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!
Showing posts with label Westfield. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Westfield. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 04, 2023
Sunday, August 20, 2023
September 2023 Newsletter
Welcome to September!! We hope you had a great summer and were able to create some fun summer memories. It is hard to believe kids are back in school and football is back in action. If you are local, were you able to make it to Colts Camp at Grand Park in Westfield? If not, you are missing out. It is absolutely FREE and there are so many fun games and events in Colts City as well as watching practice and getting autographs from your favorite players.
Some big news for our team is that Thea is back with us and we couldn’t be more excited!!! She enjoyed her maternity leave with Parks and has hit the ground running to help our buyers finish the year strong. She would love to hear from you, so give her a call/text at 440-862-1118. Parks and Thea are both doing great and Thea’s husband Michael is able to take several weeks of paternity leave to spend with Parks now.
Our oldest Ana is now at IU Bloomington as a Direct Admit to Kelley School of Business. We dropped her off for her Freshman year on August 13th and got her all moved into her dorm (Spruce, for those familiar with campus). That was not easy. While we have worked hard to teach her the skills she needs to know in order to be successful, you never stop wondering if it is enough. We are excited to see what the future holds for her!!
Tali, our youngest misses her big sister, however they talk/snap every day and that makes us happy. Tali has started her 8th grade year at Westfield Middle School and is cheering at the football games. Competition season for school cheer starts soon and she has been practicing for that quite as bit as she is on the sideline cheer team as well as the competition cheer team. She also cheers for ICE gym where she is defending her team’s world championship last year. She has also been asked to be on a 2nd ICE cheer team to help them. To say she is busy, would be an understatement!!!
Brigid and I celebrated our birthdays at the beginning of August and our 20th Wedding Anniversary on August 16th. We decided to check off a box that has been on our bucket list for many years and take an Alaskan cruise at the end of August. We are so excited and can’t wait to see the amazing scenery!!
Kylie’s kids are both back in school and her oldest is learning to drive. That is always nerve-wracking!! He is also helping his dad with some construction projects and learning the trades, which is awesome!!
Thank you to everyone who attended our Seller Workshop and Buyer Workshop last month!! If you know of someone thinking about buying or selling, encourage them to jump on our Zoom call. We will go over everything they need to know and answer all of their questions so they feel more comfortable about the process and what to expect. The next Seller Workshop is on September 12th at 5:30pm and the next Buyer Workshop is on September 27th at 5:30pm. Register for either by e-mailing Kylie@Welcome2Indy.com. Thank you to everyone who attended our August Happy Hour at Matt The Miller’s!! We had a great time and enjoyed seeing everyone. Please join us for our September Happy Hour from 5-6:30pm on Thursday, September 21st at Matt The Miller’s. E-mail kylie@Welcome2Indy.com to register.
Our real estate market has been very strange lately. We still have select houses that are selling in hours WAY above asking price with multiple offers while other houses sit for weeks with limited activity. Location, condition, and price point dictate which bucket these houses fall into.
Mortgage interest rates have continued to climb, but are expected to fall to around 6% or under by end of this year or beginning of next. What does this mean for you or someone you care about looking to get into the real estate market? While no one can predict with certainty what the future holds, most economists are pretty confident that as soon as rates get below 6%, a slew of sellers will put their houses on the market and even more buyers will enter the market making for a crazy spring 2024 market. If you or someone you know is considering getting into the real estate market, give us a call about timing. There are pros and cons for waiting.
Check out the market stats courtesy of MIBOR and their 16 county members comparing July 2023 to June 2023:
Median Sales Price-$300,000-no change
Closed Sales-2,731 units-DOWN 9.9%
New Listings-3,153 units-DOWN 13.3%
Pending Sales-2,857 units-DOWN 1.1%
Median Days on Market-9 days-UP 28.6%
Average Days on Market-32 days-UP 0.4%
Price per s.f.-$155-no change
% of List Price Received-99.2%-DOWN 0.3%
Active Inventory-3,652 units-DOWN 7.6%
Months Supply of Inventory-1.3 months-no change
As you can see, lack of inventory continues to plague the real estate market and we need inventory badly. New construction is helping and is double the historical percentage of the overall market at 30%! Call me today at 317-573-1880 to discuss how these stats impact your real estate plans and what strategy makes the most sense to make your dreams a reality!!
