Tallahassee Real Estate Blog

With this being the 101st blog written in the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog, I figured I would give the readers a look at who is visiting our blog in Tallahassee, Florida. You might be surprised at who we drag in. So, to answer our question regarding who are you Tallahassee real estate people…

Who Are You

Women out-visited men during the month of June. I wonder if this is a long-term trend. It seems that our average parallels that of overall internet usage.

Not surprisingly, 93% of our visitors are old enough to buy or sell a home in Tallahassee.

The ethnicity figures for the Tallahassee real estate blog shows that 93% of our visitors are either Caucasian or African American.

This chart shows that it’s not just my friends and family visiting, as we can see that 60% of the visitors to Tallahassee Real Estate Blog have a college degree (or higher).

Roughly 7 out of 8 of our visitors make greater than $30,00 per year, while 1 in 2 make over $60,000 per year.

Where Do Tallahassee Real Estate Blog Readers Come From

Perhaps the most interesting data that I have found is that our visitors come from 110 different countries! That too me is amazing. It just shows you the power of the internet and the importance of having an international real estate marketing plan, even for lil’ ol’ Tallahassee.

When Do Tallahassee Real Estate Blog Readers Visit

This next graph shows that we have had over 35,000 visits this year and that mid-day at the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog is roughly 2:30 p.m. and that 2/3rds of our visitors have been to the blog by 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

O.K. Now that we all know who everybody is, hopefully we can see a lot more comments and two-way dialogue on what is becoming a very popular spot in the blogosphere. Please do not hesitate to comment below and to recommend anything that you would like to see covered on the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog.

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.

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.

With all the major real estate reporting centers claiming that the Tallahassee real estate market is seeing appreciation, I felt it might be a good time to explain the difference between higher spending and appreciation.

As we look at this first graph, we can see that the average home price in Tallahassee appears to be higher (through February) than it has been in years past.

While this is good and accurate information, I suspect that many people are using this information to declare that home prices are rising in the Tallahassee real estate market. I think that lower mortgage interest rates in Tallahassee have allowed buyers to buy more home for their money, rather than pay more money for a home. In order to demonstrate this point, I downloaded all the Leon County residential sales from the Tallahassee Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service (Tallahassee MLS) for the past twelve months. I then sorted them by price range. The following chart shows residential sales in Leon County compared to homes currently for sale in Leon County.

Note how each price range has four colored bars above it, and a yellow field behind them. I have “blown up” a section of the above graph to show what this information is telling us. In the picture below:

• Point #1. shows red arrows trending downwards. This is the past 12 months, 9 months, 6 months & 3 months sales for each price range. Note how the price per square foot for each price range is falling? I believe this is demonstrating depreciation in each price range.
• Point #2. shows us the yellow field is the current asking price at each price range (presented as price per square foot). Note that the price range of $125,000 - $150,000 has the yellow field closer to the tops of the vertical bars (the asking prices average 9% higher than the previous 3 months sales) as compared to the price range of $250,000 - $300,000 where the yellow field is much higher than the tops of the vertical bars (the asking prices average 20% higher than the previous three months sales).
  

Conclusion on Residential Home Prices In Tallahassee

There are many good buying opportunities in the Tallahassee real estate market. There are also a lot of homes that are over-priced and can be confusing to buyers. The key is to use the modern tools that are available to find the best buys in the Tallahassee real estate market. The graphs above were created using “averages,” but averages are not what a buyer buys. Each home is priced specifically and it takes all the homes for sale in Tallahassee to create the averages. If you want to buy a home in Tallahassee, just look at the homes of the Sellers who are priced to sell, and your selection process will be much simpler and more enjoyable.

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.

Every once in a while, we have a Tallahassee real estate sale that demonstrates the amazing power of the combination of the global reach of Century 21 with the local effort of great people. Here is a classic example of this.

I received a late-night call from a U.S. Veteran working in Baghdad. He had received some bad advice on a real estate investment and needed some serious help. Somebody talked he and a friend into buying four new-construction homes to flip and make big money…..

So here he was, living in Iraq and losing money in the Tallahassee real estate market! This was during the boom of the market, so the advice he received was truly bad.

