Fast approaching is the Spring Day Light Saving Time switch, when most Hoosier clocks “spring” ahead one hour.

First suggested by Ben Franklin in 1784, Day Light Saving presents Indianapolis area homeowners the perfect reminder regarding a few home maintenance tips, things that need to be done at least once a year. Here are a few:

1. What’s that smell?
   Change your baking soda box.
    
2. What’s that (burning) smell?
   Make sure to change smoke, fire, carbon monoxide and radon detector batteries, or at least test the detectors to ensure they are working. 
    
3. Is your home safe?
   Check your home security. Run a test of your alarm system. Check all outdoor security lights to make sure they are working properly. Walk around your home and look for potential security problems. Think like a burglar: that window secured with duct tape on the first floor is quite inviting to a would-be thief.  
    
4. Is your home safe (from electrical problems)?
   Check your fuses and circuit breaker for potential problems. Check for loose-fitting plugs or fuses letting off too much heat. All lights should be check for uncontrolled or inconsistent dimming or brightening; this typically indicates a problem. And remember to call an electrician if you find anything wrong!

The popular Estridge Dot.Home E-Newsletter is full of news about all of the Estridge companies, as well as hints to maintain your Indianapolis home inside and out, golf tips, events and much more.

In the March 2010 Estridge Dot.Home Newsletter, we’ve included great tips to get you ready for Spring – your home maintenance and home decor and furnishings, as well as your golf game with the help of the Wood Wind Golf Academy.

Included in this issue:

-          Heritage Hill, a new Estridge neighborhood in Avon

-          Bidding farewell to Franklin

-          Whose home is spring ready?

-          Star studded shopping at HOMExperience

-          10 decor tips for spring

-          Golf preparation = better golf play

-          Estridge Events

-          In the News

-          Online Resources

READ the March Issue

READ the January Issue

During the Extreme Makeover Indianapolis build in April 2009, Paul Estridge, Jr., President of The Estridge Companies, committed to building not only a new home, but also, building transformation of the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood. At a Press Conference on a sunny April day, Paul Estridge announced that the closed, but once-thriving, IPS School 37 would be gifted to the neighborhood to serve as a much-needed Community Center.  (READ MORE)

After much work, that dream can now be a reality as the Indianapolis City County Council voted unanimously (29-0) to the transfer of the School 37 title from IPS to the Juvenile Court and allow for the development of the Community Center to begin. 

It was a very inspiring setting as there were an estimated 75 members of the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood in the audience while the 29 member City Council praised them for the dedication, commitment and foresight they have displayed in resurrecting this historical building from possible ruins.  Four council members offered their personal support to help build this into a center that will help develop children on the front end versus trying to eliminate the behavioral repair on the back end.  There were several accolades directed to Estridge by the sub-committee chair and the council members for bringing the spotlight back to the neighborhood and for partnering for the generation of a renewed vision of hope to this neighborhood.  With signs waving in the air reading:

"Where community and family come together!

--- IPS 37----
Support community gathering in Martindale Brightwood”

The audience exploded into a resounding applause when the 29-0 vote was displayed. There is certainly a special energy that everyone has to see this 85-year old structure turn into a true community center.  The new community center would not be a reality without the efforts of IPS, Juvenile Court, Central Indiana Community Foundation, Making Connections, Martindale-Brightwood Community Development Corporation, and many others.

Read more about the April announcement of School 37 to Martindale-Brightwood on www.estridgeextremedream.com.

Photos of the NEW Community Center in Indianapolis: 
              

- Photographs compliments of Angela R. Talley

In the past, homebuyers have held off on beginning to build their new home or moving to the home of their dreams until after the busy holiday season. However, this year, there are simply too many reasons to begin building a new Indianapolis home today.

