Carpenter Real Estate News

Enhancing value for Indianapolis home buyers and sellers, and our agents

May 10th, 2012

The sun is shining. The air is fresh. Seems as good a time as any to give a shout out to, and credit to our new buddies at VisualTour.

Earlier this year, we put together a very unique deal with VisualTour, the nation's leading virtual tour provider. Our plan was dual-focused: create more value for Carpenter Realtors^® within our agent community, and present a more complete, robust and comprehensive online presentation of our company's listings.

Turns out it was a one-step process with two very positive aspects.

First, we purchased VisualTour licenses for each one of our nearly 600 associates. Keywords: purchased and for. They get all the bells and whistles of a complete VisualTour virtual tour production package.

Access to VisualTour's software that enables them to produce custom virtual tours of their listings ... or anything they want ... as a virtual tour. That includes all the syndication options available through VisualTour to better expose their listings to potential buyers.

Next, we encouraged (OK, we prodded. OK, we insisted that) VisualTour automatically create a virtual tour for every Carpenter listing as well as a YouTube video for every listing. Automatically, within 48 hours of a listing being active, a new tour and video are created. Then they're both loaded to callcarpenter.com, to trulia.com, to homefinder.com and many other sites VisualTour has an agreement with. The video also goes to Carpenter's YouTube channel.

The value here is all over the place. Each of our agents is saving hundreds of dollars a year by not paying VisualTour or another company for a personal license. $0 for the same product. Plus they can even create custom self-promotional, neighborhood or event tours. What about our sellers? They get a more complete package of their home for sale. A package they can share with their friends and neighbors, creating more value in their home. For buyers - the information junkies - they get more ways to find and view all the Carpenter homes for sale. That more complete experience with Carpenter listings is a bonus for everyone: agents, sellers and buyers.

To date, we've gotten huge response from our sellers, a big bump on our web traffic and a nice increase in incoming leads for our agents.

Call me a whiner, but it's tough being the company with the most complete, extensive and aggressive home marketing programs, what with the other guys stealing your best programs. It's tough, but it's what we do. Go ahead followers - keep on being the second to create programs and the second-best at executing them. Be almost as good as Carpenter, with our innovative home marketing that gives buyers and sellers both, what they want when they want it. We've got more coming.

Posted by:  Jim Newell

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An Indianapolis Housing Market in Transition

April 30th, 2012

As we publish the newest edition of Carpenter Reports, a quarterly review of local market activity, we see that the local real estate market is in transition in the first quarter of 2012. We continue to see very positive signs in the data, as year-over-year listing inventory continues to decline at double digit rates, pending sales have increased in the double-digits, and the average sale price increased slightly.

For listing inventory, every County and every Township within Marion County showed a year-over-year decline. This is needed in order for the market to get back into balance...to get healthy again. Johnson County leads the market for the second straight quarter with a decline of 18.4%, followed by Putnam County with a decline of 18.2%. Marion County, as the largest county for inventory, saw a nearly 18% decline in inventory.

The national and local economy continues to slowly make improvements. That continued improvement reflects on the housing market.  The trending numbers during the first quarter of 2012 are positive and showing some momentum.

For example, pending sales during the first quarter were up over 13% year-over-year with Putnam, Montgomery and Madison Counties leading the way with over 30% improvement. Marion County experienced a solid 15.1% growth of pending sales.

The average residential sales price for closed sales in central Indiana showed slight improvement with a 1.2% increase year-over-year. Shelby County lead the recovery with a 13.9% increase. This is a strong turn-around as they experienced a 14.7% decline last quarter. Marion County, the largest of the reporting units experienced a healthy 2.2% increase.

The increases in average sales price for closed units is a strong indicator the market is transitioning from a depressed buyers market to a more healthy and balanced market. We continue to believe we will see a firming of prices and growth in the averages as the year progresses.

Consumer confidence continues to be one of the two critical elements in driving home sales; mortgage interest rates being the other. Mortgage rates continue at a near record low level; currently hovering at 4%. Consumer confidence, as measured by the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI), has continued to inch up over the past three months and has reached levels not seen since the spring of 2008. As consumer confidence continues to grow, the demand for housing will grow and average sales prices will move up with that increasing demand.

At Carpenter, our belief is we will see continued improvement in the local economy, in consumer confidence, and in housing going forward. In an election year, we do anticipate a few bumps in the road. The negative nature of the political discourse will undoubtably have a drag on the recovery. Time will tell how much it will impact home-buyers.

Posted by:  David Caveness

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First Time Home Seller? We’re here to help!

April 9th, 2012

Here’s a great article from Fox Business News that talks about tips and things to consider when selling a home for the first time.  A fun fact, an agent quoted in the article is with our Leading Real Estate Companies of the World partner, Long and Foster.  Just another example of how, as a member of LeadingRE, we have access to the best brokers and agents across the globe.

