Have you heard of Leto Built Homes? If not, listen to our latest Radio Show! Be sure to listen to the Central Iowa Real Estate Scoreboard on 106.3 KXNO, Sunday mornings at 9am! Have a question for our team of experts? 515-346-6803 to leave a question.
Speaker 1:
It’s time for the Central Iowa Real Estate Scoreboard, right here on 1460 KXNO And now on 106.3 FM here is Misty SOLDwisch and Heather Burnside.
Heather Burnside:
Good morning and welcome to the first ever Central Iowa Real Estate Scoreboard. We have a lot to get to. Misty, it is so good to be here with you. We’ve already had a blast chatting off the air.
Misty SOLDwisch:
We have. So much to talk about.
Heather Burnside:
We do. First of all, maybe we should just let everybody know a little bit what’s behind the name of the show. Because as we were brainstorming, it’s obviously on a sports station, but yet there’s so many parallels between sports and life and even the real estate market, too. For instance, life could throw you a curve ball.
Misty SOLDwisch:
That’s right.
Heather Burnside:
You need to find a new job. You need to move because of that. I don’t know, you’ve looked around after being at home with your family for two months and thought, “My house isn’t big enough.”
Misty SOLDwisch:
We’ve heard that a lot lately.
Heather Burnside:
Right. So there’s a lot of parallels to be had. So that’s why we came up with the Central Iowa Real Estate Scoreboard. And we’re going to be doing this every Sunday morning at 9:30, answering your real estate questions. Misty is going to keep you up to date on what’s been going on in an ever changing, especially right now, real estate market.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Absolutely so many exciting and challenging things happening.
Heather Burnside:
Right. For instance, because I’m assuming that you’re always a woman that has a plan. You’re very well structured. You have a great marketing machine behind you. And then all of a sudden the coronavirus hits and everything that has made Misty SOLDwisch and her model for success successful, you need to adapt to what’s going on. So just talk a little bit about how everything has been unfolding since the pandemic started.
Misty SOLDwisch:
I feel so grateful that I am not a solo agent, that I have a whole team behind me. Because we are able to really shift course quickly when a change happens. So right away I looked at, okay, what’s happening in the areas that have been affected more quickly than Iowa, what are they doing? And what can we do to implement that? And how do we take the technology tools that we’re already using and just integrate it further into the process because people need to buy and people need to sell no matter what’s happening.
Heather Burnside:
Right. So I’m assuming that right away, one of the things that happened was open houses.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Right. So right away, I’m like, “Okay, we need to put the brakes on inviting random people into private homes. That maybe is not a good idea.” So we switched right away to virtual open houses. And we’ve been doing that for the past nine weeks now. It’s worked really well. We feature our different resale homes and agents on site at different properties. And we do a walkthrough and people have really appreciated that. We’ve had a couple homes sell from that virtual open house that we’ve put on. So it’s been a success.
Heather Burnside:
Did other real estate agents, is this kind of like a model that everybody generally went along with or have other agents been just going ahead and doing open houses or is it based on the comfort level of the buyer and the seller?
Misty SOLDwisch:
There were agents that did continue to do live open houses through everything. I didn’t feel like that was a great idea for our clients or our agents. We did begin doing live open houses on new construction a couple of weeks ago with putting precautionary measures out there. But because it’s vacant, no one’s lived there before. We felt like it was something that made sense.
Heather Burnside:
It was dipping your toe. You’re getting back into the water.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Just dipping our toes in. Yes, exactly. There have been some virtual open houses in our market. No one has done it as consistently as we have. I think it’s all credit, again, to my team though. I have the manpower to be able to go through all of that set up consistently. I love systems. It makes everything happen in real estate sales. And so we just created a system for it. And I am certain it’s something we’re going to continue after the pandemic.
Heather Burnside:
I think we talked a little bit off the air, you’ve been doing the never before occupied new home builds, you’ve been doing some walkthroughs. Are there going to be any resales that you’re going to open up to eventually?
Misty SOLDwisch:
What we decided was in a couple of weeks, we’ll start doing vacant resales for open houses, and then we’ll gauge based on what’s happening. But at the same time, people have been able to do private scheduled showings through everything. But we’ve had so many more people that have asked for our agents to do private virtual showings as well. We’ve been using the technology to get people in. I am excited because I think that people are so much more comfortable with that technology than they were before. And so I can see people putting that into their process in the future, just in general.
