January 2018 Steve & Jack's Home News

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

We hope this newsletter finds you well and enjoying or about to enjoy a much-needed break for the holidays with friends and family. Although this time of year can be especially stressful for parents with young children scurrying around trying to find last-minute presents, we hope you are able to take a breath and enjoy the magic of the season.

Speaking of magic, our family took the driving tour through the lights at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was fantastic!! With over 2 million lights on display, it is another spectacle in racing! On Saturday, we will participate in a Candlelight Dinner and Candlelight Walk at Conner Prairie with Brigid's parents who are visiting from St. Pete, FL. Our Christmas Eve will be spent at my sister Michelle's house and then to church. Christmas Day dinner is always spent with Brigid's extended family at her aunt and uncle's house here in Indy where we will have about 30 people exchanging presents and sharing a meal. It is quite the event!!

What are some of your holiday traditions??

As for our girls, Ana just finished her most intensive week with the Indianapolis Children's Choir and their holiday performances at St. Luke's church. She practiced or performed all but one day last week. The concert was nothing short of stunning and we invite you to watch it around noon on Christmas Day on WTHR Channel 13. The program is The Angels' Sing. You won't be disappointed. We are grateful to be able to participate in this annual tradition especially knowing all of the hard work that went into it. Those kiddos work incredibly hard for months for that performance. It definitely shows. Let us know what you think of it.

Tali had her first gymnastics meet of the season last weekend as well. It was her best one yet as she placed first on floor and 3rd overall. She was so excited to be on the podium!

Mary Anne just was cleared by the doctor to have her knee replacement surgery in January, so please say a prayer or two for her for a successful operation and recovery. We very much look forward to her being more mobile and not in pain.

Kylie is looking forward to her first Christmas with her baby Jackson and his big brother Trey as well as some much-deserved time off!

As for the real estate market, it is at an all-time low for inventory and this has been one of our busiest Decembers in memory. Check out the stats from MIBOR below comparing November 2017 to November 2016:

New listings: DOWN 5.5% to 2,593 units
Pending sales: UP 12% to 2,378 units
Closed sales: UP 6.3% to 2,817 units
Median sales price: UP 8.5% to $164,900
Average sales price: UP 4.5% to $200,658
Percent of original price received at sale: UP 0.4% to 94.8%
Total active listings available at month end: DOWN 18.9% to 8,311 units
Months supply of inventory/absorption rate: DOWN 22.9% to 2.7 months

As you can see, we are less than 50% of a balanced market of 6 months for housing inventory. It will likely get worse before it gets better. So, if you are a homeowner, it is very likely you are experiencing some very nice appreciation right now. :-)

Enjoy the January newsletter with some fun new factoids and articles here.

Click here for a new addition, which is the market data and recap. Very cool!

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We hope you will join us for our next Happy Hour at Matt The Miller's on Wednesday, January 17th from 5-6:30PM.

From our family to yours, we sincerely wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Your Friends in Real Estate,
Steve, Jack, & Kylie

December Steve & Jack's Home News

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We hope you are able to take some time off to spend with friends and family and reflect on everything for which we have to be thankful. It is easy to complain about what we don't have instead of being grateful for what we DO have.

Our family is traveling to Williamsburg, VA to meet up with Brigid's family to celebrate Thanksgiving. This will be the first time we have all been together for Thanksgiving in many years and Williamsburg is a central location for everyone. It is so beautiful for Christmas and we are looking forward to visiting Colonial Williamsburg again. Jack & Mary Anne will be staying in Indy with Michelle and her family and will celebrate together.

THANK YOU to all of our clients who came out yesterday to enjoy Photos with Santa!! We had a great turnout and almost everyone enjoyed sitting with Santa and sharing with him their Christmas list. A couple kiddos weren't quite sure about Santa yet! For those of you who attended, we will be sending out those photos via e-mail later this week. We hope you can join us again next year.

Have you RSVP'd to Kylie (Kylie@Welcome2Indy.com) for our 5th Annual VIP Client Appreciation Movie on Saturday, December 2nd? If not, please do so today with the number of adults and number of children in your group so we can plan accordingly for our food. The fun starts at 8:30AM with registration and continental breakfast. The movie will start promptly at 9:30AM and we should conclude around 11AM. We are back up at the Hamilton 16 IMAX theater at Hamilton Town Center. The movie this year will be the just-released Disney film Coco. Check out the trailer here.

Due to our Photos with Santa and Client Appreciation event as well as the holidays, we will not be hosting our monthly Happy Hour for November or December. We will pick back up again in January on the 17th from 5-6:30PM at Matt The Miller's. The official e-vite will be sent out again next month. We hope you can join us!

