I know how much readers of my blog like Arts & Crafts shows. There's always an enormous amount of traffic whenever I write posts about them. This weekend - ALL weekend - we all have another opportunity to find that perfect gift for that special someone at the Iowa City Eastside Artist Holiday Show & Sale. "Local Art from Hand and Heart." Cool slogan, don't you think? Apart from this being the perfect opportunity to find a unique gift, this is also an opportunity to support local artists in the season of sharing and caring. Schedule for Iowa City Eastside Artist Holiday Show & Sale Friday December 9, 10.00am - 8.00pm  Saturday December 10, 10.00am - 5.00pm Sunday December 11, 10.00am - 5.00pm   Where? At the Iowa City Masonic Lodge #4, 312 E College St, Iowa City (Click the link for dire... 12/09/2011

The Holidays are just around the corner. Perfect timing for the Holiday Farmers Market this Saturday in Iowa City. It's such a popular event it's hosted at TWO locations. The Robert A. Lee Recreation Center on Gilbert St and at Grant Wood Elementary School on Lakeside Dr. This year's Holiday Farmer's Market is scheduled this Saturday December 10 from 8.00am to 1.00pm This is the perfect opportunity to find a unique and unusual hand crafted gift for the Holidays. And if you've been missing the regular Farmer's Market it's a great opportunity to visit with your favorite vendors too. The list of items available to purchase is huge. Ranging from broccoli to jewelry and glass art and bird houses. (I went for the extremes, there's everything in between too!)   You can find out more about the ... 12/08/2011

Cardinal Realty opened its doors for business this week. As my good friend Corinne Guest so eloquently said in her post this morning. AR is a journey. The decision to start my own real estate company comes in no small part through the influence of ActiveRain. When I signed up at AR in July 2009 I was a "toddler" in the world of real estate. I was smart enough to know I needed to tap into the Internet to take my real estate endeavors to the next level, but had no idea how. I'd gone through several template websites and spent a boatload of money on SEO to get absolutely nowhere! A couple of months on AR and I had my road map. There is SO much information here for those willing to take the time to learn. In no time at all I went from toddler to University Grad. I learned about Wordpress. I... 12/02/2011

November is shaping up to be another good month for the Iowa City real estate market. 36 homes sold in Iowa City this month to date.  37 homes sold last year in November so we're on track to beat that number easily by the end of the month.  55 homes are listed as pending or contingent. There are 355 homes currently showing as Active Listings on the Iowa City MLS. Probably the best thing about these numbers is that the number of active listings is going down. A couple of months ago we had 450+ homes on the market in Iowa City. It's nice to see that we're finally working through the inventory of homes on the market. This is a trend we want to continue for the housing market in Iowa City to return to a more balanced market. 355 Active Listings55 Homes Pending or Contingent36 Homes Sold in ... 11/21/2011

Home sales are up in October for the 4th straight month in Iowa City. 62 homes sold in Iowa City in October 2011 compared to 43 homes sold in October 2010. That's a lot of homes for this late in the year. That reflects a 44% increase over last year and a 63% increase compared to last month. (38 homes sold in September). Quite impressive numbers as we march towards the end of the year. What may be even more surprising than the positive trend in the number of homes sold in Iowa City is that the inventory levels of homes on the market  has gone down. There are currently 377 homes listed on the MLS as active listings. That's compared to 450+ homes just 4 months ago. The absorption rate has dropped to 5.7 months, that's an average of 173 days on market. (6 months absorption rate is a balance... 11/11/2011

We are enjoying absolutely beautiful Fall weather in Iowa at the moment, in stark contrast to to our friends on the East Coast who are getting hammered with winter storms. Yesterday I was over on the east side of Iowa City picking up an earnest money check and felt really lucky to have an opportunity to enjoy the beautiful Fall foliage. As I've said before, I was never much of a fan of Autumn in Europe, way too much rain for me. Here is Iowa it's a different story. It really doesn't get much better than this. Blue skies, perfect temps and eye candy to boot!  11/01/2011

It's Monday and the last day of the month - An excellent opportunity to take a first look at home sales in Iowa City for the month of October. At the beginning of the month it didn't look like we were going to break any records for the month. I'm happy to say that changed and as of 5.30pm today 58 homes sold in Iowa City in October 2011. Only one of the houses on that list closed today so it's pretty clear that we can expect that number to go up in the coming days as the last day of the month is generally a good day for closings - We just have to wait for agents to enter the data into the Iowa City MLS before I can start sharing it with you. To put some perspective on the number of homes sold this month, 43 homes sold in October 2010. That makes for an almost 35% increase over October l... 10/31/2011

