Kansas City Real Estate Trends And Lifestyles, June 2014

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

Want some tips on how to win a bidding war when negotiating your home purchase? Want to know where today’s real estate market stands compared to the pre-recession peak? Check out this month’s real estate update which includes a rise in pending homes sales across the U.S, details on how today’s mortgage interest rates are doing and more!

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Posted by Jason Brown

Seller’s Real Estate Market Remains Strong In Kansas With A 17.8% Jump In Home Sales

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market


The most recent real estate market stats released by the Kansas Association of Realtors (covering the month of July) show a continued strengthening of the Kansas housing market. Home sales volume increased in July, while home sale prices continued to rise. Home sales were up an astounding 17.8% compared to the prior July and this follows up on last month’s 5.5% jump.

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The stats released the prior month showed Kansas was already in a seller’s market (at 4.3 months of inventory) and this month’s stats show 4.1 months of inventory on the market state-wide. The average home sales price rose 9.3% compared to July of last year and this follows up a 4.9% increase at last month’s check.

In Johnson County Kansas, a seller’s real estate market remains continues with 747 homes sold (closed) during the past month. Factored against the current volume of homes for sale in Johnson County Kansas, there’s 3.2 months of inventory on the market, which indicates a strong seller’s market.


Posted by Jason Brown

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What Is Your Kansas City Real Estate Agent Doing That Sets Them Apart From Other Agents?

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

There’s a common misperception that all agents are the same and that really couldn’t be more from the truth. When I look around my office I’m amazed sometimes by how DIFFERENT all of us are. I’m different in many ways from some agents and occasionally completely different than some agents. But it’s good that we’re not all the same because not all home buyers are sellers are the same.

Different buyers and sellers have different needs and personalities and it’s important that both find a “good fit” because this isn’t a relationship that ends 5 minutes later. My real estate group is constantly working to make the process easier on our clients and we provide detailed services and exceptional communication throughout the process. It’s my goal to never have a seller ask “what are you doing to market my home?” or have a buyer ask “why haven’t we heard from you the past few weeks?” Instead, we want our clients thinking “my last real estate agent didn’t do that for me!”. One of the ways we leave clients with that feeling is through our use of electronic signatures.

Electronic signatures make the signing of real estate documents take minutes rather than hours. For home buyers it can mean the difference in getting the home they want or losing it to another buyer. Once a buyer decides to make an offer, it’s often a race to get the offer together and into the listing agents hands quickly to avoid losing the home to another buyer. Nearly 50% of agents are now using electronic signatures and those who do are getting contracts processed 80% faster than the old email-print-sign-scan-email back process. So consider the services you will receive during the process, because half of agents are clearly behind the times.   


Posted by Jason Brown

If You Think The Kansas City Real Estate Market Is Bad…

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

The Kansas City metro area saw a much more gradual uptick in home prices during the boom than many metro areas. This has led to a softer fall for us than what we’re seeing in many metro areas across the U.S. I receive more real estate updates to my Google Reader than any one person can keep up with, but I read many of them and at least gloss over virtually all of the headlines. I’m seeing communities like Minneapolis, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Chicago, Charlotte and Tampa mentioned often as real estate markets that are really struggling to stabilize.

I see that in Minneapolis home prices fell nearly 4% in March alone! That’s an unbelievable drop for a one month period. There has been some good news this year with many hard hit metro areas such as Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, San Diego and Washington DC seeing some stabilization with home prices. The Minneapolis market is very interesting because it had done a decent job of avoiding the hard-hitting downturn experienced by some other major markets. But that is all changing now. Two other cities I have started hearing about serious concerns with their real estate markets are Dallas and Denver. Let’s hope those two – and all our major metro real estate markets – avoid what’s going on with the Minneapolis market.


Posted by Jason Brown

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Keller Williams Realty Office In Overland Park Leading The Pack In Closed Johnson County KS Listings

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

Through the first five months of 2011, my Keller Williams Overland Park office has sold more listings than any other real estate office in the entire Johnson County Kansas area. This considers all offices reporting to the Kansas City MLS, including all individual offices with Reece and Nichols, Re/Max, Prudential, Realty Executives, Century 21, ERA, Weichert, etc.

