Tallahassee Real Estate Blog

Good Deal … Bad Deal … We’ll See

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had a good day yesterday, did you?

Overall, I think Tallahassee had a good day with this bill being signed by President Bush yesterday. Tallahassee is a town that historically is very active in loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (government loans) so the fact the financial reinforcement has been provided means that Tallahassee home buyers will have their “normal” sources of mortgage funds. Read the rest of this entry

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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.

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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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I was asked by a local Realtor, Penny Herman, to help her prepare some market views for an upcoming interview on Fox Business News, a national broadcast which will occur on July 8th at 4:00 p.m. I’ve known Penny for years, and I can tell you she really hustles and she is a great role model for all of her peers in the industry.

Penny asked that I provide some insight into the current inventory situation in the Tallahassee real estate market. She had seen a prior blog of mine and wanted to be able to share some of the positive signs that we are seeing here in Tallahassee.

If you are a regular reader of the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog, than you have been seeing the general trend of rising inventories. This is not good. I have pointed out many times in the past that we cannot begin to talk about the market turning until we first see a turn in the flow of inventory. I think this is so important that I track inventory movement each and every day (with the great help of our Transaction Coordinator, Carol Palacios).

So, what do I mean by inventory flow? Simply put, I study two major groups of housing inventory each day. Properties that are newly listed for sale, and properties that are no longer for sale. The newly listed properties are ones that become “for sale” on that day, while the ones that are no longer for sale are ones that become “sold, canceled, expired or withdrawn” on that day. With these two groups, we can study inventory much like the tides at the beach. We look to see if the inventory is flowing in (growing) or flow out (declining). When the long-term trend turns to “declining,” we will know that the start of the turn has occurred.

The long-term trend that I am looking for will be the 365 day trend. That trend will remove all seasonality and will establish the true current state of inventory flow in the Tallahassee real estate market. Unfortunately, I only started this measurement this year, so the best we can do for Penny Herman’s real estate presentation is to review the 30, 60, and 90 day trends.

This first graph is the ninety-day trend  of inventory movement in the Tallahassee real estate market. The red area represents homes that are newly listed for sale, while the green area represents homes that are no longer on the market. The yellow area is the difference between the two. When the yellow area is above the “Zero (0.0)” line, we know that the trend still indicates that inventory is growing. The good news that we can take from this chart is that the rate of inventory growth is falling.

This next graph is the sixty-day trend  of inventory movement in the Tallahassee real estate market. The red area represents homes that are newly listed for sale, while the green area represents homes that are no longer on the market. The yellow area is the difference between the two. When the yellow area is above the “Zero (0.0)” line, we know that the trend still indicates that inventory is growing. The good news that we can take from this chart is that the rate of inventory growth has fallen below the zero line at times and it currently just over the zero line.

This final graph is the thirty-day trend  of inventory movement in the Tallahassee real estate market. The red area represents homes that are newly listed for sale, while the green area represents homes that are no longer on the market. The yellow area is the difference between the two. When the yellow area is above the “Zero (0.0)” line, we know that the trend still indicates that inventory is growing. The great news from this graph is that the short-term trend in our market shows inventory shrinking! This could be great news, but it is by no means proof of the market changing….. yet. We need to see this occur on a longer trend.

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, 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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We are about to complete the first six months of the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog! How time flies…

You might be surprised to find that the visitors to the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog come from all over the world. Just this morning, I checked and found some interesting results. The maps below represent the source of visitors. The darker the green color, the more visitors that came from that location.

As you can tell, most of the visitors come from the U.S., and most of them come from Florida. But I did not expect to find that 107 countries and every State has sent visitors to the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog in just 6 months! Additionally, who would have guessed that the most active States would not be our neighboring states, but rather California and New York! I guess the world really is shrinking.

Part of our success in drawing people from all over the world is the result of our renewed focus on Internet Marketing for Real Estate with Web 2.0. We committed to this change at the end of 2007 and we are very excited with the preliminary results that we are finding at the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog.

This week, we expect to see the May real estate report completed in the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog. Tune in for colored graphs, charts and more analysis of Tallahassee housing.