He turned to the biggest name in real estate, Century 21, for help. He called me from Iraq and I felt an extra special need to help him, as I am also a Veteran who has served overseas in the past. After our call, he sent me this email message:

Tallahassee Real Estate Problem

From: d b [mailto:XXXXXXXXXX]
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 2:55 PM
To: Manausa, Joe
Subject: Dave in Baghdad/Tallahassee houses

Hello Joe,

Great talking to you. Thank you for any and all your help in getting Earl and I out of our house messes. Earl will be coming to Tallahassee tomorrow and will bring along his paper work for the houses. We both have the exact same paperwork. Earl can re-tell you the whole story.

The house links are below….my house numbers are XXXX and YYYY ZZZZ Road (AAAA Subdivision). I owe $XXXXXXX on each house. (original loan/borrowed amount). First made my loan on May 2006. Both houses went past one year to be built.

Earl will show you what paper work we do have….which is basically the XXXX loan paperwork, and the lease we each have with one house rented. We are getting $1100 per month rent. Since the houses went past there construction life, the bank wants 11.75% interest. I’ve had my loan since May 2006, and it took over 6 months before the build would start working XXXX. Earl’s and mine second house are still not finished.

Its just a big mess and nightmare.

Thanks again….from one Veteran to Another….. Best Regards, Dave B (XXX) XXX-XXXX cell, when in US.

As you can see from the date on the message, this was in September of last year. So, he’s several thousand miles away and a builder is not finishing his home and he’s now facing a bank (not local) charging him 11.75% interest on the loan!

Tallahassee Real Estate Solution

Summer Munyon, the 2007 Tallahassee Board of Realtors Rookie of the Year.

While Dave was unhappy about losing money in this real estate market, he recognized that his best option was to sell his investment property quickly. The most important information that Summer gave Dave was the months supply of inventory in his neighborhood of Wilson Green. Understanding that homes typically sell in the order of best value, Dave chose to list his home at the lowest price home in the neighborhood, and we continuously monitored the activity in the neighborhood. Within 4 weeks, Dave dropped the price on his home by $5000, pricing it just under $150,000. The home sold within 4 months on the market, while homes that we on the market before we even received his call for help are still on the market today. Weekly, sometimes daily, contact with Dave ensured that he was well-informed about the sales process and was satisfied with the marketing activities performed.

To read more about Dave’s glowing review of our work, visit our Tallahassee Real Estate Agent section of our website.

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.

I have been posting the Tallahassee real estate market charts on the Tallahassee real estate web site for the past week. In doing so, I and many readers were observing that the following chart is a bit baffling.

As we can see above, it appears that prices are rising…. yet we know inventory has risen and unit sales have fallen. What we expect to see is some downward movement on prices. I asked readers of this blog (and others) for opinions on why this was happening and really none of us had a good answer…..

UNTIL

Gooch recommended we look at price per square foot. He reasoned that maybe consumers were able to buy more expensive homes due to falling interest rates, but that maybe they were getting more house. So, this next chart is what  Gooch requested. It shows residential home sales in Leon County by price per square foot, across different price ranges.

Gooch, prices are indeed falling. While this is not the best news in the world, it certainly makes sense with unit sales being down.

So, how are the current asking prices for Tallahassee homes reflecting this?

As we can see from this, with few exceptions, there are many price ranges that have a majority of their homes over-priced. It appears that homes priced between $150K and $200K are priced very reasonably, while homes in higher price ranges seem to be off the mark quite a bit.

Just remember, in every market, their are unrealistic Sellers who ask more for their home than the market is willing to bear. They make the “average” asking price much higher than it would be if only serious sellers were in the market. Today, you can definitely find the serious sellers out there. They are the ones that have their homes priced well below their competition.

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.

This is a video of a 5000 square foot home being built from the cleared lot to the finished home.

It is also my first attempt at figuring out how to use youtube in my business plan.

I would love some feedback on the entire process. Duration, picture quality, music selection, etc.

Watch A Home Being Built In Tallahassee By A Classic Builder

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.

More news from the Tallahassee Real Estate Market. I will be doing a good bit of research and analysis this weekend, so today with be just a quick graph from the new data.

So, let’s take a look at new construction in the Tallahassee real estate market. New permits and new sales data is something that I have been tracking for a very long time. We can get a feel for the near-future inventory movement by what is happening in new construction today. The following chart shows the relationships between Tallahassee new permits and new sales in single family homes in Leon County, Florida.

The red line represents new permits while the green line represents new sales. We can see that new construction starts have been dropping since January of 2006, and correspondingly, so have the sales just thereafter. This went on until March of last year, when permitting turned from the lowest level seen since I started tracking this in 1997. It appears that we are just starting to see the sales follow.

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.

