Omaha Real Estate     Contributed by David Matney with Alliance Real Estate I often meet with potential sellers and have to deliver some sobering thoughts on the price of their home.  Many sellers overlook that some homes will max out at a certain price no matter what other amenities the home has.  For example, a home with a 1 car garage or 1 bathroom.  A home with a one car garage or 1 bath will max out at a certain price no matter the condition or location with a few exceptions. Sellers have to consider that buyers are looking at the entire market and not just the immediate area as well.  In our market, there are two volume builders that can build a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage homes in the $125,000 to $150,000 range.  This homes are NEW CONSTRUCTION and located in West Omaha.  Tru... 11/10/2007

Here are a few tips about preparing your home for sale, pricing, and strategy.  Everyone has heard of cleaning and decluttering, I hope to provide you with a few other tactics and techniques to help make the sale of your home successful. 1.  Take the time to tour some of the homes for sale in your neighborhood.  This is your competition and be sure to tour model new construction homes as well.  Even if NEW construction homes are several miles away buyers are still looking at them in addition to your immediate area.  Keep in mind that buyers are looking at what is NOW on the market.  This is time well spent and definitely worth the time investment.  In Omaha, we have two big volume builders Hearthstone and Celebrity Homes.  These builders have model homes and both builders have great buy... 11/09/2007

Below is an invitation to our 80 Dodge Wine and Cheese charity event. Donations will be collected by Dodge Cares. Dodge Cares is a non profit organization which contributes to qualified nonprofit organizations that provide food, shelter and comfort for the homeless, displaced and abused in Eastern Nebraska and Western Iowa. I hope to see you there.<   11/09/2007

Over the past several months, I have been updating my online marketing efforts and websites to help expose my listings to as many buyers online as possible.  I am sure most of you have heard that over 77% of home buyers start their home search online.  Here are a few things that I do to market my listings.Realtor.com:  Listing enhancements.  This service allows me to add additional marketing commentary, photos and a virtual tour on Realtor.com.   Homes that are enhanced are viewed up to 299% more than homes that are not enhanced.  Listing Syndication:  Have you heard of an RSS Feed?  I hadn't either, but here is how it works.  I input my listings on my website and they are automatically sent out to several search engines to be listed on their sites, including Google, Yahoo Real Estate C... 11/08/2007

I was invited to a couple of different agent tours this week.  One tour had 9 homes in Manchester Park in Elkhorn.  The other one had just 2 homes in the Applewood area in Omaha.  Both offered free food and a chance for cash and prizes to those agents that visited all the homes on the tour.  Unfortunately, they were both at the same time (11-1).  So I decided to visit the closest tour, which was also the shorter tour.  Since I went through both homes, here is my feedback.  The first home was a two story, two stall garage with a non walk-out basement priced at $215,000. This home was clean and had a very nice layout, not as big as the second one. Overall, I felt the price was good for its condition.  The other home was a two story, three stall garage, with a walk-out basement and an in g... 11/06/2007

Below is an invitation to our charity wine and cheese party, Holiday with a Heart. Donations will be collected and donated to the nonprofit Dodge Cares. Dodge Cares collects donations and contributes the funds to qualified nonprofit organizations that provide food, shelter and comfort for the homeless, displaced and abused in Eastern Nebraska and Western Iowa.Forward email 10/31/2007

November 14th from 5pm-8pm we will be having a wine and cheese party with the theme being "80 Dodge Cares". We have invited Dodge Cares Inc., a nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation supported by NP Dodge sales associates, employees, companies, and community contibutors, to attend and accept donations to be distributed to qualified nonprofit organizations that provide food, shelter, and comfort for the homeless, displaced, and abused in Eastern NE and Western IA.Our model is located on the 3rd floor at 210 N 78th Street, just North of 78th Street and West Dodge Rd. RoyKotzRealtor.com 10/28/2007

We have more exciting news to report at 80 Dodge. Tuesday, October 16th the Omaha City Council voted  in favor of the preliminary plat for 80 Dodge. Final approval is expected within a few weeks.We are now 27% reserved and the retail space is over 50% committed, with our model/selections center having just had it's grand opening in August. With all the excitement and interest in the 80 Dodge condo project we expect continued success. RoyKotzRealtor.com  10/18/2007