This was a question I was asked several times this summer by folks relocating to Iowa City. I've had a busy year and been asked a lot of questions. Now seems the perfect time to start a series where I answer some of them. First of all let's clarify what closing costs are. Closing costs are the fees and expenses incurred over and above the purchase price of a house. Think of them as the price of doing business. A lot of things happen behind the scenes between the time an offer is accepted and closing. If you're obtaining financing to purchase the home there will be costs associated with processing the loan. Even if you're paying cash there will be attorneys getting involved to make sure that the property has what is called "marketable title." (So, yes, cash buyers can expect to pay closi... 10/28/2011

Annual Puppet Festival Saturday October 29, 2011 10.15am - 1.15pm at the Iowa City Public Library There's so much going on this Halloween weekend it's hard to choose what to write about! As it happens I'm a sucker when it comes to puppet shows so this one was a no brainer for me. Some of my favorite memories involve watching my two boys enraptured faces as they watched puppet shows in Germany. They're pretty popular over there and we went to A LOT of them. Popo's Puppet Festival is this Saturday in Meeting Room A at the ICPL Here's a full schedule of performances  10:15-10:45: "Shiver Me Timbers: A Pirates Tale with Kidspectacular11:00-11:30: "Popo's Spooky Fun" with Deanne Wortman and Dave Panther11:30-11:45: Giant Puppet and Pickle Bucket Band Parade11:45-12:15: Full Moon Puppet Show'... 10/26/2011

Halloween Weekend is coming up. Here are links to some of the popular venues in downtown Iowa City for live entertainment and good food... With a couple of them vying for the position of pulling the best draft beer in town. I'm a Guiness gal myself. (Which I'm guessing won't come as a surprise to anyone reading this who knows anything about me). The Mill has its annual Halloween Cover Show at 9.00pm Friday October 28. The idea is that local bands play music from great bands of the past. On Saturday October 29 Wyle Nept will be playing original Celtic pub tunes. The Blue Moose Tap House has a full program for Halloween weekend. MayDay kicks it off on Friday October 28 at 5.30pm. The band Lydia will also be playing on Friday. Saturday October 29 it's the Middleleagers from Mars and Sunday... 10/26/2011

Halloween Parade and Carnival, Iowa City, October 28, 2011 - 6.00pm - 8.00pm It's everyone's favorite time of the year again. Children and their parents and caregivers can get ready for a fun time organized by the Iowa City Parks & Recreation Department at this year's Halloween Parade and Carnival. The fun kicks off Friday October 28 between 6.00pm - 6.15pm. That's when children and their caregivers meet at the Weatherdance Fountain in Iowa City for the parade to the Robert A. Lee Community Recreation Center. At 6:15pm the parade begins with the route heading east on College Street to the Recreation Center. After the parade the fun continues at the Recreation Center until 8.00pm with Halloween themed activities including cookie decorating, crafts, face painting, dancing and much more. T... 10/25/2011

It's a great time to take a look at home sales and prices in Iowa City. The 3rd quarter is behind us, it's the perfect time to look at the bigger picture and take a look at home sales and prices for the year to date. The graph below shows home sales and prices in Iowa City January through September 2011. To put some perspective on the numbers. 635 homes sold in Iowa City January through September 2011. Last year 658 homes sold in the same time period. That puts home sales down for the year by 3% compared to January through September 2010. If you consider that from January through June home sales were down by 23% you can see that we made some serious headway in the last quarter to only be down by 3% just three months later. Of course we need to wait and see what the next quarter brings b... 10/25/2011

With house prices as low as they are and the 30 yr fixed interest rate below 4% you'd expect the real estate market to be hopping. That's not quite the case. Home sales in Iowa City remain steady this month. Homes sold in October to date are up to 20. That's a couple more than last year at this time. 43 homes sold in October 2010 so we've got  a good number to beat. There are 69 homes listed as pending or contingent and 416 currently showing as active listings on the Iowa City MLS. Active listings going down, pending sales on the rise - The trend for the housing market in Iowa City is going in the right direction, just not fast enough for most of us. Watch this space for updates. With homeownship more affordable than its ever been it can only be a matter of time until the pace of the re... 10/10/2011

