I thought I would share a word of warning. I got a call from a client that her brother wanted to talk to me and ask me some questions about an issue he was having. He had been working with a realtor for many years. He had recently put one house under contract, decided not to move forward, and then put another house under contract. His realtor had told him that he was out of deal A and good to move forward with deal B.

Turns out he wasn’t and he was now being sued to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars for not completing his contractually obligated duty of buying a house that he no longer wanted to own.

The short and simple lesson here is that absolutely nothing is official until everything is in writing and everyone has signed it. And once you have signed, you better believe that everything is official.

I am not an attorney. I let them deal with any legal issues that come up in the world of real estate. What I do though is make sure that you are covered from every angle that I can think of so that you can make buying and selling decisions with confidence.

There were several ways out for this guy. Make sure you know where you stand 100% when making one of the largest financial transactions of your life.

In market news:

The beginning of 2019 has seen a lot more movement in the market. This is surprising considering we just got a boat load of snow dumped on us in that time. In the first 24 days of 2019 we have already seen 1,141 houses sell or go under contract. Buyers are out and sellers are already listing, or getting ready to list soon.

Mortgage rates have been dancing around, but they have been dancing around the same numbers. According to Bankrate.com, the average 30 year fixed rate right now is 4.62% and that is still very low historically. Plus, this is higher than most banks that I look at specifically in Iowa.

What does all of this mean? The central Iowa market is getting ready to go already. There was a lot of built up demand over the holidays, and now people are moving, literally. If you are thinking about buying or selling, I want to help.

I love doing what I do. I love looking at the market, and I love building relationships with the people that I get to help. Let me know how I can help you. Call me today. You can reach me at 515.639.0047 or RyanLynch@KW.com. I am good at what I do, and I want to help you.

~Ryan Lynch

One of the promises that I make to the people I work with is that I am going to stay in touch. Sometimes when I check in it is a very quick call and as simple as how are you doing. More and more, I am finding that people will engage with me and have a conversation.

I wanted to share two of those conversations.

One just happened. I had a client call me back from me trying to reach him a couple of months ago. He said that he called back because life had been difficult recently and he was making a point of calling back the people that he had missed to let them know that it wasn’t them. We got into a conversation about what was going on. It turns out that something that I have been thinking about for a long time was a part of his issue. We ended up recommending books to each other. We will now have an entirely different conversation whenever we talk in the future because we both have the same obscure interest.

The other call happened yesterday. In our conversation, my friend stopped and told me that he has had conversations with his wife that if anything were ever to happen to him, she needed to call me because he knows that I will help her.

Two amazing conversations to have when all that I am really supposed to be doing is looking for business. I believe that looking for people to connect with will make my life better, make their life better, and in the end will get me business as well.

I know that I have people that wonder why I am calling them STILL? I love helping people. Sometimes that help makes me money. Every time that help makes me happy.

On to the market:

I have had a lot of people asking me about “the market”, because they are hearing about a slow down, or are wondering if they have missed the boat. 2018 was slower than 2017. In fact, in 2018 the Des Moines Area Association of Realtors (DMAAR) sold 328 less houses than in 2017.

Now for some perspective: 2017 was a record breaking year after four record breaking years in a row. Every one of those years was the highest sales year ever for DMAAR. Things have slowed down a bit, and we are still among the top sales years in recorded history in the DMAAR area. Also, interest rates have seen a dip recently, with some locations being below 4% again. There are still a ton of buyers out there and we are dramatically low on inventory for sellers.

If you are thinking about buying or selling we are in a great position for both. In my weekly reports to my clients I am seeing inventory levels at the lowest I have seen them since listing the specific property. Interest rates are still historically low and have been going down recently. Call me and I can help you get what you want.

I love doing what I do. I love looking at the market, and I love building relationships with the people that I get to help. Let me know how I can help you. Call me today. You can reach me at 515.639.0047 or RyanLynch@KW.com. I am good at what I do, and I want to help you.

~Ryan Lynch

Last week I got to do something that makes me both happy and sad that I am in this business: I told a potential client what I found on the market. They had a house that they were hoping to get sold at a specific price, and all of the evidence that I found ended up showing that their house was worth  about $30,000 less than they were hoping for.

This act makes me sad because I never want to be the one bearing bad news. If I could do this job and only tell people what they want to hear, my job would be much easier. 