We hope you enjoy the September newsletter. Some fun articles include: the benefits of B12, watermelon pizza, the water-salt-potassium connection, and lighter hair naturally for summer.
Click here for the September newsletter
Your Friends in Real Estate,
Steve, Kylie, Thea, and Mark
P.S. Please don’t keep us a secret!
Some big news for our team is that Thea is back with us and we couldn’t be more excited!!! She enjoyed her maternity leave with Parks and has hit the ground running to help our buyers finish the year strong. She would love to hear from you, so give her a call/text at 440-862-1118. Parks and Thea are both doing great and Thea’s husband Michael is able to take several weeks of paternity leave to spend with Parks now.
Our oldest Ana is now at IU Bloomington as a Direct Admit to Kelley School of Business. We dropped her off for her Freshman year on August 13th and got her all moved into her dorm (Spruce, for those familiar with campus). That was not easy. While we have worked hard to teach her the skills she needs to know in order to be successful, you never stop wondering if it is enough. We are excited to see what the future holds for her!!
Tali, our youngest misses her big sister, however they talk/snap every day and that makes us happy. Tali has started her 8th grade year at Westfield Middle School and is cheering at the football games. Competition season for school cheer starts soon and she has been practicing for that quite as bit as she is on the sideline cheer team as well as the competition cheer team. She also cheers for ICE gym where she is defending her team’s world championship last year. She has also been asked to be on a 2nd ICE cheer team to help them. To say she is busy, would be an understatement!!!
Brigid and I celebrated our birthdays at the beginning of August and our 20th Wedding Anniversary on August 16th. We decided to check off a box that has been on our bucket list for many years and take an Alaskan cruise at the end of August. We are so excited and can’t wait to see the amazing scenery!!
Kylie’s kids are both back in school and her oldest is learning to drive. That is always nerve-wracking!! He is also helping his dad with some construction projects and learning the trades, which is awesome!!
Thank you to everyone who attended our Seller Workshop and Buyer Workshop last month!! If you know of someone thinking about buying or selling, encourage them to jump on our Zoom call. We will go over everything they need to know and answer all of their questions so they feel more comfortable about the process and what to expect. The next Seller Workshop is on September 12th at 5:30pm and the next Buyer Workshop is on September 27th at 5:30pm. Register for either by e-mailing Kylie@Welcome2Indy.com. Thank you to everyone who attended our August Happy Hour at Matt The Miller’s!! We had a great time and enjoyed seeing everyone. Please join us for our September Happy Hour from 5-6:30pm on Thursday, September 21st at Matt The Miller’s. E-mail kylie@Welcome2Indy.com to register.
Our real estate market has been very strange lately. We still have select houses that are selling in hours WAY above asking price with multiple offers while other houses sit for weeks with limited activity. Location, condition, and price point dictate which bucket these houses fall into.
Mortgage interest rates have continued to climb, but are expected to fall to around 6% or under by end of this year or beginning of next. What does this mean for you or someone you care about looking to get into the real estate market? While no one can predict with certainty what the future holds, most economists are pretty confident that as soon as rates get below 6%, a slew of sellers will put their houses on the market and even more buyers will enter the market making for a crazy spring 2024 market. If you or someone you know is considering getting into the real estate market, give us a call about timing. There are pros and cons for waiting.
Check out the market stats courtesy of MIBOR and their 16 county members comparing July 2023 to June 2023:
Median Sales Price-$300,000-no change
Closed Sales-2,731 units-DOWN 9.9%
New Listings-3,153 units-DOWN 13.3%
Pending Sales-2,857 units-DOWN 1.1%
Median Days on Market-9 days-UP 28.6%
Average Days on Market-32 days-UP 0.4%
Price per s.f.-$155-no change
% of List Price Received-99.2%-DOWN 0.3%
Active Inventory-3,652 units-DOWN 7.6%
Months Supply of Inventory-1.3 months-no change
As you can see, lack of inventory continues to plague the real estate market and we need inventory badly. New construction is helping and is double the historical percentage of the overall market at 30%! Call me today at 317-573-1880 to discuss how these stats impact your real estate plans and what strategy makes the most sense to make your dreams a reality!!
We hope you enjoy the September newsletter. Some fun articles include: the benefits of B12, watermelon pizza, the water-salt-potassium connection, and lighter hair naturally for summer.
