I have had a lot of people asking me to come look at their home to help them get ready to sell. I love adding value, and I think this is one area where having an experienced eye and strong understanding of the market really helps me do that. Here are some thoughts on where investing in your home can add the most value in the order of cost/benefit significance. :

CLEAN!!! – Do a deep clean or hire someone to come and get the nooks and crannies. Buyers will look everywhere. Open everything you can open and clean inside of it. If your home is beautiful and then the buyer opens a door where everything inside has an inch of dust, you will lose them 90% of the time.

Carpet and Paint – Simply making your home pop can add a lot of value to those people that are coming to look at your home. If you think about it, many people are taking 20-30 minutes to decide on making one of the largest investments of their life. The more you can stand out in a good way, the better off you will be. Making your home look clean and fresh will go a long way in doing just that.

Kitchen – First off, if you do a full remodel you are likely to, at a maximum, get 50% of your investment back. If you are going to redo a kitchen completely, do it when you buy so that you get to enjoy it. Unless you bought your property at a deep discount, you are not going to see that money come back to you. There are several things you can do in the kitchen for less cost that will add value. Paint the cabinets, and/or add a tile back splash. These cost effective improvements can do a lot for you.

Bathroom – Same note as the kitchen. You will not get your money back if you do a full remodel. Here are the cost effective moves: Update the fixtures. Re-caulk and re-grout the shower.

Whole House – Replace dated light fixtures. You can get new fixtures for less than $50 a piece. Take advantage of that.

All of these are great ideas. You might have more benefit from some than others depending on the rest of your house. Also, ask other people about colors. I learned early on that some sellers cannot be trusted to pick complementary colors. If that is you, I am happy to help.

Call me and let me help you. You can reach me at 515.639.0047 or RyanLynch@KW.com. I am very good at what I do and I would love to be on your team.

~Ryan Lynch

2018 is very interesting in that it seems that two distinct markets are being created in the Des Moines area Multiple Listing Service (MLS). For the first quarter of 2018 (ending March 31st) these two markets are almost the exact opposite of each other. Here are some facts of what is going on in both markets:

The first thing to look at is inventory. As of March 31st, New Construction is getting to be close to half of the market! There were a total of 3,110 houses for sale on March 31st, and of those 1,341 of them were New Construction properties. That means that 43.1% of the market is New Construction houses. Nearly half of the market of houses for sale were built within the last 18 months. That is insane!

This disparity means that there is a huge difference in the two markets themselves. If you are looking for New Construction, you have a lot to choose from. You are also looking for a bigger, more expensive home. The average sale price of a New Construction property for this first quarter was $303,801.00. The average sale price of a Resale property, on the other hand, was $173,000.00.

Taking those two numbers you can see how the two markets could be so different. Think about how many people could buy a $170,000 property versus a $300,000 property. There are a lot more buyers in the Resale market right now. To that end, the New Construction market currently has 5.7 months of inventory and the Resale market currently has 1.5 months of inventory. (Here is an article where I explain what months of inventory means.) That is a huge difference!

What this means to you:

As a seller, if you are looking to sell your home, and you do not build homes for a living, I want to talk to you yesterday! Home values keep increasing. More and more buyers are coming to the table. The average house nationwide increased in value 7% over the last year. If you position your house well, a multiple offer situation could be coming your way. (42% of all of my listings in 2017 were in multiple offer situations.)

As a buyer, is you are looking for New Construction you have a buffet table awaiting you. Get a good realtor (ME!!!) who can make sure that your butt is covered from a builder. My biggest recommendation is to not use the builder’s realtor as your own realtor. Who’s butt do you think they are going to cover better? The person who gives them one deal, or the person who gives them most of their deals? If you are looking for a Resale property, get a great realtor (ME!!!). You need to be able to move fast, evaluate fast, and make sure that you are protected in this fast moving market.

Call, text, or email me today! You can reach me at 515.639.0047 or RyanLynch@KW.com. I know what I am doing, and it is my job to take away as much stress and worry from this process as I can. I am very good at what I do.

~Ryan Lynch

Yesterday the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. They did three times in 2017 and they are expected to raise rates at least three times in 2018. What does that mean for home prices in the Des Moines area and for buyers and sellers?

The first thing to look at is history. Right now we are around 4% interest rate for a typical 30 year home loan. This is still a historically low interest rate. Rates were as high as 18% in 1981, and they have steadily gone down from there. I worked for a bank in 2005 and I remember the loan officers at that time freaking out that interest rates were going as low as 5%!!! They have only trended downwards over the last 13 years, and 2017 was the first time in a long time that interest rates went up. Looking at that history though, we are still on the side of incredibly cheap money.

For buyers this means that mortgages will get a little more pricey over time. If you are looking to buy in the next year or two, buying sooner could save you a thousand or two or three thousand dollars a year. Over the course of a 30 year loan, that is nothing to sneeze at. It wont kill you to wait, you will just have some extra money in your pocket if you don’t.

