November 2025 - Newsletter
- Stacy Fernandez
- 4 days ago
- 10 min read
Thankful for you!
Check out what we have for you today:
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📸 Lincoln NE Area Market Snapshot
Well some of these stats are surprising to me - I did not expect the medians days on market to go down, nor the average list to sale ratio to go up. One reason I think we are seeing the average list to sale ratio so high is that I believe it bases it off the currently listed price not necessarily the price it originally went on the MLS for. For example if you listed a house at $450k but then updated the price to $400k and sold for $395k it would base that number off of the $400k last listed price.
We are seeing more listings, less pending and less sold. Which translates to me as more inventory and less demand - which if my economic theory classes taught me anything should mean lower prices (though the median sales price went up - but that could be just based on what is currently available on the market).
Anyway stats can be fun and totally frustrating because you can manipulate them to show what you want if you know the right way to frame things. So i'll just leave this here to let you draw your own conclusions. What i'm actually seeing in the market is a lot more room for negotiation and more willingness for sellers to reduce prices. If you are a buyer and looking around you might be able to do some creative negotiations likes building in repairs, interest rate buy downs or decent price cuts. If your not in a rush it would be a fun time to check around and see what you could get.
👫 Realtor Matchmaking
Did you know I can matchmake you with an agent anywhere in the world!?
I can sure try! In fact my best friend, Megan, is buying her first property in London, UK.
Now other countries do have some more nuisances so more time to help prepare is very much appreciated. Each country manages real estate, loans, ownership types and tax strategies differently so I will do my best to connect you with the people you need to best strategize.
With my friend I wasn't able to directly get her connected with a real estate buyers agent (because they don't really do that in London) but I was able to get her some information about UK ownership types, international banks and some tax planning strategies for ex-pats and was able to share that info and help her be more prepared to buy.
I can help you or your friends buy abroad too!
Reach out or fill out this link here:
Click to be Matched or Refer Someone Else!
📝 A Note from Your Favorite Realtor
We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families or had some time to reflect on all the beautiful things in your life that you are thankful for!
We celebrated the holiday with Eliezer's family and this year each kid brought some dishes so not all of the work was on Abuelo and Abuela. It was a grand success, we had our staple Turkey, Ham and my personal favorites Yuca & Panamanian salad. In addition there were sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, mac n cheese, and banana bread. Eliezer and I brought a yummy brussel sprout salad, cranberry sauce, tomatoe/burrata dip, hummus and I went a little crazy with the sourdough with a couple of longer baguettes and cranberry/goat cheese/rosemary & caramelized onion/rosemary focaccia muffins. The next morning we had eggs and leftovers but also made some Apple Turnover Pastries and tried the Chocolate and Lemon Creme Pies we didn't get to the night before.
If you haven't figured out we value food a lot in our household. 😅
The whole month in general has been a good one. We have got to hang out with a variety of family and friends we don't often see, saw the Northern Lights, and Shelly (aka my Mom) got her first massage with me - See the local spotlight for our Masseuse recommendations!
On the Real estate side of life we have had some listings pick up in interest and 2 went under contract. One with multiple offers even though it had been on the market for a while! It is kind of crazy how that works out. Sometimes I feel like it is the fear of missing out phenomenon that suddenly encourages people to come out of the woodwork.
Eliezer got a deer this rifle season and just purchased a muzzle loader permit so we are excited to stock our freezer with affordable meat. We are still learning how to prepare the meat so it doesn't have an overly gamey taste and so far our backstraps medallions were delicious. We are hoping he can get another one in December so we can try some new cuts that we weren't aware of with the first one. It has been awhile since we've done anything with deer hunting so cleaning and butchering it was like a whole new world for us, luckily this time Eliezer didn't but himself once (he was fired int he past because of how many times he knicked himself). We know we aren't the most efficient but we are learning and will get better with time. Now we just have to find a good jerky recipe so we can say thank you to the person's land we hunted on (a very kind past client of ours actually).
Also this month we got to attend teacher conferences for Ezrael and it was so fun to learn about what he does at school, what he is learning and how he is interacting with other kids. We also got his school photos back and he is a cutie! I am obviously biased but I feel bad because I did not set him up for the best success... Let me explain though. He was scheduled to have his photos on Tuesday so I sent him in a cute little outfit, hair all brushed and ready he was looking cute, cute, cute! Well that day it rained so they rain checked him but I didn't know until he got to school the next day... Well Wednesday when he actually got his pictures we had a rough morning. We were lucky to be dressed at all and were in our obsessed with socks phase but also wanted sandals. So his photos feature our last minute thank goodness you put clothes on outfit. Luckily he is naturally cute but when Eliezer saw the outfit he was like really Stacy... You learn you do what you gotta do sometimes and it will be okay!
Well I think that's about it for updates but enjoy some photos!
📸 School photos credit to EmilyHardyPhotography.com (she did great work even with a silly outfit)
Hope you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving filled with delicious food, fully tummies and full hearts!
🔦 Local Business Spotlight
If you are needing a masseuse that does wonderful massages my Mom & I highly recommend Kaylani Rogers & Jena Goering at Empowered Healing!
