Thoughts on the Tax Credit

Here's my take on the soon-to-expire First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit. Congress may extend it until April, and there are some suggestions that there may also be a provision for people who've been in their house for 5+ years to get some form of credit as well.

Just some thoughts to ponder.

Thinking of building a new home?

Some thoughts about why you might or might not want a REALTOR® representing you in the purchase of a new construction home.

I hope you're having a great week!

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Getting Your House Ready For Winter

Winter's almost here, so it's time to be thinking about settling into your home and bracing for the cold rain and snow.

Just a few tips that might help out a bit:

1. Hire a Licensed Home Inspector to do a full inspection. Putting a fresh set of eyes on your place - not to mention taking a look at the places you'll never go (crawl space, attic, etc.) - will give you a measure of confidence that there aren't any little problems lurking around waiting to turn into big problems. Little water penetrations in an attic space can become massive headaches when they decide to become big water leaks.

2. Change your furnace filters every month. Between increasing the quality of your indoor air and extening the life of your HVAC system, there's really no excuse for not keeping that filter changed.

3. Flush your water heater. Especially in Indiana with our notoriously hard water, these appliances have the tendency to collect sediment at an alarming rate. If you don't know how to flush the filter yourself - or aren't comfortable doing so - hire your favorite handy man or handy woman to do the work for you. Plumbers can do it, too, but they tend to be very expensive for what amounts to opening a water value and then shutting it off.

4. Clean out your gutters. Though the leaves have just started falling, it's never too soon to get a start on this most unsavory task. Clean gutters mean less likelihood that you'll suffer from ice dams, roof leaks, frozen downspouts and various other icky things you'd rather not deal with when it's minus 4 degrees outside.

I hope you're having a great fall season, and don't hesitate to call or email if I can help in any way!

Cheers.

joeshoe

Carmel Indiana Home Sales Data

Here's a recent update to sales data as broken down in $100,000 increments. I track sold single-family homes in Carmel, Indiana on a month-by-month basis, broken down into those smaller chunks to try and get a better sense of what's really going on in the market.

The only real way to look at the market is in the rear view mirror. Hard data. Any prognostication about what might happen in the future is just wild-assed guessing. I prefer to not guess.

My interpretation? We're seeing the same drop off that's happened for the last two years running. I believe that the bump we saw this Summer wasn't about things improving, but was rather a typical, seasonal bump...supported somewhat by the $8,000 tax credit.

If you'd care to chat about this stuff, call. Let's have coffee and jag.

Best always!

Joe Shoemaker
Principal Broker, REALTOR®
MacDuff Realty Group, LLC
317 413.8501
joe@joeshoe.com
http://www.macduffrealty.com

An Historic Headache

What's the "value" of historic real estate? Does the fact that a home is old or architecturally interesting give it some intrinsic value? Can or should an individual restore a property at more cost than the current market value in order to "save" it?

I don't have any answers to those questions, but hope to continue the conversation.