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Fast talker – Local runs over opponents and lets them hear it

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 18:51:00 GMT

*** Croak loves trash-talk.

No, you won’t hear the Concord resident egging his opponents on, but you will see him quiet their jovial taunts with first-place finishes and record-setting performances.

On Sunday, Aug. 12, Croak competed in the 20th annual Granite State Senior Games, taking the track at Manchester’s Livingston Park to run the 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash and 400-meter dash.

The 72-year-old won gold in each event in the men’s 70- to 74-year-old age division. On Sunday, Aug. 5, Croak and tennis partner Roger Roy of Candia won the gold medal in the men’s doubles tennis tournament, beating Hooksett’s Ernie Greensberg and Saul Levinson.

“Last year they beat the devil out of us,” said Croak with a laugh. “But this time we got sweet revenge, it was great to be able to get on their cases like they had done to us last year. I love having people tease and joke around with me before a race or something, I’ve got a few plaques at home to prove them wrong.”

Croak began running at 35, wanting to try something new to stay in shape. His training soon led him to participate in the senior games, a nine-day competition with 16 events for athletes over 50. Picking up his first tennis racket three years ago, Croak’s friendship with Roy introduced him to a new rival in Greensberg.

Croak, who holds various state senior-games records, recalled his favorite running moments occurring in Korea and at a national competition.

“I was visiting my daughter in Korea once and the (Marine) base was holding a Thanksgiving Day race,” he said. “The Marines were joking about how they’d have to run with the ‘old guy’ … I’ve got the first-place plaque at home.”

“Another time I was in a national race and the guy next to me looked at my legs, which are considerably bow-legged,” he continued. “And said ‘Hey fella, if your legs were a little straighter, you’d be able to go a little faster.’ I told I’d wait for him at the finish line … and I did.”

Rapid development

Hooksett Editor — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 17:56:00 GMT

MST’s success surfaces from focus on individual improvement

BY SAPNA PATHAK

Steve Van Der Beken can’t tell you how many undefeated seasons he’s had. He can’t list how many career wins and losses he’s compiled, nor can he recount how many plaques and trophies he has in his home.

He’s a coach with no use for awards and individual accolades. Instead, he’s the type who can remember the names of nearly all the hundreds of swimmers he’s mentored.

The only important numbers to him are the ones showing his swimmers making personal progress.

It’s this unique style that Van Der Beken brought to the Manchester Swim Team Rapids four seasons ago.

By the way, the club has won three outdoor state championships in as many years and will try for a fourth this year.

“We’re really just concerned with each swimmer getting better,” said Van Der Beken. “If each and every swimmer improves, the team will improve as a whole, and that’s the only thing that matters – steady improvement.”

Van Der Beken, joined by assistant coaches Jean Mitchell, Bill Ewing and Mike Peterson, holds two-hour practices six days a week. Van Der Beken uses practice time to perfect stroke mechanics and work on drills designed to strengthen and build cardio endurance.

Though team members vary greatly in age, Van Der Beken relies on high school seniors Ashley Green of Hooksett, Nick Catano of Goffstown and Amy Burke of Bedford to lead the team.

MST travels to meets on weekends with one overnight excursion for a meet hosted by Bowdoin College in Maine. Van Der Beken, who’s been a swim coach for more than 30 years, also splits his time as head swim coach for Manchester Central.

Though the financial cost of being a swimmer is not high, Van Der Beken said it’s the mental and time commitment that can be difficult at times.

“These kids are giving a lot to swimming,” said Van Der Beken.

“They’re giving up some of their social life, trying to balance things out with school, plus trying to make something of their time in the pool, be it go on to college or more.”

Van Der Beken described his swimmers as “a rare bunch of kids,” saying he’s most impressed with the sacrifices made to be a part of the team. This year, Van Der Beken’s roster includes around 60 swimmers.

“We sometimes go head-to-head with teams with more than 150 swimmers,” he said. “Today, a lot of kids would rather play a game, so we lose some kids to other sports. But the ones who stay can really have good careers later. Those are the stats I remember.”

