The Lawrence real estate market is back, and maybe was never really gone, area real estate professionals said this week.

An expected slowdown after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks did rear its head in the weeks immediately after the toppling of the World Trade Center towers, but most Lawrence real estate professionals said it didn’t take area residents long to get back to their normal buying ways.

“For the rest of September after the attacks, sales fell off drastically,” said Randy Ham, associate broker of Realty Executives Hedges Real Estate. “But you know what, we made it all up in October. All those people who decided to wait bought in October.”

Ham said he estimates that the total Lawrence residential real estate market booked $18 million to $19 million in sales during October compared to past October sales totals of $14 million to $16 million.

“I think as far as slowdowns go, it was pretty painless,” said Larry Midyett, owner and broker at Century 21 Miller/Midyett Real Estate. “You usually have a slowdown shortly after that time of year anyway, so it just became a part of the normal slowdown. All I can tell you now is that it is quite active.”

A valuation slowdown

But that doesn’t mean the Sept. 11 attacks had no effect on the Lawrence real estate market. It did, and residents likely received it in the mail this week.

Every property owner in the county this past week received a change of value notice in the mail, and Douglas County Appraiser Marion Johnson said most should notice a smaller increase in their values than in previous years.

The average increase this year figured out to approximately 5 percent, Johnson said, compared to past years when it was closer to 8 percent and large numbers of property owners received double-digit increases.

Johnson said he made a conscious decision for his office to be more conservative in adjusting values this year because he feared a slowdown after Sept. 11.

The lower values are good news come tax time because the county uses the values to determine how much property tax each resident owes, but if they are an accurate reflection of the market, they may be less than welcome for those homeowners looking to sell soon.

Most real estate agents said they thought the price of homes didn’t increase at quite as fast a rate as in previous years.

“No doubt about it, values grew at a lower rate this year,” said Mark Buhler, sales manager at Stephens Real Estate.

But not at such a low rate that property owners should become concerned, several agents said.

“Five percent is still awfully good,” said Gary Nuzum, president and managing broker of Coldwell Banker McGrew Real Estate. “In fact, I have always felt that the healthiest environment for both buyers and sellers is a market that sees its property grow in value by about 3 percent a year.

“That provides a good steady rate of appreciation but also is a good sign that supply and demand is in balance. Real estate isn’t designed to be a get-rich scheme. It is a get-rich-slow scheme.”

Buy big

The one area of the Lawrence market that may most be feeling the lingering effects of Sept. 11 and the economic slowdown is the upper-end housing market, which generally is considered to be homes above the $300,000 price range.

“I’m hopeful the upper-end market will get some help,” Buhler said. “We have lost some jobs in the area and that makes for tough sledding.

“House buying is all about confidence. Part of the process is you ask yourself what you can afford today, and then you ask yourself if your world is going to be the same in the foreseeable future. That’s been the point where a lot of our traditional upper-end home buyers have been stopping the process lately.”

But the slowdown in that sector of the market should be good news for those looking to buy an upscale home.

“If you are in that market, you’re going to have lots of choices and you may have your way for a while,” Buhler said. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re not going to steal anything, because you never do in this town, but your dollar may go a little farther.”

A critical time

Whether the rest of the market is a buyer’s or seller’s market, though, is still very much an open question.

Cheri Drake, broker of Team-One Real Estate and president of the Lawrence Board of Realtors, said the Lawrence market may be the most balanced it has been for years.

“Given the current interest rates and the supply of products right now, I would say it is pretty close to being even in terms of supply and demand,” Drake said. “But also, all the indications we have with activity at open houses is that people are out in large numbers. We think we’ll have a stronger 2002 than 2001.”

That would be good news for the industry because most agents said 2001 was a good but not necessarily excellent year. The industry’s fate in 2002 should be pretty well determined within the next two months, which traditionally are the peak of the home-buying season.

“I think it is still a little too early to say with any certainty about what buyers should expect,” said Jeff Hatfield, an appraiser with Larry A. Hatfield Appraisals.

“The spring season is really the yardstick for the whole year.”

But several in the industry have their hunches.

“This town has been a seller’s market for a long time,” Ham said. “I just have a gut feeling that may change a bit. I think the volume of sales will continue to be high, but maybe we won’t see the same type of large appreciations like we have in the past.

“Everything is cyclical and maybe it is just our time to come back to being a buyer’s market for a while.”

Tim Keller, an owner and appraiser with Keller & Associates, said he’s expecting the Lawrence market won’t look a lot different in 2002 than it has most years.

But then again, last year was a reminder that the unexpected does happen.

“I think the spring and summer are going to be pretty strong, maybe better than last year, unless we’re hit in the face by something we don’t expect,” Keller said.