Iowa City Real Estate Blog: February 2010

Seems the weeks just fly by... Here I am again already with my weekly look at new movies in Iowa City and Coralville. I'll include new movie releases for February 26 plus a couple of hot picks on what's going on in Iowa City this weekend.

You can check the schedule for movies at the Coral Ridge Mall Movie Theatre in Coralville and the Sycamore Mall Cinema in Iowa City...

And now onto what's new... Two new releases this week. The first is a Kevin Smith movie, Cop Out starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. Sounds like a pretty average storyline with two NYPD partners on the trail of a stolen mint condition baseball card. It doesn't get particularly good reviews, but I'm going to bet that doesn't mean a thing. This is Bruce Willis - who cares about reviews?

The Crazies is the other new movie out today and is loosely based on the book of the same name. It stars Timothy Olyphant and is about what happens to the residents of a small town after toxins infect their water supply - Mayhem ensues as they loose their sanity and start killing each other off. I'm going to reserve opinion on this one, except to say if you're looking for a feel good movie, this isn't it!

Looking for live entertainment? The Mill is one of the liveliest places in town and will be especially lively this weekend. Orquesta Alto Maiz, AKA The Salsa Band is performing tonight, (Friday) and it's the Vagina Monologues on Saturday.

If you like your country music with dance then check out the Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon. Great music and great food and free wi-fi...They often have specials too like all you can eat ribs on Wednesdays...They're on Facebookand do a better job than anyone else I've seen using that media to give info on specials and upcoming events.

I'm going to round it up this week with The Iowa City Yacht Club. Couldn't resist telling you that Trampled by Turtles + The Boomchucks will be playing there tonight. (I would have liked to be in the room when they came up with that name!) The fun continues on Saturday with Big Funk Guarantee + Amanda Miller and the Smoking Sextion.

For more ideas on things to do in Iowa City this weekend I've put together a couple of posts making it easier for you to find theaters and live entertainment venues in Iowa City.

Map and contact info for public elementary schools in Iowa City

I know how tough it is to find info on schools when you're relocating, so I thought I'd break the comprehensive information around into handy little posts with more localized content. This post covers public elementary schools in Iowa City. Below is a map showing you the location of the schools. And here's a a link to a full screen version with legend.

The Iowa City School District is in the process of changing it's boundaries and you will need to call the individual schools to find out more information on how they are likely to be impacted. Last year I helped a client relocate to the area who now works for family services. I spoke to her recently and her advice would be to contact the Principal of schools you're interested in and visit with them to get a feel for the learning environment. Children respond differently in different learning environments and here in Iowa City they are very focused on your child's well being.

On a related subject. If you move and then decide you'd like your child to go to a different school, it is possible to transfer to another school. The only caveat is that the school you choose needs to be running under capacity. If it already has the maximum number of students, then it won't be possible to transfer.

Weekly real estate market update for Iowa City February 22, 2010: Homes Sold, Under Contract & Active Listings

511 Active Listings
96 Under Contract
5 Homes Sold Feb 15 - Feb 20
7.0 Months of inventory on the market

An absorption rate of 7 months means Iowa City remains a buyers market for now. Despite the extremely cold and long winter we're having there are a lot of buyers out and about wanting to take advantage of the homebuyer tax credit and with 96 homes under contract things are looking good for spring. 

If you're not familiar with the absorption rate 6 months of inventory of homes on the market is considered neutral and less than 6 months a sellers market. For more info here's a link to the first post I wrote where I included the absorption rate and an explanation on how it's calculated.

Last week's real estate market statistics for Iowa City

What's new at the movies this weekend in Iowa City and Coralville? Seems I'm getting quite a following to this weekly post asking that question. Here's what's coming out today, February 19 along with a few other ideas of things to do in Iowa City this weekend.

You can check the schedule for movies at the Coral Ridge Mall Movie Theatre in Coralville and the Sycamore Mall Cinema in Iowa City... And now onto what's new... Only one new release, but it's a real humdinger!  It's Shutter Island, a Martin Scorsese movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo. Two US Marshals are called in to investigate the disappearance of a murderess from a high-security hospital for the criminally insane. Sounds very intense to me. Leonardo DiCaprio gets better and better as an actor and it's a Scorsese film - There's really nothing to add to that!

Moving onto the regular theatre... The Iowa City Community Theatre is taking the stage at The Englert this weekend with performances of Leonard Bernstein's Musical Wonderful Town.

