Saturday, March 27, 2021

April 2021 Newsletter

Welcome, Spring!!!! Well, not officially, but it sure feels like it! Regardless what the calendar says, we will take it! We hope you are enjoying some absolutely beautiful weather and are getting outside for some ‘vitamin D therapy’. We all can use some outside time after this past winter. Spring Break is just around the corner for most school systems. Unfortunately, Ana and Tali don’t have the same weeks off. Tali starts next Friday and Ana starts the following Friday. Brigid is taking Tali to Miami a week from Tuesday to see a neighbor who moved down there last year. Ana and I head down to Florida Friday of that week. We are headed for a few days to Marco Island and then on to Universal Studios to enjoy some much-needed R and R.

If you celebrate Easter, we are fast-approaching the most important holiday for many religions. We hope that you are able to enjoy Easter services this year with family, if you are able to do so safely. Hopefully, it will be beautiful weather to be out and about and have some fun Easter egg hunts-always my favorite!

Do you follow NCAA basketball? If so, did you fill out a bracket? If you did, my guess is it got busted faster that ever this year…at least mine did!!! There were more upsets this year than I can remember. Heck, my Xavier Musketeers didn’t even make the tournament this year, and that is rare. Only one Indiana team made it and that didn’t even go too well. At least Indianapolis is able to play host to every team and see some life back in downtown Indy. I am sure the hotels, restaurants and event venues are ecstatic!!!

Speaking of downtown Indy, Tali had two cheer competitions downtown over the past few weeks. It was nice to see people down there again, but boy, is Circle Centre Mall a shadow of itself. It is so sad to see 75% of the stores gone and the mall so empty. I remember vividly when it was THE place to go. Very sad. Tali had her last competition a couple of weeks ago in Sevierville, TN. They did very well and had a great time around Gatlinburg and the water park where we stayed. The season is over, but they are already preparing for next season.

Ana is already starting pre-season weight training for soccer at Guerin this fall. Both girls are doing extremely well in school and working hard. Ana is also working toward getting confirmed in the Catholic Church in May and is excited about that. She is also working on her driver’s ed course, too. Where did time go???

Patti has been working hard on some brand new marketing programs we have as well as a Relocation Guide for people moving to Indy. They look amazing and full of great content. If you or someone you know could use one, please let us know. We can e-mail or snail mail you a package.

Kylie continues to work hard improving our systems and processing our transactions. She is consistently THE go-to person in our office of over 275 people for systems/transaction/organization questions. She is what keeps our high level of service consistent!

Thea has been enjoying her puppy Ella and is going CRAZY with buyers in this HOT sellers’ market. There are FAR too many buyers chasing FAR too few houses for sale. Some builders have closed entire communities because they sold an ENTIRE year’s worth of inventory in JANUARY!!! Can you believe that? Never in my over two-decade career have I seen anything close to this.

Like so many of us (me included), we are watching our house value climb each month really making us think hard about whether we should sell in this unprecedented HOT market with super-low interest rates (around 3% as of this writing). Are you or someone you know tossing around the idea of selling? Fact-we have more buyers right now than we care of think about actively looking for homes. Could YOURS be a good fit for one of our many buyers? What is your ‘Make Me Move’ number? C’mon, just think about it. If I were to come to your house this week with a signed purchase agreement to buy your house and a check, what number would have to be on that check for you to say, ‘SOLD!’? Let us worry about where you are going next. We have some options for you that are working VERY well in this market. Seriously consider what YOUR number is and let us know. We are keeping a spreadsheet for all of our clients and when we have a buyer that matches your criteria, we will tell them the conversation starts at your ‘Make Me Move’ number. You save BIG money on commission and selling expenses and make your DREAM number you thought you could never get, and you don’t even have to put your house on the market and deal with a bunch of strangers roaming through your house. It is a win-win for everyone. Call me TODAY at 317-573-1880 and tell me YOUR number and we will see if any of our many buyers match your criteria and if not, we will make a note of it for the many future buyers we have coming to us for the beginning of the busy spring market.

Okay, now for some fun stuff!! You know we love to LOVE on our clients! :-) Here are THREE April events you don’t want to miss:

1) April Happy Hour. Due to spring break, we are pushing it back a week from usual. Come join us Thursday April 22 from 5-6:30pm at Matt The Miller’s in Carmel. RSVP to patti@Welcome2Indy.com. Food and drink provided. Thank you to Lisa Orecchio with 2-10 Home Warranty for sponsoring our March Happy Hour. We had a great turnout and lots of fun!! Our April Happy Hour is sponsored by Rojas Roofing. Chris Rojas is the owner and also a client of ours. They do an awesome job for our clients and you can TRUST them. Call me at 317-573-1880 if you would like their contact info.

2) SHRED Day-Also on Thursday, April 22. Back by popular demand, SHRED Day returns from 10AM-12PM in our office parking lot. Bring any documents you want securely destroyed as you wait and any electronic equipment you no longer need and we will safely and responsibly recycle it. Absolutely FREE to you!!! Spring Client Appreciation Event-Saturday, April 24 from 10AM-12PM at Sundown Gardens in Westfield. Come and get your spring plants and flowers and get an exclusive Zulu Group discount on all purchases as well a free gifts and prizes and refreshments. Landscape architects and Garden Center experts will be on hand to answer questions and provide FREE workshops on how to get the most out of your yard this season.

3) THANK YOU for being our client and/or trusted referral partner! We truly appreciate you and we know we couldn’t do what we love without your trust and support. Please call us anytime we can help you or someone you care about to get the absolute BEST service and knowledge of anyone in the city. We are proud to be serving the 3rd generation of some of our clients!

