This spring’s Parade of Home is being held about two weeks earlier than normal to help builders lure homebuyers who want to
take advantage of federal incentives intended to give the residential real estate market a boost. Builders also are taking
chances on more spec homes.
Luxury home sales in central Indiana surged in February despite an overall decline in home sales, Re/Max of Indiana reported
Monday morning.
Specialized bar codes will be on Carpenter materials ranging from print advertisements to yard signs.
The housing market could be awakening from its deep sleep, if February home-sale agreement figures are any indication.
Home sales statewide rose 4.1 percent in December compared with the same month in 2008, although Marion and Hamilton counties
reported sizable slides.
Central Indiana’s housing market is on track to notch gains in the number of homes sold and the average sales price in 2010.
Home builder hopes to sell as many as 200 houses in region this year. Fischer, which entered the Columbus, Ohio,
market in 2008 after buying subdivisions from retreating builders, is using the same strategy to establish a foothold in Carmel,
Westfield, Zionsville and Avon.
It was the first decline following nine straight months of gains and the lowest reading since June.
The recovery continues to be uneven, with only 11 of the 20 metro areas tracked by the index showing gains.
Short sales and foreclosures in this 2,200-unit development began cropping up several years ago and continue today.
The Commerce Department said Wednesday morning that construction of new homes and apartments rose 8.9 percent in November.
Home-sale agreements in the nine-county Indianapolis area rose 3.3 percent in November, marking the third consecutive month they’ve showed a year-over-year increase.
The National Association of Realtors said Monday that home resales rose 10.1 percent in October, spurred by a tax credit that
buyers
expected to expire at the end of the month.
Multifamily housing may not benefit anytime soon from falling rates of homeownership.
A federal tax credit that benefits first-time homebuyers is helping to bring home sales in the nine-county Indianapolis area
out of their funk.
President Barack Obama is set to sign a $24-billion economic stimulus bill providing tax incentives to prospective homebuyers
and extending unemployment benefits to the longtime jobless who have been left behind as the economy veers toward recovery.
Applications for home-building permits, a gauge of future construction, fell in September by the largest amount in five months.
The incentive has not generated a hoped-for boost in sales of homes at higher price-points. About 30 percent of the sales
eligible for the tax credit are foreclosures, meaning the seller likely won’t buy another home.
Home-sale agreements in the nine-county Indianapolis area ticked up in September, due in large part to first-time homebuyers
enticed by large tax breaks.
The grueling years of the housing downturn in the Indianapolis area appear to be over, a real estate veteran says, but a full
recovery is one to two years away.
