Indianapolis Real Estate

Time to look at how the Indianapolis real estate market did in April 2011:.

The YTD numbers:

Time to take a look at the number for Indianapolis homes for March 2011.   The first quarter is behind us and it is a good time to assess the market and how it might be trending for 2011.  As I have mentioned before, this year is going to prove quite difficult because of the first time home buyer tax credit having such a huge affect on the market last year.  That being said, let’s look at the number for Indianapolis for March:

The time has come to take a look at the year of 2009 and see how the Indianapolis real estate market performed.  Over the next few days, I will be posting the year end reports for most of the Indianapolis market.  Today, we start with Indianapolis itself.

Indianapolis has typically not performed as well as the suburbs and has been plagued with more foreclosures than the suburbs as well.  However, despite this Indianapolis has actually posted some great numbers for 2009 indicating a recovery may already be well underway. 

Let ’s take a look at the month of December in detail:

I am excited to announce Zillow has recognized and nominated our blog as one of the best in the Indianapolis area.  We would be very appreciative if you help us out and vote for our blog as your favorite here:

{link removed}

You can do so once a day and we would greatly appreciate it.  

One of the area’s on Indianapolis real estate I love to work with is Geist waterfront homes. In case you didn’t know, Geist is split into two distinct counties and more importantly two very different school districts. North of 96th street, Geist lies in the Hamilton Southeastern School district which is by most people’s perception a much better school district than its southern counterpart Lawrence Township. Now, the question I am going to attempt to answer today is: Does the school district affect desirability and resale value of waterfront homes on Geist?

To answer this, we are going to look at two sets of data. One that shows us the number of homes sold, average sales price, and price per square foot for waterfront properties on Geist with

I am finally writing the most overdue blog post EVER, the long winded answer to the question I probably get asked most often: What is a short sale?  Quite simply, a short sale is when the owner of a property owes more than the house is worth and they ask the bank to accept an offer less than this amount in lieu of going to foreclosure.  For example, a seller has a houses listed for $100,000 and they owe $125,000 on the mortgage.  They receive an offer from a prospective buyer for $90,000 and ask the bank to take a loss of $35,000 instead of taking the home to foreclosure, re-listing it, and selling it themselves.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.  

Now, the gory details.  If you are the buyer or potential buyer of a short sale you MUST

I have LOTS to talk about in terms of real estate and homes for sale in the Fishers and Indianapolis area and too little time.   Today, I wanted to touch base on the upcoming expiration of the first time home buyers tax credit.   As you probably know, the current credit now applies to both first time home buyers and existing home owners but you must be under contract by April 30th 2010.  Here are a few good resources with all the details of the program:

http://www.realtor.org/home_buyers_and_sellers/2009_first_time_home_buyer_tax_credit

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=204671,00.html

http://www.federalhousingtaxcredit.com/home.html

As we saw with the expiration of the last tax credit buyers are flooding the market and homes are selling

Let’s take a look and see how the Indianapolis real estate market did in 2009. Before we dive into the yearend numbers let’s see how December turned out:

If you have not heard the latest drama for new homes in Indianapolis, Hansen and Horn is officially out of money.  Rumors have been swirling for months now that they were not paying their subcontractors and problems home owners have been having but now it is official.  You can read the Indy Star story here but the gist is they are out of money and going into receivership which means someone else is taking over and going to try to pay off their debts. 

I have to give credit to Paula Henry who runs Hometoindy.com her Indianapolis real estate website and blog for pointing this out, but take a look at this: https://secure.in.gov/sos/bus_service/online_corps/view_details.aspx?guid=19AC7BA0-EE43-473C-8C2C-E3F5749F928A

This is a separate

I am sure everyone has heard that the tax credit for first time home buyers has been extended and expanded so I thought I would post the main bullet points of the new bill as well as a quick reference guide for the first time homebuyer tax credit for Indianapolis home buyers.  The main bullet points are:

•    Contract must be signed by 4/30/10 and close by 6/30/10.
•    First-time homebuyers (not owned a home in the last 3 years) will receive an $8,000 tax credit.
•    A $6,500 tax credit will to buyers is they owned their current home for at least five consecutive years in the previous eight years.
•    Individuals with income under $125,000 will qualify.  Couples with income under $225,000 will qualify.  This is up from $75,000 for singles or $150,000 for