Auston Woods Apartment Homes Blog

September brings with it school, more comfortable weather and gorgeous scenery. But in Charlotte, it also brings two very fun festivals that have been a Charlotte tradition for some time. The 34th annual Yiasou Greek Festival, 9/8 - 9/11, and the 47th annual Festival in the Park, 9/23 – 9/25.

The Yiasou Greek Festival has become one of Charlotte’s largest cultural events. All of Charlotte anticipates this festival each year. Yiasou is the Greek word for Hello, Goodbye and Cheers. This Greek Festival features cultural exhibits, authentic Greek cuisine and pastries, entertainment, art, shopping and more. Everyone can be Greek at the 34th Annual Yiasou Greek Festival!

Festival in the Park brings good music, good art and good times to Charlotte from around the world. This fun filled festival promotes interest in the arts. See, hear, and learn from over 150 artists and crafts people who demonstrate and display their art. Nearly a thousand entertainers provide free ongoing performances at the main band shell and many stages surrounding it.

Come and listen to the sounds of "big band music" and wander below the lights that hang from exhibit tents. Great food and face painting for the kids along with street performers and artists make this a fun festival for all. And, Festival in the Park has been chosen as one of Sunshine Artists Magazine's 200 BEST festivals.

Grab some friends from your apartment in Charlotte and have some fun at two of the longest running festivals in the City.

If you live in a home or apartment in Charlotte, North Carolina, here's a great hurricane awareness check list  to look at.

Secure Your Home

• Put freestanding objects inside
• Plan for your pets. Make sure you have pet food, collar and leash and crates, if necessary
• Designate a safe room with no widows or exterior walls.

Plan for Your Personal Safety and Security

• Keep emergency phone numbers by the phone; include out-of-state contacts for family members.
• Assemble an emergency preparedness kit (enough supplies for three to five days) with bottled water (one gallon per person per day), battery-operated radio or TV with extra batteries, first aid kit, flashlight and packaged snacks. Remember to include baby supplies and food, manual can opener, hand sanitizer or wipes, and extra house and car keys.
• Gather all necessary prescriptions and medical supplies to take at a moment's notice.
• Place all important documents -- including your insurance policies -- in a waterproof bag to take with you. Include documents like wills, deeds, birth and tax records, and marriage certificate, proof of residence, home photos, and driver's license and vehicle registration. Include house and car keys
• Take cash and change
• Listen to media broadcasts, especially paying attention to any calls for evacuation
• Call 311 (Emergency Evacuation Assistance) if a family member needs special care.

Check Your Insurance Coverage

• Flood and windstorm insurance are not automatically covered by renters insurance.
• Take photos of your home before the storm.
• Take camera to take photos of damage.

Looking for new way to get fit and stay healthy? Swim.  If you do various strokes throughout your work out it works practically all of the muscles in the body. Swimming can develop your  general strength, cardiovascular fitness and endurance.

Running is great, but if you want to go easier on your body and you want a different exercise, swimming makes sense. One of the biggest obstacles to swimming is getting to the pool. But living in an apartment in Charlotte, NC you have all the access you need.

If you have recently suffered an injury, the pool can help you too. Kicking workouts, water aerobics, pool running, or a regular swimming workout can all give you a great exercise session without the weight of your body pounding you with each move.

Regular swimming builds endurance, muscle strength and cardio-vascular fitness. It can serve as a cross-training element to your regular workouts. Take advantage of the pool in your apartment.

If you are looking for a break from the heat of the summer, then a dip in the water is exactly what you need; swimming is a way for you to cool off and get healthy. 

This month in Charlotte there is plenty to do. There is something to do for everyone, so get out of your apartment in Charlotte, NC and enjoy the August weather and have some summer fun.

Warrior Dash
The traditional 5K run just got an extreme makeover for the die-hard thrill seekers far and wide.  Come to Rural Hill for a race unlike any other - Warrior Dash! America's most insane race lands in North Carolina for the first time where 11 obstacles from hell await you along this 3.08 mile course. While you run, leap fire pits, crawl through mud, and tackle other outrageous obstacles during the Warrior Dash on August 27-28, where the fun continues after each wave of competitors with a king-sized party.  Drawing over 11,000 challengers, even if you don't dare to take on the course, come out for the beer, bands, food and intense athleticism. It'll be brutal fun for athletes and spectators alike!