I've been needing a massage to help alleviate some general pregnancy discomfort and you know treat yo self. As a thank you to my Mom for all of the babysitting she does I treated her to to her first massage as well. Let me tell you I think she is hooked!
She was very nervous going into it as she has never had a massage before. However Jena did a fantastic job making her feel comfortable and my mom could not believe how her little hands could be so strong and work such magic!
When we got out of the massage I could tell my mom relaxed and enjoyed the experience! She came out all kinds of loopy (in a good way), she totally had a post massage high - best part no drugs involved - all natural goodness! Don't worry I drove us home 😂
Well take this as your sign to book a massage for yourself, we highly recommend you try them out! The environment is very calming, you can tell they care for their clientele and the massages are out of this world! I left a whole new woman!
What local businesses do you like that deserve a shoutout!?
💰 Money Saving Tip - Trash Companies
Recently an investor friend of ours was asking about what people are paying for Trash services and it got me thinking... I have no idea!
What I did know is that between our home and the properties we manage each one had a different service so I did a little digging. What I discovered was surprising!
Each service was a different price. Now that isn't really the surprising part. What was surprising was when I called to inquire about pricing they didn't match what we were paying in most cases - what they quoted on the phone was less than what we were paying!
Thus I did more of a deep dive and called 8 of the popular servicers in town to get some pricing! Now you get to benefit off of my research.
Now the winner for us ended up being Paragon Sanitation
We have been using them for one of our rental properties and was actually one that had a higher price than what we were phone quoted. I was upset at first but then I learned this is quite common practice. So let me give you some other things I learned throughout this process:
Watch out for promo pricing - if your bill jumps call them and see if they can honor the promo pricing (if not switch providers they likely have a new customer price)
If you have more than one property ask for a group discount.
Yard service is kind of confusing - Pay annually or by season depending on the company their may be a discount for doing annual vs seasonal. Will need to do own research to find the most efficient pricing.
Yard waste can go in regular trash from December 1 - March 31st
Yard waste must be separated April 1 - November 30th
Yard waste = grass clippings, leaves and pine needles
Trash = flowers, garden waste, branches, weeds, sod, and mud
If they allow glass in the recycling there is a greater chance that they are not actually recycling it because it gets contaminated.
This one is a bit controversial but was brought to my attention during my calls. However the 2 companies (First Star & Green Quest Recycling) that our refuse companies use do not allow glass.
If glass is in the recycling and especially if it gets broken will contaminate the whole load.
The best place to recycle glass is at the city recycling centers as it will get shipped to (Ripple Glass in Kansas City), (Green Quest will also send glass to Ripple Glass but it must be separate).
One reason we chose Paragon Sanitation is because you can recycle glass with them but you are required to set it outside the container so it doesn't contaminate the rest of the recycling.
Be prepared for questions when cancelling or switching.
Noone was hostile but I could tell they were annoyed or disappointed when I cancelled service.
They did ask why we were switching and it wasn't because it was bad service it was because we were consolidating for easier accounting purposes and prices.
We even had a follow up call to confirm why we were cancelling with one of them. Which leads me to believe if you threaten cancelling it would be a good time to negotiate your price and see if they will price match another company!
Pick up days and if it's same day will vary by company and your location in town for pretty much every company.
Dump prices are going up on Jan 1, 2026 so expect $1 or $2 price increases across all companies.
Well we hope you take our research and make sure you are getting the best prices on your refuse services! Little things like this take some time but can be worth it, especially if you have/manage more than 1 property. Never be afraid to ask for a discount, the worst they will say is no!
What services have you had success negotiating that we should be looking into?
💰 Money Saving Tip - Year End Planning
You are getting 2 money tips today because this is too good not to share!
One of my favorite podcasts put out a really fantastic podcast for year end planning finances. They have provided a great resource checklist - Money Moves to Make Before Year End 2025 - that makes sure you are hitting all of your financial money moves for 2025!
They are even doing a 31 day email challenge, you can sign up and they will email you daily with a new task to make sure you have your financial picture in order!
What Podcasts give you great actionable information?
🤝 Giving Back - Event
This event was brought to my attention at our Community Relations/Housing Advocacy meeting at the Realtors Association of Lincoln. Eliezer and I plan to attend with Ezrael if you don't have anything going on we would love to see you there!
What are you favorite ways to give back during the Holiday season?
💸 Free Resources
All of these Free Resources can also be found on our Realtor Matchmaking Site:
You can also find Lincoln Nebraska Local Resources here:
Wanting something else specific? Let me know, i'd love to offer more value!
🎯 Goal Tracking
Accountability 101 - Goal tracking update.
This month we didn't make any progress on the actual board but we did make some progress by getting some properties under contract! Eliezer and I have also been ramping up our own search for another investment property so we will hopefully figure out exactly what we want to do and get one of the offers we have sent accepted 🤞
Though we are far from hitting our goal this year we truly appreciate all of the support of our business! We know next year is going to be a busy family year but we are excited to also make it a busy real estate year as well, and we can't do that without your continued support!
🥂 Cheers
Thank you for tuning in and we look forward to what this holiday season brings for everyone!
-The Fernandez Family
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