Monday, October 23, 2023

November 2023 Newsletter

Happy Thanksgiving!! Can you believe we are almost to the holidays already? It seems like summer was just here and so were the warmer temperatures and longer daylight. We hope that you are enjoying, what is for many people their favorite season of the year. Mine? I love fall, however my favorite season is spring. Specifically, mid-May. You see, you have the buzz around the Speedway, the fresh smell of spring in the air, daylight hours are continuing to get longer, school is almost out and the kids are excited and the entire summer (and usually a nice vacation) is ahead of us. Whatever season is your favorite, we hope you will enjoy this fall weather and the beautiful colors all around us.

Lots of info this month, so grab a cup of coffee and sit back and relax.

First of all, as you know Thea and Michael had their first baby Parks in May. Thea has been a valuable member of our team for over 4.5 years and has been our Senior Buyer Specialist for that entire time. She has gone from never selling a house to a well-respected expert to her clients and other agents. After a long reflection period, Thea has decided to spend more time with Parks and will be taking a step back from her current role on the team. She will stay on the team in a consultative role and will train her replacement. While Thea is not leaving the team, we will miss seeing her daily, but know motherhood is calling and she is where she needs to be.

So, who do you know who is looking to partner with a well-respected real estate team with over 50-years of experience, is in the top 1% of agents in Indy, and has systems and processes in place along with a formal training program to ensure success? Who is the first person who comes to mind? Have them send me an e-mail to steve@Welcome2Indy.com or call me at 317-339-7698. We would love to fill this role by the end of the year.

We hope you received your Annual Thanksgiving Pie postcard and were able to reserve your favorite flavor-apple or pumpkin. If you haven’t done so already, reserve your pie by following this link: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C094CAAAE2CA57-44975663-kwindy#/ Pick up is at our office on Tuesday, November 21st from 11am-6pm. We hope to see you!

Another annual client favorite is our Photos with Santa. Mark your calendars for Saturday, November 18th from 11am-4pm at our office. We will have 2 rooms this year. One will have Santa and the other a non-Santa winter wonderland theme. Reservations are required and space is very limited already, so if you haven’t signed up, please do so TODAY. Everyone will be given a specific time to avoid the large crowds experienced last year. Follow this link to sign up for a slot: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C094CAAAE2CA57-44975663-kwindy#/

Our final Happy Hour of the year is Thursday, November 16th from 5-6:30pm at Matt The Miller’s. Chris Odle with JLK Financial is our sponsor. Chris is a longtime friend and client and he knows his stuff. Come and meet him and celebrate the holidays with us for our final Happy Hour of 2023. Thank you to Walla Painting for sponsoring October!

Who do you know who is thinking of selling in the next 12-months? Have them contact me at steve@Welcome2Indy.com to register for our next Seller Workshop where were will talk about what you need to do to prepare your house for sale in this crazy market in order to sell 23% FASTER and for 7.91% MORE than the average listing. It is Zoom only on Tuesday, November 14th from 5:30-6:30pm.

As for an update on our family, Ana is still enjoying IU. We have seen her quite a bit between coming home for a couple of breaks to seeing her for home football games. She is learning about time-management and how to deal with teaching assistants who aren’t good teachers or speak English very well. She has made lots of friends and is enjoying her time in Bloomington.

Tali is at the end of her school cheer season and as I write this State Finals is just a few days away. She has enjoyed cheering for the football games as well as for the sideline cheer team and competition cheer team at cheer comps. Next up starting November 11th is her ICE cheer season opener at South Bend. Cheer is a year-round sport!

Brigid, Tali and I returned from Fall Break down in Tampa visiting Brigid’s parents in their new house. It was very relaxing in their resort-like community and we essentially had the pool and clubhouse to ourselves.

The real estate market has been in the news a LOT recently, and for good reason. With the record-high housing prices and decades-high mortgage interest rates, home affordability has been at the lowest level in a long time. With that said, inventory is still extremely low at 1.8 months for the Indy metro area and 1.3 months in Hamilton County. Mortgage interest rate relief is sorely needed and unlikely to come in the short-term. For people wanting to sell, demand is still there, but there are qualifications to this such as location, condition, and price point…all making a huge impact as to whether the house will sell quickly or sit on the market for several weeks. Bottom line, if you or someone you know is thinking of selling in the next year, give me a call-317-339-7698. I am happy to talk specifics about your unique situation so you can make an informed decision.

Here are the latest market stats for all of the MIBOR service area (17 counties) from August 2023 to September 2023:

Median Sales Price-$299,045-DOWN 0.3%
Closed Sales-2,482 units-DOWN 12.6%
New Listings-3,071 units-DOWN 9.3%
Pending Sales-2,427 units-DOWN 5.8%
Median Days on Market-14 days-UP 40.0%
Average Days on Market-38 days-UP 23.6%
Price per s.f.-$154-DOWN 0.6%
% of List Price Received-98.5%-DOWN 0.3%
Active Inventory-4,454 units-DOWN 0.3%
Months Supply of Inventory-1.8 months-UP 14.1%

As you can see, inventory is going up and so is days on market showing the market softening, but activity is down. Bottom line, we need more inventory!

