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