Jim King Blog
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21
Why Miami Valley Homes Keep Selling at 100 Percent of List Price, and What That Means for Your Offer
There is one number in the local market reports that almost nobody outside the business notices, and it might be the most useful one for anyone about to write an offer or set a price. Across the Miami Valley, homes have been selling at an average of 100 percent of list price, month after month, for a long stretch now. Clients ask Irongate Inc., REALTORS® agents whether they should come in under asking, and that single figure is where the honest answer starts. It is not a rule about what you must pay. It is a description of what has actually been happening, and it tells you a great deal about how this market works.
The Sale to List Ratio Measures the Gap Between Asking and Closing
The ratio is simple arithmetic. Take what a home closed for, divide it by what it was listed for, and you get a percentage. Ninety five percent means buyers negotiated the price down. One hundred and three percent means competing offers pushed it up. One hundred percent means the average...
14
The Fall Maintenance That Protects Your Miami Valley Home Value Before Winter
The first cool morning always arrives sooner than you expect around here. One week you are running the air conditioning in Centerville, and the next you are looking for a jacket before you walk out to the car. That shift is your cue, because the work you do to a Miami Valley home in September and October is worth far more than the same work done in January. Homeowners who call Irongate Inc., REALTORS® in the spring asking what hurt their sale price are often describing damage that started with a clogged gutter the previous fall.
Ohio winters are hard on houses in specific, predictable ways. Here is where your time and money actually go the furthest.
Water Management Is the Highest Return Work You Will Do This Season
Almost every expensive problem in an Ohio house starts with water going somewhere it should not. Our winters bring repeated freeze and thaw cycles rather than one long deep freeze, and that cycling is what turns a small crack into a real repair...
7
What a Home Inspection Report Really Tells You About a Miami Valley House
You open the inspection email and there they are, forty pages of photographs with red circles around parts of a house you did not know had names. If that made your stomach drop, you are reacting the way most buyers do. Buyers working with Irongate Inc., REALTORS® get the same report and the same jolt, and then we sit down together and translate it. An inspection report is not a verdict on the house you fell for in Kettering or Beavercreek. It is a condition summary, and once you know how to read one it becomes the most useful document in your entire purchase.
An Inspection Report Describes Condition Instead of Assigning a Grade
There is no passing score on a home inspection. Inspectors are trained to document what they observe, and a thorough inspector documents everything, including the cracked outlet cover in the basement and the downspout that dumps water two feet from the foundation. A long report often means you hired someone careful, not that you found a bad...
31
Why Fall Might Be the Smartest Season to Make Your Move in the Miami Valley
Every year around Labor Day, a quiet assumption settles over the Miami Valley: the real estate season is over, see you in spring. And every year, the buyers and sellers who ignore that assumption tend to come out ahead. At Irongate Inc., REALTORS®, some of the best-fit transactions our agents see close between September and November, when the market thins out but does not shut down. With inventory across the Dayton region at its healthiest level in years, this fall is setting up to be especially interesting. Here is why.
The Fall Market Is Smaller but More Serious
Summer brings volume: the Dayton REALTORS® Multiple Listing Service recorded 1,418 sales in June alone. Autumn brings intent. The buyers still touring homes in October are not browsing for fun. They are relocating for jobs, responding to life changes, or determined to be settled before winter. Sellers who list in fall tend to have equally concrete reasons.
That mutual seriousness changes the tex...
24
From Accepted Offer to Keys in Hand: How Closing Works in the Miami Valley
The offer is accepted, the celebration text goes out, and then a strange quiet settles in: now what? For most Miami Valley buyers and sellers, the 30 to 45 days between an accepted offer and closing day are the least understood part of the entire transaction. At Irongate Inc., REALTORS®, we would rather you know exactly what is coming than lie awake wondering. Here is the road from contract to keys, step by step, the way it typically unfolds across the Dayton region.
The First Week Sets Everything in Motion
Once both parties sign, the contract goes to a title company and, for financed purchases, to the buyer's lender. Earnest money, the deposit that shows the buyer is serious, is delivered and held in escrow, meaning a neutral third party keeps it until closing. Buyers should expect a flurry of lender requests during this week for pay stubs, bank statements, and signatures. Responding within hours rather than days is one of the simplest ways to keep a closing on s...
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