Neighborhood-area members of the championship-winning team include: Christina Denbow and Zachary Denbow of Hooksett; Carter Pribis, Alaina Pribis, Stephen Muzzey and Kaelin Willette of Concord; Katie Donovan, Savannah Lavoie and Kathryn O’Neil of Auburn; Bow’s Stephanie Lynn, Kerry McMann, Katie Jenkins, Robert Jenkins and Richard Jenkins; and Bedford’s Leah Burke, Scott Ewing, Riley Ewing, Kelsey Ewing, David Delahunty, Linda Delahunty, Maria Colella, Kyle Colella, Katherine Berg, Hayley Berg, Karam Sandhu, Milan Sandhu and Neelam Sandhu.

Real estate reality, Home prices still strong, though slower to sell

Hooksett Editor — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 16:39:00 GMT

By Staff Writers

Sharon Livingston has seen a change in the housing market first hand. Two years ago, she and her husband offered to buy their Windham Colonial-style house about an hour after it went on the market.

“I snapped it up,” said Livingston, who paid $629,000 for the house.

“It was such a small market (then), “ she added. “There were hardly any houses.”

The Livingstons are now moving to Tilton and their Colonial is up for sale. Their asking price is $619,000.

The house has been on the market about three weeks. A few people have looked at it, but there are no buyers yet, she said.

“It’s such a different environment (now),” Livingston said.

Area real estate experts and agents suggest the recent shift is more like a return to normalcy than an impending catastrophe.

“The market is not all the doom and gloom you see in the media,” said Jeff Keeler, owner of Pembroke’s Keeler Family Realty and chairman of public policy for the New Hampshire Association of Realtors. “The sky is not falling.”

Keeler said many homes have been staying on the market longer, frustrating many sellers. But he said sellers and real estate brokers have been living the high life until now.

“What we’re seeing is a reaction to 11 solid years of appreciation,” said Keeler.

Keeler described the last six months as a kind of “plateau” period.

No cooldown in Hooksett

Ken Culbertson, owner of Hooksett’s Coldwell Banker Culbertson Realty, said the problem relates more to educating sellers and real estate agents who may unreasonably still expect to seal a good deal in three to six weeks.

“Right now it’s more historically normal,” he said. “It’s normal for it to take three to six months.”

One sign of a reasonably active local market, said Culbertson, is that a wave of new Hooksett homes are selling at prices unseen in town before.

“Houses are being built in Hooksett that are $100,000 or $150,000 higher than they’ve ever been here,” said Culbertson.

Hooksett Assessing Coordinator Sandy Piper said one Hooksett home sold for $624,000 in August.

Reviewing the numbers and types of home sales in recent months, Piper said she’s noticed little, if any, cooling effect.”

“Honest to goodness, I don’t see it cooling down,” she said.

Piper said there are perhaps more homes on the market, but said sales numbers aren’t lagging.

“I’m finding a lot of people who have homes in Hooksett are buying new houses in Hooksett,” she said. “They’re upgrading.”

Why there’s a change

Keeler said while the local market may not be as disastrous as many may perceive, a portion of the housing market is creating a statewide crisis.

He suggested town restrictions on developers, like growth controls and excessive fees, that have cropped up in recent years have led to a shortage in affordable housing.

“The towns put as many impediments as they can on residential growth,” he said.

The result, said Keeler, is that builders build more expensive homes in order to make a profit.

Keeler said the New Hampshire phenomenon has led to a surplus in homes in the $350,000 to $500,000 range, but said there’s still a need for housing for young families, which he suggested invigorate local economies.

“There’s none of it being built,” he said. “$225,000 and below, it’s pretty much still a seller’s market.”

Livingston agreed with that assessment. She thinks a huge building glut in town has changed the market.

“I think it’s obvious that the activity level has certainly slowed down compared to six months ago and I think sellers have to negotiate a little more than they did six months ago,” said Sandy Heino of Sandy Heino and Associates Realty in the Bow/Hopkinton area. “Part of it is just this time of year, in the fall, when things usually slow down, and I think part of it is when people listen to the TV or the radio and hear that it is a buyer’s market and things are going to get worse, they believe it,” she said.