Below are a few reasons new Estridge homeowners have listed why they began new construction on their new Estridge home now:

-          30-year Low Mortgage rates

-          Expanded and Extended Home Buyer Tax Credit of up to $8,000

-          A Home Full of Free All-New Furniture from Estridge

Now is the time to move. Rates change daily and homeowners are required to close on their new home before the end of April to receive the homebuyer tax credit. Plus, Fully Furnished & Finished from Estridge is a pilot release only until January 10^th!

Learn more at www.fully.estridge.com.

So, why is  Fully Furnished & Finished a pilot release until January 10^th?

As an Indianapolis new home builder, and like many other organizations, we are constantly looking to better serve our homeowners and build them the home of their dreams. Our home décor store at Clay Terrace in Carmel, HOMExperience, provides us with the unique opportunity of working with homeowners throughout the full home design process - not only building their new luxury home, but furnishing it as well. This relationship presented us with a disconnect which some homeowners feel between the home they imagine themselves living in and the empty one they move in to.

We believe that we can better serve clients by providing them with a fully furnished new Estridge luxury home when they move in. But, we want to know what you think and what our homeowners think. This short pilot release allows us to get feedback from the greater Indianapolis real estate market to see how Fully Furnished homes better serves our homeowners needs. So, we invite everyone to join the conversation.

Visit www.fully.estridge.com to learn more, share your thoughts and provide feedback on how we can better serve our homeowners.
 

On Wednesday November 18, we introduced a pilot release of Fully Furnished & Finished to our friends and partners in the Indianapolis real estate market.

Until January 10th, Indianapolis homeowners will build their new home by Estridge, Indianapolis's hometown builder of premiere homes and neighborhoods, not only personalizing with the perfect countertops, cabinets and fixtures, but also fully furnishing it with the perfect furniture for the new home design, style and life. Homeowners will work with our HOMExperience design team, who have designed and decorated our model homes for over 12 years, will work with them to custom furnish and finish your home as they’ve always imagined.

Watch the Introduction of Fully Furnished & Finished from Paul Estridge, Jr.

 

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has released a variety of resources to assist the real estate industry including new home builders, realtors and homebuyers in better understanding the extension and expansion to the Homebuyer Tax Credit.

The most significant impacts of the new legislation are that it:

-           Extends the First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit of up to $8,000 to first-time home buyers until April 30, 2010.

-           Expands the credit to grant a $6,500 credit to current home owners purchasing a new or existing home between November 6, 2009 and April 30, 2010.

How does this affect homebuyers? - View a Comparison Chart for details on the changes to the new Homebuyer Tax Credit.  


Additional Resources:
Learn more about the Homebuyer Tax Credit on Blog.Estridge.com.
Listen to the President's Podcast, from the NAR President.

The Estridge Companies is proud that almost 50% of new Estridge homeowners are referred by their friends and family. To us, this is the ultimate testament of our homeowners’ trust in Estridge as a builder and satisfaction with their Estridge homes and service. To share our appreciation for our homeowners’ continued trust and confidence, Estridge introduces the Build Your Neighborhood Referral Program.  The Build Your Neighborhood Program provides both you and your referrals with an appreciation gift when your friends and family choose to move to an Estridge neighborhood.

Estridge homeowners are invited to build their Estridge neighborhood by referring friends and family thinking about moving. It’s a simple process. Estridge homeowners invite their friends and family to bring the completed Build Your Neighborhood Form on their first visit to an Estridge model home. hen they begin building a new Estridge home before the end of 2009, our homeowner and their referral will receive their desired Build Your Neighborhood Appreciation Gift following home closing.

Build Your Neighborhood Appreciation Gifts

Big Night Out. 

Enjoy a night (or four) on the town at Indy’s finest dining establishments. Select four $125 gift cards from Mitchell’s Fish Market, Kincaid’s, Eddie Merlot, and Ruth Chris Steakhouse. 

Finish Your Furnishings.

Finish your home with unique home decor and furnishings with a $500 gift card to HOMExperience by Estridge.

