Tallahassee Real Estate Blog

The real estate market is local in nature, yet most of the media reports tell us how the real estate market is doing nationally, or how it is doing in the state of Florida. While this blog typically focuses on the real estate market in Tallahassee, I do occasionally take a peek at the markets that surround Leon County. This blog is one of my monthly updates that is designed to recognize the impact on Leon County when one of the surrounding counties does something unique or extraordinary. Read the rest of this entry

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I will be away from the computer for the next few days so I thought I would post a quick comment about something that I find completely fascinating.

A good friend of mine, Rod Presnell, built a large home near where I live. I took a picture of it almost every day as it went through each cycle of construction. When completed, I assembled it into a movie and posted the Watch A  Home Being Built movie on YouTube as a way to see a home being built, from start to finish, in a relatively quick time. Read the rest of this entry

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Special occasions occur in life at various times, and when they are acted upon in a timely manner, they can change our destiny. I believe now is one of those times. The “perfect storm” of economic events and global opinion has created a small window of opportunity for us regular people to take advantage of something normally only available to the financially advantaged. Read the rest of this entry

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Too often, we work with people who want to buy a home in Tallahassee who do not understand the importance of being a strong buyer. They believe that due to the nature of the market, they have thousands of homes from which to choose so they can just go out and “shop.” Read the rest of this entry

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I received an email request from a reader “Nancy” in Orlando, Florida last night. For medical reasons, she needs to move to a real estate market that has little humidity and she wants to be in Prescott, Arizona.

Nancy writes

“Hi Joe, saw your site after doing a search “where do I trade my house“.

My husband and I have a Lakefront Home (upscaled) on 1 Acre with Rental Income near Orlando, FL. It is a 4 BR, 4 BA, 4012 sq. ft., multi-level very unique and sunset views from every “angle”. It is priced at $1,599,000. My husband is a Licensed, R.E. Broker in FL (he actually use to be District Direct of Century 21 out of Miami) Anyway, I have Fibromyalgia and we are looking to trade a house in Prescott, Arizona only (I have narrowed down the climate to a “T”)

We are looking for:  $500,000 - $900,000 price range home with sq. ft. of 3000+ in Prescott. Age of home does not matter but we are looking to finance difference for new owner here.

What is the best way to do this…any help is so appreciated!   Nancy”

Many people around the country are in similar situations. They own a home in one real estate market but want or need to move to another real estate market. So what should Nancy do?

My recommendation to Nancy is to find the top real estate company in the Orlando market and work with somebody who has extensive experience in real estate investment (this can be determined by asking to see their own portfolio). This agent will be able to give Nancy specific advice for the Orlando real estate market.

The next advice is to think of this situation as two separate situations. First, what can Nancy do with the current house in Orlando? Second, what should Nancy do to buy a home in Prescott, Arizona ?

While a trade is definitely a possibility, what are the odds of somebody living in Prescott, Arizona needing a $1.5M home in Orlando, Florida? If a trade is going to help, it will most likely be trading the home in Orlando for a commercial property somewhere in America. Once this is done, it is possible then to trade that commercial property “somewhere in America” for a property in Prescott, Arizona. But most likely, this problem will be solved without a trade. The key is to get solid, experienced professionals helping Nancy on the ground at each location.

As a reminder for those who subscribe to the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog by email, some embedded pictures and videos might not be appearing in your email and you might need to click the title header to go to your browser where all will be visible.

Keep checking out the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog every day for updates that include charts, graphs, and analysis of the Tallahassee real estate market.

If you like this Article then please subscribe to my blog through a full RSS feed, or you can . You will be able to stay informed about the happenings in the Tallahassee Real Estate Market. You can also subscribe to this blog and have it delivered by Email.

Joe Manausa is a real estate investor and the Broker and Co-Owner of Century 21 First Realty. He can be reached via e-mail through the Tallahassee Real Estate Website or catch his latest writings on the Tallahassee Florida Real Estate Blog , or by calling (850) 386-2001.

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Just over three months ago, I wrote a blog article in the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog that examined the relationship between Home Prices and Interest Rates in determining the time to buy a home. It has been the source of numerous comments and debates in several real estate forums on the Internet.

If you refer back to that article, I suggested that future rising interest rates would make a cheaper house less affordable. While I figured that it was highly likely home prices would be falling, I knew that rising interest rates would leave most buyers with higher monthly payments. Sure enough, mortgage interest rates are rising, as you can see in the chart below.

So, even if you are not thinking about buying a Tallahassee home, you might want to look into refinancing your home. Back in April, I wrote a blog titled When Should A Mortgage Be Refinanced? This could be a good reference to review before contacting a real estate mortgage lender.

