Posted on January 4th, 2010 by Richard. Categories: Just for Fun, Nature
Bet it was not too difficult to get a tee time today? No waiting. I took a quick spin into Sahm Park as I was headed for an appointment. I didn’t expect to find anyone around. Just wanted to take in the scenery. This Green looked kind of frosty. Wondering if that would make it fast…or slow? Yeah, the weather has been kind of cool lately. Yesterdays low was zero and today’s wasn’t that much warmer. But hey…it’s January…it’s supposed to be cold. It’s been humorous to read articles in the newspapers and listen to the weather reporters on TV come up with all of the worst words they can think of to describe it. They don’t have any words left if it actually gets really cold…or more snow, which could happen. It’s really not THAT bad out there. Coats, hats and gloves seem to work well for this. And they love to talk about the windchill temp…mainly because it sounds worse than the real temperature. I think the goal is to get us all afraid to go outside…or maybe just afraid in general. No…sorry. If you have lived in Indiana long, you know that this is normal stuff, and just go about your business.
Funny but on days like these you don’t hear many people talking about global warming.
Posted on January 3rd, 2010 by Richard. Categories: Market Conditions, Real Estate Perspective
Having a new year has some great benefits. The best one might be that you can leave last year’s baggage behind and start off with a clean slate. A lot of people would probably like to do that with last year. It’s going to be interesting to see how 2010 unfolds. Each one seems to have a distinct personality. It feels like there is even more of a change because it’s a new decade as well. No more single digits finally. I’m feeling very positive about the possibilities that 2010 has in store for all of us.
The holidays have come and gone and for just about everyone, the work week, month and year is off and running beginning tomorrow…me included. Since my focus is on residential real estate I wanted to see where the market is at the start of 2010. I took a look at the statistics from our local real estate board MIBOR using my Realtor search tools. As of this date a search of all residential properties says that there are 13,554 active residential listings for sale right now in the nine county greater metropolitan Indianapolis area. The average listed price of these properties is $208, 189. To me that average list price number sounded kind of high vs. what I thought the average sale price has been running. So I searched for year 2009 and it says that the average sale price actually was $120,811 last year for this same area. Average sale price is always lower than average list price…but that’s a huge difference from the average listed price of properties for sale now. I have a feeling the average sale price will rise this year with the sale prices of some more expensive homes being figured into the average…and fewer inexpensive homes selling than in 2009. Last year, there were an unusual amount of financially distressed properties sold that brought the average sale price down. Just about everyone I’ve talked to says that the economy feels much stronger to them than it did a year ago at this time. Some real estate professionals are predicting that median priced home sales will be better than last year, and upper price range home sales, which were especially slow, should heat up. So it will be interesting to see how things play out. Looking forward to it.
Posted on January 1st, 2010 by Richard. Categories: Photo Flash
When I first learned this was going to happen, I knew I had to get this photo. I mean this doesn’t happen very often. Only once in a blue moon. Literally. Almost all old expressions usually have some basis in fact, and one meaning of the term “blue moon” is when there is a second full moon in the same calendar month, then it’s called a “Blue Moon”. It’s a rare occurrence. But what is even more rare is when a Blue Moon occurs on December 31st, the last day of the year. The last time that happened was 1990…and the next one will not occur again until 2028.
So while we were busy celebrating and ringing in the new year, we also were witness to a historical moment.
Posted on December 31st, 2009 by Richard. Categories: Downtown
Thought it was interesting to see the progress made on the new Marriott on Washington St. downtown near White River State Park. If you go by there often, you don’t notice the changes. But over just a relatively short time, there’s a large difference. Above is the way it looks now…and below, from a similar vantage point, is the way it looked about four months ago. All of the planned 34 floors are now there and the exterior much farther along.
Posted on December 29th, 2009 by Richard. Categories: Nature, Photo Flash
Had a few minutes and took a walk near the Canal the other day. It was pretty cold and raining a little but still good weather for walking with the right attire. On days like this it improves the odds of being there all by yourself too, which I like usually. The greyness is soothing somehow too. Even though I don’t mind walking in this weather with the right gear, it’s another thing to go for a swim. I don’t know how they do it when it’s cold out, but the ducks don’t seem to mind. Paddling about, diving and dunking like it’s August.
Posted on December 28th, 2009 by Richard. Categories: Downtown
I was doing a little shopping at Circle Centre the day I took this. If this were taken today it would be covered in several inches of snow. But I really liked this shot looking north into the distance on Illinois Street with the overhead walkway to Circle Centre and glass exterior of the Arts Garden underneath beyond. I almost didn’t post it though because of the reckless driving warning and road construction signs. Thought it hurt the artistic value a little? But I thought about it and decided there was too much I liked about it…and it’s reality now in Indianapolis anyway. You can’t hardly go anywhere where there isn’t some kind of heavy construction project going on. Roads, hotels, Convention Center, new buildings and remodeling. Actually construction is a sign of economic strength and optimism for the future, so we should be happy about that. Also, if anyone is wanting to build something, now is the time. Especially large and expensive projects. Interest rates for construction money and materials is comparatively inexpensive now, and construction companies and sub-contractors are really competing for the work, so the cost for building is less than it will be later on. This goes for homes too.
There was lots of traffic but I timed the lights and waited for a gap so I could walk out in the middle of the street for this. I get the zoom and exposure ready on the sidewalk so all I have to do is walk to the spot for the shot I want…then level, point and click. It’s all over before anyone can complain…and I go on my way.
Today’s post is not so much about Indianapolis or the real estate market. But in a way it is, as all sectors of the economy are tied together, and ultimately we are all in this thing together. I stopped by the Auto Show in the Convention Center a couple days ago. I hadn’t been to one in a few years and thought it might be fun to see all the changes. It didn’t take long to see that there really weren’t a whole lot of substantial changes from a few years ago. Yeah there was more technology and creature comforts and some design changes, but I was hoping that there would be more of an emphasis on fuel consumption. After reading the estimated MPG on the car stickers, I was dismayed at the number of models still offering only 12 to 18 MPG. Forget highway mileage which is a little better. Not many of us do the majority of our driving on the highway. But 12 to 18?… Come on now. I’m not sure why US auto makers especially are betting their very existence on the chances of people still buying something like that these days. Gasoline is surely going to go up in price. There were some hybrids that got 30 MPG or more…even up to 51 for the Prius which was the highest rated car I saw. The hybrid Camry for instance got 33 MPG, which saved about $250/year of fuel cost over the gasoline model Camry. But the sticker price of the hybrid was thousands more, and even if you kept it 12 years, you’d never save enough on fuel to make up for the cost difference of the purchase price. People would like to be greener if they could, but the dollars have to make sense before they will buy the cars. With all the talk about new technologies, I was also hoping to see some all-electric or fuel cell cars, but there were none. It just felt like nothing much has changed.