Keller Williams Realty Partners in Overland Park topped all offices with 179 closing listings 1/1/2011 through 5/31/11. The other top 4 offices in closed listings were Realty Executives (168), Reece and Nichols Overland Park (163) and Prudential Kansas City Realty (149). If you’re considering selling your Johnson County Kansas home, please contact me to discuss your home selling situation and how I can help you net the most in your home sale… and get it done in an ultra-organized fashion.


Posted by Jason Brown

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More Of The Same For Kansas City Home Sellers As We Head Into Winter

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

The most recent stats as reported by the Kansas Association of Realtors (KAR) covers October’s real estate market across the state of Kansas.  And it was more of the same as home sales fell more than 35% in October 2010 when compared to October 2009. The actual numbers were a gross drop from 2,949 sales October last year to 1,896 sales this October. In a rare occurence, the Kansas real estate market fared worse than the national real estate market, which saw about a 26% decrease.

The months of inventory on the market has crept up to 11.2 months of inventory. Months of inventory in this case is calculated using the number of October home sales and dividing that into the 21,199 homes that were on the market at the time this report was produced. Average sales prices in October dropped 2.4% in Kansas.

Looking at our local Johnson County Kansas real estate market, we had 421 homes sold in October. This was down significantly from the 829 homes sold in October 2009. Using this October’s sale’s rate and comparing it to the 3,725 homes for sale in Johnson County, there’s 8.9 months of inventory on the market. This clearly indicates a continuation of the buyer’s market in Johnson County Kansas and surrounding areas.


Posted by Jason A. Brown

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New FHA Requirements Increase Minimum Down Payments For Many Kansas City Home Buyers

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

For the past several years it’s become more difficult for home buyers to secure financing. There’s been an obvious over-correction in the market as lenders went from giving your dog a loan for his dog house to not giving a self-employed borrower with 50% down and an 800 credit score a loan. But things have opened up enough now that solid buyers can secure loans and purchase a great home. But just when we need some more good news, FHA comes out this month with requirements making it more difficult for borrowers to secure an FHA loan.

If you’re credit score is anywhere below 500 you can not get an FHA loan any longer. Period. Though when I asked a few lenders just how many borrowers this would affect, they all said very few… because they weren’t giving loans to sub 500 credit score buyers in the past, even though FHA would have allowed it. The real change is for the borrowers with credit scores in the 500 to 579 range. Those borrowers must now have a TEN PERCENT down payment — rather than the 3.5% minimum down payment that previous borrowers with the same credit score needed.


Posted by Jason A. Brown

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Think Twice Before Trimming Those Annoying Limbs On Your Neighbor’s Tree

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

I’ve dealt with it personally – twice. A tree on one property but hanging over another. In one case it was my tree and in the other it was my neighbor’s tree. In the case of the tree on my property, I’d just closed on the home and the next-door-neighbor came over to greet me and then asked if I was going to have the tree between our homes trimmed up. I told him I had no plans to do so and he then took me to the side of our homes and pointed out a damaged and decaying area of the tree. It was up pretty high where one of the limbs split off and I never did anything with it.

About a year later, that limb did break off in a wind storm and I chopped the limb up and never gave it another thought. But looking back, I see the liability I had. If that tree had fallen the other direction and damaged my neighbor’s home it would have been my fault because I had been made aware of the damage. Thus, I was careless to not have dealt with the tree knowing that it was damaged. If my neighbor hadn’t made me aware of the tree damage prior to the limb falling and it had hurt his house, it’s my understanding that I likely wouldn’t have been responsible. It would have been considered an Act of God and the neighbor’s insurance would have been responsible for any damage to his home. Now please keep in mind that I’m not an attorney and I don’t even play one on TV.

The other situation is a neighbor that simply didn’t take care of their landscaping and a birch tree continued to grow out and threatened to come in contact with my home. I would regularly cut the neighbors limbs back and would even get on her side of the property line to do it. Never had a problem but I knew I could have. The problem wasn’t cutting the limbs back because you’re allowed to do that IF the limbs have crossed over the property line AND you’re only allowed to cut the limbs back to the property line. The problem could have come in when I crossed into the neighbor’s yard and cut the limbs back further than just to the property line.