Heather Burnside:
Yeah, I could, too. And is it kind of working out where, you go to your website, which is soldincentraliowa.com. You see a home that you like. You start scrolling through pictures. You’re interested enough that you might take the virtual tour that’s already on the listing. And then the next step is maybe to contact the agent and they could even walk you through virtually themselves talking to you the whole time?
Misty SOLDwisch:
Exactly. Using Zoom or FaceTime or Google Hangouts, any of those different, whatever our client is comfortable with. Our agents know how to use all those different systems. They’ll do an in person so that someone can see what we’re not going to have in marketing photos. Like what does the linen closet look like? Things like that.
Heather Burnside:
Because I would assume, but again, I’m not currently in the market.
Misty SOLDwisch:
We better get you there.
Heather Burnside:
We’ll talk. But if I’m finally, even after taking a virtual tour, I’m thinking I’m really interested in this home, but I just really need to see it in person before I sign on the bottom line, is that kind of the progression, too?
Misty SOLDwisch:
Yes, yes. Then we schedule an in person. Well, and you know what? People are so busy, not as busy right now, but in general, being able to eliminate properties that aren’t a fit for you before you take the time to actually go inside, I think it’s just using your time wisely when you have a lot going on.
Heather Burnside:
That’s true. I didn’t even think of that. Because yeah, you’re right. If you’re going through multiple listings, you can just tour it virtually and then you’ve got it down to your, here’s my top three.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Exactly.
Heather Burnside:
I’m not going to go visit 20 homes.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Exactly.
Heather Burnside:
Now, what kind of patterns are you seeing as far as who is buying and selling in the last two and a half months since this whole thing started.
Misty SOLDwisch:
It is surprising that… I have people everyday like, “Oh gosh, this must be so tough for you.” And people are buying and selling because they have job changes, because they have marital status changes. You see a lot of that when people are in close quarters for several weeks together. You see people that need to move out of state for a specific reason and they go, “Gosh, I know the timing’s not perfect, but it’s right for me right now.” And buyers are in the same position.
Heather Burnside:
Have you seen anybody that’s been like, “I live in a hotspot and I would like not to live there anymore. And I’m going to move to,” name a County that has very few cases right now. Is there some sort of migration towards what is perceived to be safer areas during the pandemic at all?
Misty SOLDwisch:
There’s been a lot of national stories about that. Anecdotally, I guess, we do… we had an acreage hit the market a couple of weeks ago and a little further out from the metro than what we would normally work with, in Lucas County, but really beautiful on a big piece of land, like 40 acres. We had 12 people make an offer on it within five days on the market. Half of them were from out of state.
Heather Burnside:
Wow.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Only two of those out-of-state buyers actually saw it in person before they made the offer. A couple of them specifically said, “You know what, with everything going down, I want to live someplace where I can grow my own food.” We’re like, “No problem.”
Heather Burnside:
Have room to grow my own animals even.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Exactly.
Heather Burnside:
That’s interesting. Are you seeing any uptick in say a house that has a huge yard or say a swimming pool? Because everybody’s just tired of being cooped up. It’s obvious that maybe vacations and a lot of traveling is out of the picture for a while. So we need to have more things to do here at our home.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Yes. Well, I think one of the biggest things that we’ve heard is, “I need a home office.” Home offices were really big in floor plans in the ’90s and early 2000s and then they kind of fell out of favor because we-
Heather Burnside:
Open concept.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Open concept. We want a big grand entertaining area with your kitchen and your living room and all of that. That’s been really popular. And then all of a sudden now people are like-
Heather Burnside:
They want walls again, don’t they, Misty?
Misty SOLDwisch:
I need walls if I’m going to be on Zoom all day.
Heather Burnside:
How many people are saying, “You know what? I want a swimming pool because now we’re facing a summer where maybe I’m not even going to be super comfortable going to a public swimming pool or water park.” And I’m curious to know about your thoughts on swimming pools in general, because they seem to be pretty expensive to build, obviously, not cheap to maintain and the resell value there, too. Let’s all encompass that.
