Thursday, February 23, 2023

March 2023 newsletter

Happy almost spring!!! By the time our next newsletter comes out, it WILL be spring, at least officially on the calendar, and longer daylight due to Daylight Saving Time. Whether you like DST or not, it IS nice to have more daylight at the end of the day so if you have kiddos they can play longer after school and even later throughout the summer. Not sure why this winter has seemed so long, but I am ready for it to be over and get on with spring. So, here’s to spring!!!

Steve’s family has kept busy this spring on a lot of different fronts. The spring market is picking up and keeping me extremely busy, which is good. More on the market later…Ana is taking, likely her last finals of her high school career and is so excited! If she keeps A’s in all of her classes last trimester senior year, she doesn’t have to take finals. Whoo hoo!!! She also starts her internship with The Westfield Chamber of Commerce helping with marketing and communications. This should be an incredible opportunity to learn more about the business world as well as marketing, which is what she intends to study at IU. She leaves tomorrow with 2 of her good friends for St. Pete, FL to stay with Brigid’s parents for a few days and get some sun before the last trimester starts.

Tali is still neck-deep into competitive cheer. Next competition is this weekend downtown at the Convention Center. Then, a couple of weeks later, we head to Chicago and then a few weeks after that, we finish at Grand Park in Westfield. Finally, is Nationals in Orlando in May. We are still chasing a bid for her two teams she is on and expect to get them at one of these competitions.

Spring Break is next month and after Ana heads to Anna Maria Island with a significant part of her senior class (Brigid is going with her along with parents of her friends and they are all staying in a big house together for the week), then Brigid flies to Whistler, Canada to meet up with Tali and me to ski for our spring break for the week. So, from sun and sand to snow! I haven’t skied in over 25-years and Tali and Brigid haven’t ever skied, so this will be interesting. Send us good thoughts for no broken bones!!

Brigid just returned from Charlotte with Merck for a meeting for the week. She always enjoys spending time with her team, but also enjoys coming home!

Thea is doing great with her pregnancy and her due date of May 11th is rapidly approaching! We are excited for her and Michael and have made arrangements with an agent in our office to fill in for Thea while she is on maternity leave. She anticipates being out for 2 months. We welcome Helena Hoen to our team to help us with buyers while Thea is out. Helena comes from a background of data analytics in the corporate world. She will fit in well with our team and we hope you will get a chance to meet her.

Kylie has had her hands full with lots of work to catch up on as well as juggling kids, planning team events and her side hustle of Reiki. I was unfamiliar with Reiki until I met Kylie. It is starting to be taught alongside traditional medicine as its benefits are well-documented. She has worked on our team as well as several of our clients who swear by it. Feel free to call Kylie and she would be happy to tell you more and see if it is a good fit for you.

As usual, we have lots of upcoming events and we hope you can join us for all or some of them.

Happy Hour-Thursday, March 16th from 5-6:30pm at Matt The Miller’s in Carmel. Day before St. Patrick’s Day, so come in your green and party a day early!! We had a nice group at the February Happy Hour and would love to see YOU in March. RSVP to Kylie@Welcome2Indy.com.

Tuesday, March 14th from 10:30-4:30 is our next Vacation Giveaway!!! All you have to do is call in that day to 317-975-1511 between the hours above and we will register you to win a $5,000 vacation gift card. You can use that money however you like and it doesn’t even have to be for a vacation. Who doesn’t like FREE money??? For every referral you give us, we will put 3 additional entries in the drawing. Drawing will be shortly after 5pm on Facebook Live.

Now, onto the real estate market. There has been a LOT of coverage in the news and social media about it for awhile now. Please understand that all real estate is local. What you hear on the national news is NOT what is happening in the Indy area. Bottom line, Indy was ranked as the most affordable city again this year as well as one of the best places to live…again. We fully expect interest rates to continue to fall (it won’t be a straight-line drop), to around 5% by June. There is a LOT that can happen between now and then, but the inflation data is fully supporting this so far. That will flood the market with buyers…and sellers. Our market is NOT depreciating either. We are seeing modest appreciation in the 3-5% range. Inventory is still woefully short of demand and we are at 2.2 months of supply. A balanced market is 6-months. In Indiana, we are short over 30,000 housing units to meet demand. This number is growing every month as homeowners are not putting their houses on the market to the extent needed and builders aren’t able to build enough product. FHA and VA just reduced their funding fees as well. FHA reduced theirs by 30 bps. For a $400,000 house, that means a $100/month savings. Contact us for more info.

Check out the stats below courtesy of MIBOR comparing January 2023 to December 2022:

Median Sales Price-$272,000-DOWN 2.9%
Closed Sales-1,519 units-DOWN 37.3%
New Listings-2,037 units-UP 20.2%
Pending Sales-2,399 units-UP 52.5%
Days on Market-59 days-UP 18.0%
Price per s.f.-$156-DOWN 2.5%
% of Ask Received-96.8%-DOWN 0.9%
Active Inventory-3,388 units-DOWN 8.7%
Absorption Rate-2.2 months-UP 46.7%

You will notice that this is starting to be much more buyer-friendly. If you or someone you care about has been sitting on the sidelines to buy, this would be an excellent time to have a conversation with us about the pros and cons of taking action sooner rather than later.

We hope you have a great start to spring and enjoy the longer daylight hours in the evening. Please know how thankful we are for you and those you introduce to us to help. Please contact steve@Welcome2Indy.com if your plans for 2023 involve buying, selling, or investing in real estate. Also, keep in mind that we have a huge referral network of the Top 5% of agents in the US and if you or someone you care about are thinking of moving out of the Indy area, give us a call and we will match you with a perfect agent who is one of the best in their field.