Click here for the September newsletter
Your Friends in Real Estate,
Steve, Kylie, Thea, and Mark
P.S. Please don’t keep us a secret!
Sunday, May 28, 2023
June 2023 Newsletter
Welcome to the unofficial start of summer!! School is out and grad and pool parties abound. Speaking of those, we are hosting a grad party for our daughter Ana next week. She graduated from Guerin Catholic and will be attending IU Kelley School of Business in the Fall. While she is excited to start a new chapter, we sure will miss having her here with us. We have absolutely loved watching her grow up from a little girl to a beautiful, confident, smart young woman with so many opportunities ahead of her. We are looking forward to heading down to B-Town for football tailgating, basketball games, and just to take her to dinner. If you have kids who have already gone down this road, you know both how excited we are as well as heartbroken.
The other HUGE news we have to share is that Thea and Michael welcomed Parks Jordan into this world on May 11th. They are all home and getting used to the new life they have together. We have seen photos of Parks and he is such a handsome baby with lots of hair. Thea and Michael are really enjoying being parents. Thea plans to return to the team mid-July. We have an agent from our office who was gracious enough to fill in for Thea while she is on maternity leave. Helena Hoen has been so helpful in working with Thea’s clients to ensure we don’t miss a step.
Tali finished her competition cheer season with a #10 and #2 in the world finishes at All-Star Worlds in Orlando last month. We are so proud of both teams as they worked so hard this year. They already have their new teams and have started practicing for 2024 Worlds!! It never stops!
Kylie is excited for the summer as her kids are out of school and the pool is open. Kylie loves her sun and soaking up all of that Vitamin D. She has been so amazing at helping Helena get acclimated to the team while Thea is out. She does a great job of keeping us all in line!
The spring real estate market has been unusually slower than in past years, especially recently. This is due to several factors, but chief among them is higher mortgage interest rates and record-high home prices. Along with those, low inventory is making it hard for buyers to find homes and sellers to feel comfortable putting theirs on the market. We do expect to see mortgage interest rates start tracking down and get to around a 5.5% rate by Fall. Every economist I have read and heard has said don’t expect to see mortgage interest rates dip below 5% again in our lifetimes.
With the low supply, we aren’t going to see home values decline here in Indy. Did you know that 2/3 of all people who purchased homes in the past 3-years have buyer’s remorse due to buying too quickly, paying too much and making too many concessions? Frankly, if you wanted to buy a home over the past 3-years, you had to be okay with all of those. Once we see mortgage rates tick below 6%, we expect to see more inventory become available. We will also see more buyers enter the market.
Here are some stats from MIBOR for the Greater Indianapolis area and its 16-county service area comparing April 2023 to March 2023:
Median Sales Price-$290,000 UP 5.5%
Closed Sales-2,447 units DOWN 8.3%
New Listings-2,919 units DOWN 1.9%
Pending Sales-2,997 units UP 4.6%
Days on Market-51 days UP 6.3%
Price per s.f.-$153 UP 2.0%
% of Ask Received-98.9% UP 0.8%
Active Inventory-2,778 units DOWN 15.7%
Absorption Rate-1.1 months DOWN 8.3%
We are seeing some of the spring seasonality come into play here, although not as strong as usual. We do expect to see a busy summer and fall if mortgage interest rates continue to fall.
There is a LOT of misinformation out there. If you or someone you care about are thinking of buying, selling, building or investing in real estate, please give us a call-317-573-1880. We would be happy to share relevant, factual, and accurate information about the housing market that is specific to you/them.
We hope you will join us for our June Happy Hour from 5-6:30pm on Thursday, June 15th at Matt The Miller’s in Carmel. We will likely be out on the patio if the weather cooperates. Please RSVP to kylie@Welcome2Indy.com
Also, my Seller Workshop is from 7-8:30pm on Tuesday, June 13th via Zoom. Please e-mail steve@Welcome2Indy.com for a link. This is GREAT for anyone thinking about selling in the next year or so. No pressure or selling, just good info as you prepare to get your house on the market.
We hope you enjoy reading this month's newsletter!!! Click here.
Happy Summer!!!
Your Friends in Real Estate,
Steve, Kylie, Thea, Mark and Helena
P.S. Please don’t keep us a secret!