Golf and Gift.

Improve your golf game with professionals from Wood Wind Golf Academy, new clubs or apparel, or simply play a few rounds with a $500 gift card to Wood Wind Golf Club.

Primp and Pamper.

Select your ultimate royal treatments at David & Mary Spa & Salon with a $500 gift card.   

Shop ‘til You Drop.

Be practical. Be frivolous. Or be both with a $500 Simon Gift Card.

PRINT the Build Your Neighborhood Referral Form

VIEW a map of Estridge Neighborhood Locations

VISIT www.Estridge.com

The popular $8,000 first time buyer housing tax credit (passed by House and Senate and on its way to President Obama) proved a powerful motivator in the housing market.

However, the expansion of this housing tax credit currently on its way to approval to include a credit of $6,500 for repeat buyers provides even greater opportunity for the Indianapolis real estate market.

While the original $8,000 housing credit provided its primary benefit to first time buyers, it offered generous auxiliary benefits for repeat buyers. Second-time home buyers benefited from the incentive of the tax credit as an influencer for the purchase of their first home. The $6,500 tax credit provides that primary benefit of a home buyer tax credit, as well as the opportunity for all repeat home buyers, not only those currently in a home appealing to first time buyers. This expansion is likely to be a much greater catalyst for the real estate industry and ultimately more beneficial for new home builders, real estate professionals and homeowners.

Learn more at Builder Online.

Follow @EstridgeHomes on Twitter for more updates.

Congratulations to Estridge Custom Galleries designated the #1 Custom Home Builder in Indianapolis by the Indianapolis Business Journal, as ranked by an IBJ survey of 2008 local revenue.

Estridge Custom Galleries and Paul E. Estridge Homes design and build custom homes in neighborhoods and on your homesite throughout Central Indiana from homes valued in the upper $400,000s to multi-millions of dollars. The custom arm of The Estridge Companies has been creating custom building experiences since 1967 around Indianapolis. 

Unique, professionally decorated model homes by Estridge Custom Galleries are available for touring in

• The Village of WestClay in Carmel
• The Bridgewater Club in Westfield
• Grandin Hall in Carmel

Additionally, Estridge Custom Galleries builds custom-designed new homes in The Willows in Zionsville and on homesites around Central Indiana.

Learn more about Estridge Custom Galleries and Paul E. Estridge Homes at

www.EstridgeCustomGalleries.com.

View a photo gallery of custom homes around Indianapolis, built by Estridge.

Learn about the 2007 Paul E. Estridge Dream Home in The Village of WestClay.

Other Paul E. Estridge Home Photography

    

Congratulations to the Cowan-Brown Family, the incredible Indiana family announced to be the recipients of a new Hallmark Home in conjunction with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. This week, the family will go on vacation to Disneyland while "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" team leader Ty Pennington, designers Paul DiMeo, Didiayer Snyder, and Xzibit, celebrity volunteer Platinum selling artist David Cook, local builder Hallmark Homes, and community volunteers build a new home for them. 

Visit www.hallmarkextreme.com to learn more about this incredible family and volunteer to build!

Visit www.EstridgeExtremeDream.com to learn more about the Indianapolis Extreme Makeover project last spring.
 

Greg Cradick, Estridge Custom Galleries lead architect and architect of the Extreme Makeover Indianapolis home, is helping the Residential Interior Design Studio class at IUPUI learn that education is a two-way street. While mentoring the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology students in designing homes for an Indianapolis new home builder, Cradick is also gaining understanding of what Generation Y is looking for in new home design.  

“I’m excited to work with this class,” said Cradick. “These students are really motivated and talented. And this program gives us the opportunity to see what this generation wants in a home.  We hope to inspire a holistic approach to home design,” he said.

Learn more about the IUPUI partnership with Estridge HERE.

Learn about the Estridge home design featured on the Extreme Makeover 2009 season finale in Indianapolis.