On another note, here are some of our most popular features on the Tallahassee Real Estate Web Site:

• Full Tallahassee MLS Property Search (Data provided by the MLS)
• Complete Access to Homes For Sale In Tallahassee without annoying registration
• A new and growing Tallahassee Neighborhoods and Subdivisions map and information service
• A near-daily view of the market provided by the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog
• Tallahassee Real Estate Market Information delivered by a full RSS feed
• Tallahassee Real Estate Market Information delivered by E-Mail
• Home buyer resources including a Free Tallahassee Home Buyer’s Guide
• Home seller resources including a FREE Tallahassee Home Pricing Analysis
• A new Free Tallahassee Relocation Tool, whether moving to or from Tallahassee
• A constantly updated Tallahassee Real Estate Market Report
• A Tallahassee real estate career evaluation tool that will let you know if real estate is right for you
• A First Time Tallahassee Real Estate Buyer’s Guide that answers critical questions
• Much, much, more from the top Tallahassee Real Estate Company

As a reminder for those who subscribe to the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog by email, some embedded pictures and videos might not be appearing in your email and you might need to click the title header to go to your browser where all will be visible.

Keep checking out the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog every day for updates that include charts, graphs, and analysis of the Tallahassee real estate market.

If you like this Article then please subscribe to my blog through a full RSS feed, or you can . You will be able to stay informed about the happenings in the Tallahassee Real Estate Market. You can also subscribe to this blog and have it delivered by Email.

Joe Manausa is a real estate investor and the Broker and Co-Owner of Century 21 First Realty. He can be reached via e-mail through the Tallahassee Real Estate Website or catch his latest writings on the Tallahassee Florida Real Estate Blog , or by calling (850) 386-2001.

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Back during the days of the boom in the Tallahassee real estate market, we had people contract to buy a home in Tallahassee with no intent of owning it for any real period of time. These investors are known as “real estate speculators” and they have no intention of being in the market for a long time. They write a contract on a property, close on it, and then find buyers to whom they “flip” the property for a quick profit. Some are even able to sell the property before they even have to close on it for themselves.

Great booming real estate markets always create opportunities for flipping homes, but what happens is that this creates a “feeding frenzy” in the market, causing prices to shoot up faster than would happen without the speculators.

Well, five-years ago, lenders decided that it was too risky being involved in the end-deal of these flips. The Federal Housing Administration established a rule to deter these flipping speculators which imposed a 90-day waiting period before a home could be financed with a government-backed loan. This meant that flippers now had to own the home for more than 90 days before the could realistically sell it, thus increasing their risk of loss.

So why does this matter today? Because the White House just put a temporary freeze on this rule in order to help in the cause of selling foreclosed properties. “A glut of foreclosed and abandoned homes harms neighborhoods, frustrates home-buyers and delays a community’s recovery,” FHA commissioner Brian Montgomery said in a prepared statement.

I believe this is good news for a real estate market in need of good news. This will allow for an easier consumption process for distressed homes in the Tallahassee real estate market and will enable a quicker recovery of the market.

As a reminder for those who subscribe to the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog by email, some embedded pictures and videos might not be appearing in your email and you might need to click the title header to go to your browser where all will be visible.

Keep checking out the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog every day for updates that include charts, graphs, and analysis of the Tallahassee real estate market.

If you like this Article then please subscribe to my blog through a full RSS feed, or you can . You will be able to stay informed about the happenings in the Tallahassee Real Estate Market. You can also subscribe to this blog and have it delivered by Email.

Joe Manausa is a real estate investor and the Broker and Co-Owner of Century 21 First Realty. He can be reached via e-mail through the Tallahassee Real Estate Website or catch his latest writings on the Tallahassee Florida Real Estate Blog , or by calling (850) 386-2001.

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Recently, a reader of the Tallahassee Florida Real Estate Blog going by the name “Jim” asked ”

Joe, Can you do a subdivision workup for Bull Run?“

Jim, you asked this question on the perfect day. Not only was I interested in knowing how Bull Run was doing, I also got hit with a case of writers block and really didn’t know what to cover today. So here it goes.

Bull Run in Tallahassee Florida

According to the Leon County Tax records, home sales began in Bull Run in 2005.

Using the sales data from Bull Run, our graph shows us that the price trend is declining:

Taking information from the MLS, we find the following supply and demand characteristics in Bull Run in Tallahassee: In the past twelve months, 34 homes have sold and currently there are 28 homes listed for sale in Bull Run. That implies a 9.9 months of supply figure (which is better than much of Leon County).

This shows the price per square foot rose about 3% per year from 2005 to 2007, but has since dropped over 7%. 7 homes have sold in 2008 in Bull Run in Tallahassee, and they have sold for an average price per square foot of just over $159.