The reason that this makes me happy is because I think that I am unusual in telling people what they don’t want to hear, but need to hear nonetheless. If every house out there that is like yours is selling within a $10,000 range that is $30,000 lower than you were  hoping for, then the market is setting a pretty specific value on properties like yours.  You can find this out upfront and get your house sold.

Or someone can tell you want you want to hear and you can find out months down the line. Months of frustration. Months of holding you back from getting to where you want to be. Months of being upset. 

I believe that this is a part of my job, and a part of what makes me a great realtor. I am going to tell you what I actually find. I am going to tell you what is actually going on in the market based off of facts and numbers that are happening to houses that are strong comparables to yours. I am going to tell you what I actually think, instead of what I think you want to hear. I know that that automatically disqualifies me from being some people’s realtor. I also know that it automatically makes me a better realtor for the people who want a realtor that is more  interested  in getting them where  they want to go than just getting another listing.

So that this is not all doom and gloom I will tell you that this situation is still the exception, and not the rule in today’s market. As of the end of November, 2018 we had closed 13,270 deals in the Des Moines Area Association of Realtors (DMAAR). That is a huge number in the Des Moines area market. At the end of November we still are in a Seller’s Market in Resale Properties. (We have 3.4 months of inventory as of November 30th, and up to 4 months is a Seller’s Market.) In November, 2018 689 listings were taken, and 894 listings went under contract. It is still  a great time to sell and buy a home.

I love doing what I do. I love looking at the market, and I love building relationships with the people that I get to help. Let me know how I can help you. Call me today. You can reach me at 515.639.0047 or RyanLynch@KW.com. I am good at what I do, and I want to help you.

~Ryan Lynch

I always ask everyone that I work with how I can add more value to them. One way that just came up was helping a client find a home in Marshalltown. I am not licensed in Marshalltown, and I don’t have access to the Multiple Listing Service(MLS). That being said, anytime that I can help in any way I very much want to.

I called a trusted contact in Marshalltown who is a realtor and we sat on the phone for a while while she looked at the MLS and answered questions about how we could help my client. I gathered a lot of information and was able to get it to my client so that he has a better idea of what is available and how specific he can be in looking for what he is looking for.

The point that I am trying to get across is that if you have a question on anything (I really don’t even care if it is even real estate related), I like to help people in any way that I can. I still get people that are confused as to why I am calling when I call every single one of my clients quarterly. I am just checking in to see if there is anything that I can do to make your life easier. Try me out.

Market Update:

As I wrote earlier this year, we are still seeing two different markets throughout Central Iowa and the Des Moines MLS. Just look at months of inventory by price point (all numbers are as of October 31st, 2018):

$0-$100,000 – 1.9 Months
$100,000-$200,000 – 1.6 Months
$200,000-$300,000 – 3.9 Months
$300,000-$400,000 – 7.9 Months
$400,000-$500,000 – 10.7 Months
$500,000-$600,000 – 9.1 Months
$600,000-$700,000 – 24.3 Months
$700,000-$800,000 – 14.7 Months
$800,000-$900,000 – 10.0 Months
$900,000-$1,000,000 – 10.5 Months

Look at that huge jump from a Seller’s Market (0-4 Months) to a Buyer’s Market (6+ Months) over $300,000. This has only become more pronounced. A large part of this is still that over $300,000 is where new construction gets into the game for most of the MLS. We are seeing two very different markets. Below $200,000 is still a strong Seller’s Market. $200,000 to $300,000 is almost a Balanced Market (4-6 Months), and then as high as TWO YEARS of inventory at the $600,000 to $700,000 levels.

What does this mean to you?

If you are in the Seller’s Market range, you are in a great time to get your house on the market, because you have less competition and motivated buyers. I say they are motivated, because if you are looking to move in Iowa in the Winter, you are motivated to move. Even better, if you are selling your home at below $200,000 and then looking to buy a home at above $200,000 you are in the ideal position to take advantage of both markets. Low competition as a seller, and excess inventory as a buyer.

I love doing what I do. I love looking at the market, and I love building relationships with the people that I get to help. Let me know how I can help you. Call me today. You can reach me at 515.639.0047 or RyanLynch@KW.com. I am good at what I do, and I want to help you.

