Hello World!

So, I have entered the world of blogging.  I must admit that my broker put me up to this.  She keeps telling me that I have a very interesting life and have so much to share with others both professionally and personally, that I needed to start blogging.  So, here I am. 

I have been researching ideas for blogs over the past month or so.  Obviously many of my postings will be real estate related.  However, I will also give you a glimpse of my personal life.  This is where my broker says I have so much to share.  Suggestions are also welcomed.  If there is a topic you would like to know more about please email me at laurieladow@cressyeverett.com.

A bit about myself.  As of this date I am in my 10th year of selling real estate in the South Bend area.  It has been a very rewarding career for me in many ways.  I got into this business because I had a really bad experience with a poor buyer’s agent and a for sale by owner.  I made a promise to myself and my clients that I would treat them how I expect to be treated and I have high expectations.  Although you cannot please everyone all of the time, I believe that overall I fulfill this pledge.  

I believe in education too.  Over these past 10 years I have completed the education for and earned my broker’s license, my ABR, GRI, CRS and GREEN designations nationally and locally am SELL South Bend Certified.  I truly believe in continuing education and frequently attend local seminars and webinars to keep my skills sharp.

I have a 16 year old daughter who is a junior in high school and definitely keeps me on my toes.  Mom and Dad, I am truly sorry for being such a difficult child.  I know you laugh at me regularly as I struggle with my daughter’s teenage woes.  I am getting what I deserve for sure.  Then there is my dear husband, Kurt.  We have been married for 18 years and as we quickly are becoming empty nesters, we are remembering how much we enjoy each other’s company.

In my spare time I particiapte in running races and triathlons.  I love hiking (Kurt and I are actually planning on hike the Rim to River to Rim of the Grand Canyon later this year), gardening (although I get behind more than I would like to admit), cooking (I LOVE to cook), horseback riding (I guess I am going to be showing this year too, Yikes!) and reading.  My current obssessions are my hiking plans and fitness and nutrition.  I am focusing on Intuitive Eating and Clean Eating this year and am already feeling the difference in myself. 

As I finish up this introduction I can pick out several topics already.  I will work on developing those ideas and will be posting more soon. 

In parting, think about my business motto “Charity Begins at Home.”  I will be posting on these topics too, charity and volunteerism.  Two other obsessions.

Indiana Housing Report for December 2011

 Here’s a copy of the press release from Indianapolis today regarding the data for December housing sales.  If you would like more information regarding your house or neighborhood, please feel free to contact me.  —–Laurie

 

(INDIANAPOLIS, IN) – The monthly Report today released by the Indiana Association of REALTORS® also provides year-end data which shows that 2011 was better than the year before with regard to activity and home prices.

Statewide, there were 220 more homes sold in 2011 than in 2010. The median price of all 57,985 homes sold in Indiana last year was $112,900, which is 0.8 percent more than the median price of all homes sold in 2010. The average price of all homes sold last year was $135,183, which is a 1.7 percent increase over 2010.

“Local housing markets are making some progress,” said Karl Berron, Chief Executive Officer. “This is good news even if we’d like to press the accelerator.”

Statewide, when comparing December 2011 to December 2010:

• The number of closed sales increased 7.1 percent to 4,592;

• The median sale price of homes increased 0.9 percent to $110,000; and

• The average sale price of homes decreased 3.3 percent to $128,422.

“For 2012 to realize growth or just continue this slight, but steady progress, four things need to happen,” continued Berron. “One, Hoosiers must be working. Two, they must be confident in their prolonged employment. Three, qualified buyers must have access to available financing. And four, the foreclosure inventory must decrease so as to relieve that downward pressure on prices.

“Regardless, it is difficult to ignore that home prices here in Indiana have historically held their ground and interest rates are at the lowest in most memories. Anyone looking to buy or invest should start with the sortable county tables of this report and then talk to a local REALTOR® who can give the most insight into what’s happening in a neighborhood, city or school district,” concluded Berron.

 

 

Welcome 2012- It’s Okay!

I know that many people were unhappy with 2011, but I must admit I was not one of them.  I was blessed with a good year in real estate, thanks to all of my referrals and working a LOT of hours, and also blessed with my wonderful family.  I made the decision in 2011 to go back to school and begin work on my masters degree in addition to being a full-time Realtor, mom, wife and all of my part-time volunteer activities.  It makes for a busy life, but that is just the way I like it.  I find that the old adage “busy hands are happy hands” definitely applies to me.  I am always on the go and that is okay with me.

