Alright!  I got the latest Rector-Hayden Report today.  I have been curious to see the stats from last month.  I know I was busy, but I wanted to see if everybody else was too.  Much to my surprise, there hasn’t been much of a change for Lex over the past month.  That is not a bad thing.  Being stable in a bad economy with increasing unemployment shows how resilient Lex really is!

The Lex market is pretty balanced up to about $250,000.  Over that, there are many more houses that buyers.  It looks like the surrounding counties are not doing as well as Lex.  Last year, people quit considering a cheaper house just outside Lex when gas it $4/gallon.  Even though it is much cheaper now, it looks like the sting is still there.  I can’t say that I blame anybody.  Who wants to save maybe $100-150 a month on a mortgage and spend more than that on gas.

I still think real estate is a good investment.  You get to USE real estate.  That is what I like.  I paid $220k for my house about a year and a half ago.  It is worth that still, maybe a little more if I were to time listing it when there wasn’t much competition in my area.  All the while I have been living in it.  I think that is pretty sweet.  If you want to get technical about it, even if I sold my house for the same price, I would be getting MORE for it.  How?  Well, while I have been living here, I have been using it up.  Furnaces, carpet, appliances, etc, all have a lifespan.  I have used part of that life span.  If I sold for the same price I would have gotten appreciation since I wouldn’t have to pay back the use.  Anyway, I guess that is another blog topic!

Here is a temp link to this month’s Rector-Hayden Report:  http://info.rhr.com/RH_Report/Report_Pages.php?Agent_ID=70294