Leonard Ryden Burr Real Estate is offering text-message info on listed properties

It's Sunday afternoon, and you're driving around neighborhoods, searching for your next dream home. You have several possibilities written down, but you need more information. How much is the home? How many bedrooms does it have? What's the square footage? As the houses start to meld together in your mind, you find yourself wishing that you could access the basic information about each house as you're driving by. After all, if one of the properties is in your price range, it would be great to have that information while you're checking out the surrounding neighborhood.

Thanks to an innovative new program offered by Leonard Ryden Burr Real Estate in partnership with the Winston-Salem Journal, potential buyers can now obtain basic information about LRB listings by using their cell phones. When individuals see a LRB property they like, they simply type in the text-message code listed with the "For Sale" sign in front of the home, and they can immediately pull up the listing's price, address, square footage, number of bedrooms and baths, and agent contact information.

HBA Builder of the Year: Richard Alexander is creating his own niche in a challenging market

In almost every situation, quality products and services survive tough economic times, and the housing market is no exception. When the Home Builders Association of Winston-Salem named Richard Alexander the 2007 Builder of the Year, the organization honored a devoted father, husband and builder who believes that "continually working hard to advance your business" is the key to success.

"Whether through learning about new building techniques and materials or finding more efficient ways to do business, you can always find ways to improve," Alexander said during a recent visit to several of his completed Maplewood Avenue homes.

A Sweet Deal: Smith Farm and Trent Hill are popular options for first-time buyers

For first-time buyers with good credit, the options are many when it comes to buying a new home. And in Smith Farm and Trent Hill - two communities built by Chuck Edwards of C. Edwards & Co. - several buyer incentives are sweetening the deal even further.

"There are a lot of good loan programs out there," said Coldwell Banker Triad, Realtors' Linda Sherrill. "And for a limited time, buyers in Smith Farm can get up to $3,000 in closing costs paid, while buyers in Trent Hill can earn $5,000 Bonus Bucks to use toward closing costs, down-payment assistance, interest rate buy-down, a reduction in price or options for their home."

Diamond in the Rough: William Roy Wallace home has potential to be a waterfront showcase

One of the great things about Triad real estate is that you never know what sort of property you might find around the next corner. For example, very few people realize that there is an almost hidden community centered around the "lake o' the woods" near Wake Forest University, and that one of the homes for sale there was designed by renowned architect William Roy Wallace. In addition, many people are amazed to see the spectacular water views from the rear of this house; it's the type of scenery usually found in luxury-home communities. However, 750 Lynn Dee Drive is not an exclusive estate that is too expensive for the average homebuyer. Instead, the private, convenient and full of potential property is priced less than $200,000, an unusual opportunity for buyers willing to invest a bit of sweat equity into their next home.