We hope you enjoy this month’s edition of the fall newsletter where you will find:

Honest Fun
Helpful Tips For Traveling During The Holidays
Savory Pumpkin And Cranberry Chutney
November Roundup
Quick Tips For Smartphone Bliss
Creative Household Hacks
Exercise Boosts Heart Health Regardless Of Weight Loss
Book Club, Anyone?

Click here to read the November Newsletter. Enjoy!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Steve, Kylie, Thea, and Mark

P.S. Please don’t keep us a secret!

Wednesday, October 04, 2023

October 2023 Newsletter

Welcome to October and Fall! Whether you love or hate pumpkin spice everything, Fall is filled with festivals, activities, beautiful colors and crisp air. We hope you will take some time to enjoy what Fall has to offer.

For our family, it means football and cheer!!! We have been big Notre Dame fans since birth, so we always follow our Irish, who are actually playing pretty well this year, except for that heartbreaking loss to Ohio State. We also have been attending some IU football games since Ana is a freshman at IU this year and have enjoyed those as well. coming from a tradition of only seeing a Notre Dame football game live, going to an IU football game is an entirely different experience! The tailgating is the main event, not the game itself, which is so foreign to us. They are still fun to watch and we love seeing Ana while we are there, if only for a brief while.

Speaking of Ana, she is doing very well in her first year at IU. She is getting accustomed to college life, classes, ‘adulting’, and of course the social scene. We are very proud of her and loved seeing her when she came home for the first time a couple of weeks ago.

Tali is doing great in 8th grade. Her school cheer season for football ends this week with their final home game. Her competition season for school ends at the end of October with State. Fingers crossed for a good finish! They finished 2nd last year and are hoping for 1st this year. Her ICE All-Star cheer team has been practicing all summer and fall and is gearing up for the start of their season at the beginning of November. We love traveling with the other families and getting away for a night.

Brigid is doing great at work and still travels to Philly about once/month for a few days for meetings. She still loves working from home and managing her team.

Jack and Mary Anne just finished a long, almost 3-week trip to see family in down south and are glad to be home. They have been able to see Tali cheer, which is great!

Kylie was off for about 2 1/2 weeks as she took care of her son Jackson who had back surgery. He is recovering well and is already back at school!! It is amazing how quickly kids heal!! We are so happy he is doing well and that Kylie is back with us again.

Thea is doing great with Parks and her husband Michael is enjoying paternity leave to spend time with him. Thea is able to work from home and spend quality time with him as well as help our buyer clients.

Thank you to Jeff Lazar with Lazar Insurance for sponsoring our September Happy Hour!!! We enjoyed seeing friends and clients and hope you will join us for the 2nd Thursday this month due to Fall Break the following week.

Please join us for Happy Hour on October 12th this month from 5-6:30pm at Matt The Miller’s. Note the date. Jonathan Walla with Walla Painting is sponsoring this month. He is our go-to painter for all of our clients and our personal needs.

Be on the lookout for our Save The Date card for our Thanksgiving Pie Pickup again this year, which will be on Tuesday, November 21st. Look for our annual Photos with Santa info on the post card as well. We hope to see you there!!!

The real estate market has been absolutely bonkers lately! As of this writing, 30-year mortgage interest rates hit 7.75%, which is the highest in decades. Homes prices have hit their highest ever recorded, making housing affordability the lowest ever. The bright side is that mortgage interest rates are tied to inflation. While it hasn’t continued to tick downward as quickly as we would like, we are optimistic it will continue downward and mortgage interest rates will follow. Keep a keen eye on this as interest rates go down, buyer activity will pick up and sellers will start putting their houses on the market. We are bracing for another circus in the real estate market when mortgage rates dip below 6%. The question is when??

Builders are making up for low inventory, which is sitting at 1.4 months right now in Indy. A balanced market is 6-months. This is keeping prices high. If you are thinking about buying, this would not be a bad time to do so as there isn’t as much competition and we are not expecting housing prices to retreat for the foreseeable future. The key is locking in your housing price now, so you can take advantage of the appreciation down the road and build wealth. There are some good tools out there such as 2/1 buy downs, that can make the mortgage payment more affordable and then you re-finance when rates go back down. Rates are not expected to go below 5% again in our lifetimes!

We have fielded LOTS of questions from clients, so feel free to call and we will happily share info so you can make an informed decision.

Below is an updated list of market stats from MIBOR and its 17-county service area from July 2023 to August 2023:
Median Sales Price-$300,000-no change
Closed Sales-2,790 units-UP 0.8%
New Listings-3,354 units-UP 5.7%
Pending Sales-2,789 units-UP 3.7%
Median Days on Market-10 days-UP 11.1%
Average Days on Market-30 days-DOWN 4.8%
Price per s.f.-$155-no change
% of List Price Received-98.8%-DOWN 0.3%
Active Inventory-3,976 units-DOWN 2.1%
Months Supply of Inventory-1.4 months-DOWN 2.9%

We hope you have a wonderful Fall!! Enjoy this month’s edition of the newsletter, which includes some fun stories including an elephant on a rope, some funny jokes, computer stretches, and a doorbell for a fish!

Enjoy!! Click here to read our October newsletter.

Your Friends in Real Estate,

Steve, Kylie, Thea, and Mark

P.S. Please don’t keep us a secret!