Huntsville makes it into Top 10 of Best Places to Live in US

US News has released their list of best places to live. Huntsville came in at #7. US News wrote that Huntsville is the most affordable of all 125 Metro Areas and the smallest Metro Area in the top 10. Here is the link to the US News article. Check out what other cities have made the list.

Real Estate of Huntsville

Smartest City in Alabama 7/27/16

Just a short post for today sharing an article on Wallethub showing the Most and Least Educated Cities in the United States. For 2016, Huntsville, Alabama came in as most educated city in Alabama and 27th most educated overall in the nation. #1 on the list is Ann Arbor, Michigan. For more information please click the link above to Wallethub's website for more information.

Source: WalletHub

News Bites 6/16/15

Going through the local news and some interesting newslets that may be interesting.

This weekend ts Food Truck Friday and Saturday it will be NASA on the Courthouse Square.  Another opportunity to sample what the many food trucks have to offer. See this article about scheduling and what food trucks will normally be there. NASA on the square will feature astronaut, TJ Creamer and provide entertainment from four local bands and ability to talk with scientists and engineers leading the way within the Marshall Space Flight Community.

It looks like Cabelas is continuing to be constructed and they are now advertising for job applicants. Located near Bridge Street Town Center, General Manager Steve Smith has stated that its "one of the better" locations he has seen and promises a "legendary experience" for newcomers to the store.

In interesting space news, Huntsville, Madison, Chamber of Commerce, Huntsville/Madison Airport Authority, & Madison County Commission are working together to produce a feasibility study concerning possible landings of Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dream Chaser spacecraft at Huntsville International Airport. Positive quotes from Sierra Nevada Corporations indicate that Huntsville is an important place to grow operations.


Homes on Market:

105 Cedar Chase Circle - $119,000

2809 Elkwood Section Road - $129,900

165 Coldsprings Drive - $159,900

 

Huntsville Metro Area Homes

Panoply 2015, April 24-26

Its that time of year again the Panoply Arts Festival is back starting today Friday April 24th and going through Sunday April 26. There is strong weather to be moving in late tonight and into Saturday so we will see how everything holds up. However, local weather has stated that Sundays weather will be great as the Panoply gates will open that day at 12 noon.

Here are a few links to help you along the way for wonderful entertainment and excellent works of art.

Arts Council information

Arts Council Panoply Stages information

AL.com information

Local Station WHNT 


Everyone have a fun time and look forward to seeing you out there.

Huntsville Metro Area Homes

Once again Huntsville Captures top honors for Engineering - Feb 2015

While the city Huntsville was locked into a snow and ice cycle in February and March, organizations have bestowed titles of top engineering city on Huntsville.

Forbes and NerdWallet have announced that Huntsville is the best place for engineers. By far away and an easy pick among the organizations Huntsville stood out the most. Not only that but reading further into the article Decatur, AL also made the list, making the metro area very strong indeed in terms of an engineering powerhouse. The hidden gem of the Huntsville area is once again proudly recognized.

Also sneaking in on another list. Huntsville managed to get into the top 15 of top cities for pay in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) jobs. With the above awards of engineering, these two can easily seen being hand in hand which looks back at another list by Wallethub showing Huntsville on the list for most educated cities.

Huntsville Metro Area Homes

An Amazing Week of Events - 10/10/14

This weekend will be one of the more full weekends of events that include Huntsville Real Estate, historical stories, and wonderful jewelry. There hasn't been a weekend like this in quite a while.  There are three major events going on this weekend:

Parade of Homes
The Parade of Homes covers this weekend and next weekend. This is when all the new construction have their models and pre-built homes ready for the public to walk through. It is also a time when most real estate agents have their homes have open houses as well for the public to come through. It is Fridays and Saturdays, October 11/12 & 18/19.