Speaking of that’s okay…a fellow Realtor mentioned to me that this had been her mantra all last year, “it’s okay,” and it served her well.  I think that I am going to steal that mantra for me this year and whenever anyone starts ranting about how awful the housing market, job market, political arena or anything else is, I am just going to say “it’s okay.”  Life is always full of ups and downs, that is what makes it interesting and helps us grow.  This year I am going to look challenge in the face and not back down.  I want to work on my physical body and my emotional one too.  I want to be the strong person that I know that I am.  I want to make a difference, even a small one.  I want to eat more locally and organically, I want to work my mind and body every day, I want to support my local businesses and fellow residents, and I want to be an ambassador for South Bend.   And everyday I will be saying “It’s Okay!”  Join me won’t you?

October 2011 Indiana Real Estate Statistics

 

REALTORS® RELEASE “INDIANA REAL ESTATE MARKETS REPORT” FOR OCTOBER 2011

Activity up year-over-year by double digits; prices down slightly, but still up in year-to-date comparisons

 

(INDIANAPOLIS, IN) – According to the monthly “Indiana Real Estate Markets Report” today released by the Indiana Association of REALTORS®, activity was high in October with both the number of closed and pending home sales up by double digits year-over-year.

Statewide, when comparing October 2011 to October 2010:

• The number of closed home sales increased 16.2% to 4,892; and

• The number of pending home sales increased 13.6% to 4,422.

Prices did not follow that trend. Both the statewide median and average price of homes sold in October 2011 was less than in October 2010, but just slightly:

• The median sale price of homes decreased 1.7% to $111,000; and

• The average sale price of homes decreased 0.9% to $134,756.

“Local housing markets are making steady progress,” said Karl Berron, Chief Executive Officer. “It may not be as quickly as we’d like, but there is a lot of good news in this report.”

With regard to the slight dip in prices, Berron said REALTORS® were not concerned because year-to-date, the median sale price of homes in Indiana is actually up when compared to 2010 and 2009, and so is the average sale price.

“Home prices here in Indiana have historically held their ground,” said Berron. “It’s one of the reasons we enjoy a homeownership rate of more than seventy percent, and is certainly a positive for would-be home owners who are now shopping with some of the lowest mortgage interest rates in current memory.”

Whether market activity and value continue to grow depends upon a number of factors outside of the real estate industry’s control say REALTORS® across the state. The number one item on their list is more jobs, which drives number two and three on the group’s list – available financing for qualified buyers and less foreclosure inventory.

“Folks looking to invest should start with the sortable county tables of this report and then talk to a local REALTOR® who can give the most insight into what’s happening in a neighborhood, city or school district,” concluded Berron.

 

More about the “Indiana Real Estate Markets Report”

 

Established in May 2009 and found online under the Reports tab of www.IndianaIsHome.com, the “Indiana Real Estate Markets Report” was the first-ever county-by-county comparison of existing single-family home sales in Indiana. In March 2010, IAR added statistics on other types of existing detached single-family (DSF) home sales – condominiums, duplexes, townhomes, mobile homes, etc. – to the report.

House Prices: Where They Will Be in the Spring

THis is a wonderful blog from Steve Harney.  Thought I would pass it along.

 

Disclaimer: This blog covers the national housing market as a whole. Please check with a local real estate professional to discover how the following information will impact your region. – The KCM Crew

Many sellers want to wait until the spring before putting their home on the market. This might be for any of several reasons:

1. They don’t want to be inconvenienced during the holiday season.
2. They believe that they will see more potential buyers and as a result will get a higher price.
3. In the northern part of the country, they might not want people walking through the snow and then into their house.
4. All of the above

In a normal real estate market, this may make sense. However, this market has been anything but normal. This spring will also see some abnormalities. The biggest difference will be the direction prices will take. 

In years past, the spring market would favor the seller because increased demand would outpace any increase in supply: the number of houses coming onto the market would not be as great as the number of buyers newly entering the market. In most situations, when demand is greater than supply, prices increase.

The reason this spring will be different is that the supply of homes coming to the market will be dramatically impacted by foreclosure properties being released by the banks. Many believe this increase in inventory will far outweigh buyer demand. In situations where supply is greater than demand, prices decrease.

Will This Actually Happen? 

RealtyTrac, in their latest foreclosure report, explained:

“U.S. foreclosure activity has been mired down  since October of last year, when the robo-signing controversy sparked a flurry  of investigations into lender foreclosure procedures and paperwork. While foreclosure activity in  September and the third quarter continued to register well below levels from a  year ago, there is evidence that this temporary downward trend is about to  change direction, with foreclosure activity slowly beginning to ramp back up.

