Iowa City, IA

It's Friday and time to take a look at new movies and other events in Iowa City and Coralville this weekend. These are a few things that caught my eye for this weekend November 20 - November 22.

I'll start as I always do with movies. The apparently hotly anticipated second installment in the Twilight Saga: New Moon hits theaters today. I say hotly anticipated, because I noticed it's trending as #1 topic on twitter this morning. If vampires aren't your thing and you're looking for a nice feel good movie as we head towards the holiday season, The Blind Side is probably right up your street. There's quite a buzz about Sandra Bullock's great performance in this movie. I like her movies, but was a bit surprised to hear her name and Oscar in the same sentence, so she really must have surpassed herself! Lastly, kids will be happy with the animated movie Planet 51. A cute story about aliens on a far away planet being fearful about being invaded by aliens (!) It seems it's a movie with a message that I remember from books when I was reading to my kids when they were small. You can catch these movies at the Coral Ridge Mall Cinema in Coralville and the Sycamore Mall Theatre in Iowa City.


Moving on to regular theater...The Young Footliters will present their fall show, Dr Dolittle at the Iowa City Community Stage at 4-H Johnson County Fairgrounds. Show times are at 7.00pm Friday and Saturday and 2.00pm on Sunday. If you remember, from a previous post, The Young Footliters are a non-profit organization run by parents to encourage and support a positive singing and acting experience for young people from kindergarten to K12 in the Iowa City area. Great idea, don't you think? They've picked another classic with Dr Dolittle too.

Iowa City's best live entertainment venue, as voted in the Press Citizen's Best of the Area List has a fun evening lined up this evening. Kicking off at 5.00pm with their aptly named Jazz After Five Series. You can't beat The Mill for entertainment any day of the week. Check out their schedule and see for yourself.

Now if you want to check out a bar that isn't down town, Charlie's Bar & Grill in Coralville is a hot tip. Check out the website and see for yourself.



Almost done, but of course mustn't forget my weekly mention of Prairie Lights Bookstore. As someone who just loves books I have a self-imposed requirement to mention them every week... They often have guest readings and are definitely worth bookmarking.


Finally, I will wrap up by mentioning the last game of the college football season against Minnesota scheduled for Saturday. The Iowa Hawkeyes have had a great season. It's been so exciting and such a roller coaster ride this year I'm sure football fans will be sad to see it over.

We have a very busy little town and I'm sure there's lots more going on, this is just what caught my eye. If you have any input for future posts, be sure to let me know, I'd love to include it.

A $1500 Federal Tax Credit for energy saving home improvements that save you money - That's a win - win all the way for any home owner...

The cold season is here in Iowa, at least according to the calender. Right now we're enjoying unseasonably warm weather here in Iowa City and it almost feels like spring... Don't be fooled though, winter is around the corner and now is a great time to take care of some home improvements AND lower your bills in the winter months ahead. And while you're at it, remember that you may be eligible for federal tax credits for many home improvements you make in your home that save energy...

Tax credits are available for eligible purchases at 30% of the cost up to $1,500 for 2009 and 2010. Some of the more common eligible purchases are windows and doors, insulation, heating and air-conditioning systems and water heaters. It’s already in our own best interest to buy energy star products. Why not get paid by the government for doing it?

My first tip to you if you're living in an older home in Iowa City is to check out how much insulation you have in your attic. Until recently it was standard for homes in our area to have a 3 - 4 inches of insulation in the attic. Current data shows us that we need a minimum of 10 - 14 inches, (depending on the type of insulation used), to effectively keep the heat in our homes from going up and out of the roof. In fact, adding just 10 inches of insulation is likely to save us 20% on heating cost. Insulation is pretty cheap, so we're talking a good bang for the buck here!

Now before you rush off to spend money on home improvements, we know we can rely on the government to complicate the process when it comes to the eligibility requirements for this credit, so the best thing is to do is go to the government's EnergyStar Website and check out exactly what qualifies for the credit. Just as an example, the standard required for windows in 2009 is different to 2010 (!)

Below are some of the basic requirements as far as the standard type of home improvement I’m talking about in this post. There are different time lines and requirements for solar, wind and geo-thermal energy that I’m not going into here. You’ll find more info about that on the EnergyStar Website.

• The tax credit is available for products “placed in service” from January 1, 2009 - December 31, 2010
• Eligible on improvements to the homeowners primary residence only
• Installation costs are not eligible for the tax credit
• A total of $1500 can be claimed in the two year period 2009 through 2010

It's Friday and time to take a look at new movies and other events in Iowa City this weekend. These are a few things that caught my eye for this weekend Nov 6 - Nov 8.