The Maple Hill Cemetery Stroll
A timeless Huntsville tradition to celebrate its history. The Maple Hill Cemetery Stroll takes place at historical Maple Hill Cemetery in downtown Huntsville. Local celebrities and members of the local populace will be dressed up in period clothing representing their characters. Each character having a strong impact on not only Huntsville, but sometimes the nation. Donations go exclusively to restore Maple Hill Cemetery.


Jewelry, Gem, & Mineral Show
This years (the 46th) show has been moved from its usual location at the VBC to the Jaycees building on Airport Road.  There is free parking, and the organizers ask for a $3 donation. This is always a great time every year. It runs Friday through Sunday.

There is a great amount to do this weekend and plenty to see. Everyone have fun.



Huntsville Metro Area Homes

Huntsville's $383 Million in updating roads

We have not seen this on local news yet and thought we would pass it along. This was just released by the City of Huntsville today 9/3/14: Updates, upgrades, and expansions of Huntsville area roads. Please click the links below from the City of Huntsville to read both the article and the PDF document of projects.

Press Release from City of Huntsville

For a list of current roadway projects in PDF format.


Huntsville Metro Area Homes

What's Huntsville planning and its vision?

More often than not we see stagnation in the local media where not much is discussed on future planning and a vision of what needs to be done to make sure the city and local surrounding areas are on the right course.

For a while now, we have been dissecting and processing information from two valuable sites from the city. One is an overall broad vision and one is user input thoughts on what to do or improve.  Each one is worth reading through and filtering out the information you have the most interest. Be careful as you can go on information overload in some places due to the large documents the city has put out. The sites are Big Picture Huntsville and Imagine Huntsville.

Information in Big Picture Huntsville is segmented and is pretty easy to keep reading along as it flows very well. As always though, these are visions and plans, always subject to change as we have seen in the past so don't take anything as concrete. Just suggestions on what could possibly be done and making the road map as the city moves along.

Huntsville Metro Area Homes

Updates to City of Huntsville and Chamber of Commerce Websites

As Huntsville continues to be the 2nd largest metro area in Alabama, the city has started a more proactive approach towards putting information online.  Now not many have noticed recently, but the City of Huntsville has now put city laws on an online database for everyone to see.  On the City of Huntsville's main front page, the JavaScript link is located at the bottom left.  Also included in their eGov links are forms, taxes, court and police records, etc.

Also the Huntsville Madison County Chamber of Commerce website has updated their maps section to show schools, parks, recreation, dining areas, industrial parks, arts, and more.  If you get a chance check it out!  One can only expect the chamber to add more to these maps.

Huntsville Metro Area Homes

Tomorrow 6/21/13 is the First Day of Summer...Huntsville events, road funds, and new entertainment districts

With the first day of summer looming around the corner what is everyone up to.  Seems like there are vacations about to go on or are being planned.  Everyone is getting involved in activities and volunteer groups on one thing or another, or people are taking more of an opportunity to go out more with families and friends.

Our local visitors center has put together more upcoming events.

In other news: One of our team members spotted Mayor Battle on the corner of Byrd Spring and South Memorial Parkway when he was discussing the deferred road funds for Byrd Spring & Lily Flagg.  And with the new open container legislation that has passed the city is putting out more information on the entertainment districts known as Quigley and Meridian.


Today's Tidbit: Remember rule of safety for summer, keep drinking even if you don't feel thirsty.  Dehydration can still hit you when its humid out and doesn't feel as hot.

Huntsville Metro Area Homes

Saturday May 18th Healthy Huntsville

We've been in and out of the office all week, but today something caught our eye that we thought we would pass along.  Tomorrow May 18th there is a free public health and exercise event hosted by Healthy Huntsville and other sponsors including Huntsville Hospital, Operation Green Team, the City of Huntsville and Hudson Alpha among others  are putting forth.  They are calling it Saturdays in the Park and it is a  morning of different types of exercise from Pilates to yoga, workouts to Tai Chi.

More information can be found on the City of Huntsville's website.  Press Release.   PDF Slide.