~Ryan Lynch

Hello my friends! This week I was helping a client through a “fun” challenge that came up and at the end of the call he said “I am so glad that you are my friend!” He wasn’t glad that I was his realtor, or even that I was there to help. He was glad that I am his friend. That is the ideal situation for me. You are not a number. You are not a transaction. You are someone who is going through one of the most stressful, largest financial transactions of your life. I want you to know that you have someone there who knows what they are doing and who is thinking about you and what is best for you. On top of that I will always tell you why I think the way that I do, and even if you choose something completely different, I will work to get it for you. My goal is that you are my friend years from now.

The market:

The main thing that I am hearing clients ask about now is interest rates. Rates are going up. I believe that rates will continue to go up. I also believe that rates are still at historically low levels. We are still below 5%, and 5% was an unheard of low just a decade ago. We have all been so happy with our tiny interest rates of the last few years, that now a number as high as 5% can seem big. It absolutely can affect your buying power. That also means that it can affect the buying power of people buying your home as well.

What does that mean to you? As a seller it means that the higher priced your home is, the pool of buyers who can afford it is very slowly getting smaller over time. As a buyer it means that you might be losing buying power the longer that it takes you to buy. (Depending on if your income changes, and how the market affects prices as well.)

An interesting note is that according to GoBankingRates.com it is cheaper to buy instead of rent in 38 states (including Iowa = Average Monthy Rent of $1,089 vs. Average Monthly Mortgage of $895) right now in the United States. That means that if you are currently renting, you might be able to save money by buying, and you would also have a property that appreciates and that you are paying down over time. That means that instead of rent going out of your bank account every month, it is going towards buying you a house.

I love doing what I do. I love looking at the market, and I love building relationships with the people that I get to help. Let me know how I can help you. Call me today. You can reach me at 515.639.0047 or RyanLynch@KW.com. I am good at what I do, and I want to help you.

~Ryan Lynch

I have been working on changing how I communicate with you because I have been focusing solely on sharing market information with you, and I have gotten a lot of feedback about how I do more than that. I get positive feedback about the market information, so that is not going away. I just tell everyone that my goal is to build a long term relationship with every person I help, so I believe the best way to do that is to share more about myself. It might not be a fit for what you want in a realtor, but I give you the opportunity to make a more informed choice by giving you more information. I am continuing to split my communication into two parts: info on me and info on the market.

I believe that a great example of me being most interested in your long term happiness rather than my short term gain is to tell you about the conversation that I had last night. I spent a couple of hours yesterday putting together information for clients of mine that were thinking about selling their house. Then I sat down with the husband last night and ended up talking to him for an hour about why he shouldn’t sell his house. He let me know that they were considering whether to sell the house or turn it into a rental property. After asking some clarifying questions about what their goals were I started to point out the great position that they were in with turning this into a rental property. They have a property that they have a primary mortgage on (low interest rate), is in a good rental location, and is in good shape. He likes the rental properties that he already has and will want to buy more rental property.

For me it made a lot of sense to hold on to a good property that they already own with such favorable terms instead of selling it and going to look for other properties. I don’t know what they will decide, but I know that they are happy that I looked out for their best interest (investing for the future) instead of mine (getting commission from selling their house).

Now onto the market:

The first thing to look at is the market levels. As of this writing (October 10th, 2018) there are currently 3,899 active listings on the Des Moines Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and 2,062 pending listings (houses under contract) on the MLS. That is a huge swing from earlier this year where both were around 3,000 units each.

Now to better understand what that means to you is that you really need to know what is going on in your market segment. I have analyzed addresses where the number of sold listings has been steadily dropping since mid-Summer. I have analyzed addresses where there has been almost no change in sales levels. I have even had a few where the sales levels have been steadily increasing. Right now the market depends solely on what is going on in your area and how you are positioned in said market. Meaning that you need to know who your competition is, what your market is doing, and how to put your house out there to sell instead of for sale. There is a big difference in those two approaches.

I know what I am doing and my greatest motivator is to get you what you want. That means that I am going to tell you as much information as I can so that you can make the most informed decision possible. I love doing what I do. I love looking at the market, and I love building relationships with the people that I get to help. Let me know how I can help you. Call me today. You can reach me at 515.639.0047 or RyanLynch@KW.com. I am good at what I do, and I want to help you.

~Ryan Lynch