Is this your first home or the first time you are buying a home in the winter?  Buying a Metro Detroit home in the winter can be a little trickier because of the snow and cold.  These two question come up aquite often when I have buyers in the winter:  1.) How do you find a good home in the winter? 2.) What should you be looking out for when buying a home in the winter?  You as a potential buyer of a home could have issues when it snows.  How do you know what the roof looks like if it is snow covered?  Are the shingles curling? Are there multiple layers of shingles? Is there one bad spot, or has there been a patch job done to the roof?   It could be a potential problem when the snow melts off and you see the roof.  I went to list a clients house this weekend and there was snow on the ro... 01/22/2015

There's certainly lots to do in the Huron Valley area - Milford, Highland White Lake and Commerce - in the month of October, much of it to do with pumpkins and hayrides and  little ghosts and goblins. To check out the events in this area go to my Web site - www.movetomilford.com I try to keep up with the posters that pop up around town and the events that various groups and organizations are running during the month. If your group or organization has an upcoming event that you'd like to see posted in the calendar or a poster for the Poster Wall on my site, please send me an email - normwerner@comcast.net If you have a PDF file of your poster or flyer that would be great. One of my favorite annual events is coming up near the end of the months - the Milford BOO Bash. There is nothing tha... 10/08/2013

Which Township that I track started off June without any home sales in the first week of June? Which Townships that I track currently are above $100/Sq Ft in average home sale values and which are lagging behind? Were there more home sales in Brighton Township or Green Oak Township during the first week in June? How does Brighton Township compare to Milford in terms of cost per square foot on sold homes? What SEV multiplier makes sense to use to get a ballpark on the possible sale price for your home in the areas that I track? How is the market doing through May in my area that you track? How does that compare to a year ago. WHat about year-to-date real esate sales in my area? What percentage of sales are distressed sales in my area?   The answers to these questions and more are at www.... 06/10/2013

  “Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth.” (J.K. Rowling) from the Jack’s Winning Words blog. I might add to Rowling’s saying by adding “and wasteful when writes youth off.” Last night my wife and I went to the annual Taste of the Valley fund raiser for the Huron Valley Youth Assistance Program. We met and had a nice talk with the one youth counselor that the program has left after recent budget cuts. She gave us some good insight into the goals of the program to be a preventative measure to keep kids from going astray. By the time that we read about them in the paper it is often too late to retrieve a young life and set it on the right path. Getting off on the wrong foot can start with something as simple as skipping school to “hang out” with neighborhood friends.  ... 02/08/2013

With the end of June, 2011, it's time to look at the local real estate markets so far this year and maybe see what we see when we look ahead to the rest of this year. I'm going to take this one market at a time and look at the markets in particular that I have multi-year data for, so that I can search for trends. Being based in Milford, that market is the first market that I'll take a look at in detail. At the end of June, 2011, the bottom line numbers that I track looked like this:                       List Price   Sold Price      %         SEV          SEV      DOM  Sq FT  List   Sold                                                        S/L                    Multiple                     $/SF  $/SFMedian -         $224,500    $200,500    97%   $110,365   1.6758      38  1,881   $85... 07/11/2011

There were 17 homes that sold for more than $20,000 in Milford, Michigan in April, 2011. Of those 35% were distressed sales – either foreclosures or short sales. The Average Sale Price was $368,556 and the Median Sale Price was $240,000. Those figures (the Average was greatly influenced by one sale for $1,350,000) In general, home sold for 1.9174 times their State Equalized Value, which is supposed to represent ½ of the assessed value. Homes sold for an Average of $112/Sq Ft in April. On average the sales prices were 93% of the asking prices in Milford. In 2010 the numbers were – Average sale price - $146,832, and Median sale price - $144,450 In 2010 the average sale price was 1.2949 times the SEV and homes sold for an average of $83/Sq Ft So, we’re making progress in Milford in getting... 05/02/2011

Some hunters call them "Kensington Deer" because they probably spend at least part of their day in Kensington Metropark.  Hunting isn't allowed in Kensington but for the past several years, they've been having sharp-shooters "cull" the herd sometime in February.  I think one of the main characteristics of Kensington deer is that they are somewhat tame (used to seeing people) and I think that is why hunters like them. I like them because I like most animals and love to have them visit my yard.  Truth be told, I "bait" deer to get them to stop by.  Now, because they found CWD (chronic wasting disease) in one deer from a private breeding facility in Kent County, I'm not going to be allowed to feed the deer this winter. Why, I wonder, are private breeding facilities allowed in a state in wh... 09/11/2008