Ben Visser

The February Real Estate report will look a little different this month because the Ames Real Estate market got some excellent news.

Ames has had a housing shortage for the past several years and new homes aren’t being built at a pace that can keep up with demand. On February 28, the Ames City Council moved to put in place a city-wide, tax abatement strategy for the first time in history!

The tax abetment will go into place on April 9 and extend for 3.5 years. It will be applicable to all new construction homes or townhomes that are owner occupied and will go toward the first $500,000 of improvement value on a project. The abatement will be a 5-year, graduated scale abatement, meaning you get 100% off your property taxes the first year, 80% the second, then 60%, 40%, 20% and then the tax abatement ends, and you’d pay full property taxes every year after. That can be tens of thousands of dollars in savings!

We see this as a major step forward for Ames. The program can be “tweaked” over time to expand its effectiveness if need be. This should have a real impact on the sales of new product and help loosen up the existing stock of homes in the area, so we can provide a greater variety of housing options to those who want to call Ames home. At Friedrich we are uniquely positioned to take full advantage of this program and enrich more lives through real estate with our excellent team and unmatched service with providing options with everything from existing home sales, land development and rentals!

Reach out to your Friedrich agent to learn more about the tax abatement and start making plans to build your dream home!