Housing numbers for October haven't been released yet, so we will send those out with next month's newsletter. Generally, however inventory is still extremely low and activity in the under $300,000 price range is still brisk, relatively speaking. Historically, our market slows down a bit for the holidays and then picks back up for spring the weekend after Super Bowl (mid-February). There are still quite a few buyers out there looking for houses, so if you are on the market, we are recommending staying on the market over the holidays due solely to higher-than normal demand in a market with historically-low inventory. Call us if you have any questions at all.

Finally, we just launched the first installment of 10 in our New Construction video series. We interviewed 10 different builders from all price ranges and broke down the building process into 10 easy-to-follow interviews (steps) in the building process. We will be adding a new video approximately every month. Feel comfortable sharing these with people you care about who are thinking about building a new home and aren't sure where to begin or how the process works. As always, we are happy to answer any questions at any time. Here is a link to the first video in the series. Please let us know what you think!

Check out December's newsletter here. There are some very interesting and entertaining stories in store for you this month, including one about Warren Buffett. Don't miss out!

Want to see an interactive market data report complete with a summary video? Click here to check out our new market update video for October.

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From our family to yours, we wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Steve, Jack & Kylie

November Steve & Jack's Home News

Happy Thanksgiving!!! It is hard to believe the holidays are almost here and summer is a distant memory. We hope you have some plans to spend time with friends and family during this time of the year. It is a perfect time to give thanks for the many blessings we have been given.

Steve, Brigid, Ana, and Tali just returned from a week-long trip during Fall Break to Ireland to see Steve's friends Phil and Jason. We successfully avoided Hurricane Ophelia and stayed any extra day on the east coast in Dublin visiting with Jason and his family. Touring Guinness Brewery, seeing a traditional Irish music and dance dinner show, and taking a bus tour of the city were all great ways to spend time. We then drove to the west coast to stay in a castle in Kilkenny. We toured Bunratty Castle and enjoyed a traditional medieval dinner with actors and all. We then drove to see Steve's friend Phil in Ennis, County Claire and enjoyed time with them as well as the Cliffs of Moher. We also took a tour of The Ring of Kerry and toured downtown Ennis. The land was beautiful and the people as friendly as can be. This wasn't our first trip to Ireland and it certainly won't be our last!!! If you haven't been, we hope you can find time to go. You won't be sorry!

Jack, Mary Anne, and Steve's sister Michelle and her family just returned from Fall Break on a trip to enjoy the sun in Florida. They spent most of their time on the beach and loved every minute of it!!

Kylie did fantastic while Steve was gone and is enjoying a little time off to recover!

Home sales are still robust for Fall. While it isn't the overheated Spring market, houses are still selling and inventory is exceptionally low. Here are some updated market stats from MIBOR comparing September 2017 to September 2016:

New listings-DOWN 0.9% to 3,586 units
Pending sales-UP 4.1% to 2,805 units
Closed sales-UP 0.9% to 3,226 units
Median sales price-UP 3.2% to $164,992
Average sales price-UP 0.7% to $198,986
Percent of original list price received at sale-UP 0.4% to 95.4%
Total active listings available at month-end-DOWN 12.9% to 9,589 units
Months supply of inventory-DOWN 15.8% to 3.2 months (a balanced market is 6-months of inventory)

Have you registered for our Annual Photos with Santa yet? If not, please e-mail Kylie at Kylie@Welcome2Indy.com. It is held at our office at 11550 N. Meridian Street on Sunday, November 19th from 12-2PM with a separate Quiet time with Santa for children with special needs from 11-11:45AM (this is new this year). Anyone and everyone is welcome!!

Have you RSVP'd to Kylie for our annual VIP Client Appreciation Event on Saturday, December 2nd from 8:30AM-11AM at Hamilton Towne Center for our private screening of the Disney movie Coco? If not, please do so. We would love to see you!

Thank you for being such great clients and referral partners! We are truly grateful to you and the trust you place in us. Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Click here for a special Thanksgiving holiday edition of our newsletter.

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Your friends in real estate,

Steve, Jack, & Kylie

P.S. Please don't keep us a secret!

October 2017 Steve & Jack's Home News

Happy Fall! Football season and school are in full-swing and we hope you have enjoyed the mild temperatures that made it seem we went from spring straight to fall. Speaking of football, we hope you received your football schedule magnets so you don't miss a game. Enjoy!

Our thoughts/prayers are with the people who have lost so much in the wake of the hurricanes with more coming. We hope you have been able to help in whatever way you are able. Keller Williams has donated millions of dollars, several semis full of food and water, and tens of thousands of volunteer hours to help where we can. If everyone pitches in, it will go a long way toward helping these people who have lost everything.

Unfortunately, updated statistics from MIBOR haven't been released yet, so we don't have any updated info to report since last month. Next month, we will be sure and send the updated stats.