Many of these tips are well aligned with how Carpenter agents do business and are covered on our website.  The real estate market is complex, but it is a great time to sell a home with price improving and lower inventory on the market.  You can also learn more about our exclusive Home Market System or we would be happy to have one of our local agents walk you through the process.

Posted by:  Ryan Carrell

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HGTV's Househunters visits Indianapolis via Carpenter Realtors

March 29th, 2012

Who hasn't seen House Hunters or House Hunters International on HGTV? I'm not a regular but if I'm surfing and come across one, I'm stuck for the rest of the episode. After all, what kind of an Indiana guy like me can't learn a few things from a family buying a second home in Tahiti or a couple fretting over three million-dollar Central Park condos?

Occasionally House Hunters comes down to Earth. This Tuesday they're doing just that - coming to Indianapolis to help a relocating couple. That's interesting on its own, but when two Carpenter agents are involved, we get excited.

In this case, a couple (Carmen and Erik) have moved to Indianapolis from San Francisco. Don't laugh - it happens a lot. Why Indianapolis? They simply took a liking to us during a Summer visit, specifically noting our warm, inviting neighborhoods. The couple selected Alice Steppe from our Pike office to be their "guide" in selecting their new home. So - welcome to “House Hunters” Indianapolis!

For two weeks in November and December, Alice, Carmen and Erik looked at available homes for sale on the north side. Not just the three you'll see in the show, but nearly 60 homes ... narrowed to their top three choices. The L.A. production company followed them through those top homes and the process Carmen and Erik went through to select a home. Imagine the L.A. and San Francisco people when they saw the home values in Indianapolis!

But wait, that's not all! Coincidentally, one of the final three homes that appears on this show is listed by another agent in our Pike Office - Steven Kass! That's right - based on this scientific study - we have the buyers and we have the listings those buyers prefer.

Check your calendar or set your DVRs The episode airs this Tuesday, April 3 at 10:00 p.m. on HGTV and repeats again at 1:00 a.m.

Posted by:  Jim Newell

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Relocation Director Appointed to U.S. Advisory Council

March 22nd, 2012

We are pleased to announce that Ryan Carrell, CRP, our Director of Relocation and Client Services, has been appointed to a 1 year term as a member of the U.S. Advisory Council for the Worldwide Employee Relocation Council (WERC).  The U.S. Advisory Council is made of representatives from all facets of domestic corporate relocation including real estate, moving and storage, relocation management companies, human resources, and corporate mobility specialists.  This year’s chairman of the committee is Michael Washburn, SCRP, SGMS of Pfizer, Inc.

We are humbled to have a voice on this national committee and know that Ryan will represent Carpenter well in this capacity.  Ryan is also the immediate past chairman of the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World Advisory Committee and a recent recipient of their President’s Service Award.    You can reach him at , follow him on Twitter @rcarrell, connect on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/ryancarrell, or Facebook at www.facebook.com/ryanwcarrell.

Posted by:  David Caveness

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Using online enhancements to market a home for sale ... it works

March 21st, 2012

As with any real estate firm, we’re always looking for ways to increase the number of incoming leads we see. After all, marketing a home for sale is about generating buyer interest, ain't it?

Obviously, our web site is a primary place to generate leads and it does a great job of it. But no one can be so naïve as to think their website is the only place buyers will look for a home for sale. It’s tough enough that people still don’t realize they can find all the area homes for sale at callcarpenter.com. It’s just silly to imagine that we don’t want our listings to appear in every possible place a buyer may look. How do you sell a buyer on that concept?

That’s why I was so happy to have “sold” Carpenter on a new online enhancement to our Home Marketing System for 2012. We’ve been in talks with all the national sites for years – determining the value of having Carpenter listings be prominently featured on those sites. One group that stood out was trulia. For some three years, trulia has been a consistently decent producer of quality leads for Carpenter. Over that time I’ve been watching their growth and it finally really caught our attention. In the past year, they’ve more than doubled their visitor counts. And that’s not from a small number. By my count, they’re #2 nationally in traffic and I expect them to be #1 in the near future.

So what? Our existing homefinder.com enhancement program typically generates 15,000-20,000 online showings a month. And homefinder is a tenth the size of trulia.

In 2012 we’re enhancing every Carpenter listing on trulia.com. 20 million homebuyers a month exposed to our listings. More than realtor.com can give us at a fraction of the cost.

The great thing is that the exposure we’re getting on trulia, including our online showings, has quadrupled. The number of leads generated by trulia has more than tripled since we started. And we’ve always found that trulia leads are decent, serious buyers.

