Housing market gaining steam

By STACIE R. SANDALL

Hays Daily News

Spring is in the air and interest rates are still low. Now is the time to begin looking at new homes and business locations. The real estate market is strong, representatives at local real estate companies are saying.

“The residential multi-family type of residences always have been strong in Hays. It's been a pretty consistently strong market,” said Galen Romme, broker at Romme Real Estate in Hays. “That's attributed to, for one, the university. You've always got housing needs for students. Secondly, the young professionals at the hospitals need housing.”

Romme said that during the last year they did see a little bit of a weakening in the vacancy rates, but nothing dramatic.

Les Herrman, associate broker at Dean Ellner Realtors in Hays, hasn't seen much of a change in the market, either, over the past year.

“The interest rates are very good, but they're trying to swing up. People seem to want to look more. They aren't in any hurry to buy, but the market hasn't slowed down any. If it has slowed down it's been in the real high priced property,” Herrman said. “The middle class is still very, very active. A nice house priced right will sell.”

There are few more listed than are selling, Herrman said, but real estate companies are gearing up for the selling season. “When the flowers bloom, the grass starts greening and the birds start singing, people get the itch to go looking,” he said.

Jennyfer Toepfer, owner and realtor at Advanced Real Estate Company in Hays said her agency started out with two agents. Over the past two years, they have increased to five because the need has been so strong.

“We're pretty busy right now. A lot of the boom comes from the availability of grant money available for first time buyers,” said realtor Marla Pendergast.

Toepfer said that with the N.E.W. call center coming in, her company saw an influx of people come to town.

“There is still a need for lower priced homes,” said Michael Michaelis, executive director of the Ellis County Coalition for Economic Development. “There has been a lot of discussion on how to make that a possibility.”

Romme thinks the residential market will hold steady over next year because Fort Hays State University is not projecting any growth, and the hospital is capping out their growth.

Commercial real estate, however, is a completely different story. Once utilities slipped across Interstate 70, there has been a real retail movement north of Hays.

Romme said that I-70 was always a natural barrier, but once they got utilities across that barrier, things started to boom.

“There's a movement on that side of town since we are landlocked on the south side of town. It seems like it's been really happening this year,” Michaelis said. “It's exciting that there will be developers on the north side of the interstate trying to bring retail to town. We haven't seen that much action in a long time. Who knows what the future will bring for us”

Romme agreed.

“Everybody wants that market to happen. The consumer wants to see all the stores here, the restaurants, places to buy things and not have to leave town,” Romme said.

The office market has also been strong, said Romme, but it is also the softest market in Hays.

“The only problem is we have a big vacancy with the Hadley Center being on the market. That dumped about 160,000 square feet of office on the market,” Romme said. “They filled that property so there is around 50,000 or 60,000 still left. What they filled with it pulled some people out of existing offices spaces.”

Industry is not a flowing market in the county, say realtors, because Ellis County is not known as an industrial area.

“Industry is one of those markets where we've got properties out there, and sometimes they fit the clients, sometimes they don't. It goes in spurts,” Romme said.

According to Romme, the lease rate per square foot, said Romme, is $2 to $3 for an industrial warehouse. For office space the rate falls between $9 and $18, and for retail, depending on location, between $6 and $15.

Reporter Stacie Sandall can be reached at (785) 628-1081, ext. 136, or by e-mail at

ssandall@dailynews.net.