Big news from Steve & Brigid in that Ana was selected as one of 200 people out of over 2,500 applicants to travel to Europe next summer with her Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp International Program with the performance choir! We are so excited for her, but at the same time anxious about her being away for an entire month. She has practice up at the camp in Michigan for 3 weekends between now and April and then goes up again in June for an intensive training week at camp before flying out for the next three weeks. She will be visiting Germany, Belgium, & Italy and staying with host families in each country. Obviously, the opportunity is once-in-a-lifetime and we couldn't say no, if Ana wanted to do it. She is very excited and we know she will remember this experience for the rest of her life and are so proud of her for earning this opportunity. We are curious, do you have a child, grandchild, or friend who has taken this trip or one similar to it? Any advice? We would love to hear it...

Tali is preparing for her gymnastic competition season, which starts in November. She is working on her apparatuses and routines and loves every minute of it!

We leave October 13th for Fall Break to return to Ireland again and see Steve's good friend Phil Miesle and his family who live there. They will also meet up with another good friend Jason Sprague who lives in Bristol, England. It should be an amazing adventure with beautiful scenery and complete with a stay in a 200+ year-old castle that may or may not be haunted! We will let you know!

Mary Anne had a successful hernia surgery a couple of weeks ago and is recovering nicely. Her next procedure is a total knee replacement in November. Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated along with a prayer or two.

Kylie is still doing great and enjoying Jackson getting a little older. She has been a trooper during this busy summer season.

We hope to see you at our September Happy Hour THIS Wednesday at Matt The Miller's in Carmel from 5-6:30PM. We had a great turnout last month and look forward to another great turnout this month. Please stop by for a drink and some appetizers! Sponsorship opportunities are still available, so if you would like to sponsor an upcoming Happy Hour, let Steve know. It is a great opportunity to get your name in front of over 500 people.

Speaking of Happy Hour, due to Fall Break falling on the 3rd Wednesday next month, our October Happy Hour will take place on the 2nd Wednesday (October 11th) from 5-6:30PM at Matt The Miller's. Please make a note now of the change in date for October only. November will be on the 15th and December we take off due to the holidays and our VIP Client Appreciation Party on the 2nd.

Finally, don't forget about our VIP Client Appreciation Party on Saturday, December 2nd at Hamilton Town Center. You should have received a Save The Date postcard already. A formal invitation will be following shortly. We hope you can make it as this is our favorite event of the entire year!!! Photos with Santa should also be taking place again this year. A date/time has yet to be set, but details will be sent as soon as we have them.

Lots going on, for sure and we hope to see you at one or all of these fun events!! Thank you for being such amazing clients and referral partners!!!

Click here to visit our real estate website.

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Your friends in real estate,

Steve, Jack, & Kylie

P.S. Who is the next person you know who is thinking of moving? Call us today (317-573-1880) with their name and number so we can consult with them about their options.

September 2017 Steve & Jack's Home News

Can you believe school is back in session and summer has unofficially ended for our kiddos? It seems the older we get, the faster summer goes. Of course, for some parents, the first day of school can't get here soon enough! We hope you had fun this summer and enjoyed some outdoor activities. With our mild weather, it made it much more comfortable.

Did you watch the solar eclipse? Were you able to find some glasses? We stayed in Indy and our kids watched it at school. While the whole eclipse is fascinating, frankly I found it pretty boring. Unless you were in the total eclipse area where it turned dark in the middle of the day, it just didn't do much for me. Our kids felt the same way. Seven years and we will get to see a total eclipse here in Indy.

Jack and Mary Anne are back from their 16-day European adventure!! They had a great time and enjoyed Paris, Normandy and their Seine River cruise. They saw so much countryside and Mary Anne enjoyed speaking French with the locals. A trip-of-a-lifetime, to be sure. Mary Anne received some bad news lately that she has to have yet another surgery to repair another hernia as well as needing a full knee replacement on the left knee. This has been a rough 12-months for her and we pray it will be easier after this knee procedure.

Kylie is still doing amazing at work and so are both of her kids. Her infant Jackson is crawling now, so she has to keep an even closer eye on him. Childcare has been going well, too.

Steve & Brigid are trying to settle back into the school routine. Ana is in 7th grade, which means she started at the Middle School this year. It has been a tough transition, but she is handling it well. She will be continuing to play trumpet in the band and they have a trip to St. Louis in the spring along with other performances. Couple this with her Indianapolis Children's Choir and their many performances and practice schedule and she is a busy young lady! She will find out soon if she is selected to travel to Europe and sing for 4-weeks with her choir from Blue Lake where she went for 12-days this summer. 2,500 kids applied and only 200 are chosen, so the competition is fierce. Unfortunately, that is at the same time as her tour to Canada with the Indianapolis Children's Choir, so choices will have to be made, but I think Europe will win out, if she is chosen. Tali is doing very well in 2nd grade and she loves her teacher. She is still doing gymnastics 3-days/week 2 hours/day and is preparing for competition season. She loves every minute of it!!