The other HUGE news we have to share is that Thea and Michael welcomed Parks Jordan into this world on May 11th. They are all home and getting used to the new life they have together. We have seen photos of Parks and he is such a handsome baby with lots of hair. Thea and Michael are really enjoying being parents. Thea plans to return to the team mid-July. We have an agent from our office who was gracious enough to fill in for Thea while she is on maternity leave. Helena Hoen has been so helpful in working with Thea’s clients to ensure we don’t miss a step.
Tali finished her competition cheer season with a #10 and #2 in the world finishes at All-Star Worlds in Orlando last month. We are so proud of both teams as they worked so hard this year. They already have their new teams and have started practicing for 2024 Worlds!! It never stops!
Kylie is excited for the summer as her kids are out of school and the pool is open. Kylie loves her sun and soaking up all of that Vitamin D. She has been so amazing at helping Helena get acclimated to the team while Thea is out. She does a great job of keeping us all in line!
The spring real estate market has been unusually slower than in past years, especially recently. This is due to several factors, but chief among them is higher mortgage interest rates and record-high home prices. Along with those, low inventory is making it hard for buyers to find homes and sellers to feel comfortable putting theirs on the market. We do expect to see mortgage interest rates start tracking down and get to around a 5.5% rate by Fall. Every economist I have read and heard has said don’t expect to see mortgage interest rates dip below 5% again in our lifetimes.
With the low supply, we aren’t going to see home values decline here in Indy. Did you know that 2/3 of all people who purchased homes in the past 3-years have buyer’s remorse due to buying too quickly, paying too much and making too many concessions? Frankly, if you wanted to buy a home over the past 3-years, you had to be okay with all of those. Once we see mortgage rates tick below 6%, we expect to see more inventory become available. We will also see more buyers enter the market.
Here are some stats from MIBOR for the Greater Indianapolis area and its 16-county service area comparing April 2023 to March 2023:
Median Sales Price-$290,000 UP 5.5%
Closed Sales-2,447 units DOWN 8.3%
New Listings-2,919 units DOWN 1.9%
Pending Sales-2,997 units UP 4.6%
Days on Market-51 days UP 6.3%
Price per s.f.-$153 UP 2.0%
% of Ask Received-98.9% UP 0.8%
Active Inventory-2,778 units DOWN 15.7%
Absorption Rate-1.1 months DOWN 8.3%
We are seeing some of the spring seasonality come into play here, although not as strong as usual. We do expect to see a busy summer and fall if mortgage interest rates continue to fall.
There is a LOT of misinformation out there. If you or someone you care about are thinking of buying, selling, building or investing in real estate, please give us a call-317-573-1880. We would be happy to share relevant, factual, and accurate information about the housing market that is specific to you/them.
We hope you will join us for our June Happy Hour from 5-6:30pm on Thursday, June 15th at Matt The Miller’s in Carmel. We will likely be out on the patio if the weather cooperates. Please RSVP to kylie@Welcome2Indy.com
Also, my Seller Workshop is from 7-8:30pm on Tuesday, June 13th via Zoom. Please e-mail steve@Welcome2Indy.com for a link. This is GREAT for anyone thinking about selling in the next year or so. No pressure or selling, just good info as you prepare to get your house on the market.
We hope you enjoy reading this month's newsletter!!! Click here.
Happy Summer!!!
Your Friends in Real Estate,
Steve, Kylie, Thea, Mark and Helena
P.S. Please don’t keep us a secret!
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!
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!
Sunday, July 24, 2022
August 2022 Real Estate Update
Back to school time is just about here again. How does it seem like summer just flies by each year? We hope you and those you care about are having an amazing summer and are creating some fun summer memories. Keep reading for a BRAND NEW event we have created that will do just that!!!
Probably the biggest news (at least for me!) is that I turn 50-years old on August 6th! How is this possible? I certainly don’t FEEL 50, but the numbers don’t lie. Ugh! At least my family were kind enough to ask if I wanted a party or not. I said, ‘Why not?’ Everyone needs a reason to throw a good party!! So, a party it will be and since August 6th falls on a Saturday, it should be even more fun!! I can celebrate officially being old enough to be a full member of AARP!
