About Story County, IA

I was showing a property in Story City Iowa last week and decided to talk a short drive across the intestate and check out where I went to school in Roland Iowa and then venture to see a home I lived in for 3 years of my childhood. I found my way to the countryside and found the home, the creek we used to swim and fish in and the home I lived in.

It was kind of fun going by and remembering the fun we had in the barns and fields the creative ways we made fun out of just about anything. It is funny what I thought was a big hill wasn't has big as I thought or the long bike rides we road were not half as long as I remembered. I guess when you are young things seem larger than they are. As far as the home? Still there they added on a garage and painted the home. The buildings? Looks like most of them are there but, in poor condition and they no longer have a lane/drive just the front drive to the front of the home to the garage. Glad to see that someone was still living in the home and I sure hope they make memories as I did. If you need a home to make those memories in a home in the Des Moines Metro let me know as I can certainly help you find your home.

There has been a lot of confusion surrounding how mobile homes play into the first-time buyer tax credit. For the first several months after the tax credit was announced, I heard conflicting information from a variety of national real estate and tax experts. Several said that a mobile home owner could buy a house and get the credit. They touted the line of reasoning that many of us in the industry first expected would hold the answer; since a mobile home is not real property, the owners would be considered first-time buyers and could claim the credit.

However, when I had a personal contact in this exact situation ask me if they would qualify, I wasn't willing to take the word of an unknown author or even a single CPA. I decided to do some checking on my own and get it straight from the source. After spending about an hour on the I.R.S.'s website searching F.A.Q.'s I could see why there wasn't a clear answer. It wasn't covered in the F.A.Q. section.

I finally ended up reviewing the form that is used to claim the credit and read the instructions. I'm guessing they didn't see the need to include it in the F.A.Q. section because the form states it so clearly. Under the heading "Who Can Claim the Credit" it states that a home "can be a house, houseboat, housetrailer, cooperative apartment, condominium, or other type of residence."

So the answer is YES- MOBILE HOMES DO COUNT. First-Time Buyers can purchase a mobile home and claim 10% of the purchase price, up to $8,000. This also means that anyone who buys a house but previously owned a mobile home (within in the last 3 years) CANNOT claim the $8,000 credit. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f5405.pdf

I think the current NAR TV commercial with the family sitting on the fence - asking "What are we waiting for?" is the message we should keep sending. I realize ALL REAL ESTATE IS LOCAL, but it would be nice if the national media talked a bit more about how the historially low interest rates, the fact that banks CAN still loan money, and the great selection of homes, make it a perfect time to buy! I'm very thankful to be in Ames, Iowa where our job and real estate market is stable. That's one great thing about living in the midwest!

December was a good month for the Ames housing market even with the seasonal fluctuations in the real estate market with the holidays and Iowa snowfalls and cold temperatures. The supply of inventory continues to be low (10.3% lower than 2007 and 25% lower than 2006), and the number of pending sales remaining strong with 22 homes going off the market as a pending status in December.

The listing supply (period of time needed to clear the housing market inventory) has gone from 15 months (2007) down to 11 months (2008) for Ames area for the month of December.

The increase of sales is contributes to the affordable housing and financing that is available for buyers. Sellers have had to become more competitive with price and condition of their homes than in the past few years. A positive note for the seller, home sales for 2008 averaged a 1.2% increase in value for the Ames area compared to many areas in the country experiencing a 5-35% decrease in home values. This indicates that homes purchased in our area are still a safe investment in contrast to a volatile stock market.

Home sellers should note that while the numbers of sales are 12.2% higher this quarter in contract to the previous year a large number of homes are remaining on the market unsold. As of Jan. 2nd, 2009 we found that 174 of the 242 listings in the Ames area had been on the market in excess of 60 days; still indicating a need for more appropriate pricing. The homes that sold in December were on the market an average of 129 days.