In yesterday’s blog, I analyzed the Southeast Area of the Tallahassee Real Estate Market for the purpose of demonstrating how to use the Free Monthly Tallahassee Real Estate Market Report that anyone can download from the Century 21 First Realty web site.

Today, we’ll conduct the same analysis on the Southwest Leon County real estate market. The picture below represents the Southwest Section of Leon County. The price ranges are featured on the left, and then 9 columns of data fall to the right of each price range. Those 9 columns are actually three sets of three columns. The first set of three are homes for sale in Southwest Tallahassee (All, New Construction, Resales), the second set of three columns are homes that sold in Southwest Tallahassee in the past twelve months, and the final column displays the amount of homes for sale in Southwest Tallahassee (measured in ‘months’ of supply).

Based upon what the above numbers show us, the Southwest quadrant of the Tallahassee real estate market has the least amount of activity of all the market area segments. With only 418 sales in the past twelve months, there is most likely not enough data to draw as confident of conclusions as we can in the more active areas.

Using this information I would advise somebody who wants to sell a home in Southwest Tallahassee, with a value between $200,000 and $250,000, that they have a whole lot of competition. With 8 comparable resale homes on the market and 3 newly built and available for a total of 11 homes, this price range is going to be very competitive for home owners. The Southwest Tallahassee real estate market sells roughly 1 home per quarter, so a serious seller would need to be the single-best buy in order to get a serious look from buyers in todays market.

We can see a “picture” of this data below, and it does shows that due to such a low sales volume in this area, the chart is all over the place. The months of supply go from as low as 0 and as high as 33 (almost three years worth!).

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.

In yesterday’s blog, I analyzed the Northwest Area of the Tallahassee Real Estate Market for the purpose of demonstrating how to use the Free Monthly Tallahassee Real Estate Market Report that anyone can download from the Century 21 First Realty web site.

Today, we’ll conduct the same analysis on the Southeast Leon County real estate market. The picture below represents the Southeast Section of Leon County. The price ranges are featured on the left, and then 9 columns of data fall to the right of each price range. Those 9 columns are actually three sets of three columns. The first set of three are homes for sale in Southeast Tallahassee (All, New Construction, Resales), the second set of three columns are homes that sold in Southeast Tallahassee in the past twelve months, and the final column displays the amount of homes for sale in Southeast Tallahassee (measured in ‘months’ of supply).

Based upon what the above numbers show us, the Southeast quadrant of the Tallahassee real estate market has more over-supply than the Northeast, but less than the Northwest.

Using this information I would advise somebody who wants to sell a home in Southeast Tallahassee, with a value between $200,000 and $250,000, that they have 54 homes that they are competing against, of which 17 are new construction. The Southeast Tallahassee real estate market sells roughly 6 of these homes per month, so a serious seller would need to be one of the best 6 buys in order to get a serious look from buyers in todays market.

We can see a “picture” of this data below, and it does not look nearly as friendly as the Northeast 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.

In yesterday’s blog, I analyzed the Northeast Area of the Tallahassee Real Estate Market for the purpose of demonstrating how to use the Free Monthly Tallahassee Real Estate Market Report that anyone can download from the Century 21 First Realty web site.

Today, we’ll conduct the same analysis on the Northwest Leon County real estate market. The picture below represents the Northwest Section of Leon County. The price ranges are featured on the left, and then 9 columns of data fall to the right of each price range. Those 9 columns are actually three sets of three columns. The first set of three are homes for sale in Northeast Tallahassee (All, New Construction, Resales), the second set of three columns are homes that sold in Northwest Tallahassee in the past twelve months, and the final column displays the amount of homes for sale in Northwest Tallahassee (measured in ‘months’ of supply).

Based upon what the above numbers show us, the Northwest quadrant of the Tallahassee real estate market has more over-supply than the Northeast in all of the lower price ranges. Generally, the market is balanced when the months of supply fall between 4 and 6 months.

Using this information I would advise somebody who wants to sell a home in Northwest Tallahassee, with a value between $200,000 and $250,000, that they have a lot of competition. With 70 comparable resale homes on the market and half that many again newly built and available for a total of 105 homes, this price range is going to be very competitive for home owners. The Northwest Tallahassee real estate market sells roughly 8 to 9 of these homes per month, so a serious seller would need to be one of the best 9 buys in order to get a serious look from buyers in todays market.

We can see a “picture” of this data below, and it does not look nearly as friendly as the Northeast 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.