Lots more new movies out this week than last week. The one that runs away with best title is The Men Who Stare At Goats. Adapted from the book by Jon Ronson it's a farcical look at war. It's got a whole slew of stars in it and since one of them is George Clooney, I think we can assume this movie will do well this weekend. To get us in the Holiday spirit Disney's A Christmas Carol is out in 2D and 3D. You can catch both versions at the Coral Ridge Mall Cinema, but only the 2D version at Sycamore Mall Theatre. The other two new movies out today are The Box, a thriller with Cameron Diaz and for horror movie fans The Fourth Kind.


Moving on...The Englert as usual has a weekend with something for everyone lined up:

Friday @ 8.00pm - Champions of the Dance. A spectacular evening with world class ballroom dance champions.
Saturday @ 8.00pm - Going in a totally different direction Broken Lizard will be performing live.
Sunday @ 2.00pm - Artpower presents a matinee performance for kids, The Rainbow Fish.
Sunday @ 8.00pm - The movie This is Spinal Tap... I wasn't kidding, was I? Lots of variety in their program this weekend!


Can't write a post without mentioning Iowa City's best live entertainment venue, as voted in the Press Citizen's Best of the Area List. You can't beat The Mill for entertainment. Check out the schedule.


Now if you want to check out a bar that isn't down town, Charlie's Bar & Grill in Coralville is a hot tip. Check out the website and see for yourself.



Now it's time for my weekly mention of Prairie Lights Bookstore. As someone who just loves books I have a self-imposed requirement to mention them every week... They often have guest readings and are definitely worth bookmarking.


Now let me think, what else?? Oh yes... Another fun football weekend and the Iowa Hawkeyes are set to play at home against Northwestern. The pressure is mounting... How long can our guys keep up the winning streak? Only 3 more games to go...

Should be a fun weekend as the game coincides with the UI Family weekend. Students needed to register their family members, so hopefully they have done that.

Here are some events set up for the weekend at the IMU:

Friday, 10.00pm - 1.00am - CAB Night Hawks present Country Night in the 2nd floor ballroom.
Saturday, 9.00pm - 11.00pm - CAB Mentalist, Paul Draper will be performing in the main lounge.
Sunday 10.30am - 12.30pm - Dance Marathon presents a Family Weekend Brunch in the IMU.

We have a very busy little town and I'm sure there's lots more going on, this is just what caught my eye. If you have any input for future posts, be sure to let me know, I'd love to include it.

Iowa City Real Estate: Johnson County Economic Data: Johnson County includes Iowa City, Coralville & North Liberty.

Recently I wrote a post about how Iowa City companies are doing in the current economic climate. It was based on information released by the ICAD, (Iowa City Area Development group).

Now I'm a bit of an information junkie and when I found this AP Interactive Map with the economic stress index county by county, I just had to check it out. It uses different indicators than ICAD, but the trend is the same. Johnson County is doing better than the rest of the state and shapes up pretty well nationally too. Check it out for yourself. It really is a pretty cool map and gives you the opportunity to look at states and counties with real problems, along with those that are doing really well. The central states seem to be doing best in the country.

Just to give you a baseline: A stress index of 11 is bad. Johnson County has a stress index of 5.05. Market indicators used are unemployment: 4.4% in Johnson County. Forclosures @ 0.13% and Bankruptcies @ 0.55%.

For even more data, below are a few links to my latest market reports for home sales in the Iowa City area.

Iowa City Real Estate Market Report October 2009

Coralville Real Estate Market Report October 2009

North Liberty Real Estate Market Report October 2009

Iowa City Real Estate Market Report October 2009

It's November 2 and an opportunity for us to take a first look at the number of homes sold in October in the Iowa City real estate market...And to keep you totally up to date on home sales in the area I also have a couple of links to real estate market reports for Coralville and North Liberty.

The number of homes sold in Iowa City in October was down just a bit with 53 homes sold in October 2009 in comparison to 55 in October 2008. Real estate is cyclical according to the season, so it's always better to compare to the previous year, rather than to the previous month.

The median price of homes sold in October was $170,000 with an average of 74 days on market.


Check out my market report for September and you'll see that last month we were trending upwards - This month we're pretty flat and trending a touch downwards. Funny market we're in right now. On the up side, looking at the year to date we are still in pretty good shape with the number of homes sold down a modest 4% compared to the same time frame in 2008. Prices are down by 2%.

Buyers of course will continue to profit from what is a flat market. Sellers should also be reasonably happy with the fact that although they're not likely to make a huge profit in this market, they have a very good chance of breaking even. And at the end of the day, as a seller you will almost never make money on both sides of the transaction. If you get more when you sell your home, chances are you will pay more for the next one. In this market it may be the other way round. That's worth thinking about if you're on the fence about listing your home for sale right now.


Source: Iowa City Area MLS. Updated on November 5, 2009.