Holtz Realty

If someone would’ve asked me as I was leaving the office to recall my day from beginning to end, I would’ve had to stop and think because of all the intervening circumstances that took place.  Every so often, days like this appear out of nowhere, and especially when I already had it fully planned the day before.  Oh well, it came and went without any great dramas unfolding which was a good thing.

A handful of calls I received today were on listings in our entry level range, and unfortunately I had to tell them they were sold.  If only I had about twenty listings priced in the $70K – $90K range with garages and in popular neighborhoods, I can almost guarantee they’d all be sold in less than a week.

This year I’ve been all the more shocked at seeing what those “tweaked” homes have been selling for, and of course the buyers of them usually being young semi-professionals.  There was one which recently closed that sold for way more than I thought it would, and I do hope those buyers plan on living there for a very long time, or our values start spiking, because I don’t think they’ll ever get even close to what they paid for it should they decide to sell it in the next year or two.

I’ve got a home coming on the market that’s way better than that one and it’ll be listing about $15K less, and don’t think the seller is under-pricing it because I did plenty of research.  This reminds me of a happening that took place about 9 months ago when I was doing some research on sales.  Just before I was to meet with the sellers, I noticed a sale that was similar, but having sold for about $30K more than the rest of them.  Unfortunately I had to share that information with the sellers, and as I’d expected, they decided to list it in a higher price range.

We did have a low offer on it, but I thought for sure the buyers would go up if the sellers would go down into the range of those original comparable sales.  Well, that didn’t happen so several months later the sellers decided to take their home off the market over the holidays.  They re-listed it with another agency and I just happened to hear thru the grapevine that it now has an offer on it.  I can’t wait to see what it sold for, and if it went higher than I expected, then the buyers must be from out of our area.  They usually seem to be the ones who’ll un-knowingly pay more for a home because they’re not that savvy regarding home prices.

It looks like I’ve got all my ducks in a row for next weeks closing on one of my listings.  The last thing I had to do for the seller was to go over the closing numbers and get an OK to close.  As nearly always, there are those questions regarding our real estate taxes.

Since Iowa’s real estate taxation process is on a fiscal basis that begins July 01st of the previous year, and ends June 30th of the current year, nearly all sellers get confused by what is due and payable and what’s owed but not yet due because the amount of time that’s lapsed between taxation periods and “delinquent by” dates.  For example, the 2nd half real estate taxes that are due prior to April 01st of this year, actually covers the time frame of January 01st of 2018 thru June 30th of 2018. That’s last year! That payment is considered the 2nd 1/2 of the Fiscal 2017/2018 tax year.  Now do you see how confusing that can be for the average seller?

One of our City’s general workers  and I happened to get into quite a discussion about how L A Z Y some in the younger crowd are getting when it comes to putting in a full day’s work.  He just couldn’t understand why so many are that way.  Of course I had to give my reason, and that being all the many parents having spoiled their children while they were growing up and didn’t bother instilling much of a work ethic in them.  I had to laugh when saying, “Back in my day, if the children of my parents did something wrong, they were guilty until proven innocent.  And don’t even think we ever had the opportunity to see what if felt like to be lazy.”

Times have certainly changed, and I do hope our young parents look not at what they’re teaching their children, but what they’re dismissing as old-fashioned or unimportant in today’s world.

Tonight’s one-liner is:  I do indeed close my door at times and surrender myself to a book, but only because I can open the door again and see a human face looking at me.