Ocala Real Estate Talk

Archive for January, 2010

No it’s not a crazy come on or infomercial. Fannie Mae the huge federal agency is offering incentives to buy Fannie Mae owned foreclosures.

Here is how it goes.

You must buy and close on a Fannie Mae foreclosure between Jan 28 and April 30, 2010.

Fannie Mae is offering 3.5% of the sold price that can be used for closing costs or to buy Whirlpool appliances through Fannie Mae or the buyer can do a combination of closing costs and appliances. Buyers must be owner occupants.

According to the Fannie Mae web site. Lenders may impose their own limitations on the use of the 3.5% incentive, so buyers should consult their lenders for guidance.

Many foreclosures in the Ocala area are either homes that never had all the appliances or the homes were burglarized and the appliances were stolen.

If you are interested in foreclosures in Ocala and surrounding Marion County email me or use the Dream Home Finder in the left column of my blog.

Palm cay Ocala FL

Palm Cay is a 55 plus retirement community in the SW corridor area off SR 200 in Ocala Florida. Palm Cay is a great and very affordable Ocala retirement community. Homes here range in size from around 700 sq ft of living area to over 16oo sq ft. All homes are of frame construction with either aluminum or vinyl siding. Prices are as low as $50,000- up to the low $100′s. The houses in Palm Cay are single family style on 1/4 acre lots. Palm Cay is gated with a guard house and has a large clubhouse with a fitness center, craft rooms and full kitchen. Outside there is a  swimming pool, tennis courts, shuffleboard, horseshoes and a lounge area. HOA fees are currently a very low $85- per month. HOA fees include 24 hour guard at the gate, common area maintenance, clubhouse and pool, trash pickup and basic cable TV.

Update 1/10/2011 : HOA fees remain at $85- per month. There were 18 sales from 6/1/10 to 12/31/10 from $31,500- (only 864 sq ft home) to $90,000-. Of these 18 sales 6 were foreclosures.

Update 2-28-12 HOA fees remain at $85- month. That’s a great price for a gated community. There were 41 resales in 2011. Prices ranged from $25,500- for a 1056 sq ft foreclosure in need of total renovation up to $80,000- for a 1404 with a new roof, AC and flooring.

Update 2-12-2013 HOA Fees are $87- month. There were 42 resales in 2012 ranging from a 2/1/1 672 sqft foreclosure for $23,655- up to $101,000- for a 2232 sqft custom model. Note that most homes in Palm Cay are between 900-1500 sqft.

If you would like a list of homes for sale in Palm Cay fill out my Dream Home Finder or send me an email. I’ll set you up a Listing Cart for Palm Cay.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oak Run is a large 55 plus community with 2 golf courses. Oak Run is located just off SR200 in the SW corridor area of Ocala. Construction began in 1985 and although Oak Run is almost built out you can still buy a new house from the builder. Oak Run is divided into neighborhoods. These neighborhoods have evolved over a 25 year period and each one has a unique character. The older homes are  frame with aluminum siding. A little later the homes were frame with vinyl siding. The newer homes are concrete block and stucco. As time went by the size of the houses grew as buyers expectations increased over that 25 year period. You will find older homes as small as 700 sq ft of living area and newer homes well over 3,000 sq ft. Prices as you might expect vary tremendously. At the time of this writing list prices are as low as $62,000- up to almost $500,000-. Most homes are in the $100,000- to $200,000- range. HOA fees vary by the neighborhood. In a few areas the homes include lawn care which adds to the fee. In general HOA fees at this time range from $10o- to about $150- with homes that have lawn care being  higher at $216- per month.Amenities at Oak Run are extensive. They include 3 gates with a guard house, basic cable TV, curbside trash pickup and common area maintenance. There is a golf course, several pools including an indoor pool, multiple clubhouses, a restaurant and numerous clubs. Golf is not included in the HOA fee.