Below you will find the February 2021 vs. January 2021 real estate stats for Indy courtesy of MIBOR:

Median Sales Price-UP 5.4% to $223,500
Closed Sales-UP 8.2% to 2,243 units
New Listings-DOWN 8.9% to 2,178 units
Pending Sales-DOWN 6.8% to 2,584 units
Days on Market-DOWN 13.2% to 33 days
Price/s.f. Received-UP 3.2% to $130/s.f.
% of Ask received-UP 0.6% to 98.8%
Active Inventory-DOWN 17.8% to 1,577 units
Absorption Rate-DOWN 22.2% to 0.7 months
Your friends in real estate,

Steve, Kylie, Patti, Thea

P.S. Please don’t keep us a secret

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Wednesday, March 10, 2021

March 2021 Home News

March 2021 Newsletter

Welcome to March and, hopefully MUCH better weather than February!! Hopefully, you survived ‘snowmageddon’ a couple of weeks ago. Brigid and Tali had to drive through that snow storm all the way from a cheer competition in Wisconsin and Brigid said that was the most difficult and nerve-wracking trip she has taken in her life. Hope you stayed safe and warm and are glad that is behind us now.

Along those lines, we had to cancel our February Happy Hour due to Matt The Miller’s not having any heat for several days. We are looking forward to welcoming you all back in March on Thursday, March 18th from 5-6:30pm. Maybe we will still be wearing some green from St. Patrick’s Day! :-)

Hope you were able to participate in our first Quarterly Prize Drawing last month. We had a TON of people call in. Congratulations to Debbie Golan for being our winner! She won an overnight stay at the brand new Autograph Collection Hotel Carmichael in Carmel. She stayed in the Presidential Suite, was greeted with champagne, chocolate-covered strawberries, cupcakes, balloons, banners, streamers, bath bombs, a charcuterie board, a gift card to Vivante (their French fine-dining restaurant) and top-notch service. Debbie celebrated her birthday and her daughter’s last weekend and had a blast!!! Our next drawing will be in May, so be sure and follow us on social media and watch your e-mail for your next chance to call in and win.

Congratulations to Tali for winning her cheer competition last weekend!! Their team came in first place and they are so excited. They have been invited to Nationals in April and will be traveling to Gatlinburg, TN this weekend for their final regular-season competition. Our entire family will be going to cheer her on. Go, Tali!!

Brigid has been in her new job at Merck for over two months now and absolutely loves it! She is busier than ever, but is enjoying doing something different and learning something new every day.

Ana finished her 2nd trimester at Guerin last week and got almost all A’s. She is starting to train for soccer next season, so she is ready to go. She just recorded her next concert for Indianapolis Children’s Choir and we are looking forward to seeing it soon. We can’t wait to be able to watch them live.

Jack and Mary Anne received their 2nd shot of the COVID vaccine about 3 weeks ago and promptly left to visit friends in Florida. They had a great time and are glad to be home again, but enjoyed finally being able to leave their house.

Patti is doing an amazing job continuing to market our team and coming up with creative ideas to better market our clients. She is becoming known as the social media and video queen around the office.

Kylie is hard at work keeping us organized and processing the seemingly endless paperwork that exists in our industry. She is regularly sought after by office staff for how to do something or organize something. Her son Jackson is in pre-school for the first time and loving it and her older son Trey is enjoying still being live at his school.

Thea is keeping very busy with all of the buyers she is working with and when not helping them find the perfect home is in the middle of training her new dog Ella.

Do you or someone you know have plans to sell your house this year or next? Come join Steve as he breaks down the selling process and shares pro-tips and secrets on how to best plan and prepare your house to go on the market in these crazy times. His next presentation is on Tuesday, April 13th at 7pm. Thea will be the presenter that evening. E-mail us and let us know if you can join us at steve@Welcome2Indy.com.

The real estate market is beyond crazy right now. Indy is seeing record-low inventory levels of fewer than 4 weeks and Hamilton County is fewer than 2 weeks! Some builders are so busy that they are no longer taking contracts in some neighborhoods. In my 21+ years in real estate, I have never seen anything like this! Suffice it to say, sellers are getting record prices for their houses right now. The biggest issue sellers have is not knowing where they are going to go. We do have some proven strategies that work in this market. If you or someone you care about would like to know what your house is worth, give us a call-317-573-1880. I guarantee you the online value estimators are not accurate and can’t begin to keep up with this market and they certainly don’t know the condition of your house. We would be happy to give you an up-to-the minute valuation on your house that is accurate and professional and interpret this market and how it specifically affects YOU and YOUR unique situation and how to best leverage your advantages. With interest rates around 3% right now, you are in an historically good time to sell.

Here are the latest stats from MIBOR comparing January 2021 to December 2020. Look at the number of pending sales compared to new listings. This is an indictor that our market is going to continue to shrink, however we ARE seeing more houses coming on the market really starting on Thursday of last week.

Median sales price-DOWN 4.5% to $212,000
Closed sales-DOWN 39.7% to 2,042 units
New listings-UP 13.7% to 2,362 units
Pending sales-UP 26.6% to 2,886 units
Days on market-UP 15.2% to 38 days
Price per s.f.-DOWN 1.6% to $126
% of ask received-DOWN 0.2% to 98.2%
Active inventory-DOWN 20.6% to 1,908 units
Absorption rate-UP 28.6% to 0.9 months
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!

Your friends in real estate,

Steve, Kylie, Patti, and Thea

P.S. Please don’t keep us a secret!

Click here to watch Steve’s intro video to the March newsletter

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