RE/MAX of Los Alamos
Piggy bank efforts pay off
A recent report by Kiplingers said that Los Alamos County has the highest percentage of millionaires of anywhere in the US. You can read more here. In Los Alamos County 11.7% of households are worth more than a million. No other community has more than 10%. Wow. The report also said the community is highly-educated, are hard workers, good savers and value their children’s education. Well, heck. I could have told them that!
In a recent interview, Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, said the future is looking bright for homes sales and for the US economy in general. You can see his interview here. Not only are home sales up but housing starts are up and home prices are stabilizing in many markets and heading up in some. In areas where they’re still down, the declines aren’t that great. More fundamentally, broader U.S. economic signs are looking positive, including the all-important jobs picture. About 100,000 job are being created a month, and that could rise to 150,000—still not a quick enough pace to get us back to where we were before the downturn but the headwinds are in the right direction.
Was I asleep or did the announcement that next year’s World Bike Summit to be held in Santa Fe make almost no ripple in our newstream? This seems like mighty big news to me! The event, sponsored by the International Mountain Biking Association, will span four days and bring the biggest movers and shakers of this popular sport to our beautiful area. That can only mean increased recognition of our region and (hopefully) increased future tourism, in addition to the 1200 plus hotel beds, meals, etc that will be the direct impact of the event. The city beat out bids from Lake Tahoe, Nev., and from Jackson Hole, Wyo. Previous World Summit events were held in Park City, Utah, and Augusta, Ga. I’ve been told that Los Alamos’s Tuff Riders will also be participating in some level. You can read more here. What do you think we can do to capitalize on this event? We are such a wonderful community with awesome natural resources and tourist opportunities — I would love to see us draw people (and revenue) here to enjoy our community!
My husband, Bryan, and I are just finishing this summer’s home project. We tore off our old deck and put up a new deck and new railing. It looks great in my humble opinion. I’ll write more about the railing in a future post but I wanted to tell you about the decking material here. It’s a product that made with post-consumer milk jugs that are ground up and mixed with recycled wood waste. Pretty cool, huh? The product’s literature said that their manufacturing process keeps 100 million pounds of wood waste out of our landfills every year. I think it looks great and feels oh-so-nice to walk out on barefoot. And, it has a 25-year warranty! It’s not cheap — in fact it’s quite a bit more expensive than wood but I hope in the long run the cost is comparable. Plus, a bunch of trees didn’t have to die for our new deck. More info here: http://www.timbertech.com/
Effective July 20, all the hiking trails and open spaces in Los Alamos County have reopened! Santa Fe Forest and DOE trails in the county remain closed. However, for all the outdoor junkies out there, this is wonderful news! The air is clearer of smoke and the temps have cooled slightly. It’s time to get back out there and enjoy what many of us consider one of the best reasons for living here: hike and run and bike on our awesome trail system. Speaking of the trail system, have you seen the county parks division trails map? It’s terrific. It has trail descriptions, details for how to get to trailheads and a really wonderful, comprehensive map. It’s available at the county’s visitor center in Central Park Square or online at www.losalamosnm.us. Come on. What are you waiting for?
(Thanks to Jenn Bartram for her photo of her dog, Flying Falcore.)
As of today, the terrible Las Conchas fire, the largest in New Mexico history, has grown to more than 130,000 acres. Residents of the townsite in Los Alamos were required to evacuate on Monday, June 27 and allowed to return to their homes on Sunday, July 3. It was a tense time as evacuees relived the Cerro Grande fire that struck Los Alamos in 2000 and burned 400 homes. Thankfully, no Los Alamos homes have been lost in this blaze, although other communities are not so lucky. Due in large part to the heroic efforts of more than 1600 firefighters who were brought in, many off of other fires, to battle the blaze, in addition to our own LANL and county crews, the fire has been diverted from the lab and from town. However, it continues to burn acres and acres of Northern New Mexico as it is still mostly uncontained. I am so grateful to everyone who has worked to fight this fire, aid area residents, or generally support the community. We are lucky to live in such a wonderful, caring community.
It was exciting to see Los Alamos top the news on places like the Today Show and CNN today. I wish the circumstances could have been different. Yesterday the county called for a mandatory evacuation of the townsite as the wildfire that began on Thursday swelled to more than 60,000 acres in less than 48 hours. Everything I read, as I look out from my friends’ house in Santa Fe where I’m staying at the huge cumulus of smoke, says the town is safe, the lab is safe and the people who are risking their lives fighting the fire remain safe. There is some consolation in this news. At the same time, I am deeply saddened by the devastation that is occurring all around us
. Please keep Los Alamos and its civil servants in your hearts and prayers tonight.
Sometimes staying on top of the yardwork at my house feels overwhelming. For seniors or others with disabilities it becomes downright impossible. That’s why the agents at RE/MAX here is Los Alamos have been donating some sweat equity to seniors in need around the county. We’ve been going out and pruning shrubs, hauling off debris, pulling weeds. None of us is a professional; we’re just trying to help our community out, one scraggly yard at a time! So, if you know someone who needs a little muscle power in giving their property a bit of a cleanup, give me a call. We’re evaluating each request on a case-by-case basis. Or, if you’re interested in lending a hand, stout back, or some hauling power on our next job, give me a call or send me an email. Thanks!
I don’t know how many of you saw the announcement over the weekend but Los Alamos County Council has banned fireworks everywhere except the Kiwanis display at Overlook Park on the Fourth of July. This year’s drought conditions and windier than normal weather are cited for ban. Now, I love a good pyrotechnic display as much as the next fellow, but I’m happy to see this ban go into effect. The horrific Wallow Fire in Arizona has reminded many of us of the Cerro Grande fire of 2001. Let’s keep our homes and families safe and not revisit those bad old days, OK? Do your part to uphold this important initiative by vocally supporting the ban. Thanks for listening.
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