It can be difficult to spot “For Sale” signs in between all the political signage dotting the landscape. But they are sprouting in more and more yards around town as inventory is expanding and showings are slowing.

Some of the real estate firms in town have had their graphics, artwork and logos reworked, but the market has been so harried that they might have been overlooked.

Larry Lipman has left Sotheby’s, thereby dissolving the Lipman Group Sotheby’s International. His new sign reads RE/MAX Homes and Estates, Lipman Group.

Sotheby’s is never long without a Nashville presence and has affiliated with the company formerly known as Zeitlin and Company, which is now Zeitlin, Sotheby’s International Realty.

Jessica Averbuch has led the company through the transition and has been selected to participate in Leadership Nashville this year.

Parks has opened an office in the Nations, or at least close enough to be referred to as a Nations office. Troup is headed by the able Andrea Woodard, who served on the board of the Greater Nashville Realtors and has been visible in her volunteer work in the community.

The Wilson Group, a longtime mainstay in Sylvan Park, has opened a second office in Green Hills run by the affable Christy Wilson, while Karen Roach continues her reign as managing broker at the founding office in Sylvan Park.

J. Fred Pilkerton opened his Green Hills office over 40 years ago and gave way to his son, the late Jimmy Pilkerton, who died in 2016. By then the company had expanded into Brentwood under the leadership of the highly regarded Jim Terrell, who has taken over the operation since the death of the younger Pilkerton.

Following the path of the Pilkertons, Jim Terrell has opened a new Pilkerton office with his son, Andrew, managing the group. Andrew is the president-elect of the Greater Nashville Realtors, where his father served as an officer from 2005-2008.

There are not as many gold coats as there were 40 years ago.

Sale of the Week

Those who have enjoyed a western romp down Charlotte Pike have noticed the extent of the development in the area with apartments towering over historic two-story edifices and restaurant chains replacing, well, replacing restaurant chains.

New local flavor is adding competition with EiO and the Hive leading the way. After crossing White Bridge Road, the commercial landscape changes. If the pilgrim veered to the north, crossing I-40, and began to take note of the street signs, said pilgrim would be overcome with a feeling of time travel.

The houses located in the neighborhood known as Charlotte Park were built in the midst of a previous boom in Nashville during the time when the Ford Glass Plant was built and put hundreds of people to work. The street names pay homage to the sleek machines that featured glass produced at the plant, with highest honors going to Henry Ford himself, as there is a street named Henry Ford Drive.

All drives, not street, avenue, lane or boulevard. Fords were meant to drive.

Others were named for various Ford features – Fordomatic Drive and Mercomatic Drive for the company’s first widely used automatic transmissions – and car models, some long-ago phased out. There’s Thunderbird Drive, so named long before “American Graffiti,” Futura Drive, Marauder Drive, Continental Drive, Starliner Drive, Comet Drive, Capri Drive, Sunliner Drive and Cougar Drive.

Last but not least is Galaxie Drive, and that street gives ground to a home at 612 Galaxie Drive, a three-bedroom with one full bath and one half bath.

In 1962, when this house was built, the entire family used the same bathroom for bathing purposes with a half bath thrown in for emergency uses.

Kimberly McFadden, a Realtor who apparently knows her way around a car lot, listed the property for $289,900, and it sold in 42 days for $287,500 with the seller paying $3,000 of the buyers closing costs. McFadden is with Remax Choice Properties.

The flooring in the 1,345 square foot home came in all shapes and sizes with some tile, hardwoods in the bedrooms, some vinyl thrown in for old times’ sake and some laminate to prove it was renovated recently.

Sara Beth Schwab with Parks parked her buyer in the Park. The buyers will now need to learn the entire history of the automobile in order to give directions to the new house.

The house sold in 2013 for $145,000 and for $255,000 in 2018, proving homes in the area are appreciating much more rapidly than the vintage cars for which their streets are named.

Richard Courtney is a licensed real estate agent with Christianson, Patterson, Courtney, and Associates and can be reached at [email protected].