LGBT Pride Festival
The Queen City's Annual LGBT Pride Festival takes to the streets of Uptown Charlotte along Tryon between Third and Stonewall August 27, drawing a diverse line-up of drag, cabaret, hip-hop and even folk acts on multiple stages.  The fest is the culmination of Charlotte Pride Week, which highlights the cultural, ethnic, artistic and political diversity of Charlotte's LGBT community through nightlife events, fundraisers and arts & culture happenings August 19 - 28.

When deciding whether to rent or buy, you are making the choice to rent an apartment home or renting the capital needed to buy a home. Most Americans don't consider that they are renting equity (from the bank) to buy a home. As you are aware, very little equity is built in the first few years of paying a mortgage. Many people are surprisingly still very unaware of this fact.

This following article explains how renting is financially better than buying in about 75% of cases!

For the Past 30 Years, Renting Was Generally Better Than Buying

If homeownership is the American dream, then the nation had better wake up. That's the message from a new research paper that examines whether buying or renting a home was a better financial decision over the past 30 years. Most would find the result surprising: over the period Americans were better off renting between 65% and 75% of the time, depending on the investment alternative.

The article essentially looks at eight-year periods and assumes that a person invests the money he or she saves by renting. Since buying is generally more expensive than renting, renters have extra money to invest. It also makes a number of assumptions favorable to homeownership, including gains from the mortgage interest tax deduction, the option to refinance, and the ability to walk away -- loss-free -- from an underwater mortgage. Still, renting wins approximately three-quarters of the time.

The staff at economic research organization e21 explains why this result actually shouldn't be so shocking:

Counter-intuitive as the finding may be to some, it is actually quite logical. Unless someone possesses the cash necessary to buy a residence, he or she will be renting one way or another. The choice is between renting the property directly or instead renting the capital necessary to buy the property. The amount of capital to be rented is a function of house prices, while the bulk of a mortgage payment is interest, which is the rental payment on this capital. After 2 years, the typical 30-year amortizing mortgage balance has been reduced by less than 3%. This means that a household that took out a $300,000 mortgage with a 5% interest rate to buy a home has only reduced its mortgage balance by $8,600 after two years despite spending nearly $39,000 in total over this period.

Housing advocates may respond by pointing out that at least the $8,600 in this scenario went towards home equity rather than simply being squandered on rent. But, as demonstrated in the Real Estate Economics article, the principal component of each mortgage payment - i.e. the portion of the mortgage payment that goes towards reducing the principal mortgage balance instead of interest - is an added expense renters don't have.

This turns the real estate industry's biggest talking point on its head: you aren't throwing rent into the wind each month, you're casting away equity.

Of course, that equity also provides a potential benefit. The analysis's eight-year rolling methodology appears to miss the biggest reward of owning a home: living rent-free once the home is paid off. After that 30-years is up, the longer a family remains in that home rent-free, the more buying pays off. Taking this into account would almost certainly change the result in some, if not all situations. Renting may be a better option initially, but there's no eventual reward.

An important point still needs to be made here: buying a home that you don't plan to live in for an extended period of time probably isn't a great idea. The rent you pay in the form of interest on a 30-year loan for five or even 10 years won't be any better than if you had just rented outright. But if you're planning on living in a home for 30-plus years, then you could potentially get some benefit from buying rather than renting.

Original article by By Daniel Indiviglio, The Atlantic

Charlotte football fans can relax and get ready for some football. The NFL lockout is over, and we’ll be watching preseason games in August. As fans, we are hoping the Panthers have a better season this year. Obviously, the great part of last year’s terrible season is that we get the number one draft pick,  quarterback Cam Newton, and he is happy to be back at training camp.

But there is a heat wave headed to Charlotte, and the NFL training camp might not be a lot of fun some days. Highs of near 100 degrees are expected this week.

Fans who are going to be venturing out of their homes and apartments in Charlotte, NC to head to Wofford University for Panthers' practice will be dealing with 100-degree temperatures and a heat index around 110 degrees. Take plenty of water, and stay in the shade.

The first preseason game for Carolina is August 13th, who is having the Super Bowl Party at Auston Woods? It is never too soon to hope.