As for the real estate market, it has definitely cooled since the 4th of July. It is still a great market, but houses are not selling quite as fast as they used to. Median sales price is down a tad from last month, new listings are down from last month and % of list price to sales price is trending down a bit as well. Inventory has ticked up 0.1% each of the last 3 months, but we are still extremely low at 3.2 months.

If you are planning to sell, NOW is the time to do it. The market is still good and the interest rates are down below 4% again. See below from MIBOR comparing July 2017 to July 2016 numbers:

New Listings-DOWN 2.6% to 4,143 units
Pending Sales-UP 5.7% to 3,014 units
Closed Sales-DOWN 0.9% to 3,461 units
Median Sales Price-UP 6.7% to $169,500
Average Sales Price-UP 7.9% to $209,227
% of Original List Price Received at Sale-UP 0.6% to 96.3%
Total Active Listings Available at Month End-DOWN 15.4% to 9,625 units
Months Supply of Inventory/Absorption Rate-DOWN 20.0% to 3.2 months

As you can see, we are still looking good, but expect to see the market continue to soften, as it usually does around this time of the year. We usually see pretty good activity until around November 1st or shortly thereafter, depending on weather.

Enjoy this month's newsletter! It contains some words of wisdom from the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett.

Click here for the September newsletter.

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Your friends in real estate,

Steve, Jack, & Kylie

August 2017 Steve & Jack's Home News

Welcome, hot, humid, and rainy summer! This must be nearing August. We hope you have had some fun times with family/friends this summer. It is bittersweet that it is quickly coming to a close with school starting in just a few short weeks. Our kids are looking forward to going back and getting into a schedule and seeing all of their friends, but that means early mornings and crazy schedules!!

Every summer, our family always goes on a vacation with Jack and Mary Anne and this summer we chose Avon, CO, which is a few minutes away from Beaver Creek and Vail. It is a lovely resort and we enjoyed swimming in the pool and the largest fireworks show in the west with the Houston Symphony orchestra providing the music. We attended a huge Farmer's Market in Vail Village, went on a pretty long hike across Vail mountain (the girls weren't as enamored as we were with the 3,500 foot elevation change), ATV rides up and down the mountain, horseback riding, zip line tour of the ski slopes of Vail, Bungee trampoline jumping, tube sledding down the mountain, Alpine sledding and attending an authentic rodeo at a ranch. If you have never been to the Vail area in the summer, we highly recommend going. It is absolutely stunning!

Kylie and her baby Jackson are doing great and her older son Trey is being a great big brother. Kylie has been extremely busy helping clients as well. We are so thankful to have her on our team!

Thank you to our friends, clients, and referral partners for attending our July Happy Hour last week. We realized at the Happy Hour that our evite never went out. Our apologies and we'll ensure it goes out this month. Save the date for the August Happy Hour on Wednesday, August 16th from 5-6:30PM at Matt The Millers again. We would love for you to join us!!!

Speaking of saving the date, we are finalizing plans for our 5th Annual Client Appreciation Event this year. Tentatively, we are planning on Saturday morning, December 2nd at Hamilton Town Center and showing the new Pixar movie Coco, which will be released the week before. Check out the trailer here. We hope you will join us again to say thank you for being such amazing clients and introducing us to so many people you care about who need our help.

Last month, we were recognized as having the shortest days on market for our listings in 2017 of the Top 500 agents in the city (out of over 7,500 agents). Our average days on market was only 19!!! We work so hard for our clients to market their houses for a quick sale to net them the highest price the market will bear with the fewest amount of hassles and are thrilled to be recognized. If there is someone you care about who needs our help selling, please introduce us so we can help them as well!

It should be noted that our market has definitely slowed from the white hot market conditions we experienced as recently as last month. Some houses are selling extremely quickly, but most are seeing more 'normal' time on the market and it might take a few weeks or months to sell now, especially in the higher price ranges (above $400,000). This is not uncommon, but is extremely difficult to predict. If you or someone you care about has a house on the market and it isn't selling as quickly as you expected, don't freak out. Our inventory is still extremely low and the market is still very good. Just understand our market has changed since the end of June and having realistic expectations is important.

Here are the June stats from MIBOR comparing June 2017 to June 2016 housing data:

New listings-UP 2.5% to 4,717 units
Pending sales-UP 10.1% to 3,511 units
Closed sales-UP 6.9% to 4,168 units
Median sales price-UP 6.4% to $173,355
Average sales price-UP 4.4% to $212,914
Percent of original list price received at sale-UP 0.7% to 96.7%
Total active listings available at month end-DOWN 16.5% to 9,314
Months supply of inventor/absorption rate-DOWN 22.5% to 3.1 months

As you can see, our market is still very hot with numbers we have not seen before. If you have any questions, please feel comfortable contacting us.