Update 1/10/11 : There were 64 sales in Oak Run between 6/1/10 and 12/31/10 from $39,000- (only 960 sq ft) to $230,000-. Of these 64 sales there were only 5 foreclosures and just 2 short sales. HOA fees seem stable.

Update 2-28-12  HOA fees remain the same and vary by neighborhood. There were 117 resales in 2011. Prices ranged from $29,000- for a 892 sq ft frame and vinyl foreclosure up to $243,000- for a 2006 home on the golf course.

Update 2-12-2013 HOA fees vary by neighborhood. There were 171 sales in 2012 ranging from a 2/1/1 784 sqft HUD foreclosed home for $21,500- up to a home built in 04 with 2073 sqft and a private salt water pool. Home prices vary a lot because Oak Run was built over a period of 25 years and the homes changed in size and construction during that time. Each neighborhood has similar homes of a similar age.

If you would like a list of homes for sale in Oak Run fill out my Dream Home Finder or send me an email. I’ll set you up a Listing Cart for Oak Run. Read the rest of this entry »

Sales in December were 374 homes here in Marion County. If you remember my November report I thought sales were oddly low that month with only 266 sales. Apparently it was just a statistical fluctuation. Probably just a result of the time that offers were accepted or the time required to close the transactions.

Just as in previous months, the vast majority of sales are below $200,000- and over half are below $100,000.00. Once again foreclosures and to a lesser extent short sales account for over 50% of all sales.

The total number of listings seem to be pretty constant at around 5,500. As I’ve said many times, our market won’t recover until the number of active listings goes down. If you take 5534 active listings and divide it by the sales in December you get 14.8 months of inventory.

In general 2009 was a huge improvement over the past 2 years.  Prices are down but volume is way up. There were 3224 sales of residential homes in Marion County in 2009 as compared to 2008 with 2453 and 2007 at 3169.

Statistics used for this blog post are from the Ocala Marion County MLS and are deemed to be accurate at the time this blog was written but are not guaranteed. All information is time sensitive and subject to change without notice. Home sales are for Marion County only and do not include FSBO, homes sold by builders not listed on the MLS, commercial properties or vacant land.

Selling a home in Ocala is pretty tough these days. We are in an extreme buyers market with constant competition from short sales and foreclosures driving down prices.

The subject of this blog post is about the images or lack of them as found on the MLS by buyers. I get a lot more buyers than sellers because of my Ocala Real Estate web site and this blog. That’s just how it works. Most internet leads are buyers and not sellers. I’m not complaining because I sell a lot more houses than the average Realtor in Ocala as a result on my internet efforts.

What I am complaining about is the images I see on MLs listings. I will send listings to my buyers through my Ocala Dream Home Finder and they almost never want to see the ones in person that either have only 1 picture or really bad out of focus pictures. That’s unless the house is a foreclosure or priced like one.

Thinking of selling your house in Ocala or anywhere in Marion County? See my Ocala Home Sellers Advice or email me or call me. I would love to list your house and my advice is free.

January 2010 weather has started off the new year with freezing temperatures. It’s not unusual here in Ocala to get a hard freeze. In fact we can get 4 or 5 a year. However this year we have had an entire week of temperatures where the days stay in the low 50′s and the night time temps hover around freezing. From what I’ve seen on the TV weather there is a high over Texas and a low south of New England that combined is some how funneling cold air down to Florida that belongs much further to the north.

Any way January temps should be around 70 with night time temps down to around the mid 40′s. See my Ocala Weather guide on my web site for a chart of highs and lows for every month of the year.

Winter in Ocala only lasts about 8 weeks. By the first of March it’s spring here in Ocala.

This is my 5th winter here in Ocala. I moved here from Maine where it gets seriously cold. I was worried about the summer heat, which is now no problem. Now I don’t like it when the temperature gets much below 70. People are very adaptable.

Questions about Ocala? Use my blog’s comment feature or the contact info in the upper right of this page.