I was privileged to be interviewed yesterday by Becca Habegger from KWWL to comment on the state of the real estate market in Dubuque and for Iowa overall (see yesterday’s post for my 2011 round-up of sales figures for Dubuque’s real estate market) .  There’s nice two-minute video that aired several times on the KWWL’s news shows since then and I thought I’d post it here for keeping it archived. 

Compliments also to Mel Graves of Brissey Realty for his included participation in Becca’s report.  Mel’s one of the really good guys in the business, in fact when I started in real estate waaaaayyy back in 2004, Mel was an office mate of mine.  To the video…

There’s a more elaborate article posted on KWWL’s website (click here) that digs further than the two-minute video can.  Some highlights…

• DUBUQUE (KWWL) – The Iowa Association of Realtors is reporting a glimmer of positive news in its annual 2011 Housing Trends Report, out this month.  It says home sales were up statewide in December, for the fifth consecutive month, and steady throughout 2011.
• Rob Cook is a realtor for Ruhl and Ruhl in Dubuque, a real estate blogger and self-proclaimed “numbers guy.”  He pulled statistics from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), showing Dubuque is number two in the nation when it comes to high rates of house appreciation. Those numbers show the average home in Dubuque appreciated 2.46 percent in one year, through Sept. 2011, and 8.06 percent over the course of five years. Bismark, N.D., by the way, took top marks, with a 15.99 percent five-year average appreciation.
• Mel Graves is a realtor with Brissey in Dubuque and secretary and treasurer of the Dubuque Board of Realtors.  He pointed out 2011 was the first year without any tax credit incentives for home buyers, “so this is a pure year, this is just market-driven,” he said.  Graves said he has noticed a slight increase in consumer confidence.
• Regardless of state or national housing market numbers, however, Cook suggests buyers and sellers look at their own particular market.  “They need to be fully aware of what’s going on in their market and not pay attention so much to the national news, you know, as far as, you know, both real estate thing and the economy overall,” Cook said. “It’s a factor, but, you know, it’s kind of like what they say with the realtor ads, you know, ‘All real estate is local.’”

I said completely too many “you know’s” in that last quote…must…not…you know…..

Now that we can put the wraps on the 2011 Dubuque real estate market, it’s time to see just how well we’ve done.  While national headlines torment us with tales of real estate woe and unemployment, I’m here to let you know that Dubuque is not doing all too bad.

Just like with NFL quarterbacks, they say consistency is the key to victory – consistently GOOD performances win the game.  In Dubuque, we’re now three years into a good, yes consistent, real estate market.  With Dubuque unemployment hovering around the 5.0% mark, most folks in town have a fair to good job and can own a home…

In an uncanny coincidence, sales of homes in the Dubuque area have pretty much matched the performance of the previous two years, selling 787 total homes in 2011 vs. selling 785 in 2010 and again 787 in 2009.  We’re talking here about the total number of residential home sales in the three Dubuque zip codes of 52001, 52002, & 52003.  To the first chart…

And…the average sales prices of those three years have been pretty steady as well.  The average Dubuque home sales price in 2011 was $158,055, following averages of $155,255 and $154,869 in 2010 & 2009, respectively.  As a side note – average sales price does not directly reflect overall average home values – that is a post for another day (maybe tomorrow!).  Here are a few graphs I cooked up (pun intended!)…

And finally, let’s take at a quick look at a break down of how individual price ranges have performed over the last few years…

I wouldn’t say there’s anything really profound in the break down of sales per price range over the last few years.  It’s simply interesting to see how the various price ranges performed year after year…

From US News and Kimberly Castro …You might think you’re the Tim Tebow of home buying, but still you should know Kim’s 10 Rookie Home Buyer Mistakes to Avoid.

I can’t say I disagree with any of the 10 tips, though, I especially favor tips  #6 & #7 (of course I would!)…and can’t emphasize enough the importance of #8 (hiring an inspector).

From New York by The Real Deal Online, a complicatated and cautionary tale for agents and consumers about the issue of dual agency.

Yep, I’ve been involved in a number of “dual agency” transactions – it’s a very fine line to walk and all parties have to know who represents who and in what way.  The limits that dual agency places on an agent’s ability to serve an individual client need to be clear.  It can be done, but pitfalls are certain if the agent doesn’t carefully walk that fine line…

This video short came out a couple weeks ago, but I thought it would be nice to post this from’s BBC News Magazine’s series called “Altered States.  It features a few folks around town and all the great activity and revitilization that has been going on in Dubuque since the doldrums of the 1980′s. 

Click the image to open the BBC site and watch…

I know a lot of folk’s attention is turning toward Christmas and the upcoming winter months, but believe it or not, there’s still quite a lot of activity going on in the Dubuque real estate market.  We’re seeing a slight drop in inventory from our summertime peaks, but overall the numbers are very consistent in Dubuque.  While holding between 525 to 550 listings per month in the MLS (multiple listing service) over the last six months, we’ve now fallen back to the 486 we have in Dubuque’s market today. 

In terms of supply of home, our fairly good sales figures, when combined with the lower inventory numbers, have shrunk the available supply of homes in the market to a 6.5 month supply of homes.  Dubuque hovered at or near the 7.0 month figure for the last six months, but now we are edging toward a more balanced (6.0 month) market.  This is great news for sellers as there now seems to not be quite so much competition for buyers.