Enjoy the August edition of the newsletter...and the rest of your summer!

Click here to read the August newsletter.

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Your friends in real estate,

Steve, Jack, & Kylie

July Steve & Jack's Home News

Happy Summer!!! We hope yours is off to a good start and that you have some fun plans ahead. We hope all of the dads had a great Father's Day with family and friends celebrating you and all you do for us.

Do you have some items that can be recycled, but didn't know what to do with them or maybe you have some files/old bills/check books/receipts/prescription bottles that need shredded. Please come by our Community Shred/Recycling Day THIS Saturday, July 8th from 10AM-12PM. It will take place in our Carmel office parking lot-11550 N. Meridian Street. It is absolutely FREE!

Steve & Brigid traveled to NYC earlier this month to see Ana perform at Carnegie Hall with The Indianapolis Children's Choir. To say we were proud to see our daughter perform on one of the biggest stages in the world would be an understatement. What an incredible experience our entire family will never forget. We also saw the 9/11 Memorial, Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Center and took an NBC Studios tour, which was really cool. It was fleet week and our hotel was right on Times Square, so crazy! We can only imagine what Times Square is like at New Years!

This coming week, we are taking our annual family vacation with Jack and Mary Anne to Colorado. We are so excited to see the beautiful views and do some hiking and spend quality time with family.

Kylie and her baby Jackson are doing well and have settled into a routine. Steve is so incredibly happy to have her back and helping clients again!

The real estate market is still white hot in many areas of the city and price ranges. Most of our listings have sold and we are putting more on the market. We are proud to announce that we just were recognized as selling our listings faster than any of the top 500 real estate agents in the city with an average listing time of only 19 days! We have also earned again the Five Star Real Estate Agent award and the Super Service Award from Angie's List for being in the Top 5% of agents in our market relative to customer service. We are proud of our accomplishments, but we couldn't have done it without you!! So, THANK YOU for allowing us to help you and those you care about. We are grateful and humbled! Please call us the next time you hear someone talking about buying/selling/building a new home. We would love to help!!

Did you know that Indy was just recognized as having some of the LOWEST closing costs of any city in the country? We are also the most AFFORDABLE housing market in the country, relative to income. Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, & Westfield have been recognized as one of the best places to live in the nation as well.

Here are some of the latest statistics on home sales from MIBOR comparing May 2016 to May 2017. We are woefully short on inventory-about 50% of a balanced or healthy market:

New Listings-DOWN 0.4% to 4,433 units
Pending Sales-UP 6.0% to 3,462 units
Closed Sales-DOWN 2.1% to 3,673
Median Sales Price-UP 5.7% to $168,000
Average Sales Price-UP 6.4% to $202,984
Percent of Original List Price Received at Sale-UP 0.6% to 96.3%
Total Active Listings Available at Month End-DOWN 17.6% to 9,015
Months Supply of Inventory/Absorption Rate-DOWN 23.1% to 3.0 months

Enjoy this month's newsletter!!! Let us know what you think!!!

Click here to read the July Steve & Jack's Home news

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Your Friends in Real Estate,

Steve, Jack, & Kylie

June Steve & Jack's Home News

Happy Summer...almost! As school winds down, we hope you are enjoying this busy time of the year and enjoying the warmer weather. The end of the school year is always hectic. We hope your family is keeping up and looking forward to a fun summer.

First and foremost-Kylie is back! She returned from maternity leave a couple of weeks ago and Steve couldn't be any happier. She is such an asset to our team and clients. She is doing great and so is her baby Jackson.

Jack & Mary Anne are in Fairfield Glade, TN this week enjoying some down time.

Ana leaves on Wednesday for NYC with the Indianapolis Children's Choir to sign in Carnegie Hall. She will see the other major sights as well including the 9/11 Memorial and Ellis Island. In addition, she will see Wicked on Broadway and then will get an afternoon workshop with a Broadway Troupe. She is so excited!!

Brigid, Tali, & I leave the following day to watch Ana perform and then see the sights and catch a show. Her parents and brother will join us as well and then her parents will take the girls and their cousin back to St. Pete, FL for the week while we go to Jamaica to relax. We are very much looking forward to this much-deserved time away!

Thank you to everyone who attended our Happy Hour last week as well! We had a great group and a LOT of fun! Please join us next month on June 21st from 5-6:30PM at Matt The Miller's in Carmel.

The housing market remains extremely tight. Sometimes, finding a home can seem downright frustrating. If you or someone you know is thinking about getting into the housing market, please do give us a call so we can consult with you about your options. We would love to help make the process as easy as possible. If you have a house to sell, NOW is the time to do it. We are woefully short on inventory and interest rates are going up. We would be happy to talk with you more about this, if you have been thinking about it to see if a move makes sense.