For sellers this actually leads to an interesting happening: prices will keep going up. What happens is that the interest rates going up will stop some people from buying a home. Those same people will then not sell their current home. The supply of homes for sale then also slows down. Right now we are at historically low inventory levels. We are still hovering around 3000 houses on the Des Moines area market (3063 as of 3/22/2018). People are still moving slowly to get their homes on the market, and that means prices go up because there are so few homes for people to look at. I will also give the caveat that we are actually selling more houses, it is just that they are selling so fast that the active inventory keeps looking shrunk.

What this means for buyers: get a professional to help you. You need to be able to move fast and evaluate deals faster. You need someone who can help you make faster, better decisions. I would love to be that professional for you.

What this means for sellers: getting your house on the market before the market goes Spring crazy means that you get to take advantage of all of the motivated buyers who are out there right now. Don’t wait until you have more competition. Use me to put yourself in the best position possible.

I am an incredibly good agent who always puts my client’s first. I will tell you the truth. I know what I am talking about. Call me today at 515.639.0047 or you can reach me at RyanLynch@KW.com.

~Ryan Lynch

2018 has been crazy. We have seen more snow than we have seen in the past few years, and yet more houses are selling than in 2017, which was itself a record breaking year. Here are some interesting numbers to note as of February 28th, 2018 in the Des Moines real estate market:

For all properties on the Des Moines Multiple Listing Services (MLS) it is still a Seller’s Market – Currently there is 2.7 months of inventory

For resale properties it is even a stronger Seller’s Market – Currently there is 1.8 months of inventory

New Construction is an entirely different market, a Buyer’s Market – Currently there is 6.7 months of inventory

Months of inventory is a way of looking at a market that is based on average sales over the last year. Let’s say that in the last year, in a particular area there were 120 houses that sold. That means that on average 10 houses sell per month. If there are currently 25 houses for sale, you have 2.5 months of inventory. Because if 10 houses sell per month, 25 houses should sell in 2.5 months. Up to 4 months is a Seller’s Market. 4-6 months is a Balanced Market. 6+ months is a Buyer’s Market.

Looking at that explanation, Resale Properties right now are really low at 1.8 months. If you have a property that is in an established neighborhood, there is extremely high demand for you to sell right now. On the other side, if you are a builder and building brand new homes you have more competition right now and your buyers are much more picky.

What does this mean to you? If you own your own home and have been thinking about selling, you can beat the crowd by getting it on the market now. With warmer weather, more and more people will be putting their houses on the market. Don’t wait and have more competition for your buyers. Get your house on the market now to take advantage of very advantageous market conditions.

Give me a call. I am highly trained and can position your house to sell, instead of just putting it on the market for sale. You can reach me at 515.639.0047 or RyanLynch@KW.com.

~Ryan Lynch

Right now in the Des Moines and surrounding area real estate market there are some amazing trends that make it a great time to put your house on the market.

Number one, inventories are still incredibly low. As of this writing there are only 3085 houses for sale in the entire Des Moines Area Association of Realtors’ Multiple Listing Service. Houses going under contract are creeping up. Currently there are 1771 houses under contract. (Under contract means that the houses have found a buyer and they have an agreed upon price and closing date.) As of December 31st, 2017 that number was at 1,531 houses pending under contract. That is a whopping 15.6% jump in houses going under contract in just one and a half months!

Number two, the historically low inventory levels are pushing sales prices up for houses that are selling. According to CoreLogic’s Home Pricing Index, home prices rose 6.9% nationally from December 2016 to December 2017. That means that if you bought a home for $200,000 in December 2016, by December 2017 it would be worth $213,800.

Buyers are out and ready to go. Even with the harsh weather of the past couple of weeks we are seeing very motivated buyers looking for their next home.

What this means to you as a home seller is that you can get your house on the market now before you have more competition (housing inventory goes up) and while prices are continuing to go up at historically high speeds.

Call me today at 515.639.0047 or email me at RyanLynch@KW.com. I am very happy to run numbers and tell you what your home is worth for free and with no commitment to sell now. Call me today.

~Ryan Lynch

We need houses to sell. According to Trulia, last quarter experienced the biggest year-over-year decrease in home inventories since 2013. For anecdotal evidence, yesterday I was looking for a buyer in a $50,000 price range in one of Des Moines’s suburbs, there was one home for sale in that price range. ONE HOME FOR SALE!

What does this mean for you? If you are a seller, buyers are already starving for homes to buy. If you are thinking about waiting until Spring to get your house on the market, you are waiting for when there is far more competition for the buyers that are frantically searching now.

If you are a buyer, you need a responsive agent who will watch the market for you and get you into houses quickly. You need to be fully prepared. And I can guarantee that as 2018 goes on, this is just the beginning.

I am the agent who can put you in the best position if you are looking to sell or buy. Call me today and let’s get you where you want to be. You can reach me at 515.639.0047 or RyanLynch@KW.com.

~Ryan Lynch