Bike Lockers Come to Downtown Kalamazoo!

Want to ride your bike to work downtown, but don't have a place to store your bike? Rent a bike locker from the city and your problem is solved. Just copy and paste the link below.

What a great idea! Exercise, fresh air, spend less on gas . . . be a fit, relaxed greenie!

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Window of Opportunity for Home Sellers

Click on the above heading to link to an article suggesting that home sellers have a short window of opportunity to sell their home this spring before another sizable batch of forecloses hits the market.

It certainly matches the reality we see in the Greater Kalamazoo market--where the the majority of the inventory of "for sale" homes is old, but diminishing--and freshly-listed, well-priced homes sell quickly in an environment of multiple offers unheard-of for the past four years.

Check it out.

Encouraging Statistics

There are some really interesting (and refreshing!) statistics showing up in Southwest Michigan real estate sales data:

• For starters, January's closed residential business: 191 units vs. 136 a year ago. That's a 40% increase. Granted, January 2011 wasn't very good, but 2012's January total is the best January since 2007, which weighed in with 217 closed residential units.
• January pending sales (written agreements, not yet closed) rose to 311, up 35% from January 2011.
• Inventories of homes for sale as of the end of January 2012 fell 12% from the preceding January. We now have an inventory of approximately 6 1/2 months, based on the past 12 months of sales. That is down from 11 1/2 months at the beginning of 2009--a huge improvement!
• In my own experience over the past few months, I have participated in negotiations on homes for sale where multiple offers were being considered by home sellers in over half the cases. We haven't seen that in a very long time.

These are all very welcome happenings after 4 years of declining sales and home values!

269 Cool Things to Do in Southwest Michigan (Area Code 269)

Click on the heading above to see what there is to do in Southwest Michigan.