Check out the following statistics from MIBOR comparing April 2017 to April 2016:

New Listings-4,198 units-DOWN 7.7%
Pending Sales-UP 4.6%
Closed Sales-3,117 units-UP 1.5%
Median Sales Price-$160,000-UP 6.7%
Average Sales Price-$194,993-UP 5.6%
Percent of Original List Price Received at Sale-95.7%-UP 0.9%
Total Active Listings Available at Month End-8,888 units-DOWN 17.8%
Months Supply of Inventory/Absorption Rate-3.0%-DOWN 23.1%

Enjoy the newsletter and Happy Father's Day to all of the dads!!!

Click here to read our June newsletter

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Your Friends in Real Estate,

Steve, Jack, & Kylie

May 2017 Steve & Jack's Home News

Happy Spring!! Hopefully, you have enjoyed the beautiful weather lately and have been able to get outside. If you have school-aged children and participated in the annual pilgrimage to somewhere warmer, we hope your travels were fun, relaxing, and most of all, safe. If you celebrated Easter or Passover this past week, we hope your celebrations were fun and filled with family and friends.

Brigid and the girls visited their grandparents who live in St. Pete, FL for spring break. Steve stayed home due to being busy with work, Kylie being out on maternity leave, and finally and sadly, his Uncle Dick passed away. This was Jack's only sibling, which made it especially hard. We all drove out to Boone, NC to meet up with family to celebrate Uncle Dick's life. Although a short time together, it was nice seeing everyone again and saying a final goodbye to the patriarch of our family.

Unfortunately, Brigid and the girls got caught up in the Delta debacle and were supposed to be home on Thursday, but didn't make it in until Sunday...thanks to Southwest and flying into Chicago where Steve had to pick them up! Delta wasn't able to get them home until Tuesday at the earliest, which wasn't an option as Brigid had to work and the girls had school. A few extra days in St. Pete aren't the end of the world, but not the way you want to end your vacation. We are curious, did you experience any travel delays/glitches???

Jack & Mary Anne are doing well, all things considered. We were happy to spend Easter with them as well as Brigid's parents, her brother/his wife, Steve's sister and her family.

Steve is anxiously awaiting Kylie's return from maternity leave next Wednesday. Spending time with your newborn is so important, but having her gone is tough as she does so much for Steve & Jack and their clients. She is truly amazing and always leaves a huge void when she is taking time off.

This continues to be an extremely busy spring market with prices continuing to increase and houses selling in hours with multiple offers above list price. Interest rates also continue to rise, so if you or someone you care about is thinking of moving this year, now is the time to do it as the price of money is getting more expensive and so is the price of housing.

Thank you to Butler University for inviting us back, once again to share a presentation on The Top Ten Things That Suck The Value from Your House. We had a great group and excellent questions. If you have a company/group that would like to do a lunch and learn, please let us know. We have a considerable library of topics on which we can present. It is fun, interactive, and educational.

Take a look below at the most recent market stats courtesy of MIBOR comparing February 2017 to February 2016.

New Listings-3,120-DOWN 0.8%
Pending Sales-2,550-UP 4.3%
Closed Sales-1,984-No change
Median Sales Price-$152,000-UP 12.6%
Average Sales Price-$187,893-UP 10.4%
Percent of Original List Price Received at Sale-94%-UP 1.2%
Total Active Listings Available at Month End-8,489-DOWN 17.2%
Months Supply of Inventory/Absorption Rate-2.9 months-DOWN 23.7%

**This is one of the lowest levels of inventory we have ever seen. We need more listings to offset some of the demand. Know of anyone we could help??? Thinking of building or know someone who is?? Give us a call so we can help you/them through the maze of decisions to make things as easy as possible. As always, the builder pays our fee!

Don't forget about our monthly Happy Hour tomorrow from 5-6:30PM at Matt The Miller's in Carmel. We have a good group planning on attending. Please join us!!!

Click here to read the May newsletter.

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Click here to download the most powerful real estate app available.

Enjoy your spring!!!

Your Friends in Real Estate,

Steve, Jack, & Kylie

April 2017 Steve & Jack's Home News

Welcome Spring!!!

Although our weather has been especially mild, most of us are ready for warmer temperatures and more daylight hours. This also brings out more people with 'cabin fever' and the housing market heats up along with the temperatures. Typically, our spring market starts the weekend after Super Bowl, barring any inclement weather. This year has been no exception. Houses that are in show-ready condition and priced right-under $600,000 are moving in many cases weeks, days, or even hours! Luxury re-sale homes aren't moving quite as fast. Luxury new construction is moving faster than re-sale.

Our biggest news is that Kylie had her baby!!! Jackson was born on March 14th and baby and mom are both at home and doing well. We are so happy for Kylie and her expanded family! She will be back in the office soon, so please congratulate her when you speak with her next.