This will impact prices.

What Do Experts Believe the Impact Will Be?

Here are the pricing projections by several major entities:

• Zillowbelieves we will not see a bottom in prices until the first quarter of 2012.
• Standard & Poorsthinks prices will drop %5 in the next few months. 
• JP Morgan Chasebelieves prices will depreciate 6 to 7% over the next six months.
•  Barclays says prices will fall 7% by the end of the first quarter of 2012.

Bottom Line

You may pay a hefty price for the convenience of not having your property on the market right now.

September 2011 Housing Stats for Indiana

 

REALTORS® RELEASE “INDIANA REAL ESTATE MARKETS REPORT” FOR SEPTEMBER 2011

Number of closed home sales, median & average sale price of those homes up year-over-year

 

 

(INDIANAPOLIS, IN) – According to the monthly “Indiana Real Estate Markets Report” today released by the Indiana Association of REALTORS®, three important housing market indicators are up year-over-year.

 

Statewide, when comparing September 2011 to September 2010:

 

• The number of closed home sales increased 10.2% to 5,163;

 

• The median sale price of homes increased 5.5% to $115,000; and

 

• The average sale price of homes increased 5.9% to $138,543.

 

Another important indicator, however, was slightly down. The number of pending sales decreased 0.4% to 4,597.

 

“It is difficult to put these numbers in perspective,” said Karl Berron, Chief Executive Officer. “The federal home buyer tax credit is still at work in the year-over-year comparisons and while we cannot fully account for them, we know foreclosures and pending foreclosures are a major player in our local housing markets and have been for a long while.

 

“Regardless, prices here in Indiana have historically held their ground,” continued Berron. “And this is not just good news for home owners, but also communities and would-be home owners who are shopping with some of the lowest mortgage interest rates in most of our memories.”

 

Whether market activity and value continue to grow depends upon a number of factors outside of the real estate industry’s control say REALTORS® across the state. The number one item on their list is more jobs, which drives number two and three on the group’s list – available financing for qualified buyers and less foreclosure inventory.

 

“Folks looking to invest should start with the sortable county tables of this report and then talk to a local REALTOR® who can give the most insight into what’s happening in a neighborhood, city or school district,” concluded Berron.

 

More about the “Indiana Real Estate Markets Report”

 

Established in May 2009 and found online under the Reports tab of www.IndianaIsHome.com, the “Indiana Real Estate Markets Report” was the first-ever county-by-county comparison of existing single-family home sales in Indiana. In March 2010, IAR added statistics on other types of existing detached single-family (DSF) home sales – condominiums, duplexes, townhomes, mobile homes, etc. – to the report.

 

The report became even more robust in August 2010. It now tells how the statewide housing market is performing according to eight different indicators, each with one-month and year-to-date comparisons, as well as a historical look. It also provides specific county information for 91 of Indiana’s 92 counties in a sortable table format, allowing for consistent comparison between local markets. IAR obtains the data directly from and releases this report in partnership with 26 of the state’s 27 Multiple Listing Services (MLSs), including the Broker Listing Cooperative® (BLC®) in both central and southwestern Indiana.

 

Affordable and Fabulous Theatre

With winter soon upon us we will all be looking for things to do INSIDE.  One of my favorite places to go in South Bend is the South Bend Civic Theatre.  With two stages in their gorgeously remodeled building, a former Scottish Rite building, they have productions going almost year round.  All of the seats have clear views of the stage, prices are affordable and the shows are just amazing.  The amount of local talent we have in this area is just fantastic.  Combine a night at the theater with dinner at one of downtown South Bend’s locally owned restaurants and you have a perfect night out.  It is truly one of our favorite things to do.

Check out the South Bend Civic Theatre’s 2012 schedule.  http://www.sbct.org/news/news/2012-season-announcement.  They have great packages available when you purchase multiple shows and their ticket exchange policy is very flexible.  Sometimes it is hard to know for sure what I will be doing in several months, but I just call the box office if I have a conflict and they work with me every time. 

Here is a brief history of the Theatre:                                 

South Bend Civic Theatre is the oldest continuously operating community theatre company in the South Bend/Mishawaka area.

Founded in 1957, it staged most of its productions after 1968 at The Firehouse, a local historic landmark located at 701 Portage Ave., in the city’s historic Park Avenue neighborhood. Beginning in the year 2000, SBCT began staging selected productions each year at Century Center’s Bendix Theatre, at the Morris Performing Arts Center, and for the first time in 2005, at the DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Notre Dame.