Misty SOLDwisch:
So you are exactly right. There have been tons of inquiries about, I’d really like a property with the pool or property that has space for a pool and all of that. It’s really important if you’re thinking you want to install a pool at your home to really think about, you’re not going to get that full value out of it, depending on the price point, particularly. If you have a home that’s 300,000 in approximate value. It can cost upwards of 80 to $100,000 to put in an in ground pool with all of that. You’re not going to get all of that out of it. My husband had been obsessed with having a swimming pool for years, and we ended up buying a resale seven years ago that had a pool, specifically, because I’m like, “We’re going to do this, right.”
Heather Burnside:
I’m not going to go through the construction of it.
Misty SOLDwisch:
I’m going to build it. But I wouldn’t mind having one. But it can be a deterrent for some people, too. There’s a lot of maintenance and here in Iowa, we can only use it four or five months out of the year. But if you’re spending a lot of time at home, it is nice. And my whole team has enjoyed the fact that I have a pool. We do poolside Fridays that our office staff and our agents come and sit with their laptops around the pool and we get work done there. So try to make it work for everyone.
Heather Burnside:
That’s nice. You can personally say that, yes, if you know what you’re getting into a pool is a very good investment.
Misty SOLDwisch:
It is great for life enjoyment.
Heather Burnside:
That’s what I mean. Yes. We’ve already heard that, yeah, you’re not going to get all your money out of it if you decide to make the investment and then at any point sell.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Exactly.
Heather Burnside:
But a lot of people might think that that loss is worth the enjoyment that they get out of it.
Misty SOLDwisch:
And that is exactly how you have to look at something like a swimming pool. This is for my family’s enjoyment. This isn’t because I’m looking for an investment.
Heather Burnside:
What are some other things, exterior wise, that would be a good investment to getting your home sold or what buyers are looking for?
Misty SOLDwisch:
Well, we have a lot of people that reach out to us that are like, “I do not want to put my house on the market right now. I want to wait until later this year.” Understandably. But what are the projects that-
Heather Burnside:
Right, because I have a lot of time on my hands right now.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Got time. It’s nice outside. What do I do? I think one thing that a lot of people, when we’re coaching them through the process of prepping the home for sale, a thing they forget about is just the little exterior things that really boost curb appeal. Most of us go through our garage to get into our home and so we overlook the front door, the front entry, and there’s so many things that you can do there to make it look better. Repainting the front door, making sure that your light fixtures are not corroded from our harsh Iowa winters.
Heather Burnside:
I’ve been amazed at watching and I’m obsessed with them now is the window washing and the power washing commercials. Mainly because our windows really need to be washed right now, but we’re three floors up and we can’t do it on our own. But I’m assuming that clean windows, even something as simple as that can make a difference and power washing your house and your driveway and even fences, anything that looks like it’s a little dingy.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Making everything look sparkling clean, that makes such a difference. And it equates to dollars in your pocket at the end, too. Even making sure that your mulch is fresh. There’s a lot of easy things that we can do that make a big difference that, do them now while you’ve got some time.
Heather Burnside:
Right. What about interest rates? If anybody’s tuning into this show and thinking, “Well, do I want to wait?” What kind of advice can you give them as far as the financial side right now. When they’re making a decision or thinking it over.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Interest rates are crazy low, historic lows right now. I do think that is part of why Iowa’s real estate market has just continued to tick along with strength through all of the craziness. I was talking to Tyler Osby at Fairway Independent Mortgage yesterday, because he was working on a preapproval for one of our clients. And he was like, “I locked in someone at 2.75% on a conventional mortgage for 30 years.
Heather Burnside:
How?
Misty SOLDwisch:
That’s where they were. There’s a lot of different factors that affect interest rates. You get quoted a different rate if you have a different credit score. But if someone has excellent credit and they’ve got some money to put down, that is unheard of. And it makes such a difference in your buying power versus even… When I started in real estate, 20 years ago, interest rates were around eight and a half percent. And when they went down to six, everyone’s like, “Oh my gosh, this is crazy. The buying power we have.” The last couple of years rates have been between three and a half and four and a half percent, still wonderful. But you have around 10 to 15% more buying power for every half point that it goes down.
Misty SOLDwisch:
And so if you’re not sure if the timing is right for you right now, when you’ve got rates like that, you can buy so much more home. So if you’re like, “During this pandemic, I know for sure that I need more space.” You’re going to get more space now than if the rates go up.