We are fortunate to have Melissa Johnson filling in for Kylie while she is on maternity leave. Melissa has done a fantastic job in Kylie's absence so please take a moment to say hello. She will be handling Kylie's phone and e-mail and all of our marketing and client service.

Thank you to everyone who attended our Happy Hour last week at Matt The Miller's!! We had a great turnout and look forward to hosting our April Happy Hour on Wednesday, April 19th from 5-6:30PM-same place. Come help us celebrate spring!

Spring Break plans? For the first time, Steve will not be going to St. Pete, Florida with Brigid and the girls to see Brigid's parents. Due to Kylie's maternity leave, he will be staying home to handle business. What are your spring break plans?

Be on the lookout for a postcard series hitting your mailbox soon about the Top Ten Things You Need to Know before You Build A New Home. Since inventory is so low, many people are considering building a new home for the first time ever. While this can be a great option, there are a LOT of things to consider before pulling that trigger. If you find yourself thinking about building, give us a call as we are experts at building new homes with over 70-years' combined experience and we have built several homes of our own. Whether it is a starter production-built home or your custom dream home, we can help answer many questions before you even talk with a builder and guide you through the entire process to make it easier and, many times less costly. The best part is-the builder pays our fee. And, no, if you don't have your own agent representing your best interests, the builder will not reduce their price. Let our experience and guidance help you on your next new home build.

As always, here are the latest housing statistics courtesy of MIBOR. These compare February 2017 to February 2016.
New listings-3,120-DOWN 0.8%
Pending sales-2,550-UP 4.3%
Closed sales-1,984-No change
Median sales price-$152,000-UP 12.6%
Average sales price-$187,893-UP 10.4%
Percent of original list price received at sale-94%-UP 1.2%
Total active listings available at month end-8,489-DOWN 17.2%
Months supply of inventory/absorption rate-2.9 months-DOWN 23.7%
Enjoy this warmer weather and, Go, XAVIER!!!

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Your Friends in Real Estate
Steve, Jack, Kylie, & Melissa

March Steve & Jack's Home News

Welcome to March!! It is hard to believe spring is right around the corner. That also means the spring real estate market is here as well!! You may have heard that the national housing market is severely short of inventory and Indy is no exception. More on that later.

Exciting news from our team!! Many of you know Kylie is due with her baby at the end of March. We welcome Melissa Johnson to our team who will be filling in for Kylie. Melissa has been training with Kylie for the past 2-weeks and will continue to do so until Kylie has her baby. Please welcome Melissa if you talk with her on the phone or through e-mail. We are excited to have her join us!!!

Jack and Mary Anne are enjoying some time in Florida relaxing and soaking up the sunshine.

Steve's nephew Caleb is back playing soccer after many months recovering from a severe injury. He is excited to be back on the field.

Brigid is still working hard at Merck and then in her 'spare' time, she has opened up an Etsy store selling executive pens she made, photos from vacations we have taken, and lots and lots of knitwear. She works so hard on these items and is excited to have several sales already. She will be selling her goods at craft fairs around Indy this spring with the first one this coming weekend. Check out her site here.

Ana is working hard at her musical practice where she is performing this spring At The Bandstand. She is also practicing her trumpet for upcoming performances as well as her dance lessons and Indianapolis Children's Choir practices for many upcoming concerts, including performing this May at a once-in-a-lifetime performance at Carnegie Hall. Most of our family will be attending to see her perform on one of the biggest stages in the world. Exciting!!!

Tali is still our little gymnast practicing 3x/week for 2 hours/day. She has been doing very well and placing at meets and enjoys every minute of it!

So, let's talk briefly about this real estate market. We are at less than 50% of a healthy supply level of 6-months. Interest rates are still very low, but creeping up. Home price are also moving up. Builders are doing everything they can to put up much-needed inventory, but they can't keep up. Skilled labor is also at a severe shortage restricting supply even more. The National Association of Builders predicts we need 1.3 million new homes to be built each year for the next 7 years in order to satisfy demand. To put that into perspective, last year was the best year since the Great Recession for new construction and 1.2 million homes were built-still short of what is needed.

Are you frustrated with the lack of inventory? Are you considering new construction? Give us a call as we have relationships with most builders in the city-both production and custom and can help guide you through the complex and sometimes overwhelming experience to make things as smooth and easy as possible. Best of all? Our professional, experienced, and knowledgable help is absolutely free to you! Builders pay for our services and you won't get a discount if you don't have your own professional representation. Builders actually prefer if you have an agent to help guide you through the process as it makes their job easier as well-especially with an agent who is experienced and well-versed with new construction. Call us today!

