INDY-FABULOUS

WOW! No big suprise here - however we are still the best value in the country for housing! I have recently worked with relocation folks from Arizona, Kansas and Lousiville. All of them moving into our area! Having family in rural Indiana I understand that it is great to have relocation business right now!

Here is a clip from the MONEY magazine article!

"The older, industrial Midwest cities generally offer the best bargains. Indianapolis has led the NAHB's Housing Opportunity Index for 16 straight quarters. Nearly 95% of all homes sold there were affordable to those earning the area's median income of $68,100."

I took this picture ontop of the pagoda at the Indy 500 track!

GO INDY!!!

And the best school is..........

Today marked the first day of school for my daughter Lilian. She was quite excited about the bus ride! I was not excited to see her leave. However, I don't know many parents who LOVE to send their children off to school. I do have high expectations for my daughter and our school district. This is why we chose to live here. Many homeowners/homebuyers do tend to put a high value on the quality of education, or should I say, the perceived quality of education that the community provides.

There are many quality websites that provide school statistics. The Indiana Department of Education website does provide a lot of data for your review. Here you can compare schools, review annual school performance reports, you can also look into the ISTEP test results.

In my case, I hope to be as interactive with my children's schooling as possible. See, in the end I feel that education is what you make of it. I would like to think my support and encouragement is the biggest key to success for my children.

Summer Slow Down

The State Fair is a wonderful event that my family and I look forward to each year. It signals the end of summer and the excitement of the new school year. I typically don't have a lot of business this time of year. After years in the business I certainly have come to recognize the Indianapolis Metro housing cycles. Obviously 2008 and 2009 have been 'recession' years which have to be analysed mostly on their own merit. However, year-in-year-out I have found that the cycle is similar.

Starting usually in Mid-February (the spring warm up time frame) the big surge begins and it usually ends around late May to early June. The dog days (slower sales) of summer kick-in from June through Mid September. Then something weird happens. In Mid-September there is usually a bit of a surge through October. December and January are great months for anything but real estate!

So, my quick advice for when to place your home for sale is to begin staging your home after the holidays and be ready for the "For Sale" sign come Valentines Day. This year things did not kick off until around April. But we have just went through a crazy time that cannot be compared to. Who knows, maybe the housing recession is over?! My crystal ball said that we have hit the bottom of a very long pool. Meaning it may be 2011 until values pick up locally. But I don't think they will fall much more either!