Omaha, Nebraska     Contributed by David Matney with Alliance Real EstateI would like to thank David Brown, President and CEO of the Omaha Chamber of Commerce for taking his time to speak with a select group of Realtors in the Omaha area today.  As a community we are extremely fortunate to have someone of his caliber at the helm of our chamber.  Most folks do not realise the time and effort the Chamber takes to lure in business and economic development in the Omaha area.Economic development has a direct impact on our local real estate market and the livelihood of local Realtors.   Every time a job is created, it stimulates the real estate market in some way.  More than anything else, jobs are the most important factor in a real estate market.  Interest rates are important but they fall ... 10/16/2007

I have a question for everyone, what is driving condo prices higher and higher?  I was asked this by a client the other day, something that hasn't really crossed my mind.  Well it did, but never to the point I could come up with a concrete answer.  I thought about it and came to a few conclusions and a few more questions.Around the country baby boomers are retiring, kids moving out to their college and now they want to move out of the suburbs and doing so in record numbers.  Could this movement be artificially boosting condo prices?  Is this just a current trend?  I don't think so.  What is really increasing the prices then?  Construction costs are rising and have been for some time now.  Developers base cost of units on how much they cost to build with a small portion of profit.  Also,... 10/15/2007

 Below is the second installment of the 80 Dodge news letter. Reservations have been steady and we are running the grill promotion until October 17th.High lighted in this issue is an invite to the 80 Dodge Oktoberfest themed party and our enclosed roof deck pool. I would like to personally invite all those who can attend to our Oktoberfest party to bring a friend and view our model/selectione center. 10/15/2007

New home buyers sometimes have a hard time visualizing the layout of furniture in their new home.  Will my furniture fit in the great room, family room or will my large bedroom furniture fit in the master bedroom, what about my dinning room set how will it fit in my dinning room?  Seeing your furniture in a floor plan of the home you want to build (birds eye view) can help you see what the layout is going to look like with  the placements of the doors and windows and isles.  This can help you decide if the rooms are going to be big enough or if you need to expand a wall here or there.  Having worked with Auto-Cad 2000 I can draw up a room and given the dimension of the furniture I can put it together for you so you can plan ahead as to the size of the rooms you may need.  Depending on t... 10/13/2007

Omaha, Nebraska     Contributed by David Matney with Alliance Real EstateHere is a simple way to increase your exposure when selling your home.  Price your home on a major breakpoint.Let's say you have a listing around $125,000.  Now, lets take a quick look at buyers.  Generally speaking, buyers tend to have a price range of when they conduct their search.  In our example, some buyers will be looking in the $100,000 to $125,000 range and a different set of buyers will be looking in the $125,000 to $150,000 range.  If you price your home at $125,000 you will DOUBLE the amount of exposure online because you will pick up BOTH sets of buyers.  Pretty neat, huh?  If you priced your home at $124,900, your home would be INVISIBLE to all the buyers online looking from $125,000 to $150,000.  Acc... 10/11/2007

A great condo project keeps getting better. There are some exciting changes coming to 80 Dodge, partly due to feed back from our buyers. Stay tuned, I should be able to report the full details soon. Until then, don't forget about our Oktoberfest themed party on Oct. 17th from 5pm-7pm at the selections center/model located on the 3rd floor of the Streamliner Federal Credit Union Building at 210 N 78th Street, Omaha NE. The event will be co-hosted by The Upstream Brewery. Who will be serving micro brewed beer and appetizers. 10/11/2007

As many know the 80 Dodge Condo project often has wine tasting parties on Wednesday evenings. On two occasions we invited WineStyles to co-host our party and to do their wine tasting presentation that they do on Fridays at their stores. I personally have never been much of  a wine drinker. I just couldn't find a taste for it. However, the concept that WineStyles has come up with of categorizing their wine makes it easy for a non wine drinker like myself to quickly find a style of wine that I like.At the first wine tasting party 80 Dodge hosted I took the WineStyle tour, and am now able to confidently choose a wine that I. know I will like (Shiraz being my favorite so far). So, because WineStyles has stepped up and found a way to introduce wine to those who may not have been so confident... 10/09/2007