Here are some market statistics for the MIBOR service area for the month of January comparing January 2017 to January 2016, courtesy of MIBOR:

New listings-UP 1.1% to 2,581
Pending Sales-UP 5.5% to 2,149
Closed Sales-UP 4.4% to 1,806
Median Sales Price-UP 4.5% to $143,700
Average Sales Price-UP 6.1% to $182,552
Percent of Original List Price Received at Sale-UP 0.6% to 93.5%
Total Active Listing Available at Month End-DOWN 14.9% to 8,668
Months Supply of Inventory/Absorption Rate-DOWN 23.7% to 2.9%

Enjoy this month's newsletter and don't miss the article on what a kid learned a summer camp and where you keep your phone-interesting read!

Click here to read the March newsletter.

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Click here to access exclusive coupons & discount at places you shop every day

Your friends in real estate,

Steve, Jack, Kylie, & Melissa

February 2017 Steve & Jack's Home news

Dear Steve & Brigid,

Happy Valentine's Day! If you have someone special in your life, we hope you will take some time to celebrate each other. Although Valentine's Day is a very commercial holiday, hopefully it at least encourages people to spend quality time with each other away from computers, TVs, and other electronics. We don't know about you, but it seems more and more people are losing or not learning interpersonal communication skills with all of the social media and technology. As an example, the next time you are at a restaurant, look around to see how many people are not communicating with the person/people sitting at the table with each other, but rather are busy texting on their phones. Try this, the next time you are out with a significant other or friends, agree to put your phones turned off in the center of the table and not touch them. The first person who reaches for their phone before the meal is over picks up the tab! Have you tried this before? If so, how did it go????

The Rupps have been busy, as usual with Brigid working her day job at Merck and then coming home at night and on the weekends and making items to sell at craft fairs and on her Etsy page. She has very cool photos of European vistas, sweaters, shrugs, very cool wood and acrylic keychains and high-end pens among other items. She made all of these by herself from scratch! Talented she is and she has fun doing it. If you would like to see some of the things she makes, click here.

Ana is 11, in 6th grade and still practices several times/week for Indianapolis Children's Choir and will be traveling to NYC to sing in Carnegie Hall this summer and see a Broadway play as well as take a workshop taught by a Broadway actor. She is so excited!! She also just got cast for one of the lead roles in her school musical again as well as taking dance lessons and playing the trumpet. To say she is busy is an understatement!!

Natalia turns 7 on Thursday and is competing this year for the first time with her gymnastics team. She practices several days/week and can't get enough.

Jack & Mary Anne are looking forward to several trips this year and still volunteer quite a bit and are active at St. Pius X Church.

Kylie is gearing up to deliver her baby in mid-March. She is such an integral part of our team that it is almost unthinkable to imagine doing without her. We are actively interviewing people to fill in for her for about 3-months. If you or someone you know would be interested in learning more, please call Steve at 317-339-7698. He would love to talk with you!

The market keeps getting tighter and tighter for any homes under $200,000. Unless it is new construction, homes over $300,000 are selling much slower and slower still the higher you go. Interest rates have held fairly steady around the low 4% range, but will likely move up as the year progresses. If you are thinking of selling, THIS is the year to do it! Give us a call to see what the market is doing in your neighborhood so you can make an informed decision. Below are the market statistics from the Indy greater metro area comparing December 2016 to December 2015 courtesy of MIBOR:

New Listings-DOWN 4.6% to 1,884 houses
Pending Sales-DOWN 1.5% to 1,913 houses
Closed Sales-UP 4.2% to 2,765 houses
Median Sales Price-UP 6.3% to $153,000
Average Sales Price-UP 6.0% to $194,462
% of Original List Price Received at Sale-UP 0.8% to 93.6%
Total Active Listings Available at Month End-DOWN 13.9% to 8,946
Months Supply of Inventory-DOWN 23.1% to 3.0 months

Take a look at that last statistic. Inventory went DOWN 23.1% in 12-months and is now at 3 months. That is 50% of a 'healthy' real estate market. Bottom line, we need more inventory. If you are thinking of selling, NOW is the time to do it. Give us a call.

Check out this month's newsletter for some fun and interesting articles such as:
Why are barns painted red?
Who invented the lightning rod system?
How to Kickstart your brain in the morning.
Do you need a spending fast?
Lots, lots more.

Do you like the newsletter? Let us know. We would love to hear from you!!!

Would you do us a favor? If we have helped you in the past year and you haven't given us a great review on Angie's List, would you mind clicking here and doing it right now? It would mean the world to us and we would be most appreciative!! Thank you, in advance!!!

Have you attended one of our monthly Happy Hours? If not, why not plan to join us this month on Wednesday, February 15th from 5-6:30PM at Matt The Miller's in Carmel. Feel free to drop by for part or all of the time. We have a great group of people who would love to meet you and appetizers and drinks are on us! Come join us!!!

Click here to read the February newsletter

Click here to download the most powerful real estate app available

Click here for coupons and discounts at places you shop every day

Thanks for reading!!!

Your friends in real estate,

Steve, Jack, & Kylie