Estridge is proud to announce that customer surveys for the first half of our fiscal year report that 47% of home sales were from the referral of a current Estridge homeowners. We are honored so many Estridge homeowners are either referring Estridge as a new home builder in Indianapolis to their friends and family or building another new Estridge home.

This figure is reported in a third-party customer survey taken by Woodland, O'Brien and Associates of every new Estridge homeowner both after closing and then again on the anniversary of their closing. The referral rating of 47% greatly exceeds the national average of new home builder referral sales of 12% to 15%. Additionally, the new homeowner survey reported a 98% Willingness to Refer rating by Estridge homeowners suggesting excellent customer satisfaction and continued impressive homeowner referral sales in the future.

Of Estridge’s referral ratings, Keith O’Brien, Woodland, O’Brien & Associates Partner, states, “These are the strongest referral sales results we are seeing anywhere, and it is a testament to the company’s dedication to customer satisfaction for these many years.”  

In addition to referral rate, Estridge achieved nationally leading results in multiple areas. Customer satisfaction of production (new construction) quality reached over 96% positive ratings, greatly exceeding industry averages as well. Also standing out, was the Willingness to Refer of Estridge homeowners on their year anniversary of closing. This rating grew to 100% Willingness to Refer in those surveyed after a year of Estridge home ownership.

Estridge provides a three-year HomeLife™ Maintenance and Reliability Program, providing routine maintenance visits for three years, as well as emergency service, one of the most extensive warranty programs in the country.

“We are honored that Estridge home owners hold high regard for our company. The quality standards and processes in place at Estridge lead the country in ensuring a well-built, thoughtfully-designed home our home owners are proud to own. Growing our neighborhoods through the relationships of our home owners is ideal in creating connected communities,” states Paul Estridge, Jr., President & Chief Servant of The Estridge Companies.”  

To learn more about Estridge Homes and New Home Neighborhoods in Indianapolis, visit www.Estridge.com.
 

In the past few years, it has become difficult hard to weed fact from fiction when looking for information on whether or not it’s a good time to buy a new home. The media spotlight has provided us with an incredible amount of information, but how much is really relevant to the Indianapolis real estate market and Indianapolis home buyers?

Real Estate markets are local - local by state, city, even neighborhood or street. Indianapolis was named #8 of America’s healthiest housing market in 2009 by Forbes. There are a number of reasons why now is a great time to buy a new home in Indianapolis and why Estridge is confident in our real estate market.

1. Estridge housing permits are up.

Estridge housing permits increased 54.9% year to date from 2008 to 2009, due to a combination of factors:

1.)   Homeowners are confident that now is the time to move.

2.)   Estridge is confident that the Indianapolis real estate market is strong and needs new homes available for those that need to move quickly.

2. Interest rates are at historical lows.

Mortgage interest rates are the lowest in decades, providing home buyers the opportunity for greater purchasing power than ever before. Lower interest rates allow you to save on your monthly mortgage payment or enjoy greater purchasing power for your new home.

(View Mortgage Rates for the past 30 years at MortgageNewsDaily.com)
 

2009: $1,560.74, 5.08% 1999: $1872.13, 7.44%

MONTHLY SAVINGS = $311.39

SAVINGS OVER 30-year LIFE OF LOAN = $9,341.70

(2009 savings over the interest rate of 16.63% in 1981 are $1,396 monthly and over $40,000 over the life of the loan!)

a.       *Monthly payment calculated for a $350,000 home, 10% down payment, annual 30-year fixed rate.

3. Competition is down.

Over the past year, there are almost 18% fewer homes on the market in Indianapolis, with a greater percentage of them pending sale in June. For homes under $300,000 there are almost 19% fewer homes on the market and over 4% more homes pending sale.

a.       *Source: F.C. Tucker Indianapolis Market Report

4. Sale prices are up.

The average selling price of homes in the Indianapolis market increased over the average selling price in 2008.