Huntsville Metro Area Homes

Passing of Former Huntsville City Councilwoman Sandra Moon

Its with a heavy heart that we note the passing of former Huntsville City Councilwoman Sandra Moon.  She died yesterday, Tuesday April 9th of Pancreatic Cancer. More information from AL.com on her passing can be found here.

Photo Courtesy of Steve Doyle | sdoyle@al.com

Huntsville Metro Area Homes

A Helpful Tool in Your Search for a Home in Huntsville, Alabama

Often times we need more information on properties, their surroundings as well as other factors.  For years now our group has used Huntsville's GIS Interactive Maps as an additional tool to help ourselves and clients.  It not only allows you to zoom into street level, but it also allows you to overlay different types of informational maps.  A great example would be to overlay warning sirens over subdivisions in Madison County.  To do this you click "More" in the top right hand corner, scroll down and check "warning sirens" then scroll up and hit "subdivisions in Madison County".  As you can see in that list that there are several different overlays that you can use for your own information gathering.  Also to the right of it is a "basemap" which will change how it looks including aerial and topographical maps.

I encourage you to play around with it for a bit and see what else you can find.  Its uses can stretch over a wide variety of life.

Today's Tidbit:  Remember to check for verification on this such as everything else, because we have a found a few errors in the past.  But most of the time its fairly accurate.

Huntsville Metro Area Homes

Huntsville Alabama's New Waffle House and Army Contract

The Huntsville Historic Preservation Commission gave approval to the demolishing of the old Sonic drive-in and construction of a Waffle House on the edge of Old Town Historic District.  Mark Russell of the city council hopes that Waffle House will consider toning down their bright yellow signage to something that would fit in with Old Town's historic neighborhood.  Waffle House representative Joe Hoffman repudiated the request by saying that the company did not have to change its trademark because it fits with the historical guidelines of Old Town.  Without taking the advice under some consideration and immediately saying no gives a stance of arrogance by Joe Hoffman.  Sometimes its best to be graceful and not brutish when moving into someone else's neighborhood.

Alatech Inc and I3 (Integration Innovation Inc) both won contracts from the US Army to provide support to the U.S. Army Fires Center of Excellence in Fort Sill, Okla. and the development of training materials.  This contract is valued at 248 million dollars and looks to last through March of 2014.

Today's Tidbit: Remember the Huntsville Historic Preservation Commission has authorization on all changes to me made to properties as well as sets guidelines for properties within the Historical Districts of Huntsville Alabama.

Huntsville Metro Area Homes

Huntsville's Mayor Battle sends out Sequestration message from DC

Just a quick post today.  Last night, Huntsville's Mayor Tommy Battle released this statement from Washington DC where he went to Capitol Hill to discuss the Sequestration.
***

One thing is for certain; there is a wealth of diverse opinions in Washington, D.C.
Madison County Commission Chair Dale Strong, Enterprise Mayor Kenneth Boswell (Fort Rucker), Retired General Rod Wolf (former president of AAAA) and I met with seven House and Senate offices today. The topic was sequestration and its effect on our local economy.

For more than five years the Defense Department and the rest of the U.S. government have been limping along on a Continuing Resolution (CR) on spending. When Congress raised the debt ceiling in 2011 and could not come to an agreement on debt reduction, part of the deal included an imposed sequestration; a series of harsh budget cuts totaling $1.2 trillion (through 2021) that would take effect January 2, 2013.

Evenly split between defense and domestic discretionary spending, the proposed cuts were so drastic, no one in Washington thought they would ever be allowed to take effect. Leaders mistakenly believed the threat of a sequester would force Congress to agree on a reduced budget plan. Instead, Congress extended the sequester start date to go into effect March 1. As a result, the Congressional paralysis and the threat of sequestration have been crippling our local businesses.