The Riverside Theater finishes its run of End Days on February 21. If you follow my blog you'll know this is a play about science, religion and suburbia. (A surprising combination we're all agreed).

The Mill is one of the liveliest places in town and will deliver it's usual busy program this weekend. They kick off Friday with Brighton MA - a five piece Chicago rock band and continue through the weekend with their fun packed schedule. You'll find more info on their website.

If you like your country music with dance then check out the Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon. Great music and great food and free wi-fi...They often have specials too like all you can eat ribs on Wednesdays...They're on Facebook and do a better job than anyone else I've seen using that media to give info on specials and upcoming events.

Last, but definitely not least for this week I'm going to round it up again with the Riverside Casino. It's not all about the casino, they have plenty of live entertainment too. New Odyssey is playing there this weekend - Three guys playing thirty instruments. That's what I call multi-tasking!

That's it for my round-up of new movies and a some of the things you can do in Iowa City and Coralville this weekend. I just pick up on things that catch my eye, so this is not an all inclusive list. Iowa City is a busy little college town - we have LOTS going on around here. Another good source for events and activities in the area is the Press Citizen.

Yesterday I had the bright idea that I wanted to share a list of schools with clients relocating to the Iowa City area. We all know how important schools are when it comes to moving and I'm trying to come up with ideas that are genuinely useful to folks relocating... A list is good, but how could I make my list interesting? That was the question. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I did some brainstorming and decided there must be a program out there to help me visualize this list. I was right, there is and here it is...MapAList.com

This is a link to the full page version of the map I created. Just like with my new graphs in my market reports, this is a first attempt. I'm pretty sure I'll come up with more useful ways to use it as I get more adept with it. (FYI, to use the program you need to have a Google account - It only works with Google Docs).

Below is an iframe that can be inserted on posts and in website pages.

I'm so impressed with this I needed to share this neat tool with you all right away. Let me know what you think...

When you're buying a home the location of schools is often top of the list of important criteria, right up there with the distance to your workplace. If you live in the Iowa City area you'll know we have a major debate going on right now about  the redistricting of the boundary lines for schools in the Iowa City school district. This became necessary with the population explosion to the north of Iowa City in Coralville and North Liberty. (North Liberty is one of the fastest growing towns in Iowa, as you'll know if you follow my market reports). Anyway, the result of this population explosion has been that West High School is running over-capacity and the school district needs to find a long term solution for that. The committee set up to work through this process is expected to decide on the new boundary lines by mid April. (It's a hot button issue, so the timeline may change depending on the court of public opinion!)

Right about now you're probably wondering where I'm going with this... Bear with me, I'm getting there... This is all leading up to me sharing a map with the locations of the public schools in the Iowa City School District. This is something I've wanted to do for a while to help folks relocating to the area - It just took me some time to figure out the best way to do it. I have color coded the markers based on location and type of school. And when you click on the markers you'll find the address for the school, phone number and a link to their website.

Now getting back to the subject of redistricting: If you are relocating to the area you need to be aware that these redistricting changes are in the pipeline. To avoid surprises you should ask if these changes are likely to impact your child. Also, Roosevelt Elementary is closing in 2012 and a new school will be built a few blocks away on Camp Cardinal Rd.

The ICCSD website has the most up to date information on how the boundary line redistricting debate is progressing. Definitely worth checking out.

The link above is to a full page version of a map of public schools in the Iowa City School District. Below is a mini version. This of course is without any consideration to redistricting. That's something that certainly won't happen overnight.

Here's the answer to that question and what greeted me this morning when I came downstairs to make my morning tea... The toilet roll was in its packaging in a cupboard in the basement. (A cupboard that my son had left slightly ajar as boys do...) Since I wasn't there I can only assume Tigger played football with it up the stairs and into the living room where he made short work of it...

Valentine's weekend is a big movie weekend, at least judging by the star power out there this weekend it is.  Writing this post on new movies and events in Iowa City and Coralville for this weekend February 12 through February 14 it became clear that Valentine's weekend is a very important weekend on the calender - Probably more important here than anywhere else in the world I've lived. Just carry on reading and you'll see what I mean...

The first of the movies you can catch at the Coral Ridge Mall Movie Theatre in Coralville and the Sycamore Mall Cinema in Iowa City is The Wolfman - This is of course based on the classic Universal film that launched a legacy of horror. It stars Benicio Del Toro, Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving and Anthony Hopkins, who I am proud to say comes from the same corner of the world as me. (Wales is a tiny country that most folks not living there have difficulty finding on a map, so I need to give it a special mention every now and then!)