Ana is starting her senior at Guerin Catholic this year. Instead of playing on the soccer team, she chose to be the team manager as she has had one too many concussions. She loves it and enjoys being with all of her friends on the team. The college admissions applications are ready to be sent on August 1st when they open and she is gunning for Clemson. She has visited campus twice and absolutely loves it and feels at home there. We will see what the admissions gods have to say and will keep you posted.
Tali is working on her choreography for her cheer team as I write this. Since she moved up a level and is the strongest base on the team, there is a lot of weight on her shoulders, literally and figuratively. She absolutely loves it and the gym owner decided to coach her team this year and has made their routine harder than ever before. She wants to WIN. As long as Tali is having fun, we are good with it. They should be a formidable force this year.
Brigid is working harder than ever after being promoted and hiring her team. It seems she is on conference calls all day with a never-ending list of To-Dos. She loves what she does, so that is all that matters.
For those of you who knew Patti on our team, she was our Marketing Director. She decided to pursue a different direction in her life suddenly and we wished her well about a month ago. We hope she is happy with this new chapter and will miss having her coordinate all of our marketing for our clients and team.
Kylie has taken up Patti’s responsibilities, so she is busier than ever. She is doing well and she does have help in that we hired a Virtual Assistant about 4 months ago. His name is Mark and he has been an absolute delight to have on the team helping us from the other side of the world. He has taken a lot of the pressure off of Kylie until we find a new Marketing Director. If you know of someone who would make an outstanding team member for us, please let me know. We are going to hold off on hiring for the immediate future, but will do so before too long.
Thea has been busting her butt all year long and is just getting busier and busier. She is handling the extra work like a champ and getting offers accepted for our buyers left and right. With the market softening, our buyers are finding their offers are getting a little more attention than before and that is especially helpful for our first-time buyers. She also hosted a very successful first-time buyer workshop on July 12th and will be hosting another one in August. Please contact her to be added to the list. It is Zoom only. thea@Welcome2Indy.com
I hosted a seller workshop also on July 12th and we had a great time learning about the Top 10 Mistakes Smart People Make When Selling Their House. Our next one is on August 9th at 7pm. Please contact me if you would like to attend. steve@Welcome2Indy.com
Thank you to everyone who attended our July Happy Hour!!! We had a great group and a lot of fun! If you haven’t ever attended (or even if you have), please consider joining us at our August Happy Hour on August 18th from 5-6:30pm at Matt The Miller’s in Carmel. As always, drinks and food are on us!!!
HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!
For the first time ever, we are hosting a Party in The Park on Sunday, August 12th from 1-4pm. Thank you to our lender partner Mark Kuchik with CrossCountry Mortgage for co-sponsoring this event. You do NOT want to miss this!!! You should have received e-mails and a postcard already. Please RSVP for this by August 10th. Links are in the e-mails and postcard, but if you would like to attend and can’t find the link, please e-mail kylie@Welcome2Indy.com with the number of tickets you would like and we will register you. Check out what we have in store for the afternoon:
Live Band-The Beatless
Magician
Caricature artist
Kona Ice truck
Photo Booth
Games
Food
Drinks
We hope you will join us!!!
As mentioned earlier, our market has absolutely softened in the past few months. This does NOT mean we are seeing a ‘bubble bursting’. There is a big difference between ‘depreciation’ and ‘deceleration’. We are seeing the latter. In the first quarter of this year, home price appreciation hit the highest on record at 20.3%!!! That is simply not sustainable. Since then, mortgage rates have risen, but so have home prices…just at a much slower pace. We expect the year to end at around 5-7% annualized appreciation. This is still much higher than our average of 3%/year. This is a great time to buy/sell a house. There is less buyer competition, but people are still getting record prices for their houses. Interest rates are expected to fall next year, so if that is the case and you have a higher interest rate, you can re-finance for a modest fee. As the saying goes, ‘Marry the house and date the rate.’
Here are some stats from MIBOR comparing June 2022 to May 2022:
Median Sales Price-UP 3.8% to $300,000 (another record!)
Closed Sales-UP 9.2% to 3,711 units
New Listings-UP 15.9% to 4,925 units (this is a good thing!)
Pending Sales-UP 1.1% to 3,842 units (more houses are coming on the market than are being sold. This is helping our inventory shortage)
Days on Market-UP 7.7% to 14 days
Price per s.f.-UP 0.6% to $169
% of Ask Received-DOWN 0.5% to 101.9% (still an amazing number, but trending down showing weakening competition from buyers)
Active Inventory-UP 47.3% to 3,414 units (this number is HUGE!!!!)