Homeowners across the state of Indiana will enjoy lower property taxes as the state has lowered residential taxes and increased commercial taxes. A large deduction for owners of Indianapolis townhomes and homes allows the tax reduction, although Indiana homeowner taxes have actually increased.

According to the City of Carmel newsletter:

·          A Carmel home valued at $190,200 in 2009 will pay $1,481 in property taxes, a $643 decrease over the past 10 years.

·          A Fishers home valued at $190,000 in 2009 will pay $1,645 in property taxes, a $910 decrease over the past 10 years.

 

Learn more about how residential taxes of Carmel homeowners and other homeowners around Indiana are decreasing.
 

• Hardwood flooring throughout
• Office with custom built-in wood shelving and paneling
• Gorgeous trim details throughout
• Granite countertops in kitchen with breakfast bar island
• Custom home design offers open living areas and built-in shelving around fireplace
• Oversized windows
• Custom finished paver patio with firepit and pergola on wooded homesite
• and MUCH MORE!

Building on Matt Borushko’s 6 Tips for Buying a New Home Builder, we provided 4 additional tips that will help you confidently build your dream home.

1.)               Have Representation

2.)               Don’t Overbuild

3.)               Prioritize Your Choices

4.)               Choose Location Wisely

5.)               Financing

6.)               Have Proper Expectations

7.)              Understand how your current house fits or doesn’t fit your lifestyle.

8.)              Know your comfortable investment range, not only your pre-approval amount.

9.)              Identify components of a quality new home and new home neighborhood.

10.)         Feel comfortable.

Tip #7, understand how your current house fits or doesn’t fit your lifestyle, is provided in greater detail below.

With a new home, you have the unique opportunity to design it to truly fit your family’s lifestyle, as well as include the features and style you desire. Taking the time to think through what you like and don’t like in your current house is a crucial step in determining the right design for your new home.

What do you enjoy about your current house? Is there an outdoor living area that you will especially miss when you make your move? Does your family cozy up to a fireplace in the winter? Is there a person in your household who would benefit from a private bath? Are you looking for private space through a main level master suite?  These are features and spaces you will want to include in the design of your new home in Indianapolis.

Consider each room, the popular traffic flow, areas you wish you utilized more often and what keeps you from doing so. Are there features that would help to keep you organized that are missing, like a family foyer with storage cubes and coat hooks? If you were able to interact with your family while you were cooking, would you do more of it?

Take the time to do your research. Review floorplans online. Walk a variety of resale homes and new homes from Indianapolis builders to see how homeowners use the space in their home and consider what would be helpful in yours. Most likely, there are ways in which space is being utilized or designed that you haven’t seen, but would find helpful (for example, the PDA Pantry in many Estridge new home designs).

Create a list of your new home design priorities (not only the style of the home) and reference these as you are shopping online or visiting a builder and reviewing home designs. Browse Estridge new home designs at www.estridge.com or visit Estridge model homes for ideas.

Matt Borushko of Keller Williams in Indianapolis, recently posted “Tips for Buying a New Home from a Builder" on his Matt Sells Indy Blog. He provides 6 tips to ensure that building your new home is everything you dreamed, and not a nightmare.

Matt’s 6 tips for buying an Indianapolis new home are:

1. Have Representation
2. Don’t Overbuild
3. Prioritize Your Choices
4. Choose Location Wisely
5. Financing
6. Have Proper Expectations

Read Matt's full article here.

As a new home builder in Indianapolis for over 40 years, we see that the more prepared our new homeowners are, the more smoothly the process of choosing a new home design, personalizing the home, construction and closing on the home are. There are 4 additional hints that help new home buyers choose and build the home of their dreams.

1. Understand how your current house fits or doesn’t fit your lifestyle.
2. Know your comfortable investment range, not only your pre-approval amount.
3. Identify components of a quality new home and new home neighborhood.
4. Feel comfortable.