Under the leadership of an incredible Board of Directors and then-Executive Director Jim Coppens, SBCT began exploring solutions for the need for more space. In January 2007, the beginning of SBCT’s 50th Anniversary year, Civic celebrated the opening of its new theatre home at 403 N. Main St. in downtown South Bend, in what was formerly the Scottish Rite Building. Through generous individual support as well as community and corporate underwriting, SBCT was able to complete construction on a new 3,500 square foot scene shop, renovation of a 209 seat Mainstage Auditorium and a 70 seat versatile “black-box” Studio Theatre in a span of time of little more than a year. In November of 2009, a special gift to SBCT eliminated the mortgage on the facility, the final chapter on the capital campaign that has allowed the organization to experience exponential growth in impact and production values.

Do yourself a favor and check out the theatre this year.  I promise that you will be glad you did.

 

Will the 30 Year Mortgage Disappear?

The federal government is reconsidering their involvement in the home mortgage process. They plan to still ‘guarantee’ certain mortgages. However, they appear to be redefining what they consider a ‘qualified purchaser’. They are discussing stricter lending guidelines in four different areas:

1. The type of mortgage
2. The minimum down payment
3. The debt ratios of the buyer
4. The FICO score of the purchaser

Today, we want to look at #1.

It appears that there is at least conversation about eliminating the 30 year fixed rate mortgage which has been a staple in this country’s housing industry for some time. Some in government want to duplicate the mortgage process of other countries. In Canada, for example, they don’t even have 30 year fix rate mortgages available. The vast majority of Canadian home loans have a 25 year payout but the interest rate is renegotiated every five years. If rates go down, you will wind up with a lower rate. If rates go up, you end up paying a higher rate. If you want a fixed rate mortgage for 25 years you pay a rate approximately two percentage points higher than the going rate at the time of your closing.

Would the same happen in this country? Last week, Housing Wire quoted Janis Bowdler, senior policy analyst at the National Council of La Raza:

“Without some form of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, replacements to support these popular loans, many first time borrowers will be shut out.

“Without that guarantee lenders would not offer 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, at least not at rates the average person could afford. Yes, some would be available but not for the average family but for those with a large amount of inherited wealth they can put to a large down payment.”

Why Is This Important?

You probably want to set your housing expense at the lowest number possible for the longest time possible. This may be the appropriate time to lock-in your long term housing expense as three things seem possible, if not likely, in the future:

• Mortgage rates will increase from current historic lows
• The 30 year fixed rate mortgage may disappear
• Rents will return to historic norms of 3% annual increases 

Bottom Line

If you want to purchase a home of your own but are waiting to see where prices will go, consider what you could be giving up while you wait.

You have found “the one!”

With so many homes on the market, many buyers house hunt for months, even years before hitting property pay-dirt.  Even for the savvy buyers who have narrowed their house hunt to an affordable price range, the condition issues so common in distressed homes can make choosing a home difficult.

And on the flip side, some subdivisions have scads of similar homes, all of which are in good shape, all listed at a similar price, making it nearly impossible to choose just one.

Here are five indicators that a particular home you’re viewing might be “The One” – the property on which you’ll want to place an offer:

1.       You feel possessive about it, instantly. I once showed a less-than-fabulous home to a buyer who stepped in the front door, opened her eyes wide, and uttered in a much-quieter-than-normal voice, “I would cry.” We got a good laugh out of this later, after she found and bought a home that made her feel virtually the opposite.

Not only did the winning home bring a smile to her face, it also made her instantly possessive. She didn’t just want it – she wanted it immediately. She could barely even wait to write the offer paperwork! When another agent showed up to bring a buyer through the place while we were still there, she lingered leisurely (in hopes they would just leave) and secretly looked at them with daggers in her eyes (out of competitiveness, because in her heart, the home had already become hers).

If you walk through a place and leave wondering how quickly you can get your offer in, how much you’d offer to beat someone else out, or what you can do to lock it down quickly, it might be “The One.”

2.       You start rationalizing its flaws away.  Train tracks 10 feet from the bedroom window? Next door neighbor that runs a pigeon-sitting service? Okay – I exaggerate. But if you find yourself viewing a home with traits that you would normally deem undesirable or as deal-killers, yet you like the place so much that you instinctively compile a mental list of reasons those traits just don’t matter, you might have found “The One.”