Slower to sell

“Our inventory of houses is very high, with a low inventory of buyers. Lots of sellers, but there aren’t as many buyers as we’ve had in the past,” said Anna Fish of Century 21 Advantage Realty, with offices on Mast Road in Goffstown.

While Fish said prices have remained static over the past half decade, buyers are not as quick to snatch a home off the market.

“A few years ago, the prices were about the same as they are now,” Fish said, “but if I bought a house in January, I could sell it in six months and make a profit. I can’t do that now.

“People are beginning to realize the party is over, we’re back to where we were before it started. People are starting to realize that, because their houses are sitting longer,” Fish said.

To offset the change, Heino said sellers are offering incentives to build buyers confidence such as paying points and closing costs, offering one-time price reductions during open houses, or updating appliances and flooring.

“Sellers need to make their house stand out above everything else,” she said. “You only have one chance to make that first impression.”

It had been a “seller’s market” the past decade, according to Nancy Casagrande, general manager of ERA The Masiello Group in Windham.

Now, there are more homes than buyers, she said.

“Obviously, we are in a buyer’s market,” Casagrande said. “Prices are adjusting.”

Casagrande said that, conservatively, prices of existing homes have come down 10 to 15 percent.

Average home prices

Home sale prices show a wide range of numbers. The 63 home sales in Goffstown between July and August ranged in price from $50,000 for a mobile home to $435,000 for a residence, while New Boston saw 25 home sales spanning $10,000 to $770,000 and Weare’s 41 home sales covered financial territory from $54,000 to $412,000, according to data from Real Data Corp., an online database tracking public record information in New Hampshire and Vermont.

Goffstown saw 140 home sales in 2005 for an average of $258,958, according to information from the Northern New England Real Estate Network. The same report shows 39 home sales in New Boston last year averaging $386,162, and Weare showing 81 home sales with an average price of $246,795.

Of 41 standard house sales in Pelham between mid-June and mid-August, the average price was $398,571.

The highest sale was $660,000 for an eight-room Colonial-style house built on nearly six acres last year. The lowest sale was $206,000 for a 1974 Cape Cod-style home situated on one acre.

In July and August, 40 traditional homes including two exceeding the $1 million mark changed hands in Windham. The average price was $481,135.

At the highest end was a modern/contemporary Beech Street home in Windham that fetched $1.225 million. At the other end was a 34-year-old condominium that sold for $153,466.

More foreclosures

Real estate agents said foreclosures have increased.

Joanne Riopel of Innovative Realty in Pelham said sometimes a family buys a new home before their current one sells and carries two mortgages. But the house they left doesn’t sell as quickly as they had hoped, and the family finds themselves in a financial bind.

Reviewing the number of foreclosures in Goffstown, one town official pointed to a sharp jump in that statistic.

While Goffstown has record of 14 foreclosure notices since June of this year, the town counted 15 foreclosures in all of 2005.

“It seems like a lot of foreclosures,” said Deputy Tax Collector Rene Millson. “I can tell you the folder (of foreclosure notices) is pretty fat.”

National trends

“While new-home sales have been quite strong throughout 2005, we see a cooling of the market to a healthy and more sustainable pace in the months ahead, as substantiated by recent surveys of our builders,” said NAHB chief economist David Seiders. “For 2006, we expect to see a 6 percent to 7 percent drop in sales, but certainly no reason for alarm. This would make 2006 the second or third best year in housing history.”

If you must sell

A seller’s best bet it to listen to their agent when setting a price for their home, Fish said.

“If you’re moving and you need to quickly, you better list it for what your agent tells you to list it for, because they know. A lot of the reason why houses are slower to sell is because sellers start out with an asking price that’s too high,” she said.

“Right now is a good time to buy and some buyers are making offers with great, great reductions to sellers,” Berge Nalbandian of Berge’s Real Estate in Salem said. “I’ve been doing this for 50 years and it’ll come around again like in the years prior.”

In the meantime, builders have been giving discounts and extras in new homes that aren’t normally included, he said.

Nicholas Brown, Darrell Halen, Rod Hansen, Jim Devine, Joseph Edgerton, Ryan O’Connor Steven Andrews and Robert Inks contributed to this story.