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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We had such great response to the Tallahassee Florida Real Estate Blog yesterday that we’ve decided to issue a second edition of our most trafficked blog articles. Today’s compilation of real estate articles will focus on Tallahassee real estate.

A Great Tallahassee Real Estate Case Study - Home ownership in the Tallahassee real estate market is the single-greatest investment that a family can make. It blows away the stock market, and for most families, it is by far the smartest investment that they can make.

Tallahassee Real Estate Historical Information - We often hear that the Tallahassee real estate market is cyclical, but sometimes a picture will show us much more than mere words can communicate. This blog article includes excellent charts, graphs and analysis of the previous 68 quarters in the Tallahassee real estate market.

Residential Sales In Tallahassee in 2007 - The Leon County tax data base shows residential unit sales going back to 1990. This article is a collection of graphs that show how the residential market in Tallahassee has changed and grown over the past 17 years.

Inventory Trends In The Tallahassee Real Estate Market - The preliminary numbers are in for the Tallahassee Real Estate Market and the first thing that I like to check (lately) is the inventory trend chart. This chart tells us, based on the previous twelve months of information, whether the inventory in the MLS is thinning or growing.

High-End Market Update - Tallahassee high-end inventory has grown to nearly 30 months of supply, but believe it or not, the upper end market has been growing, so anyone who prices their home competitively should expect to see fairly steady traffic through their home. While such high inventory in this price range is not great news, it is good to know that homes are continuing to sell in the upper end.

Graphs, Graphs and More Graphs of Tallahassee Housing - 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 the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog (and others) for opinions on why this was happening and really none of us had a good answer….. Until Gooch had this idea!

Tallahassee Real Estate Market Analysis Home Page - Well, it is finally started. After receiving so many requests for a permanent location to find real analysis of the Tallahassee real estate market, Century 21 First Realty has created the place! If you want to know more about the current trends in Tallahassee real estate, just following the link!

Watch A 5000 Square Foot Home Being Built In Less Than 10 Minutes! - Possibly one of the most fun blogs that we have written at Century 21 First Realty in Tallahassee. This is a 9 minute video, posted on YouTube, that shows a 5000 square foot home being built. The awesome home construction video is set to fun music and will entertain and enlighten people who want to see a home being built, fast.

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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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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Today’s posting on the Tallahassee Florida Real Estate Blog will be short and sweet. I’ve just come back into town and have a lot of catch-up work to do.

I’ve been out of town since Thursday and the first thing that I want to know is whether or not we’ve seen a directional change in the residential inventory in the Tallahassee real estate market. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Tallahassee Real Estate Market Bulletin and check the graph. If the yellow section is below the zero line, then inventories are finally dropping. If the yellow is still above the zero line, then we are continuing to add inventory.

As we can tell from the graph above, our sixty-day trend is still “above the line.” This means that our residential inventory in the Tallahassee real estate market is growing by about 2 homes per day.

I am looking forward to the day that we see the yellow band drop below the line, which would mean that residential inventory in the Tallahassee real estate market would finally be dropping!

!

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.

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Today’s Tallahassee Florida Real Estate Blog is dedicated to my fellow number-crunching types who really like to “know the numbers.”

I was searching for news online and found The AP-AOL Money & Finance poll. This poll was conducted a month ago and involved telephone interviews with 1,002 adults nationwide, for whom the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.1%. Of the 1,002 surveyed, 769 were homeowners. So what does this mean… it shows how opinions around the country seem to be pretty consistent and similar to what we hear in the Tallahassee real estate market.



An area that I found particularly interesting was how people perceived pricing in their own local market areas. The results were pretty evenly-spaced, with the optimists being the strongest group. I suspect we would find similar results in the Tallahassee real estate market.

And for those of you who actually want to see the raw numbers:

Time will tell as to whether or not the fears are rational or not. We know that real estate is a commodities market, therefore we are bound to the fears and concerns of the buyers in the market place, just as any other market is tied to the fears and concerns of its buyers. And time has proven these fears and concerns can turn to greed very quickly…..

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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