I could have just asked the neighbor if she was OK with cutting it back but she was a hermit and if you saw the grass growing in the landscaping beds you’d understand there was little point in me asking. Now if you’re on good terms with your neighbor you could ask if they’d allow you to cut it back further than the property line or if the tree is a real nuisance maybe they’d allow you to cut the entire tree down, though it would probably have to be at your expense. Also be aware that if you trim the tree – with or without the seller’s permission – and the tree dies you could be liable for damages.  Or maybe not.  Or maybe you consult an attorney to find out.

Laws vary greatly by state and will differ even in the Kansas City metro area from one side of the state line to the other when it comes to cutting back a neighbor’s tree limbs.  Although it may make them a bad neighbor, there’s also no laws requiring a neighbor to clean up their leaves – whether in their yard or if they’ve blown into yours. There’s also no law against dumping them back in the neighbor’s yard – or wait, maybe there is.


Posted by Jason A. Brown

Kansas City Area Second Quarter Market Update Shows Promise For Kansas City Area Home Sellers

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

My National Association of Realtors has released the second quarter 2010 market statistics for the Kansas City metro area. The local trend shows that home prices have rising 4% when compared to the second quarter of 2009. The report gives us a look back nine years and I found it interesting to note that second quarter sales prices in the Kansas City area are down $7,100 on average compared to three years ago, but still up $5,900 over the past seven years.


So the average buyer who bought in 2003 is still ahead after the market downturn, but the average buyer who bought in 2007 is, well, wishing they’d bought in 2003. There’s a ton of other interesting information in the NAR report, including local employment growth at a rate better than most other markets and construction being on the rise – albeit it modestly – which indicates local new home inventories have stabilized.

The report also shows the Kansas City real estate market is one of the most affordable housing markets in the U.S. and there’s also details showing a decrease in the volume of loan delinquencies, thus suggesting area foreclosure rates should decrease in the future. Be sure to click the graph above to check out the entire report on the Kansas City metro area. Be patient after clicking on the graph as it’s a large PDF file and could take a minute to open.

Posted by Jason A. Brown

Be Sure Your Listing Agent Sends You A Link To Your Home’s Kansas City MLS Listing

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

There are lots of reasons that top Kansas City listing agents have their home sellers closely review the MLS listing after it goes Active. I believe it’s absolutely vital that buyers and buyer’s agents are given accurate information on a property. Buyer’s are certainly basing their purchase decision not just on their visual inspection of a home but also on the information being provided about the home. I’ve never had it happen to one of my clients, but I’ve heard a lot of stories of mistakes costing sellers or listing agents several thousands of dollars. The old story of, I’m sorry but the Seller’s Disclosure said the refrigerator was staying should keep every Kansas City real estate agent  working hard to present accurate property information.

In addition to giving accurate information, it’s important that a home’s features aren’t overstated in a manner that’s deceiving or understated in a way that prevents buyers from getting excited about scheduling a showing on a home. Personally, as soon as one of my listings goes Active, I send my sellers a link to the MLS listing, a link to the listing on my web site and an attachment with their home brochure. I give them time to review this info before we produce any further marketing pieces. Our information is usually spot on, but if we have indicated a wrong elementary school serving an area or missed checking that a home has a humidifier present, it’s important that we correct this immediately.

A good listing agent prides themselves on taking quality photos and allowing the seller to review the photos early in the process. Having another set of eyes – especially the people who know the home better than anyone else – look things over is never a bad idea. It’s BOTH the seller and listing agent’s job to present accurate info, so I really can’t imagine a seller NOT reviewing their MLS listing for accuracy. It really is a shock to me that so few agents take this step.

So what are some the of the most irritating and ridiculous things I’ve seen as a Kansas City Buyer’s agent? A pet peeve of mine is when a listing agent puts the words “see Mapquest” under the directions portion of MLS. Seriously? I don’t understand how anyone could be so lazy as to skip over the directions to the home – without getting people to the home, you have NOTHING.

Another of my favorites is the one photo listing. I don’t care if the listing is a bank foreclosure, every home should have tons of photos.  Photos sell homes and it’s apparent to me that many foreclosure listing agents don’t care about getting top dollar for their listings and they know the seller (the bank) won’t even realize it doesn’t have lots of photos. NO photos are worse than bad photos because just imagine the visions running through a buyer’s mind when there are NO photos present.


Posted by Jason A. Brown