The next new movie is Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightening Thief. Percy is a regular high school student who's life gets interesting when he finds out his father was Poseiden, the God of the Sea, which naturally makes him a demigod. A bit of a Harry Potter knock-off by all accounts, not that it matters. A good story is a good story. Once again there's a whole bunch of stars, this time in supporting roles. We've got Uma Thurman, Pierce Brosnan and Sean Bean supporting Logan Lerman as Percy. 

The last new movie for this week has the give away title of Valentine's Day. No clarification needed there... And if you thought the previous two movies were star laden, this one takes the cake! There are more than a dozen famous names in it. Here are a few of the names for you to make my point: Julia Roberts, Kathy Bates, Taylor Swift, Ashton Kutcher, Bradley Cooper and George Lopez.  Pretty diverse bunch of actors, I'm sure you'll agree... Add Patrick Dempsey, Queen Latifah and Shirley Maclaine and you've got quite a hot pot there... (I'm going to stop now or this will start looking like a grocery list!)

Moving onto the regular theatre... The Englert has an amazing show lined up this weekend with two performances by the Peking Acrobats on Saturday. I'm sure that will be a totally awesome show not to be missed by anyone who appreciates acrobatics.

End Days continues its run until February 21 at The Riverside Theater If you follow my blog you'll know this is a play about science, religion and suburbia. (A surprising combination for a comedy for sure).


The Mill will deliver as usual of course. They kick off Friday with the Jazz after Five Concert Series and continue through Valentine's weekend with other events. You'll find the schedule on their website.

If you like your country music with dance then check out the Wildwood Smokehouse & Saloon. Great music and great food and free wi-fi...They often have specials too like all you can eat ribs on Wednesdays...They're on Facebook and do a great job of keeping fans updated on events and specials on their fan page. 

Last, but definitely not least for this week I'm going to round it up again with the Riverside Casino. It's not all about the casino, they have plenty of live entertainment. They have landed themselves quite a catch this weekend with Kris Kristopherson playing there tonight, (Friday). And you know they don't come any better than that!

Iowa City is a busy little town and this is just what caught my eye for this weekend. The Press Citizen is a good source for more events and entertainment in the Iowa City area.

And in an effort to pull things together and make them easier to find in one place I've put together a list of theaters in the Iowa City area, also including telephone numbers.

This week I "kicked it up a notch" and added graphs and charts to my market reports.  It seemed to me it was high time I provided a visual aid to help folks process this oh so dry data... Now if you're interested in adding graphs to your posts and think it's way too much hassle this is the bit that will surprise you - It took me longer to figure out HOW to do it than it did to actually do it! 

So that was me busting the myth that I'm a whiz at charts as some of you thought who commented on my new improved market reports! Oh well, it's all for the greater good, because I'm here now to share with you how you too can pep up those boring market reports with graphs and pie charts...

As part of my research I used the search option on ActiveRain where I found a tutorial written by Jeff Turner. In his post he explains how to insert a graph into your post using Google docs. The interface is a little different now, but the concept is the same. Just go to Google docs, create a spread sheet with the data you need. Once you have the data in place it's just a question of using a drop down menu to create a chart or graph.

Here are a couple of screen shots of my first attempt at a graph in Google docs.

Different types of data needs a different solution, so now onwards to pie charts. For this one I ran into a problem with Google docs. The problem was that for stats lower than 10 the system inserted the term "other" and not "homes sold" as I had in my spreadsheet. The pie chart was also kind of lame looking. (Yes I want cheap and easy, but I'm still kind of picky).

This post isn't about what didn't work though, I want to tell you what did work. More research... (Told you the how was more time consuming than actually doing). Anyway, a Google search this time took me to a wonderful government site educating our children on creating graphs. And believe me when I say it is as easy as 1-2-3. You just click on different tabs to create the data. (Not even a spreadsheet in sight) - And when you're done you save it to your computer in the file format of your choice.

Here's an example of my first attempt on the NCES site:

And after a little more practice, here's my most recent attempt on the NCES site:

Less than 5 minutes - That's all it took to create the graphs and pie chart in this post. Of course they still look a little amateurish in comparison to Renee Burrows and Sally Cheeseman, who both hold titles in my book for the best market reports on AR. Baby steps though, right? I'm still pretty happy with my first attempt and am sure my readers are too.

The Debt to income ratio is something that confuses many home buyers when they're in the market for a home loan. I think Chris Thomas does a great job of breaking things down in the post below and making it clear that it's not one size fits all.