Indianapolis Real Estate Matters

As all of you know we have been members of the Realty Alliance for many years. The Realty Alliance is made up of 60 of the largest independently owned real estate companies in America. They cover all of the major cities and the major regions of the country. Each year the Realty Alliance puts out bench marking numbers that tells us how we stand as a company against all of our peers.

I’m pleased to announce that this past year we ranked 15^th out of 60 of the leading real estate companies of America in closed transactions with 13,186. In the total sales volume category we ranked 10^th. This is especially meaningful when you consider the average sales price in Indiana is much lower than the markets that we are being compared to. The most important statistic and the one that I am most proud to tell all of you is that of all these major real estate companies our productivity per agent was 6^th in the country. That’s a tribute to all of your hard work, your commitment, and your self discipline in getting through these past three years.

All of you deserve a tremendous pat on the back for these accomplishments. Our market this year has picked up dramatically. Some of it has been due to the tax credits. I do believe that things in the economy are looking up. It will be interesting to see what this next month will bring now that the tax stimulus package has expired. I don’t think that we are going to see a drastic change in the market. With the stock market going up and manufacturing increasing I think we will see our unemployment rates start to go down. Certainly unemployment and the foreclosure short sale issue are still negatives on the horizon, but I think the positives out weigh them.

Again, congratulations on the great job that all of you are doing. Best wishes for a great 2010.

Sincerely,

Jim, Donna, and Pat

The report takes into account factors including housing affordability, foreclosures and rising home prices to create a metric called the Housing Opportunity Index. Our HOI is currently 95. Indianapolis has the highest HOI in the country, with decent housing accessible to 96% of families making the median income. In places like this the recession has weighed down home prices, but mortgage rates are still at historic lows, giving families a chance to get in on the ground floor. - Francesca Levy, Forbes