One thing to note in the chart below is that average sales prices have increased each and every year over the last five years.  The economy has its ups and downs, but these latest averages show that Dubuque continues its steady climb in home prices.  Nothing drastic here, but certainly not FALLING prices, as has been experienced by, oh, roughly 95% of the United States.  Surely, Dubuque’s low unemployment rate of 4.8% is helping – nearly half of the national rate of unemployment…

The charts below show us where Dubuque has been on both a month-to-month basis as well as the year to date (through November 14th) sales totals.  We had a pretty good October, selling 69 homes, which is still above our average number of sales per month over the last year.  I noticed also that the year to date sales through today are only 25 shy of where we were last year, 697 vs. 722. 

Given how slow the market was at the end of 2010, I faithfully predict that we’ll pull even and perhaps surpass 2010′s overall total number of sales.  As shown on the first chart, we have 71 pending sales in the Dubuque area.  If most of these contracts do follow though and close (not all sales contracts do!), I’m pretty confident we’ll get the job done.

Does buying a home in the Dubuque area pose a risk to buyers?  Absolutely!  Buying a home in any market throughout history always involved some level of risk.  That’s why buying a home is serious business – while it can be an exciting, and quite often fun, process, it still needs careful thought and consideration.

The question here is “How Much Risk?” is there in the Dubuque real estate market.  Let’s turn to an outfit that regularly assesses the risks in real estate markets all over the United States.  I’m talking about the good folks at PMI Mortgage Insurance Company.  PMI provides private mortgage insurance, hence the PMI in their name.  They are not the only provider of mortgage insurance, there are many other providers.  According to BankRate.com…

Ready or Not, Here I Come!!!

Although Dubuque, for the most part, has experienced a fairly mild fall, it’s clear that as the days get shorter, we are headed for colder temps along the Mississippi River.  The average low temperature in Dubuque in November is 30 degrees.  December’s average low dips to 17, followed by 11 in January, 15 in February, and 26 in March.  We likely won’t see average low temperatures above freezing again until April when historically Dubuque finally escapes Old Man Winter’s frozen grip.

With those cold hard facts in mind, I thought this two-minute Wall Street Journal Lunch Break video starring Kelly Grant from SmartMoney.com would give some common (and perhaps, not so common) tips in lowering your heating bill…

 Also read the accompanying article on SmartMoney.com about saving on your heating bills, read the article here. 

A link mentioned in the video about rebates and tax incentives available is EnergySavers.gov by the US Department of Energy.  Or how about installing a high-efficiency wood stove as mentioned in the video? Go here to learn about them.

So, you’ve decided to sell and you’ve given some thought to going for sale by owner (or FSBO, pronounced fizzbo, for short).  You’ve built some equity into you home and you’re willing to ninja-fight to the last man standing to protect each and every last dollar you can squeeze out of the current real estate market.  That’s fine, I honestly can’t fault you for considering it – this is America after all!

 One caution I’ll advise to you is that current trends are not going to be  in your favor.  Back in the so-called Boom Years of Real Estate, namely 2003 to 2006, as many as 14 percent of home sales were FSBO’d, of which 9-10 percent were to unknown buyers (a.k.a arms-length transactions) and the remaining rough five percent were to friends, family, and/or neighbors.

Fast-forward to 2010 and we now find that only 9% of homes sales are of the FSBO variety – 5 percent still being sold to friends, family, and/or neighbors, while roughly 5% were arms length transactions – a 50% reduction, in percentage terms, compared to arms length sales back in the day.  Some interesting bullet point facts about FSBO sales as presented by Meredith Dunn of NAR Research…

• According to data from the latest Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, For-Sale-By-Owner (FSBO) sellers decreased in 2010, continuing a trend in declines downward. Fourteen percent of sales were FSBOs in 2003 and 2004, compared to just nine percent in 2010. In this tough market, a larger proportion of sellers are turning to agents to help them sell their homes.
• FSBOs are more popular in rural areas and center cities. Typically FSBO sellers have lower median incomes and are more often singles. FSBOs are also more common for mobile home sales.
• FSBO sellers most often struggle with pricing and preparing homes for sale. Of those who used FSBOs to sell to someone they knew, a greater share would use a real estate agent when selling their current home.

When sales were easier to come by, I can see why going FSBO would be appealing, but the numbers show that, with a changed market after the bust in sales that started in 2006, the do-it-all-by-myself approach seems to be less and less effective. 

We could have a month-long series about the wisdom of FSBO sales - the ins and the outs, the advantages and disadvantages - but I’ll simply let the above chart speak for itself….

With a fresh price reduction to $158,900, and an upcoming open house (this Sunday, Sept. 11 from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM), I thought it would be a good time to post the pro pics set that we took for the home at 107 2nd St. NW in Epworth.  It’s a great three bedroom, three bath, one-car garage home built in 1998. 

At first glance from the exterior you might not think that it has over 2,000 square feet of living space, but it does at approximately 2,148 sq. ft.  Super-friendly living areas and a very nice amount of storage available make this one of the better price to value propositions in the market right now. 

Use the various tools in the window below to see everything we have including panoramic photos, virtual tour, and additional information about the home…

If you’ve got a chance, stop by this Sunday and see this great home from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM…