Existing home sales down 2% in April

Nationally, sales of existing homes were down in April from March about 2%. This is about 5.7% lower than April of 2005. In the Midwest, existing home sales fell 3.7% and are 3.1% lower than April 2005. The median existing home price in the Midwest is 166,000, down 1.2% from last year. Some causes may be increasing interest rates and a general cooling down from last year's hot market. Read the full article from National Association of Realtors HERE.

Will the Milford school levy failure affect property values?

I moved into the Milford school district about 6 months ago, and I'm not feeling so good about the fact that the school levy didn't pass on May 2nd. I'm not just worried about the quality of education for our children, but as a Realtor, I am worried about the effect on our property values.

Will the levy failure affect our property values? The short answer is yes. It might not be immediate or drastic, especially if it passes the next time around. But if the community continues to vote down levies, we will feel the impact significantly.

The real estate market and the quality of a school district (even the perceived quality) are very much tied together. People want to move into communities with strong schools - communities that suppport those schools. When a community continually votes down school levies, the perception is that it is not a good place for young people with families to live, and young people with families are who buys houses.

With cuts all around that result in things like increased class sizes, unhappy teachers, and lack of resources like libraries, we are endangering something else - the school's Excellent rating.

Now, I always advise my clients that you can't judge a school by a simple report card rating, and I firmly believe this. But I'm just one realtor, and these ratings still play a major role in attracting families who are relocating both from within the area and from other cities. If our school district's rating drops, you can expect big problems in the real estate market. It will be especially hard to sell higher-priced homes in this area, when people have the option of going next door to Loveland, who always seems to pass their levies and maintain their school's rating.

I don't know much about how efficient or inefficient this school district is with spending. And I agree that school funding in general should be done differently. But these are not problems I can fix. What I do know is this: I would much rather pay a couple hundred dollars more in taxes each year than lose thousands of dollars in property value appreciation each year.