Iowa City Real Estate Market: Home Sales in the 2nd and 3rd Quarter 2011 Lately in my market reports I've been talking about how the 3rd quarter has picked up considerably. It's difficult to prove that since I didn't have time to do quarterly market reports for the 2nd quarter in June. I'm going to catch up on that now by giving you two for one today with an update on home sales in Iowa City in the 2nd and 3rd quarter. 303 homes sold in Iowa City in the 2nd quarter 2011 compared to 397 homes sold in the 2nd Quarter 2010  -  That's a 23% decrease in home sales compared to last year for the 2nd quarter. Now let's fast forward to the 3rd Quarter. 256 homes sold in Iowa City in the 3rd Quarter 2011 compared to 169 homes sold in the 3rd Quarter of 2010. That's an impressive 51% increase in h... 10/06/2011

Even without waiting for everyone who closed today to update their listings on the MLS, the good news is that home sales for September in Iowa City are already up compared to last year. 37 homes sold in Iowa City this month compared to 34 in September 2010. Keep in mind that number is likely to rise next week when more agents update the listings they closed on today. Right now there are 69 homes listed as pending or contingent. That's a good number of homes under contract for the time of year. There are 441 homes currently showing as Active Listings on the Iowa City MLS. After a great July and August the Iowa City real estate market continues to do well with a strong September too. If the weather continues to be as good as it is October could end up following suit. Watch out for updates... 09/30/2011

This week I was out showing homes on the east side of Iowa City in the Scott Boulevard East Neighborhood. It was a dark and dismal day, the not so great side of Fall in Iowa. Usually when I'm early for an appointment, (which I generally am), I like to take photos of the neighborhood. It seemed on Monday that might not be the best idea and then I spotted a couple of really pretty yards and promptly changed my mind.The Scott Boulevard East Neighborhood is as the name implies to the east of Scott Boulevard. It's about a 25 - 30 minute drive from Coralville and 10 - 15 minutes from downtown Iowa City. The nearest park is Scott Park and is within easy walking distance of the Scott Boulevard East Neighborhood. The home we viewed was built in 1999, making this an area with "newer" homes. The S... 09/28/2011

What exactly is a zero lot Denise? This is a question I get a lot from clients relocating to the Iowa City area. It's a term that doesn't seem to be used anywhere other than Iowa.  A zero lot is a duplex style home where the owners share a wall. Each owner is sole-owner of the unit they own, including the land.  This is NOT the same as a regular duplex, which is also available in the Iowa City market. A regular duplex is considered to be one unit. (By that I mean that it can only be sold as a whole, and not as two separate units). There are are A LOT of zero lots in Coralville and North Liberty and not nearly as many in Iowa City. And this is where it starts to get interesting. In Iowa City there are some "condos" treated like zero lots. What that means is that if you buy one of those c... 09/21/2011

September is shaping up to be another good month for the Iowa City real estate market. Home sold in Iowa City this month to date are up to 20. There are 69 homes listed as pending or contingent. When I tell you 34 homes sold in all of September 2010 it will give you an good idea of just how strong that number is for homes under contract. There are 448 homes currently showing as Active Listings on the Iowa City MLS. The Iowa City real estate market continues to do well. Active listings going down, pending sales on the rise - That's exactly what we want to see. This is a trend we want to continue for the housing market in Iowa City to return to a more balanced market. 448 Active Listings69 Homes Pending or Contingent20 Homes Sold in Iowa City in September to date -  9 Single Family Homes,... 09/19/2011

Iowa City is a very "green" town. In every sense of the word. A perfect example of Iowa City's commitment to the environment is the abundance of parks in the area. So many that it doesn't matter where you live, you will always be close to one of them! They all offer something for the entire family with hiking trails, biking trails and naturally playgrounds for the the kids. In the case of Kiwanis Park, where these photos were taken this summer, there are also goal posts set up for soccer enthusiasts. (I'm always going to notice soccer posts. I have fond memories of watching my boys play soccer growing up).  Kiwanis Park and Willow Creek Park run into one another. Kiwanis Park is located on Teg Dr towards Aber Ave and is a nice easy walk for anyone living in the Park West neighborhood.  ... 09/17/2011

The Dean Oakes Neighborhood where I took these photos this summer is in the North of Iowa City in the Shimek Elementary School District. The location is perfect for anyone relocating to Iowa City for the ACT - The ACT has it's National Office Complex   right here in Iowa City, just around the corner from the Dean Oakes Neighborhood. There's also easy access to I-80 Exit 246 and in less than 10 minutes via N Dodge St you can be in downtown Iowa City. The lowest priced home currently listed in the Shimek School District on the Iowa City MLS is $159,500, (it's the only one listed under 200k). Median price for the homes currently listed is $341,000.  The highest priced home listed is $549,000. This link takes you to listings in the Shimek School District where the Broker participates in IDX... 09/15/2011