The key to buying a home in Bull Run will be to know exactly what has sold, new versus resale, Builder A versus Builder B, etc. The same thing goes if you need to sell a home. This is simply a snapshot of the market in Bull Run in Tallahassee and it should give the reader a fairly good expectation of where the market is currently trading.

As a reminder for those who subscribe to the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog by email, some embedded pictures and videos might not be appearing in your email and you might need to click the title header to go to your browser where all will be visible.

Keep checking out the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog every day for updates that include charts, graphs, and analysis of the Tallahassee real estate market.

If you like this Article then please subscribe to my blog through a full RSS feed. You will be able to stay informed about the happenings in the Tallahassee Real Estate Market. You can also subscribe to this blog and have it delivered by Email.

Joe Manausa is a real estate investor and the Broker and Co-Owner of Century 21 First Realty. He can be reached via e-mail through the Tallahassee Real Estate Website or catch his latest writings on the Tallahassee Florida Real Estate Blog , or by calling (850) 386-2001.

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I am helping an investor buy an investment property in Tallahassee today. With most people concerned about the market and choosing to be sellers, he likes to “swim upstream” and so he has moved to a buying position in the Tallahassee real estate market.

I figured our selection process might make for an interesting blog post. The simplicity of what he is doing has caused me to realize that sometimes our fears cause us to miss the obvious signs of what we should do. But as he reminded me, the return in real estate is found in long-term, leveraged appreciation. Too many investors think the money is in speculation or in the “flip,” whereas seasoned investors like to watch the appreciation build up.

So, today’s Tallahassee Real Estate Blog will feature a home for sale in Tallahassee. This is a real home that is completely renovated and will draw rents of $1,250 to $1,300 per month from the market. And because it has been completely renovated, the operating expenses on this unit will be lower than a typical property as all replacements have been recently made. It makes for the perfect investment property in Tallahassee.

I have included a simplified, but accurate, purchase analysis that shows an investor can buy this investment property in Tallahassee and should expect to realize a long-term, annual rate of return exceeding 20%!!! Not too bad for a “down market!”

In this example, we see the home is purchased for $118K with the buyer paying 3% towards closing costs. Assuming the buyer put 20% down, that would be total cash out of pocket for the buyer of  $27,140.

As we can see from the example above, the short-term after-tax “cash on cash” return is basically 7.6%, but the overall return exceeds 20%. You can build serious wealth over time when you get your return on investment (ROI) north of 20%, which is all the more reason to consider buying an investment property in Tallahassee.

As a reminder for those who subscribe to the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog by email, some embedded pictures and videos might not be appearing in your email and you might need to click the title header to go to your browser where all will be visible.

Keep checking out the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog every day for updates that include charts, graphs, and analysis of the Tallahassee real estate market.

If you like this Article then please subscribe to my blog through a full RSS feed. You will be able to stay informed about the happenings in the Tallahassee Real Estate Market. You can also subscribe to this blog and have it delivered by Email.

Joe Manausa is a real estate investor and the Broker and Co-Owner of Century 21 First Realty. He can be reached via e-mail through the Tallahassee Real Estate Website or catch his latest writings on the Tallahassee Florida Real Estate Blog , or by calling (850) 386-2001.

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Thank you everybody for the great feedback from yesterday’s blog about price reductions in the Tallahassee real estate market.

As I am on the road, this will be a brief update about yesterday’s conversation regarding a price-reduction page coming to the Tallahassee Florida Real Estate Web Site. Please preview the draft format by clicking the link below.

I would love some feedback on the fields displayed in this table. I’m not looking to make this a comprehensive project, but if you have ideas on what could make it better, please provide them in the comments section below.

As a reminder for those who subscribe to the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog by email, some embedded pictures and videos might not be appearing in your email and you might need to click the title header to go to your browser where all will be visible.

Keep checking out the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog every day for updates that include charts, graphs, and analysis of the Tallahassee real estate market.

As a reminder for those who subscribe to the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog by email, some embedded pictures and videos might not be appearing in your email and you might need to click the title header to go to your browser where all will be visible.

Keep checking out the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog every day for updates that include charts, graphs, and analysis of the Tallahassee real estate market.

If you like this Article then please subscribe to my blog through a full RSS feed. You will be able to stay informed about the happenings in the Tallahassee Real Estate Market. You can also subscribe to this blog and have it delivered by Email.

Joe Manausa is a real estate investor and the Broker and Co-Owner of Century 21 First Realty. He can be reached via e-mail through the Tallahassee Real Estate Website or catch his latest writings on the Tallahassee Florida Real Estate Blog , or by calling (850) 386-2001.

If you'd like to forward this post to someone you think might be interested, simply click on the "Share This" link and click "E-mail."
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