Agents are thrilled. Sellers are thrilled to have this kind of exposure for their home and the online showings they’re getting. I’m thrilled because everyone likes me right now.

Posted by:  Jim Newell

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Annual Sales Rally Motivates and Predicts a Real Estate Recovery

February 20th, 2012

Recently, Carpenter Realtors® held our annual Sales Rally, a great expo of real estate vendors and motivational speakers as well as a kickoff for 2012 and a thank you to our best producers of 2011.

This year's guests were Dr. David Mashburn and Darryl Davis.

Dr. Mashburn, Director of Research and Development for Tidemark Inc, shared his talk "The Elephant, the Rider and the Path." Darryl Davis, for many years one of the highest-rated speakers at the NAR® Convention and the only real estate speaker who is a Best-Selling Author, as well as a successful stand-up comedian, explained how we can find opportunity in today’s market and dramatically increase our production with his top four tips that generate listing leads immediately.

Our theme this year was "In the Red Zone," a nice tie-in to Indy hosting the Super Bowl as well as the coming recovery in the real estate market. In doing so, we (marketing and IT departments) announced several exciting new programs for 2012 that will not only give Carpenter agents another advantage in successfully listing and selling homes, but has many ways to save our agents money(!), time and effort. Want a free virtual tour program from the nation's leader? How about listing enhancements on the nation's (soon-to-be) #1 real estate search site? What about unlimited email capabilities and document storage at no charge? Crazy - enhancements that cost less. Whodathunkit? More later.

We also had a chance to thank our top producers for 2011, including sales and listing leaders from all 30 offices as well as the most productive agents across the company.

Take a peek at the slideshow of photos from this year's rally. Then, take a gander at, and thank the industry-leading vendors who helped make this event the huge success it was!

Posted by:  Jim Newell

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Improvements in Indiana Real Estate are Evident

February 13th, 2012

The local real estate market is healing. We've just released the new edition of Carpenter Reports, and we see some very positive signs in the Indianapolis and central Indiana housing market. Listing Inventory continues to decline. This decline is needed for the market to get back into balance ... to get healthy again. Inventories of single family homes for sale are down in the fourth quarter by 29.9%. Johnson County leads the market with a decline of 36%, followed by Shelby County with a 33% decline. Marion County, as the largest county for inventory saw a nearly 30% decline.

The national and local economy continues to make improvements. That continued improvement reflects on the housing market. The trending numbers during the fourth quarter of 2011 are positive. Pending sales during the fourth quarter were up nearly 14% year-over-year with Shelby County leading the way with a 51% year-over-year improvement followed by Hancock County with a 28.3% improvement in the fourth quarter. Marion County experienced a solid 14.1 growth of pending sales.

The average residential sales price for closed sales in central Indiana remained relatively flat to down slightly. The average for the 11 county area was down by 3.6% from the same period last year. Again, Shelby County led the list with a 14.7% decline. Hamilton, Johnson and Madison Counties saw an increase in their sales prices year-over-year in the fourth quarter. We believe we will begin to see a firming of prices and growth in the averages as the year progresses.

As we have discussed before, consumer confidence is one of the two critical elements in driving home sales; mortgage interest rates being the other. Mortgage rates are now at a record low level; currently below 4%. Consumer confidence, as measured by the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI), rose sharply in both November and December from historically low levels. The January index drifted down only slightly, but held the gains from the previous months. As consumer confidence grows, the demand for housing will grow with it.

At Carpenter, we continue to believe we will see gradual improvement in the local economy, in consumer confidence, and in housing going forward. Bumps in the road are to be expected, especially in an election year, but we believe the improvement will be relatively steady going forward.

Posted by:  David Caveness

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Doreen Leads Naptown Knitters

February 3rd, 2012

Doreen Tatnall, an agent in Carpenter Realtors’^® Eastside Office should be an inspiration to everyone in Indianapolis.  In October of 2010 she got an idea while attending a meeting of the Woodruff Place Civic League.  There, the Superintendent of the Indiana Re-Entry Facility (IREF) of the Indiana Department of Corrections (Prisons) was pleading for volunteer help from the community.  Her idea was to go into the IREF and teach the male prisoners how to knit.  Her specific goal was to teach them how to knit scarves for the Super Bowl Scarf project. She went to work on her idea.

Since then, Doreen has met with the inmates twice a week, taught them to knit, personally provided the blue and white yarn and needles, and led the group to complete 20 scarves for the Super Bowl volunteers.  Every time I see one of those scarves on television or spread across downtown this week, I wonder if that scarf is one from the Naptown Knitters and does that volunteer know where it can from.  At almost 5’ 3”, she is an inspiration to me and to those men at IREF as they prepare to re-enter society by giving back to the community outside those walls.