Who hasn’t heard of the tv show, "The Biggest Loser?” Of all the reality shows this one is up there on top, challenging and encouraging overweight contestants to lose weight in a safe manner through comprehensive diet and exercise.

Well, this popular NBC show will be in Charlotte on Aug. 6 holding casting calls as part of a 13-city cross-country search to find new contestants.

Casting producers will be at the Planet Fitness at 10215-B University City Blvd. in Charlotte that Saturday from 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Individuals and teams of two, at least 18 years old, and who have at least 85 pounds to lose are encouraged to apply for the new season that will begin airing in January, 2012. You’ll be competing for a grand prize of $250,000.

So if you are done with talking about losing weight to others in your apartment in Charlotte, NC, your opportunity to lose that weight for real is here! Grab one of your friends or neighbors in your apartment community and head on down to the casting call.

The show provides the contestants with challenges, temptations, weigh-ins and eliminations until the final contestant remains to claim the title of "the biggest loser."  Season 12 will have contestants work out under the supervision of Bob Harper, Anna Kournikova and Dolvett Quince.

Good luck and make everyone in Charlotte and Auston Woods proud!

Are you trying to find a great place to retire? The perfect city to move to now that you’re a college graduate? Or a city in which to get a new start during mid-life? Here’s one idea: Charlotte, NC.

What cities are best positioned to grow and prosper in the coming decade? Forbes and the Praxis Strategy Group did a study to determine the The Next Big Boom Towns In The U.S. and found Charlotte number 8.

They started with job growth, not only looking at performance over the past decade but also focusing on growth in the past two years. That was one-third of the score.  The other two-thirds were made up of demographic factors, all weighted equally. These included rates of family formation, growth in educated migration, population growth and, finally, a broad measurement of attractiveness to immigrants — as places to settle, make money and start businesses.
They focused on these demographic factors because college-educated migrants (who also tend to be under 30), new families and immigrants will be critical in shaping the future. 

Two advantages this rising Southern city, No. 8 Charlotte, N.C., possesses is a mild climate and smaller scale. Even with population growth, it does not suffer the persistent transportation bottlenecks that strangle the older growth hubs. At the same time, this city is building the infrastructure — roads, cultural institutions and airports — critical to future growth. Charlotte’s bustling airport may never be as big as Atlanta’s, but it serves both major national and international routes.

So if you are looking for a fresh start, look for an apartment in Charlotte, NC.

Charlotte is one of the top 10 fastest growing cities in the country with new residents coming to town daily. At Auston Woods, we’d love to help you get settled into this sprawling, growing area.

There are many options when it comes to finding a home too. From apartments in Charlotte, NC to old historic homes, there is something for everyone. With the many career opportunities this growing city offers, many people continue to move to Charlotte. There is much to see and do, and exciting night-life, and so far, the city has remained affordable.

If you are just moving to Charlotte and you don’t know too much about the area, it might be smart to consider renting. With a ready-made community, fitness and pool facilities on-site to assist you in making friends, an apartment community might be just what you need to quickly make Charlotte your home.

Summer vacation is now upon us in Charlotte, North Carolina. Sometimes it's hard to come up with different activities to keep the kids happy and the parents from going crazy. As much as your kids will tell you they can't wait for summer, the words "I'm bored," inevitably cross their lips – sometimes sooner than you think! While children do enjoy the freedom that comes with the summer months, they still like to have a little structure to their fun. This summer, more than ever, families are trying to stick to a budget while still having fun with their kids.

Give them some educational activities to do, but make them fun so they don’t have any idea! They can create a scrapbook of all their summer activities. Document their days through photos or drawings and write a paragraph about the favorite part of the day.

Have them cook one or two meals a week for the family. They can spend some time finding great and fun recipes. This activity also helps them with following written directions and math!

Stay cool! We have a beautiful pool here at Auston Woods. Or if you're looking to get out, hit the Spraygrounds. There are five different spraygrounds in the Charlotte area and they are all open seven days a week from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM and most importantly, they're free of charge.

Don’t forget about Rockin & Reelin Summer Concert & Movies. Bring your lawn chairs, blankets, food, family, and friends to see free movies and concerts this summer at Pineville Lake Park. They have a pre-show, just for kids, which begins at 7:00 PM. All movies will start at dusk, usually around 8:15 to 8:30 PM.