Absorption Rate-UP 28.6% to 0.9 months (still anemic, but getting longer)
Bottom line, you can see the market shifting in just ONE month. Pay attention to these numbers. They are still excellent, but shift your expectations. Dave Ramsey says this year will be probably one of the best years to buy/sell in history. Listen to one of his latest podcasts and he will explain why he believes this, but suffice it to say, if you are even thinking of buying or selling, give us a call. We will walk you through your options and set realistic expectations with you, so you can make an informed decision. It’s what we do…Guide, Lead, and Protect our clients.
Have a great rest of the summer!!! If you see me, please go easy on the 50th birthday jokes…
Your Friends in Real Estate,
Steve, Kylie, Thea, and Mark
P.S. Please don’t keep us a secret!
Click here to read our August newsletter
Probably the biggest news (at least for me!) is that I turn 50-years old on August 6th! How is this possible? I certainly don’t FEEL 50, but the numbers don’t lie. Ugh! At least my family were kind enough to ask if I wanted a party or not. I said, ‘Why not?’ Everyone needs a reason to throw a good party!! So, a party it will be and since August 6th falls on a Saturday, it should be even more fun!! I can celebrate officially being old enough to be a full member of AARP!
Ana is starting her senior at Guerin Catholic this year. Instead of playing on the soccer team, she chose to be the team manager as she has had one too many concussions. She loves it and enjoys being with all of her friends on the team. The college admissions applications are ready to be sent on August 1st when they open and she is gunning for Clemson. She has visited campus twice and absolutely loves it and feels at home there. We will see what the admissions gods have to say and will keep you posted.
Tali is working on her choreography for her cheer team as I write this. Since she moved up a level and is the strongest base on the team, there is a lot of weight on her shoulders, literally and figuratively. She absolutely loves it and the gym owner decided to coach her team this year and has made their routine harder than ever before. She wants to WIN. As long as Tali is having fun, we are good with it. They should be a formidable force this year.
Brigid is working harder than ever after being promoted and hiring her team. It seems she is on conference calls all day with a never-ending list of To-Dos. She loves what she does, so that is all that matters.
For those of you who knew Patti on our team, she was our Marketing Director. She decided to pursue a different direction in her life suddenly and we wished her well about a month ago. We hope she is happy with this new chapter and will miss having her coordinate all of our marketing for our clients and team.
Kylie has taken up Patti’s responsibilities, so she is busier than ever. She is doing well and she does have help in that we hired a Virtual Assistant about 4 months ago. His name is Mark and he has been an absolute delight to have on the team helping us from the other side of the world. He has taken a lot of the pressure off of Kylie until we find a new Marketing Director. If you know of someone who would make an outstanding team member for us, please let me know. We are going to hold off on hiring for the immediate future, but will do so before too long.
Thea has been busting her butt all year long and is just getting busier and busier. She is handling the extra work like a champ and getting offers accepted for our buyers left and right. With the market softening, our buyers are finding their offers are getting a little more attention than before and that is especially helpful for our first-time buyers. She also hosted a very successful first-time buyer workshop on July 12th and will be hosting another one in August. Please contact her to be added to the list. It is Zoom only. thea@Welcome2Indy.com
I hosted a seller workshop also on July 12th and we had a great time learning about the Top 10 Mistakes Smart People Make When Selling Their House. Our next one is on August 9th at 7pm. Please contact me if you would like to attend. steve@Welcome2Indy.com
Thank you to everyone who attended our July Happy Hour!!! We had a great group and a lot of fun! If you haven’t ever attended (or even if you have), please consider joining us at our August Happy Hour on August 18th from 5-6:30pm at Matt The Miller’s in Carmel. As always, drinks and food are on us!!!
HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!
For the first time ever, we are hosting a Party in The Park on Sunday, August 12th from 1-4pm. Thank you to our lender partner Mark Kuchik with CrossCountry Mortgage for co-sponsoring this event. You do NOT want to miss this!!! You should have received e-mails and a postcard already. Please RSVP for this by August 10th. Links are in the e-mails and postcard, but if you would like to attend and can’t find the link, please e-mail kylie@Welcome2Indy.com with the number of tickets you would like and we will register you. Check out what we have in store for the afternoon:
Live Band-The Beatless
Magician
Caricature artist
Kona Ice truck
Photo Booth
Games
Food
Drinks
We hope you will join us!!!
