LEXpert Video Tour of Plantation

by John Rice

 

Checked out a neighborhood called Plantation recently.  I had somebody send me a message that they were wanting to be in the Dunbar High School District, needed to be under $200k if possible, and wanted a decent sized yard.  That sure narrowed down the choices!

Plantation is a pretty typical 1970’s  neighborhood.  Split Foyers, ranches, split levels, and some traditionals.  The schools ares Garden Springs, Beaumont and Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

I guess what makes Plantation unique is that what once was a neighborhood just outside of Lexington is now surrounded by some really upscale neighborhoods and landed in a really good school district.  The good part of town grew out to it basically.  I don’t think back in the mid 1980’s when we had family friends that lived out there I could have imagined how it would  be today.  So, if you don’t want a newer house, gotta have a good sized yard, but still want to be in a desireable part of town with a great school district, and need to do it all for under $200k, look no further.

Checkout the video….Thanks!

Crystal Ball Predictions

by John Rice

This is gonna be one of those posts where I’ll look like a prophet or an idiot a few months from now.  See, I’m gonna give my predictions about what will happen to the Lexington real estate market after May 1st.  May 1st?  Yeah, that’ll be the  first day without the $8000 tax credit pumping up the market over the past few months.

No doubt the tax credit has gotten a lot of first times buyers pretty motivated.  My listings are getting shown.  One is sold and another has an offer on the table.  I also have a couple of buyer’s that qualify for it.  Oddly enough, I am not seeing anybody use the $6500 credit for folks who were already homeowners.  All of my clients didn’t qualify for that.  I guess there are too many hoops to jump through for that one.  Reminds me of that old Howard Jones song from the 80’s that said  “You can look at the menu but you just can’t eat.  You’re the fastest runner but you’re not allowed to win.  You can dip your foot in the pool, but you can’t take a swim.”

So, what does a post Tax Credit deadline market look like?  How bad will it be?  Well, I think we’re pulling a lot of the buyers into the market that would have bought this summer and maybe fall.  So I see a little slow down ahead, but keep in mind it will be slower because we got the next several months worth of buyers early…….like a payday advance.

Something else to keep in mind is that the first time buyer market isn’t really a huge percentage of the market as a whole.  They are important because they end up hitting a home run when the bases are loaded, enabling all the home buyers above them who want to move , but not getting eight grand isn’t going to keep them from buying a house when they are ready.  There will always be people who get married, have kids, move to another town, takes jobs, get promoted, etc.  Those things and more is what triggers the purchase of a home.  Eight grand is just the icing on the cake.

I don’t think we’ll see a big price drop like some have predicted.  The prices seem to me to be about the same as before in the first time buyer price range, so there is no reason to expect a decrease.   We might see more days on market as we wait for the new buyers to enter the market.  As usual, the houses that are over priced, in poor condition, marketed poorly, etc, will stagnate on the market just like always.  They are the unsellables, so there is really no need to factor them into any statistics.  They are houses merely with a Realtor’s sign rusting in the front yard.

Something else to consider is the threat of rising interest rates. I really don’t know what to make of them.  I’ve heard good arguments for why they will go crazy as well as why they will stay near historic lows.  My crystal ball isn’t big enough to have much of a prediction there.  But, I do know that even talk of rising rates will motivate people to buy.  So, I kind of think that may become the next bully that pushes people to buy.  I guess the good thing is that will motivate not only first time buyers, but anybody thinking of moving in the next 3-6 months.

Okay, here is the part that will REALLY make me look stupid or brilliant…..Ready?  I would not be shocked if they extended the tax credit again!!  There, I said it.  If they do, I think it will be for less money this time.  Why do I think this?  The government knows that housing has to recover.  They already quit buying those troubled mortgage backed securities on April 1st, and I just have a hard time believing they are ready to totally take housing off of life support.  We’ll see I guess.  If I am wrong, expect this post to be gone on May 1st.

LEXpert Video Tour of Willow Oak

by John Rice

Here’s a video tour of a great neighborhood in South Lexington called Willow Oak.  It is outside Man O War not too far from Fayette Mall and Shillito Park.  Millpond shopping center is within walking distance too.

The houses are mostly in the $220k-$265k range and are 2200-2500 above grade square feet.  Some of them have basements.  The neighborhood was developed by Ball Homes about 15 years ago.  It has a good mix of schools:  Picadome, Jessie Clark and Lafayette.

Sooooo, what makes Willow Oak a good pick?  Well, the neighborhood has a lot of character, especially for a newer one.  There is a park at the entrance with a creek that feeds a good sized pond with a couple of gazebos and a bridge.  Plus there is a walking path, tennis court and a pool!

The only bad thing I can say about this neighborhood is that I keep wanting to refer to it as Willow Bend, which is a larger neighborhood down the road from this one.  I had to re-shoot a couple of clips because I was calling it Willow Bend…..Oooops!

Start the video to see it all 🙂

Getting some attention

by John Rice

 

I hate it when my listings don’t sell fast.  Probably because I know what all I’ll have to do to try to keep them fresh online.  Most agents will dump a listing online and let it rot there until it sells.  Sometimes they’ll delete the listing and copy it to a new MLS number.  That refreshes the days on market so it doesn’t look so stale.  The problem with doing only that is that you haven’t changed the way the house is presented online.

You’ve got to present the house well online these days to get showings.  They just don’t happen without that.  The days when people would come look at a house that looked bad online disappeared when it became a buyer’s market.

I guess to me, if I’m not getting much activity, I want to rearrange things.  I mean, that is why people pay me, right?  I’m the one that is suppose to get traffic through the house!  If it ain’t happening, I gotta do something different from what I’ve been doing.  I’ll often go into the listing detail and mix up the order of the pictures or change the marketing remarks.  See, what happens is, on any given day, there are realtors all over town online searching through listings on LBAR.COM.  When they keep seeing the same house over and over and over again, eventually they won’t even entertain the idea of showing it.  That is one reason I mix up the pictures or change the marketing remarks.  I don’t want my client’s house to come up in some agent’s search and have them gloss over it like it is that jar of pickles in the back of the fridge that’s been there forever.

I’ve noticed some of the things I do to make a listing stand out online are beginning to catch on.  Which has sent me back to the drawing board.

Recently I had a client tell me they wanted to offer closing costs as a way to get some attention for their house.  The only problem with offering closing costs is that the asking price doesn’t change.  Yeah, you can be so 2007 and scroll one of those banners across the bottom of the listings, but not only did I never learn to do that, I just don’t like it.

As I was thinking about how to tackle this, I realized that everybody’s eye goes straight to the pictures.  Sometimes I wonder if you really need the words.  I guess you do, but a picture is worth a thousand of them they say.  So, I got in my head to write what I wanted the public to know about the house right on the picture.    I did it for another listing that hadn’t been shown in a week.  Guess what?  We got 3 showings in 2 days on that one and an offer tonight on the other.

I guess what really matters is zigging when everybody else is zagging.

Video tour of Eastwood neighborhood

by John Rice

Well, here is another one of my favorite neighborhoods.  It’s off of Liberty Road near New Circle.  Most houses are 8-18 years old.  The values run $125k-180k, but most are in the $140-160k range.  The sizes go from just over 1000 square feet all the way up to just over 2000 square feet.  Most seem to be in the 1400-1700 square foot range.

My favorite thing is that you are in between the older and new parts of town.  You can get to downtown pretty easily and you can also be at Hamburg in like 5 minutes.  You have all that Hamburg offers, but you are still pretty much in town being just outside New Circle.

Enjoy!