Realtor Lobbies Congress about Housing
April 30, 2003

Lou Zickler, co-owner of Horizon Realty Group and Zickler Associates, a commercial real estate appraisal and consulting firm, recently met with congressional leaders to urge support for legislation that would improve the affordability and availability of housing. Zickler also is treasurer of the Indiana Association of Realtors.

Q. How does the central Indiana real estate market compare to other metropolitan regions?

A. The 2002 median sales price of existing homes sold in the Indianapolis region ranked 41st among 124 metropolitan regions, based on data collected by the National Association of Realtors. In other words, homes in 83 metro regions were more expensive than in central Indiana.

However, since 2000, the Indianapolis median sales price increased only 4 percent, according to the National Association of Realtors.

So these data suggest homes in Indiana are definitely relatively affordable.

But if you are trying to sell a home in central Indiana, you may not be impressed with the opportunity for equity gain on your home since 2000, based on these data.

Q. What is the major challenge to the home market?

A. In my view, the greatest strategic issue for us in central Indiana is how to increase the capacity of the market to participate in home ownership.

This implies an examination of local economic development organization goals to ensure that success is measured not by how hard we work but more by what we accomplish in terms of beneficial change in terms of household wealth and capacity.

Q. What makes Indiana unique from other states? Why would someone want to locate here?

A. Hopefully, Indiana's difference emanates from a commitment to provide a very investment friendly environment for existing and new business enterprises, along with a vision and strategies to integrate economic development with the notion of quality community developments to make our hometowns desirable places both for businesses to grow and for people to live in.

Q. As the economy continues to gain traction, how does this affect the real estate market?

A. The traction of the economy is still uncertain. The real estate market is likely to remain uncertain in many sectors as well. Industrial and office markets have been demonstrably more susceptible to adverse economic conditions than housing and retail, based on the experience of recent months.

Long-term improvement is surely tied to our ability as an economic region to create competitively successful integrated economic and community development strategies.

Housing production and sales continue to respond favorably to household growth, low interest rates and aggressive loan underwriting. Hopefully, these phenomena will continue long enough for our more fundamental market drivers (jobs and in-migration) to revive.

Compiled by Jason Thomas