Archive for July, 2011
Want to know more about Ocala? Read the newspaper
Horse Topiary photo by Joe Dallorso
Most of the readers of my blog are from outside the Ocala Marion County area. A great way to get to know an area is to read the newspaper. If you’re a younger person you probably think newspapers are like dinosaurs. The reality is that only local newspapers have local news. All the Ocala Marion County newspapers can be read online.
The Ocala Star Banner is Marion County’s daily newspaper. You need to read it daily in order not to miss anything. This is a great source to get an idea of what different areas of the county are like.
The South Marion Citizen is a great place to find information about the SW corridor retirement communities. If you click on news and then community you’ll fing columns written about the goings on in various retirement communities written by people who there. The South Marion Citizen is a weekly paper.
The Citrus County Chronicle is a weekly paper than covers Dunnellon and west into Citrus County.
The Ocala area also has 2 magazines. That’s pretty extraordinary seeing that Ocala is such a small city. Both magazines are lot nicer in print than online. They are both printed on exceptionally nice glossy paper, in a large format, with great photography. Even the advertisements have beautiful photography.
Moving cross country is a huge undertaking. I know, I moved from Maine to Ocala in 2004. You have to do your home work and keeping up on current events is part of the job
Ocala real estate market report June 2011
| $10,000 to $100,000 | 251 |
| $100,001 to $200,000 | 99 |
| $200,001 to $300,000 | 14 |
| $300,001 to $500,000 | 8 |
| $500,000 plus | 4 |
| Total residential sales | 376 |
| Foreclosures | 124 |
| Short Sales | 45 |
| Farms | 4 |
| Active Listings | 3876 |
June home sales in the Ocala Marion County market were pretty much the same as May. The big news once again is the steady decline in the number of active listings.
It’s not just my opinion that the market is improving. The following is an excerpt from a newsletter that I get from Micheal White a local appraiser. Visit his Ocala Appraisals web site. He has nice charts and analysis by zip codes.
For the past several years Marion Oaks and Silver Springs Shores have been the driving forces in the Marion County real estate market, however the influence of these subdivisions appears to be subsiding. Inventory levels have switched from vastly over-supplied to a shortage of single-family housing. Marion Oaks has an approximate supply of four months of inventory while Silver Springs Shores has less than a three month supply. Combined, these subdivisions accounted for 21.9% of all sales recorded through the Ocala/Marion County Association of Realtor’s Website (OMCAR) in Q2 of 2011, compared to 23.4% in Q2 of 2010. Values have continued to decline in both communities, although at a much slower pace than in recent years. I would expect declines to moderate even further if inventory levels remain at their current rates or decline even further.
Countywide, inventory levels have dropped from a peak of 26 months in 2008 to a current inventory level of 9.2 months. Absorption rates have increased from 215 per month in 2008 to 387 per month for the second quarter of this year. The declines in prices should begin to subside further within the next year if inventory levels continue to decline.
The bottom line for the local market is that values are still declining but brighter days may be on the horizon. Several of the markets included in this report saw values increase, which may be a harbinger of things to come for the remaining markets.
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 or by auction that were not listed on the MLS, commercial properties or vacant land.
Ocala Florida weather report July 2011
July in Ocala is hot and humid every day. Day time temperatures almost never go below 90 or much above 95. At night the temperature stays in the low 70′s. It’s very humid every day with afternoon thunderstorms 2 or 3 times a week. These thunderstorms are extremely isolated. It can pour in one spot and it can be as dry as a bone just a mile away.
The dry season extended into the middle of June. Normally we begin to see the afternoon thunderstorms start up in late May. So far this is the 2nd really dry year in a row. There were forest fires again this year and the water levels in lakes and ponds are low. We need a good tropical storm to bring the water table back up to normal.
As I always like to say “the heat and humidity are a small price to pay for no winter”.
New home sales in Ocala Florida
I often get buyers looking for newer homes here in the Ocala Marion County area. Many are interested in a new or newer Ocala 55+ retirement home. I end up telling these buyers that there has been very little building here since the market crashed in 2007. The reason for this lack of new construction is that resales are selling at prices below the cost of new construction and in some non retirement communities much less.
The below survey is based on active listings on the Ocala Marion county MLS as of July 7, 2011
Total residential listings 3915
new homes dated as 2011…..19
homes from 2010-2011………32
homes from 2009-2011………55
homes from 2008-2011……..114
homes from 2007-2011……..311
homes from 2006-2011……..571
homes from 2005-2011……..769
What does this all mean? It means that despite the fact that vacant land is available at fire sale prices and Marion County has suspended impact fees on new homes, builders still think it’s not worth trying to compete with newer resales. This is the time to but a house in Ocala.
The above numbers include both 55+ communities and non retirement communities and all types of construction including mobile and manufactured homes. They do not include homes offered by builders that are not listed on the OMCAR MLS.
