houses of various neighborhoods (after we had already spent two days with them) just to compare buiders, quality, etc. One of the "open house Realtors" proceeded to tell our buyers that their taxes had gone up 20% a year for each of the past 3 years AND, that there was no end in sight.

WHAT??!?!!? This is either the most idiotic Realtor on the planet or, someone who perpetually lies. Yep folks, I'm calling a fellow Realtor an idiotic liar. Strong words. Very appropriate. This persons "claims" set me on a path of proving the facts. I knew they were lying, I knew they were flat out wrong - but in our clients eyes, they were a "professional" as well.

So you think life is worse for you vs. your parents? Think again.

2006-10-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

It amazes me how many people really think that today's generation is financially worse off than their parents. For conversations sake - today's generation will be X and Y and our parents generation will be the 'boomers'.

I constantly hear how much harder it is to make it 'work' on one income - that things cost more - that our money just doesn't go as far. I've always had this underlying feeling that that sentiment was hogwash - and every piece of information I read supported that. Until today, I felt like I was the only one who didn't agree.

Today Forbes.com released a great article titled: The Average American: 1967 and Today. Talk about eye opening.

...48% of Americans believe they're worse off than their parents were...

...66% of Americans said that their personal situations in the "Good Old Days" --defined by the bulk of respondents as anywhere between the 1950s and the 1980s--were better than they are today...

...half of U.S. adults believe the current trends point toward their children's future being worse than their own present...

This all despite:

...the typical family is doing a whole lot better than their grandparents were in 1967...

...Mr. and Mrs. Median's $46,326 in annual income is 32% more than their mid-'60s counterparts, even when adjusted for inflation, and 13% more than those at the median in the economic boom year of 1985...

...average household net worth has increased even faster. The typical American household has a net worth of $465,970, up 83% from 1965, 60% from 1985 and 35% from 1995...

The facts remain - we are doing significantly better than our parents. Our expectations are much bigger too!

The article is great - take a moment and read it.

Don't get left out at retirement!

2006-10-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

Make sure you are taking care of your contributions as much as you can. I posted this information on another blog we have - contribution limits for available retirement options.