As mentioned earlier, our market has absolutely softened in the past few months. This does NOT mean we are seeing a ‘bubble bursting’. There is a big difference between ‘depreciation’ and ‘deceleration’. We are seeing the latter. In the first quarter of this year, home price appreciation hit the highest on record at 20.3%!!! That is simply not sustainable. Since then, mortgage rates have risen, but so have home prices…just at a much slower pace. We expect the year to end at around 5-7% annualized appreciation. This is still much higher than our average of 3%/year. This is a great time to buy/sell a house. There is less buyer competition, but people are still getting record prices for their houses. Interest rates are expected to fall next year, so if that is the case and you have a higher interest rate, you can re-finance for a modest fee. As the saying goes, ‘Marry the house and date the rate.’
Here are some stats from MIBOR comparing June 2022 to May 2022:
Median Sales Price-UP 3.8% to $300,000 (another record!)
Closed Sales-UP 9.2% to 3,711 units
New Listings-UP 15.9% to 4,925 units (this is a good thing!)
Pending Sales-UP 1.1% to 3,842 units (more houses are coming on the market than are being sold. This is helping our inventory shortage)
Days on Market-UP 7.7% to 14 days
Price per s.f.-UP 0.6% to $169
% of Ask Received-DOWN 0.5% to 101.9% (still an amazing number, but trending down showing weakening competition from buyers)
Active Inventory-UP 47.3% to 3,414 units (this number is HUGE!!!!)
Absorption Rate-UP 28.6% to 0.9 months (still anemic, but getting longer)
Bottom line, you can see the market shifting in just ONE month. Pay attention to these numbers. They are still excellent, but shift your expectations. Dave Ramsey says this year will be probably one of the best years to buy/sell in history. Listen to one of his latest podcasts and he will explain why he believes this, but suffice it to say, if you are even thinking of buying or selling, give us a call. We will walk you through your options and set realistic expectations with you, so you can make an informed decision. It’s what we do…Guide, Lead, and Protect our clients.
Have a great rest of the summer!!! If you see me, please go easy on the 50th birthday jokes…
Your Friends in Real Estate,
Steve, Kylie, Thea, and Mark
P.S. Please don’t keep us a secret!
Click here to read our August newsletter
Wednesday, January 07, 2015
Westfield Name One of The Best Cities in Indiana to Raise A Family
Westfield Named One of the Best Cities in Indiana to Raise a Family
Westfield, IN- The Consumer Advocacy site, NerdWallet, released their annual study, “Best Cities for Young Families in Indiana”. NerdWallet ranked Westfield number 2 out of the 109 cities in Indiana that the company researched.
“Building a community and connecting families is my goal for Westfield,” explains Mayor Andy Cook. “Being recognized for something city employees and community members work so hard to achieve is rewarding on so many levels. Westfield’s trail system, school district and our sense of community is why families are locating to Westfield.”
The study revealed Westfield has the highest percentage of families with children in the state. It also pointed out the city’s close proximity to Indianapolis.
NerdWallet analyzes cities with more than 5,000 residents in Indiana. The advocacy site takes into account U.S. Census data and considers four key factors before making a decision. NerdWallet considers home affordability, prosperity and growth, quality of education and family friendliness.
###
Westfield, IN- The Consumer Advocacy site, NerdWallet, released their annual study, “Best Cities for Young Families in Indiana”. NerdWallet ranked Westfield number 2 out of the 109 cities in Indiana that the company researched.
“Building a community and connecting families is my goal for Westfield,” explains Mayor Andy Cook. “Being recognized for something city employees and community members work so hard to achieve is rewarding on so many levels. Westfield’s trail system, school district and our sense of community is why families are locating to Westfield.”
The study revealed Westfield has the highest percentage of families with children in the state. It also pointed out the city’s close proximity to Indianapolis.
NerdWallet analyzes cities with more than 5,000 residents in Indiana. The advocacy site takes into account U.S. Census data and considers four key factors before making a decision. NerdWallet considers home affordability, prosperity and growth, quality of education and family friendliness.
###
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)