Click here to read our March newsletter

Your Friends in Real Estate,
Steve, Kylie, Thea, and Mark

P.S. Please don’t keep us a secret. The best way to introduce us to someone you care about is e-mail or call Steve at steve@Welcome2Indy.com or 317-573-1880. Thank you!

Wednesday, February 08, 2023

February 2023 Newsletter

Happy Valentine’s Day! We hope your year is off to a great start and if you have a significant other, that you are able to do something special for Valentine’s Day. Now that the holidays are over and interest rates are coming down, we are seeing a resurgence in the real estate market. More on that below.

We enjoyed our first Happy Hour of the year last month and loved seeing many of our clients and friends. We hope to see you at an upcoming Happy Hour. They are usually the 3rd Thursday of the month from 5-6:30pm at Matt The Miller’s. The next one is Thursday, February 16th. RSVP to kylie@Welcome2Indy.com

Four lucky clients won a Valentine’s Day dinner reservation at Season’s 52 with a bottle of wine on us! Whatever you do for Valentine’s Day, we hope you can do something special.

Workshops! Are you or someone you care about thinking about selling or buying a home this year? If so, jump on a quick Zoom workshop with us and we will cover all of your questions, including what is the current state of the real estate market and what do we project happening this year and how will that affect you? Steve walks his clients through the entire home selling process starting from 1-year out to putting your house on the market and covers the Top Ten Dumb Mistakes Smart People Make When Selling Their House. Thea walks buyers through the Top Ten Things to Know before Buying Your Next Home as well as the process. Steve’s next Seller Workshop is on March 14th from 7-8:30pm. E-mail steve@Welcome2Indy.com to register. Thea’s next buyer workshop is February 22nd from 5:30-6:30pm. E-mail thea@Welcome2Indy.com to register. Both are via Zoom only.

Ready for some warm weather? Wanna get away? Wanna have someone else pay for it?? Look for more information on our next $5,000 Vacation Giveaway on March 14th. All you have to do is call in to register. More info is coming soon…

Big news for Steve’s family!!! Ana who is a senior at Guerin Catholic just accepted a direct admit to The Kelly School of Business at IU Bloomington in the Fall!!! She applied to a lot of great universities all over the country and had many acceptance letters and chose IU. Brigid and I couldn’t be happier!!! She will be close, attending the 8th-ranked Business School in the nation and can we say in-state tuition?? Score!!!

Tali is in the middle of competitive cheer season. Earlier this month she was in French Lick competing and both teams for which she cheers came in first place! We are still looking to win a bid to Nationals in May and have 3 more competitions left this season to earn one. Fingers crossed!!

Kylie is continuing to grow her Reiki business. If you are familiar with Reiki (or even if you aren’t), feel free to give Kylie a call at 317-573-1818. She does a phenomenal job and already has several regular clients.

Thea is working hard to keep up with the spring market that has already started. She celebrated a big birthday on February 7th and we were excited to celebrate with her!!! Her pregnancy is going great so far and we are getting closer and closer to her due date in May. Don’t worry, if you are working with Thea, we have a transition plan in place so we don’t miss a beat helping you or someone you referred to us find the perfect home. We will be excited to welcome Thea back after a couple of months of maternity leave.

The market…what is going on with it? After many months of sluggish activity, things have picked up already and we are expecting a busy spring market. Interest rates are coming down and have dropped already around 1% from their highs just a couple of months ago. They are projected to keep dropping to around the 5% mark by summer, which is awesome news! As a result, buyers and sellers who were on the sidelines the past several months are entering the market. Mortgage applications are up 28% already and new listings are down, keeping for a tight market, which is pushing the median sales price up to $280,000. We still only have 1.6 months supply of inventory and with a healthy level at 6-months, you can see why we don’t expect to see this changing anytime soon. We are seeing multiple offers on houses again, although not nearly as many as last spring and only in certain areas and price points.

See some numbers below courtesy of MIBOR comparing December 2022 to November 2022:

Median Sales Price-UP 0.8% to $280,000
Closed Sales-DOWN 4.3% to 2,414 units
New Listings-DOWN 27.2% to 1,706 units
Pending Sales-DOWN 10.3% to 1,878 units
Days on Market-UP 31.4% to 46 days
Price per s.f.-no change-$160
% of Ask Received-DOWN 0.1% to 97.7%
Active Inventory-DOWN 12.3% to 3,816 units
Absorption Rate-DOWN 5.9% to 1.6 months

While these numbers can look pretty ugly, keep in mind this is during the holidays, which is the slowest month for real estate sales and also some of the highest interest rates we have seen in years. Things are getting better. In fact, if you are a buyer, jumping in the market right now will be to your benefit as we expect a lot of competition again this spring, and as stated above, we are already seeing it.

We hope to see you at some of our upcoming events. As always, THANK YOU for keeping us in mind for all of your real estate needs AND for introducing us to people you care about who are thinking about buying, selling, or building a new home. We will treat them like family!! This is how we stay in business.

Finally, if you or someone you know is moving out of the area, CALL US. We have a vetted referral network of the TOP 5% of real estate agents nationwide. We would be happy to connect you or someone you care about to ensure you get the absolute BEST agent to help with your next home.

Click here to read our February newsletter.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Your Friends in Real Estate,
Steve, Kylie, Thea, and Mark

Please don’t keep us a secret!