P.S.  Doreen and the Naptown Knitters are starting another knitting project...they are knitting stocking hats and scarves for breast cancer survivors and the Susan B. Komen Foundation. WOW!  You can click here to reach Doreen about opportunities to help.

Posted by:  David Caveness

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Central Indiana Soon to be a Seller’s Market?

November 22nd, 2011

If you read the headlines or watch the evening news, some days you may think the world is coming to an end.  However, if you delve into the statistics you find some information that just might surprise you.  For calendar year 2006 Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors (MIBOR), which covers nearly all of central Indiana, reported 65,110 transactions completed, the highest number on record  (Note: one sale = two transactions).  Last year there were 46,460 transactions – down nearly 29% from the peak.  The first part of last year the market was artificially stimulated with the federal tax credit for home buyers.  In second half of last year without that stimulus the market ran at a pace of 42,500 transactions.  That may sound like bad news, but 2011 is on pace to be up 10% from that level and conditions continue to improve.  Was the second half of last year a bottom for the market?

Now for the interesting part…as of November 1^st there were just over 15,250 residential listings for sale in the MIBOR system.  That’s down 28% from the same time in 2007 and 4% below the same time in 2004!  A healthy correction of supply and demand is nearly complete.  With the number of homes available for sale on the market shrinking and the tide of sales activity rising by 10%, you may be seeing a swing from a buyers’ to a sellers’ market.   Just don’t hold your breath to see it in the headlines yet…

Wondering what things are like in your specific neighborhood?  Contact a Carpenter agent and they can provide you with statistics and insight into the value of your home.

Posted by:  Ryan Carrell

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It IS a good time to buy a home for sale - home prices are down!

July 25th, 2011

Is now the best time for you to buy a home? For many, it is. For some, it is not. But the majority of families do have the confidence in their personal situation to pursue the “American Dream” of home ownership.

Carpenter Realtors® report, The 6 Reasons Today May be the Best Time in 40 years to Buy a Home outlines why today is a great time to buy a home. We have already addressed three of those reasons. Today, I want to focus on the fact that Home Prices are Down.

Many of us are seeing local and national articles and news shows telling us home prices are up. If home prices are down, how can they be up? It is important to understand they are touting that the average prices of homes that have sold are up... not that the individual prices of specific homes are actually up. What I’m trying to say is that it’s likely the value (reflected in the price someone is willing to pay) of a specific home is flat or down a few percentage points from the value of that same home in 2006. Nationally, that could be as much as 30% from the peak.

Generally, the news reports you hear and read are simply saying the average prices of homes that are selling now are higher than the average prices of homes sold last year or in years past. Those numbers are distorted due to the mix of homes being sold.

With the actual values of homes generally being down from 2006 or 2007, it means a homebuyer can acquire more house for the dollar today. As the economy continues to recover over the coming months and years, home values are expected to rise. We believe the values of specific homes are at or near the bottom and will begin to increase as well.

If your personal situation allows you to move forward with confidence and buy a home, you don’t want to be looking back at this moment in time 6, 12 or 18 months from now wishing you had taken advantage of the opportunity. Today is the best time in 40 years to buy a home, if you’re ready.

Posted by:  David Caveness

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Improving real estate conditions

June 21st, 2011

The Indianapolis Star ran a front page story this morning with the headline “An unwelcome surprise: May home sales slip 15%.” I was perplexed by this headline because the Carpenter management team has been discussing and analyzing market statistics as we always do.  Because of this, I knew that May 2011 was a much stronger month than the previous May.  So what’s the old saying…the devil’s in the details.  Well, the first several paragraphs of the article are apparently comparing CLOSED sales.  In that case, it is not surprising at all that May 2010, the month following the end of the tax incentive, is higher than May 2011.  It is not until you turn back to page six and nearly the last paragraph of the article that you get a better picture of how the month performed.  “The number of pending sales in May was up a robust 37.7 percent in the metro area and 32.6 percent statewide compared with the same month last year.”  Down 15% vs. up 37.7%.  Wow, what a different picture…sure closings are down because most transactions take 30-45 days from contract to close and April 2010 just before the tax expiration was one of the highest contract months in years.  However, pendings, buyers and sellers coming to together and entering into contracts, are up 37.7%.  Karl Berron, chief executive of the state Realtors group, is quoted thereafter, “Realtors from around the state are reporting high interest and activity.  We are past the worst and looking to grow.”

The bottom line – headlines are fine, details are better.  Real estate transactions are being done and a recovery is in process.  It still remains the best time in decades to purchase a home.  Don’t take my word for it…search nearly all central Indiana listings on our website and see for yourself.

Posted by:  Ryan Carrell

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