Heather Burnside:
Right. And I’m curious to know what right now the inventory looks like. What’s moving. What’s not. How much is out there. And that’s all going to be a part of our next segment. Right now we’re going to take a quick break. It is the Central Iowa Real Estate Scoreboard with Misty SOLDwisch and me, Heather Burnside, on 1460 KXNO. Now on 106.3 FM.
Barbara Corcoran:
Hi, I’m Barbara Corcoran. Are you thinking of selling your home but you’re not sure which agent to hire? You have a lot of choices, but really the choice is simple. Because there’s only one agent I would trust to sell my home. Go to soldincentraliowa.com and check out Misty SOLDwisch’s guarantee to sell your home or she will buy it. And there’s no risk working with Misty. She will let you out of your contract if you need to, for any reason. Go to soldincentraliowa.com and get your home sold.
Heather Burnside:
All right. We’re getting Misty with it right now. This is where Misty gets us up to date on what’s going on, right now, in the real estate market, the closings what’s available out there. And because I knew I was going to be doing this show with you, I’ve kind of tried to look around like, what if I was buying a home, what’s out there that would be in my price range, where I might want to live. And it seems like it, as you said, it doesn’t look like it’s slowed down. It’s not like you could go and just look at all these homes. It seems like there is still a lot of demand. And maybe, because of what’s going on, that the demand is again, outpacing your inventory. And it’s still very advantageous if you’re looking to sell right now.
Misty SOLDwisch:
It is. And we really guide you through, depending on what the price point is, what you are looking at for how you need to strategize on the market. But this last week in Des Moines, May 22nd through May 29th, we had 386 new properties that hit the market. We had 504 that went under contract. So more properties came off the market than came on, which is telling you exactly what you said. There is demand. And there were 341 properties that closed just last week in our MLS.
Heather Burnside:
Wow.
Misty SOLDwisch:
So a lot that’s happening.
Heather Burnside:
Wow. And because of what we’d already covered, it’s because of interest rates, it’s still a good time to buy. And because of everything that you just talked about, a very good time to sell as well. What is the average number of days that a house is on the market right now with everything that’s been going on?
Misty SOLDwisch:
So I was looking up some statistics of how Iowa compares and we are so lucky here in Iowa. For so many reasons, but we just don’t get the super crazy highs or the really low lows that other markets have. And I think that’s why real estate is such a great investment here. But I was looking at some national statistics and overall Iowa’s average days on market was 45 to 60 days. And that’s showing you that we have a strong market. And there’s certainly different areas that it’s nowhere close to that.
Heather Burnside:
That must be where those commercials that I see where the guy’s like, “My house has been on the market for eight months and I just couldn’t sell it. And then I had to call.” I was like, where do you live? Because I don’t hear that happening hardly ever here.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Well, sometimes they were not set up with the right expectations and strategy to begin with, though.
Heather Burnside:
that’s true, too. They probably weren’t with Misty.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Probably not. I was looking also at, okay, so how does this compare to last year? Because last year was a pretty good year in real estate in Des Moines. And I looked up how many homes sold between March 15th and the end of May last year? And we had, oh gosh, 3,262 closings during that time. This year, the same timeframe, 2,924. So the market was down about 10%. That’s significant. And a lot of that is people that were under contract before everything hit, closing during that time. It’s going to be really interesting to see how May to June compares this year versus last year. But it still shows that things are not as difficult as a lot of people might think if they haven’t been in the real estate market right now.
Heather Burnside:
Right. And I would think that, it is down 10%, but there was also that brief period where everybody had to adjust to the new way of doing things.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Exactly.
Heather Burnside:
And now we’re all probably on the same path of, well, this is how it’s going to be. If you’re not comfortable touring, you do the virtual tour until you narrow it down.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Well, and then at the beginning of that timeframe, people were afraid of getting laid off from their jobs. Am I going to still have a job? And now we got through all of that. And as everything starts opening up again, more and more, and also, to be honest, the sun shining, the days being longer, all of that, it gets people excited about what they want to do with real estate versus if it was January and it was dark by 5:00 PM. All of that just gets people optimistic.
Heather Burnside:
So there is a cycle, probably, for the real estate market as well. Does it slow down in the wintertime, especially when it gets really cold? And you’re talking to someone that both bought and sold a home in December.
