Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 1, 1990 TAG: 9007020276
SECTION: HOMES PAGE: F-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY HOMES EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Mentzer has a doctorate from Michigan State University and has been on Tech's faculty since 1978. Under Mentzer's supervision, Virginia Tech will offer new courses in real estate principles, real estate law, property development and property management.
Mentzer is the director of the American Marketing Association Marketing Education Software Clearinghouse. The clearinghouse was begun in 1986. It collects marketing material used by faculty members throughout the United States and makes it available to other faculty members.
ERA Alpha Omega Real Estate of Roanoke staged a "jail and bail" event last week and raised more than $6,000 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
MDA is a national project for Electronic Realty Associates Inc. ERA has raised more than $10 million nationally for MDA since 1977.
At the Roanoke real estate office last week, owners-brokers Walter Poff and Martha Bensinger dressed as Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty for the day. Roanoke Valley business people were arrested and then had to raise their bail in the form of donations to MDA. Among the participants were mortgage brokers, a pawn shop owner, an airline pilot and an insurance agent, said Bensinger.
A Northern Virginia builder and a real estate agents' group say they plan to challenge an obscure Virginia law that may void many new home contracts.
Russell E. Sherman, attorney for the home building company whose contract with a Northern Virginia couple has been ruled non-binding, says the little-used law was not intended to cover residential sales contracts.
A Fairfax judge ruled in April that Leslie and Harold Frank could get back from Tipco Homes Inc. their $28,475 deposit because the contract they signed did not comply with a law requiring the seller to deliver the house within two years.
"This makes a whole lot of contracts voidable," said Gary G. Peterson, general counsel for the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors.
Peterson said the real estate agents' group will ask the Virginia General Assembly to change the law next year. He said the law has been virtually ignored since it was passed and most lawyers were not even aware of it.
But Michael L. Goldberg, one of the Franks' attorneys, said the law is a consumer protection measure that "reflects a realistic appraisal of how the real estate industry works." He said a two-year limit to finish a house is "a very reasonable expectation."
The statute, passed by the General Assembly in 1977, allows the buyer to cancel the contract unless other conditions are met, including the almost never-used practice of recording the contract in the court clerk's office and explaining consumer safeguards in writing to the buyer.
The Franks filed suit against Tipco last December, nearly a year after they signed a contract with the homebuilder for a $600,000 dwelling in a new subdivision.
David Counts, the head of Tipco, would not comment on the case, saying it would be appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court.
A 150,000-square-foot addition to Dominion Bankshares Eastern Virginia Operations Center in Richmond has been completed by Donohoe Construction Co. of Richmond. The addition was designed by Roanoke-based Smithey & Boynton's Richmond office, which also served as mechanical and structural engineers.
"Paint: An Integral Element of Design" is the topic of a seminar July 10 at Top of the Mart, International Home Furnishings Center, High Point, N.C. Sponsors are the American Society of Interior Designers and Benjamin Moore Paints.
Kenneth X. Charbonneau, with Benjamin Moore, is one of the instructors. He is on the staff of the New York School of Interior Design and a member of the Interior Forecast Committee of the Color Association of the U.S..
Registration fee is $60 for ASID members, $85 for non-members and includes lunch. Reservations may be made by sending a check to ASID/Industry Foundation, National Seminar Series, 1430 Broadway, N.Y. 10018. Include your name, firm, address and phone number. For information, contact Marie Galastro, Industry Foundation director, or ASID headquarters at 212-944-9220. For information on lodging contact Kate Cloninger at 919-889-6144.
Two area high school graduates have received $500 scholarships from the Roanoke Regional Home Builders Association. The awards went to Kevin D. Grubb of Floyd County High School and Kimberly A. States of William Byrd High School in Roanoke County. Grubb plans to study agriculture engineering and States will study architecture and math at Virginia Tech.
The scholarship program is new for the home builders' group, which has some 550 member firms.
Waldrop Realty received the Cost Management Award for the Eastern region at the recent PHH Homequity Relocation Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The award recognizes a company as having the best corporate listings management firm.
The Eastern region includes more than 60 firms.
Tom Stover, executive vice president for relocation at Waldrop, said that since the average employee transfer costs $40,000, cost management is crucial. For the third year in a row, Waldrop also received an award for outstanding performance in assisting corporate referral clients.
Jody Moir is relocation director for the firm.
Waldrop has 25 agents, 15 of whom have received special training to work with relocation clients. Moir said the firm has been affiliated for three years with PHH of Danbury, Conn..
by CNB