Omaha is working on plans for a new baseball stadium in an effort to guarantee a 20 year contract with the NCAA for the College World Series. Part of the plan to fund this project is to add a 2% entertainment tax. This has many residence of Omaha upset and not afraid to comment on it.I am sure that many people against the new stadium are not wanting to see the end of Rosenblatt Stadium. This I understand. Rosenblatt has been the home of the CWS for many years and the tradition and atmosphere it holds will be hard to replace, however all thing must change and Omaha must continue to do what is best to grow.For those whose only opposition to the new stadium is the increased tax, I ask you to think of what loosing the CWS would mean to Omaha and do to your taxes. Yes, there are other altern... 10/06/2007

Yes, the 80 Dodge condo project in  Omaha NE will have a roof top pool. The first three levels of 80 Dodge are retail and office space. This commercial footing, if you will, will be wider then the residential structure above. So, the roof of the commercial levels offers a terrace level on the 4th level for our residence. Besides the fact the the units on the 4th floor will have large terrace balconies, 80 Dodge will offer a glass enclosed roof top pool on this level as well. The pool is planned to be in a glass enclosed room with access to an outdoor terrace level lounge area. Conveniant to the location of the pool will also be a wine/party room as well as an exercise room. 80 Dodge is the only building of it's type in Omaha to offer such an amenity. 10/05/2007

There are many aspects to the condos at 80 Dodge in Omaha NE. One that many have asked about is parking.Here is some of what I can tell you. The first phase will have enclosed parking that will be climate controlled. There are plans to have a security system in place for exit and entry as well as individual storage areas/unit in front of each parking space. I will get out the details on those items as I receive them.In regards to selection of your parking space, when details are complete parking space selections will be made in the order in which units were reserved. So, if you want a parking space near the elevator it would be a good idea to make your reservation now. A reservation is used to hold the unit you prefer with a small deposit until items are prepared for contract. Reservati... 10/05/2007

With all that is going on with 80 Dodge and the many post I have made about the condo project, I realized this morning I have yet to mention another important aspect of the building-the ground floor retail space and the 2nd and 3rd floor office space.The 1st floor of 80 Dodge will be retail space, and will be leased to service oriented businesses that will provide convenianvces for the residence of 80 Dodge as well as the surrounding community. The 19,500 sq ft of retail space available at 80 Dodge offers a prime location with urban density that is sure to increase beyond the 80 Dodge project.Floors 2 and 3 will be available for office space with the possiblity of allowing a ground floor tenant to have acces to the 2nd floor to create a 2 story retail space. There is 72,000 sq ft of off... 10/04/2007

Below is a real estate Market Report of condos sold in Omaha NE in September.CMA Summary Report RESIDENTIAL - Sold  MLS # ADDRESS Status RM BR TSqFt DOM LP $/TSqFt SP $/TSqFt 20719656 4534 N 36 Ave SOLD 5 2 864 0 $13,900 $16.09 $11,950 $13.83 20711431 604 S 22 St SOLD 1 1 388 22 $39,000 $100.52 $39,000 $100.52 20707773 2820 N 66 Ave SOLD 4 2 948 107 $60,000 $63.29 $50,000 $52.74 20716713 2930 S 120 St SOLD 5 2 840 12 $87,500 $104.17 $85,500 $101.79 20716352 8705 Meadows Pkwy SOLD 6 3 1562 27 $103,000 $65.94 $103,000 $65.94 20711344 5618 S 92 Plz SOLD 6 2 1350 90 $105,000 $77.78 $106,000 $78.52 20718617 3830 Cass St SOLD 6 2 1050 8 $120,000 $114.29 $110,000 $104.76 20704400 18197 Hayes Ct SOLD 6 2 1108 77 $116,900 $105.51 $116,400 $105.05 20709037 5106 Ash St SOLD 9 3 1680 105 $119,900 $... 10/01/2007