Ocala Real Estate Talk

Archive for the ‘Ocala Real Estate’ Category

This is a follow up to my previous post about the Kentucky Derby and why Ocala is the horse capital of the world. Last Saturday was the Preakness Stakes which is the second leg of the Triple Crown. Once again horses bred, broken or trained here in Ocala came in first, second and third places.

If you’re interested in a farm here in Ocala, call me, email me or use my Dream Home Finder .

April 2013 home sales here in Marion County were the best since I started doing my market reports back in January 2009. April is typically a good month for us here in Ocala. It’s the last month where you see sales from “snowbird season”. Active listing have gone down a little from past months. I’m surprised that there were 92 foreclosure sales. Short sales as always are few and very hard to close. I think April sales are more evidence that the market is recovering.

At this point I wonder when prices will begin to go up. I guess you could say when inventory gets below 6 months. Using April sales at 489 and multiplying times 6 that gets 2934 active listings. If you are a buyer you would want to make your move before that time. If you are a seller I think you might have to wait until 2014.

I’ve sold a couple of 55+ homes recently to buyers who aren’t ready to retire for a couple of years yet. Buy now and sell your primary residence in a couple of years when prices go up. That’s a pretty good strategy if you can afford to do it. 

Call me, email me or use my Ocala Dream Home Finder. Prices are still low and there is still a good selection of homes available. 

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. Residential sales do include farms, mobile homes and condo’s

May wild flowers along SW 80 ave north of On Top of the World

So far 2013 has been an odd year weather wise here in Ocala. January was some how warmer than March or so it seemed. April had some really warm days and some unusually cool ones too. We got an unusual amount of rain in April considering this is the dry season.

May is the last month of our dry season. The humidity will return late in the month. Temperatures in May should be in the high 80′s during the day and the high 60′s at night. It should stay dry until the last week of the month.

As I like to say “the hot Florida summers are a small price to pay for no winters”

March home sales were the highest since I started this blog in January 2009. I think it is part due to the end of our busy snowbird season but it is also due to the market recovery. The fact that foreclosures are down from years past along with the number of active listings going down are signs of a recovery. Here is an interesting newspaper article regarding last month’s sales. As always I don’t agree with everything. The median home price just shows that buyers are buying cheap homes and not what you get for your money. There are a lot of cash sales in retirement communities and cash sales are not only for investment properties. The most interesting statistic is the huge jump in Pending sales, those homes that are under contract. Pending sales are another sign of a recovering market.

Now is the time to buy. Prices have no where to go but up and inventory is on the way down. Call me, email me or use my Ocala Dream Home Finder. I have been selling retirement homes now to people who won’t retire for a couple more years. Don’t be left behind.

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. Residential sales do include farms, mobile homes and condo’s.

Ocala is often called the horse capital of the world. There are some world class horse farms here. It has to do with the soil which has a lot of lime rock in it making for some of the world’s finest horse pasture. Yesterday  was the 139th Kentucky Derby. All of the 6 top finishers had ties to farms here in Ocala. Some were bred here, some were broken here and others were trained here. That’s why Ocala Florida is the horse capital of the world.

Buyers often come to me looking for a newer home here in Ocala. I often tell them that no one has been building homes here since the market crash in 2007. Of course it isn’t true that no one has built anything since 07 but there has been very little building. Builders simply can’t compete with the prices of resales.

Here are permits for single family homes by the year to illustrate my point.

2004  4,611

2005  5,601

2006  6,026

2007  2,139

2008    933

2009    316

2010    399

2011    325

2012    359

Looking back to last month March was unusually cold. It was so cold in fact that according to the TV weatherman March was colder than January. We had a couple of frosts in March when the last frost date is supposed to be the 15th of the month.

April is a great month in Ocala. It is dry with little rain and no humidity. Temperatures should be in the 80′s during the day and the 60′s at night. No need for heat or AC so I can save on the electric bill. 

If it’s cold and rainy where you live then sell your house this spring and move to Ocala. The hot humid summers are a small price to pay for no winters.

Can you buy a house for the price of a car in an Ocala retirement community ? Yes for the price of a really nice BMW and by that I mean around $60,000.00 you can buy a real house and not a mobile home. The house would have been built in the 1980′s of stick frame construction on a concrete slab with vinyl siding, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, a 1 car garage with an updated roof and AC. It might need some updating inside such as carpet, paint and appliances. Homes like this are in the 1,000 to 1,300 sqft range. That is sqft of living area, that part of the house that is under AC and not including the garage or a Lanai not under AC. I actually sell several homes like this every year. Call, email or use my Dream Home Finder for more information.

The Ocala area real estate market is improving. Everyone I talk to thinks so. Here is a link to the local paper, the Ocala Star Banner, with a real estate article. If you read the article there are a few things I think are misleading. The median home price of $99,900- is low because there are a lot of small 2 bedroom homes many in 55+ communities that sell for low prices as well as similar small homes in other areas. There is also a comment about cash sales showing there are a lot of investor purchases. A huge number of retirement homes are also cash deals. In my case 75% of 55+ sales are cash. The article does show how sales have improved over the past and the number of Pending sales is a good predictor of the months to come. I think in the long run there will be a housing shortage here in Ocala. That’s because there has been almost no new construction here since the crash of 2007. Buy now prices have no where to go now but up. 

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. Residential sales now include farm properties.

Just when I thought that we were going to make it through the winter without a hard frost we finally got one the end of February and another the first week of March. It was so warm in January and early February my lawn stayed green instead to going dormant and turning brown. Even the azaleas were tricked into blooming by the warm weather.

March is the beginning of spring in Ocala. If you are a vegetable gardener the last frost date is considered to be March 15. The grass will be turning green again, new leaves will come out on the trees and flowers will start to bloom. Highs for March are in the high 70′s and lows at night in the 50′s. There is no humidity an very little rain this time of year. March is a great time of year.