Now, smart buyers should be aware of a syndrome I like to call “Pottery Barn Psychosis,” whereby the aesthetics of a wonderfully staged home with amazing curb appeal can hypnotize a buyer, rendering them blind to the negative property features, which would be glaring or grave concerns if the place weren’t so stinking cute. It’s fine to make a conscious decision that the pros of a place outweigh its cons, and even to consciously re-rank your priorities in light of a particular property’s advantages. But buyers should take steps to avoid falling victim to Pottery Barn Psychosis (and the Buyer’s Remorse that often follows suit) by writing down your absolute musts and deal-breakers before you ever step foot in a single property – and by revisiting this document before you write an offer and again before you remove your contingencies.

3.  The bathroom and kitchen don’t disgust you. We humans are born with only two fears in life: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. By about eight months old, we start to acquire new fears, and most of us never stop.  Among the first fear most people learn: the fear of other people’s kitchens and bathrooms.

I exaggerate (again!), but it is true that generally speaking, other people’s kitchens and bathrooms hold definite gross-out potential.  There’s just something about what goes on in those rooms that seems exceptionally intimate and even unsanitary.  So, if you happen to find yourself falling in love with a home’s river rock shower floor or drooling over the pot-filler over the stove and the built-in cookbook stand on the countertop, that’s a sign that you’re falling head over heels with a home that might just be “The One.”

4.  You involuntarily envision your own family, furniture, decor, daily activities or remodeling choices in/to the home.  They say that the best staging helps prospective buyers envision their own idealized lives taking place in the staged home.  But whether or not a property is staged, if you find your mind’s eye Photoshopping a given property to insert your own kids and sofa into the living room, your dining table and favorite wall hangings into place in the dining room, and your daily meditation in the breakfast nook – or even start mentally removing walls entirely – it’s entirely possible that the home you’re in could be “The One” for you.

5.  You lose interest in seeing other homes.  I once took some buyers out for their first house hunt in my territory after they’d spent two years looking for homes in a neighboring area, without ever making a single offer.  I’d planned to show them seven homes, but when they got to the fourth property, they declared that they’d found their home, and they neither wanted nor needed to see any more.  I insisted that they finish the list, if for no other reason than to confirm their choice and to avoid feeling later that they hadn’t seen enough nearby homes to compare theirs to.  They humored me and saw the last three places on the list, then promptly bought house #4 and still live there, blissfully happy, to this day.

When you find “The One,” continuing the house hunt you may have obsessed over for months, even years, starts to seem silly, like a waste of the energy you could be using to move into your new home.

 

Reposted from Tara @ Trulia.

One of the True Joys of Home Ownership-My Yard

I love having a yard.  Sifting dirt between my fingers, pulling weeds, planting flowers, trees and vegetables, watering, fertilizing, digging, raking and harvesting.  It is all pure joy to me.  Sure, there are days when I don’t want to go out and water or pull weeds, but those days are definitely outnumbered by the ones where I look out my window and see the flowers blooming so gloriously or the evenings when I go out to the garden to pick vegetables and herbs for our healthy dinners and the afternoons I spend cleaning vegetables, freezing herbs and canning tomatoes.  

Today, I was cleaning up my yard and getting it ready for the winter restoration season.  As I pulled up the last of my plants in my garden and harvested the last of my zucchini, carrots, fennel and tomatoes I smiled. 

 

Then, when I hauled the wheelbarrows full of plant waste to the woods for the compost pile I thought about how interesting it is that a plant has so much waste in proportion to its useful and edible parts.  Isn’t that similar to us humans.  We give so very much of ourselves, planting seeds everywhere we go, and sometimes if we are lucky one of those seeds grows and provides someone something wonderful to use in their life.   But, nothing goes to waste really.  Those seeds of wisdom that don’t get used by one often find their way to another or come back to us to be reworked into something even better, just like compost.

13,780 Homes Sold Yesterday

by The KCM Crew on September 26, 2011 ·

To all those who have declared the real estate market dead, we want you to know that over 13,780 houses sold yesterday, 13,780 will sell today and 13,780 will sell tomorrow.

That is the average number of homes that sell each and every day in this country according to the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) latest Existing Home Sales Report. NAR reported that sales had increased 7.7% over the month before and 18.6% over the year before. According to the report, annualized sales now stand at 5.03 million. Divide that number by 365 (days in a year) and we can see that, on average, well over 13,000 homes sell every day.

We realize that these numbers are below the record for homes sold in 2006. We also know that we may never see those numbers again (and that is probably a good thing). But to say that the current real estate market is dead or that houses are not selling is totally inaccurate. We have over 13,000 pieces of evidence to prove that.