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Custom Publications

The WriteShop can provide customized copy for special publications targeted to specific groups such as your clients, potential clients, or community. The following sample is from the annual magazine of the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce, published by Alliance Publishing Group.

Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce annual magazine

Suburban Living
With Urban Style

In most metropolitan areas, "moving to the suburbs" means giving up the convenience of the city for more space and a big front yard. But when you move to Mountain Brook, you don't have to give up anything: While there's plenty of open space and room to spread out, Mountain Brook also offers the convenience of its unique village shopping and an easy, quick commute to downtown Birmingham.

"It's easy to sell houses in Mountain Brook," said Dorothy Taylo, a lifelong resident of Mountain Brook and a real estate agent with Realty South, who's been selling homes in the area for 11 years. "People who are new to the area sometimes don't believe me at first, but after they've lived here a little while, they realize that Mountain Brook's schools really are the best and that our quaint villages really offer the most convenient way of living.

"A lot of people who move here from bigger cities are just enamored with our villages," Taylo said. "Everything you need is located in three little villages. It's a convenience and a way of life you just don't see all the time.

"You can walk out the front door and have the option of walking to the bakery, dropping by the cleaners, or strolling through a beautiful wooded neighborhood," Taylo said. "It's really a great mix of urban and suburban living. That's what living around the villages is all about."

While convenience and an excellent school system are the city's most popular drawing cards, Mountain Brook truly offers something for everyone, and its various distinctive neighborhoods each have their own personalities.

"There's old Mountain Brook, which is close to Mountain Brook Village, and includes homes that were built in the 1920s," Taylo said. "That area is always hot.

"Over in Crestline, people love the fact that their children can walk to school," she continued. "That area has more walk-to-school kids than any other, and the neighborhood has changed dramatically in the past 20 years."

Another area that is enjoying growth and popularity is Cherokee Bend, Taylo said. "In the last five to six years, Cherokee Bend has just boomed," she said. "For people who want to buy a nice-sized family home without having to break the bank, that's one of the hottest areas."

There are also increasingly more options in Mountain Brook for small families or singles that don't require lots of space. Some of the newest developments in the city now include garden homes and condominiums, which are relatively unique in this city of mostly estate homes.

"There is a growing interest in smaller, more low-maintenance housing in Mountain Brook," said Sam Gaston, city manager. "There are several developments on the books or soon to start that will build garden homes near the villages, and people are very interested. They're still nice-sized homes but they require little maintenance, and they'll be very conveniently located."

While simply living the convenient Mountain Brook lifestyle is reason enough to buy a home here, it's also a wise investment, Taylo said. "I always tell my clients, if you buy a house at market value and live there a reasonable amount of time, you'll always leave with more money than you came with," she said. "People just want to live here. Once people own a home in Mountain Brook, they rarely move out of the city."

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