Real Estate Information

Fantastic Caverns, just northwest of Springfield, MO., is one of more than 5,600 known caves that dot the Missouri landscape, and more are still being discovered. Of these, just 18 are open to visitors — and only one offers a riding tour.

Riding wasn't even an option back in 1867, when the first known explorers visited Fantastic Caverns. They were 12 women who, equipped with ropes and ladders, ventured inside to answer the owner's advertisement for cave explorers. With only flickering torches or lanterns for light, they surely saw only a hint of the cave's splendors as they groped their way along its dark and slippery passages. It is unlikely that anyone else had been there before them — the cave shows no signs of human habitation.

Today's riding tour tells a different story. Along the roomy, brightly lit passageways, visitors can see thousands of speleothems — cave formations that include stalactites and stalagmites, tiny soda straws, cave pearls, massive columns and flowstones, thin and delicate draperies and more. These distinctive formations, each one like no other, and all created by water a drop at a time, take us back though the ages to a day when no human footstep was heard here.

To read more about Fantastic Caverns be sure to visit their website.

Open Daily throughout the year except Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve & Christmas Day.
    
January 1 - February 25: 8:00 am to 4:00 pm
February 26 - March 11: 8:00 am to 6:00 pm
March 12 - April 29: 8:00 am to 7:00 pm
April 30 - August 15: 8:00 am to 8:00 pm
August 16 - September 5: 8:00 am to 7:00 pm
September 6 - October 31: 8:00 am to 6:00 pm
November 1 - December 31: 8:00 am to 4:00 pm

I'm often asked if this is a good time to buy a home. Some clients are concerned that home prices may fall further than they have already. They are assuming that the best course of action is to wait for the bottom in the market and then buy. The problem with this approach is that you don't know where the bottom is until you see it in the rear view mirror, meaning until you've missed it!

Home prices are one factor in determining your cost of ownership, but so are interest rates and financing availability. Even though interest rates have gone up in the last six months, they are still near historic lows. Since your monthly mortgage payment is a combination of paying down your principal and paying the interest owed, if home prices come down a little further but interest rates up, it could cost you even more to service a mortgage on an identical home!

While a home is a major investment, it is also the center of your personal life. It's important to live in a home that reflects your taste and values, yet is within your financial "comfort zone." To that end, it may be more important to lock in today's relatively low interest rates and low home prices, rather than to hope for a further break in prices in the future.

Please give me a call if I can be of any assistance in determining how much home you can afford in today's market.