Top firms in are area holding back on hiring and future planning, including expansions, because they don’t know what the U.S. government is going to do. The first effects of sequestration will be shouldered on our federal employees. Notices went out today warning of furloughs. We are told this means federal employees will work a 32-hour week and receive a 20 percent pay cut. I think most offices will still expect employees to accomplish the same amount of work that they had in a 40-hour week. Temporary employees will lose their jobs and term employees will not be rehired.

The military armed forces (Army) would start feeling the effect in FY 2014. The talk on Capitol Hill is that active duty rosters will be cut from 540,000 to fewer than 400,000.

Sequestration also affects schools. The Huntsville City School system will lose $1.7 million and the Enterprise School system will lose around $1.5 million. These will be difficult cuts to absorb in systems that have already endured systematic cuts throughout the recession.

The overall sentiment in the Congressional offices we visited today is that our country will go into sequestration on March 1. Some of the offices believe it will take about 30 days for the real impact to hit.

A few offices were hopeful that Congress would turn the situation around by the time the CR ran out on March 27. The hopeful ones were those representatives with a heavy military presence in their congressional districts. Those without military bases gave the impression they are “okay” with sequestration staying in place.

There is some talk of a defense appropriation bill by Hal Rodgers that would be combined with a CR for the rest of the budget. Some offices believe this might work if it follows the guidelines of National Defense Acquisition (NDA) that passed the House last December. Most were skeptical of the ability of the House to put that together.

There is a lot of finger pointing and “we vs. they” talk throughout the delegations. The promising part was the fact that two offices made statements about “forgetting party lines,” and “we have to do something.” The House has terrific distrust for both Administration and the Senate. They fear both parties are working to make them look bad.

The common thread we discovered is that these Congressional offices are not getting any public feedback on this issue. There is a lot of noise about gun control and immigration, but no public outcry about sequestration. If anything is going to happen, the public has to get involved and they need to speak up quickly. Several of the offices said it would up to the Senate to start the negotiation process to come up with a budget or even a CR. The two Senate leaders that have the might and clout to do that are Alabama’s Senator Richard Shelby and Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski.

Our “ask” of the legislative offices today was not to “kick the can down the road.” Good, bad, or indifferent, we need a budget. Our military commands will adapt. Our local businesses will adapt. The uncertainty of a CR is worse than sequestration.

Our other “ask” was that Congress not burden the civilian workforce with all the pain. It is not fair. Less pay and a mandatory shortened workweek is something we would not do in private industry and it should not be done in government. 

We don’t know the full effect of our visit, but we did everything in our power to make certain our message was heard in Washington, D.C. We recognize the country must come to grips with its financial future. Let’s do so in the right way.

Tommy Battle
Mayor

***

Huntsville Metro Area Homes

The First Step - The Beginning of Curb Appeal

The First Step is always the hardest, and in this case the opening of a blog is also reason to celebrate.  With another tool to help Carol Jacobs connect with her clients and the public in general it can't help but be a good thing.

The Real Estate of Huntsville has always been an interesting creature.  Reaching out into different counties with home values covering the thousands to the multi-millions, farms and ranches to condos and gated communities, the Huntsville Metro Area has managed to hold everyone together for the continued growth for the community, jobs, and upward mobility.

For quick local info on the city take a look a these quick links:  Huntsville Wikipedia  Huntsville City-Data  Official Huntsville Website

In the past few years, the rest of the country real estate market has been bludgeoned to death by the Great Recession.  Huntsville has been lucky enough to withstand most of it.  This is why many people have relocated here to get into better financial position and also for the excellent community that the city provides.

So come on back to this blog for new information and tidbits of Huntsville information from its history and from the here and now.  This weeks tidbit:

In 1884 Frank James stood trial in Huntsville for the armed robbery of an army paymaster near Muscle Shoals.  This celebrity trial would be known as the Trial of the Nineteenth Century.  Reporters came from nationwide to get the details of the Frank James trial.  This circus would end as the civil war veteran jury acquitted James on all counts and he walked out of the Huntsville courthouse free.

Huntsville Metro Area Homes