Home sellers aggressively cutting their listings prices, a stalemate for Kansas property tax relief, and a hurricane-damaged stadium reopens for the new baseball season. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of April 6-10.
Hit or Miss: Let’s Make a Deal, Please. One of the most striking data reports we came across this week was Redfin’s finding that more than one-third (34.2%) of home sellers lowered their listing price during February, according to a new data report from Redfin. This marked the highest February share in records dating back to 2012. Sellers who lowered their price in February chopped out an average of $40,915, or 7.3%, the highest February percentage since 2023. Among all February home sellers (not just those who reduced their price), the average price cut was $13,463, or 2.4%, the highest February percentage on record. This is certainly a Hit for buyers who are on the hunt for an affordable home, but it is a Miss for sellers who may have waited a bit too long before putting their property on the market.
Miss: Unserious in Kansas. This week, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed a property tax relief bill from the GOP-majority legislature that would have given 10% of voters in localities and school districts the ability to reject budgets designed to spend more than the previous year. The Kansas City Star reports House Bill 2745 also would have restricted annual local budget growth to either 3% or the rate of inflation, whichever was lower, without risking a protest petition challenge to revert spending back to the previous year’s level. Instead, Kelly put forth her own plan that involved three steps: a one-time $250 tax credit for vehicle owners when they complete their registration, followed by creating a fund to reward local governments that managed their budgets responsibly, and then topped with raising the residential exemption on the 20-mills that Kansas levies to support public schools. GOP lawmakers derided Kelly’s plan as wasteful and refused to back it, but they also lacked the numbers to override her veto of their bill. Well, it looks like Kansas homeowners won’t be seeing any property tax relief this year.
Miss: The Wrong Response. Data center construction has become a political hot issue, with many people expressing anger over the energy consumption and environmental impact created by these facilities. Indianapolis City-County Councilor Ron Gibson, who voted in favor of constructing a $500 million data center in Indianapolis’ Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood, learned that the hard way this week when his home was targeted with gunfire. Police located a note reading “No Data Centers” tucked under Gibson’s doormat. This incident is the latest in a sad series of happenings around the country where people who cannot get their way through an exchange of ideas resort to violence to intimidate and silence their opponents. Mercifully, no one was injured in the attack, which resulted in 13 bullets being shot into Gibson’s home.
Hit: Helping Tomorrow’s Trades Professionals. Kudos to the Lowe’s Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Lowe’s home supply retailer, for allocating $250 million to help train and develop 250,000 skilled tradespeople by 2035. This will involve expanding partnerships with nonprofits and community colleges focused on training and recruiting tradespeople while helping this new cohort of experts locate good-paying jobs. Marvin Ellison, Lowe’s chairman and CEO, declared, “American prosperity is at stake, and we are partnering to solve the workforce gap with a growing force of educators, employers and policymakers who understand local needs. No single organization can do this alone.” Amen to that!
Hit: Play Ball, for Now! Tropicana Field, the home to the Tampa Bay Rays that suffered significant damage during the 2024’s Hurricane Milton, reopened this week to a sellout crowd. The stadium’s roof was wrecked during the hurricane, creating electrical system failures and a host of other problems throughout the venue. There’s a new roof in place along with other upgrades. However, the Rays’s lease on Tropicana Field runs through 2028 and the team is already working on building a new venue elsewhere in Tampa. Frankly, it is shame that the team is too eager to leave Tropicana Field now that it is repaired and more than capable of supporting its fans.
In Memoriam: Bill Martin. This week, Salisbury, Maryland-based ERA Martin Associates, the largest locally owned real estate firm on the state’s Eastern Shore, announced the passing of founder Bill Martin at the age of 75. Martin began his brokerage in 1985 and franchised with ERA in 1996. Martin served two terms as president of the Coastal Board of Realtors and was twice honored as Realtor of the Year. In 2024, the city of Salisbury declared Sept. 4 as Bill Martin Day and named the crossroads by his office as “Bill Martin Way.” Hey, not every realtor gets a day and a street named in his honor! We extend our sincerest condolences to Martin’s family, friends and colleagues.
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
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