Living In Pike.com

The federal government has been talking about helping home owners with their sub prime loans and loans that adjust every year. They have been asking banks and mortgage companies to bend and help out these people by working with them, adjusting their rates or not making the yearly adjustment to the interest rate. Well folks…

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Pike has had it’s fair share of what I call recycled homes (Bank owned, HUD, VA owned and Pre Foreclosures). Right now over 1 in 5 homes sold today in Pike Township is a recycled home (22.32%). In June it was almost 1 in 4 homes (24.9%).

There is a bright side to this for buyers. NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY!!! I can’t tell you how many bargains there are out there. Everyday I see houses that are under market value. Some may need a little work, BUT there are loans available that will include money for repairs. For the homes that need a lot of repair, investors have been buying them up. I deal with investors that are more than willing to buy a house, fix it up and rent it or resale it. They are getting some fantastic bargains.

To me it seems that house investing is a fairly new industry. When I started in the business, foreclosed on homes would sit on the market forever. Now investors are having bidding wars. If you are a non investor, you have to work quick. There are several communities in Pike where people are paying over list price just to win the bidding for recycled home.

The Pike Township Residents Association, Inc. (PTRA) is a non-profit organization that provides a forum for Pike Township neighbors to discuss regional and local neighborhood concerns such as land use, development, parks and recreation, transportation, schools, drainage and sewage problems, water supply, area beautification, etc. PTRA serves as an umbrella organization for local neighborhood associations as well as serving the needs of individual residents and businesses. PTRA meets on the second Wednesday of each month at 7:00 PM at the Pike Township Government Center ( 5665 Lafayette Road ) and this meeting is open to the public.

Typically at every meeting builders, developers and residents that want zoning changes or variances present their cases to the 20+ Board members. The Board can request commitments from the presenters. The Board will take a vote on the pitition. The vote is non binding but weighs very heavily with the downtown Zoning Commission who has final say.

Congraulations go out to Mr. Dan Kuznik, math teacher in the Pike Freshman Center. Last Thursday he was awarded 2008 Indiana State Teacher of the Year. A great honor for the Pike Schools System. From the schools news release;

Today, Dr. Suellen Reed, Superintendent of Public Instruction, visited the Pike Performing Arts Center to present the Indiana State Teacher of the Year Award to Mr. Dan Kuznik! Dr. Reed surprised Mr. Kuznik and the freshman family with the announcement at their annual ISTEP convocation.

According to an information release from the Indiana Department of Education, “Math teacher Daniel Kuznik knows that the essentials of education are commonly listed as curriculum, instruction and assessment, but he challenges himself and other educators to form strong relationships with students. This is why Kuznik was named the 2008 Indiana Teacher of the Year.”

Mr. Kuznik was selected to receive the honor by an Indiana Department of Education committee comprised of department personnel and external community and education leaders – including former teachers of the year. He was chosen from an initial pool of 53 public and nonpublic educators nominated by local superintendents across the state.

Superintendent Jones said, “I cannot think of a more deserving educator to receive this honor. Dan Kuznik is a committed educator who is passionate about making a positive difference in the lives of his students.”

“Mr. Kuznik clearly has the ability to connect with his students in an important way. The high expectations he sets for his students are a positive example for us all, and we are proud to have him representing us at the national teacher of the year competition.”

- Dr. Suellen Reed -

“Dan is one of those rare educators who understands and embraces the awesome responsibility of educating all children. His strength as a teacher is his ability to connect, interact and inspire his students to learn.”

- – Superintendent Nathaniel Jones -

Two months ago Pike Township Residents Association asked me to do a presentation on Pike Township Foreclosures. I was thrilled to do so because I have done extensive research. At the beginning of this year I put together a 30 page report called “Tim Lord’s Foreclosure Study for Pike Township, Marion county, Indiana 2006″. The study looked at the 275 houses that went through foreclosure and were resold on the MLS (Multi Listing System). That is where I get my data. I used 4 types of listed houses;

1. Bank Owned
2. HUD Owned
3. VA Owned
4. Pre Foreclosures

Why Pre Foreclosures? Because if they had not been sold as a Pre Foreclosure they would have ended up being foreclosed on and being Bank Owned, HUD Owned or VA Owned.

What is a Pre Foreclosure? Basically a short sale. A short sale is where you get the mortgage company to take less that what it is owed by selling your house under market value. Is it easy to do? In 25 words or less, NO! I have been involved in several of these transactions and it requires a lot of paperwork by the seller, a listing real estate agent who is determined to get the job done and a mortgage company that is willing to take less instead of taking the house through foreclosure. If a mortgage company takes a house through foreclosure it loses about 30 to 35 percent of the loan in expenses. By letting it sell short it only loses about 10 to 15 percent of the loan value.

What I discovered in the report was that the 275 houses (I call them recycled houses because not all of them went through foreclosure) out of the 1370 houses sold in Pike Township in 2006 represented 20 percent of the houses sold. That means that 1 out of every
5 homes sold in Pike Township in 2006 was a recycled home. Then I tested the data for 2007 and discovered that the percentage has gone up and will go up even higher next year. It may reach 30 to 35 percent before it drops. Why? I will talk about that in another posting. Right now I wanted you to see the year after year numbers.

Email me if you would like a copy of my study – tim@LivingInPike.com

After 11 months of being on hiatus I am back and hopefully with a vengeance. I thought this Blog would be easy to maintain in the beginning but I was wrong.

Last year I decided that I needed to put together a different type of Realtors real estate website. I had seen so many that appeared to be cookie cutter (they all look the same) and I wanted something different. After doing all kinds of research on Realtor websites, I came up with www.TimLordRealtor.com. It took 6 months of my free time but it was worth it. This Blog suffered. It was placed on the back burner.

Well, no more. I spent Labor Day weekend updating the software, updating some of the features and deciding which direction I am going to go with it. Some things will change and some things will remain the same. I have studied the log files of the Blog and determined what people were looking at and reading the most and will steer it more in that direction in the future. Change will take time. It won’t happen overnight

Buy the way…a lot of things have happen this year to the real estate market. Most people would think that the market is down because of property taxes and sub prime loan market. Well I am here to tell you that this is the best year I have ever had. In fact the last 2 months have been the busiest ever. It is a buyer’s market out there and I am here to tell you there are bargains to be had. Stay tuned and I will tell you more…