By Lawrance Morrissey
Seems like real estate has been in the news daily lately. A few weeks ago, we at the For Sale By Owner store, got a nice surprise when we opened the Indianapolis Star, and there on the front page of
| the business section, was a photo of a home with our sign in the front yard.
It went along with an article by Jeff Swiatek titled "Plunge doesn't dampen optimism - Dip follows record 2006; brokers see rebound." In the article FC Tucker using data from the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors, reported that homes sold in Central Indiana during the first three months of the year fell 8.9% compared to last year.
While we love the publicity with the photo of our sign, we sure wish Mr Swiatek would have called us to ask about private market home sales, which accounts for 14%-20% of all home sales. We would have reported a much different outlook than FC Tucker or MIBOR. For
the last six months in a row, we've been posting record numbers in home listings and homes sold for their respective months.
Inquiries are up and sign sales for home sellers are also up. The one statistic that is down: Realtors coming into our retail store to bu y signs and flyer boxes, which not coincidentally, matches up with the locally reported statistics.
Since the by owner market is a significant chunk of the real estate market, we felt it was important to offer another perspective from a company and home owners who are doing things outside the traditional statistics box.
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