Misty SOLDwisch:
No, I actually think December is a great time to buy and sell. That’s something we can talk about another time, but there is a seasonality to our market, not as dramatic as what people think. The changes I’ve seen since I’ve been in real estate, too, everything about how we operate now, we want things when we want them, right. We don’t go, “Oh, let’s plan for something nine months from now.” It’s just like, we hop on Amazon and we want the package in two days. If we decide that we want to make a change, we do it.
Misty SOLDwisch:
So it doesn’t matter what time of year it is, things are happening. More stuff happens when it’s easier for people to get around and not have to fight two feet of snow and all of that. But, we don’t have as much seasonality as what people think sometimes.
Heather Burnside:
So if somebody is listening to the show right now and thinking to themselves, “I would probably like to go ahead with this. I’m going to put my home on the market.” Why Misty SOLDwisch? And I would tell them one reason is your guarantee. And if you want to talk a little bit about how that works, guarantee, you’ll talk it over. You agree on a price and a deadline. And if you can’t meet that expectation, you’re going to find a buyer or buy it yourself.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Exactly. The sold or I’ll buy it program, I’ve been doing this for around seven years now. People like to not have the uncertainty when they go through all of that. It’s a lot of work to get your home ready for the market and to have people come inside and all of that. So what we do is we look at what your situation is. We look at the market data for your home and nothing is a secret. We tell you upfront, “Okay, here’s the different options. Here’s what we recommend for your list price. If you wanted to use the sold or I’ll buy it program, here is what the buyout price would be. Here’s what the date would be. Here’s what the pricing strategy would be.”
Misty SOLDwisch:
People appreciate that. They don’t want that uncertainty. It’s not the right fit for every client we work with, but we just had a closing on Friday that they were from out of state and they were like, “You know what? I don’t want to hold this property longer than I have to. My brother-in-law’s a realtor and one of our best friends, but they don’t offer this program. So we’re going with you.” And we took care of it for them.
Heather Burnside:
Wow. There’s an endorsement.
Misty SOLDwisch:
I felt a little bad about that, but it happens.
Heather Burnside:
They said, “Well, we’re not going to go with family.” That’s a great story, though. I guess, believe it or not this half hour has just flown by. We should probably get to the featured home of the week. And this is one that’s in Ankeny. I just looked it up. It looks gorgeous, Misty.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Oh my gosh. We have been so excited about working with Leto Built Homes. John Leto and his daughter, Allie, they are amazing at just putting special touches. And so 225 Northwest Reinhart Drive in Ankeny, it is a gorgeous two story that’s $399,000. People love to watch HGTV and shows like Fixer-Upper and love Chip and Joanna. It’s like you walked into one of their properties looking at this home.
Heather Burnside:
Is that shiplap?
Misty SOLDwisch:
Shiplap, shiplap galore.
Heather Burnside:
By the fireplace.
Misty SOLDwisch:
They love the shiplap accents. Things like transom windows over all of the doors on the main floor, floating shelves in the kitchen, doing really tasteful paint colors, just incredible details. And Oh my gosh, this is in such a convenient location in Northwest Ankeny. But it’s on an almost a half acre lot. So plenty of room for that in ground swimming pool we just discussed, plenty of room for the play system. Just an incredible lot, super high quality builder, really, really excited about what they have.
Heather Burnside:
Yeah, this is gorgeous. I’m really, I’m envious right now.
Misty SOLDwisch:
He actually has two homes that are side by side at 215 and 225 Northwest Reinhart. There’s also a ranch that is five bedrooms. The lower level is just incredible, having a huge family room space with a wet bar. You know what they did though? Under the stairs, usually in homes it’s an ugly closet that it’s really unuseful because it’s angled down under those stairs, he put this whole cubby system in and a little bench and it’s so adorable.
Heather Burnside:
I’ve seen that.
Misty SOLDwisch:
Everyone that walks in just goes crazy over it.
Heather Burnside:
And again, you can check out all of this at soldincentraliowa.com under the featured properties. It’s pretty easy to find. Misty, this half hour just flew by.
Misty SOLDwisch:
It did.
Heather Burnside:
See, we’re already over.
Misty SOLDwisch:
We made it.
Heather Burnside:
This is the music letting us know we’re almost done. And we’ll be back here next week at 9:30. It is the soldincentraliowa.com. It’s Central Iowa Real Estate Scoreboard with Misty SOLDwisch and Heather Burnside. We’ll be back again. And in the meantime, you can always tweet at me if you have any questions,
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