Ocala Real Estate Talk

Archive for the ‘Ocala home sellers’ Category

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.

Sales in August at 283 homes were up from July’s 269 homes. June was the best month so far this year at 319. Total listings remain around 5,500 homes.

Sales are way up in 2009 over 07 & 08 but that is because home prices are way down. Most of current sales are driven by bargain hunters snapping up foreclosures and short sales. The 55+ communities will always attract buyers because people retire regardless of the economy but prices are coming down in these communities as well.

Home prices in Marion County will not rebound to 2006 levels because they should never have gotten that high in the first place. Marion County does not have an economy to support $200,000- plus housing and never did. That is what out of the area builders and investors never understood and local builders ignored. Now that construction has almost stopped our unemployment rate is 12.5%.

I don’t mean to get down on our area but it is important for sellers to get a true picture of our economy so they can make informed decisions. Homes are selling every day but price is the way to move a house. The MLS is on the internet and buyers know a good deal from an over priced house and no amount of advertising can change that.

Buyers now is the time to buy. Interest rates are at historical lows and given the deficit spending our government is doing, inflation and higher rates are almost certain.

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.

September is still the summer in Ocala and not at all like fall as in other parts of the country.  It’s still plenty hot and plenty humid. Towards the end of the month the heat will begin to back off a little. By that I mean the high 80′s instead of the mid to low 90′s.

Here we are in September, at the peak of hurricane season and for the second year in a row, nothing is happening. Why do experts make predictions anyway when they are so wrong so often. Ocala is one of the least hurricane prone areas in Florida but the remnants of hurricanes provide a lot of scary wind and huge amounts of rain. In that sense I’m glad we’re having such an uneventful season and I hope it continues.

August was much wetter than in past years. We had several years of low rainfall and this year is back to normal. By that I mean afternoon thunderstorms on a regular basis. Some of these thunderstorms can drop 2 or 3 inches in less than an hour. I’m not kidding, I’ve had to lower my swimming pool several times to keep it from over flowing.

Remember as I love to say, the hot summers are a very small price to pay for no winters. I look forward to the winter.  Do you?

** Only homes listed & sold in Marion County on the Ocala Marion county MLS. Does not include For Sale by Owner, Vacant land, Commercial properties, Farms or homes by Builders not listed on the MLS. Numbers subject to change due to late reports from Brokers

Sales in July were 269 homes in Marion County. This is a drop from the 319 sales in June and more in line with April at 229 and May at 259.  Total listings went up about 100 units from last month which is the first increase in quite a while.

One of Ocala’s largest employers closed this week. The huge mortgage company Taylor Bean & Whitaker was closed down by the fed putting around 1,000 people out of work. This on top of a 12.5% unemployment rate isn’t good for the housing market.

There seems to be no end to the foreclosures that are still dragging down prices. I constantly see short sales being withdrawn or expiring from the MLS. These are the foreclosures of 6 to 12 months from now. In July there were 84 Foreclosures sold and 27 Short Sales sold. That’s 111 out of 269 homes sold or 41% of all sales.

For these reasons I don’t expect prices to go up any time soon. Prices won’t recover until the foreclosures stop, inventory goes below 2,500 homes, the unemployment rate drops significantly and the market improves in other parts of the country so people can sell there and move to Ocala.

Knowledge is power whether you are a buyer or seller.  I offer the truth about the Ocala Real Estate market without any sugar coating.

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.

If you’re read my Ocala Foreclosure Guide on my web site or what I’ve written about Ocala short sales on my blog then you know that I don’t like short sales at all. The biggest problem I have with short sales is that so few actually close. Of course the banks are part of the problem. Some banks are so overwhelmed that they just don’t have the staff capable of handling the work load. Then there are buyers and their Realtors that don’t submit a complete short sale package. The over worked staff at the banks will just put these incomplete deals to the bottom of the pile. Buyers themselves have to take responsibility too for a lot of short sales that don’t close. Too many buyers want a cheap house without the work and hassle and just bail out before the offer can get processed. Most short sales take about 8 weeks to close.

From a buyers point of view I still think foreclosures are an easier transaction. I will admit that as time goes on I am seeing more short sales close as both Realtors and banks get better at them.

For sellers I think short sales are a last resort and better than foreclosure. I used to turn down short sale listings but I’ve recently changed brokers. My new broker, Coral Shores Realty, owns an affiliated title company that has a short sale program. A lawyer from the title company will prepare the short sale package as follows.

1. Title and Lien Searches.
2. Compilation of Seller’s documents to demonstrate financial hardship:
a. Preparation of Financial statement and hardship letter
b. Tax Returns
c. Bank Statements
d. Comparative Market Analysis of Property, which can also be provided by
Realtor or Appraiser
e. All other documentation that they deem necessary.
3. Preparation of Preliminary HUD-1.
4. Direct and Constant Negotiations with the loss mitigation department of the
Lender(s). This is one of the most critical areas that is usually the down-fall
of most short-sale transactions.
5. Responsible for obtaining final approval from all lender(s) in establishing an
APPROVED SHORT SALE PRICE.

Call me for further details and fees regarding listing your Ocala short sale.

I drive by this For Sale by Owner almost every day. This poor guy has had his over priced house listed by a couple of Realtors with no luck. The last time it was listed, the house was at least $75,000.00 over priced. I don’t know why an agent would list a home at a price like that. The owner has had a For Sale by Owner sign in his front yard for almost a year.

The thing that the owner doesn’t realize is that he can’t sell his house unless it will appraise. That’s because most buyers need financing. To get financing a lender will order an appraisal. A house that much over priced will fail the appraisal and all real estate contracts have a finance contingency that will let the buyer walk away unless the seller will drop his price to that of the appraisal.

The only way this FSBO could sell that house is to get a cash buyer. A very unsophisticated cash buyer, totally unfamiliar with the Ocala market, who didn’t look at other competing houses either in person or online. What do you think the chances of that happening?

The moral of this story is “You can’t sell a house if it won’t appraise”.