Ocala Real Estate Talk

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There were 283 sales of residential homes in Marion County during February. That’s pretty good considering some contracts were probably written over the holidays. What’s selling is still pretty cheap. A whopping 64% of sales were below $100,000-.

Foreclosures and Short Sales combined for a total of 137 sales and 48% of all sales in the month. Just 2 huge sub divisions, Marion Oaks and Silver Springs Shores, accounted for 60 of the 137 short sales and foreclosures. Both of these communities were areas of intense speculative building during 2004-2008. New homes built by investors and house flippers were never sold and have been taken by the banks.

It’s a great time to buy. Interest rates are around 5% for people with good credit. The First Time Buyers Tax Credit and Existing Home Owner Tax Credit are still available but you need to get your house under contract by April 30th. Houses in The Shores and Marion Oaks that are just a few years old are selling for under $100,000-. What are you waiting for?

Email me or use my Dream Home Finder to get a list of homes for sale in areas that interest you.

The winter of 09/10 will be one of the coldest on record here in Ocala. The weather guy on the TV station I watch says it is one of the 5 coldest since they started keeping records in the 1800’s. It seems every day has been 10 to 15 degrees below normal. Winters in Ocala are usually a great time of year with temperatures in the low 70’s. This year the low 60’s were the norm.

March is the beginning of spring here in Ocala, although this year is off to a slow start. Temperatures in March should be in the mid to high 70’s, the grass should green up and the azaleas should start to bloom.

Check out my Ocala Weather page on my web site to see weather information for each month of the year here in Ocala

February in Ocala is the last month of our winter. By the first of March things will start warming up, the grass will start to green up and the azaleas will bloom.

Temperatures in February should be in the low 70’s during the days and the mid 40’s at night. Of course January should have been like that too.

Hopefully February will be a more normal winter month than January. The first 10 days of the new year were extremely cold. Every night was at or below freezing which is unheard of here in Ocala. Now we do get frosts and freezes in Ocala but only 3 or 4 times a winter. Never 10 days in a row. A life long resident told me that he has never seen such a cold stretch in his 45 years living in Marion County. In addition to the cold weather it has been really rainy too. This is supposed to be the dry season where it doesn’t rain for weeks on end. It has rained so much I’ve had to lower the water in my pool several times.

Visit the Ocala weather page on my web site to see average highs, lows and precipitation by the month here in Marion County.

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.

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.

The weather in Ocala Florida during the winter revolves around cold fronts. Most of the time the temperatures will be in the low to mid 70’s. Then along comes a cold front and the temps drop to the 60’s during the day. In the evenings after a cold front Ocala can get the occasional frost or even a lite freeze. We get several frosts a year which is why we have different plant material than you find further south in Florida.

If you have a question just ask using the comment feature or shoot me an email. My contact info is in the right side column.

Meyers Lemon Tree

Citrus trees fruit in the winter here in Ocala.  Above is my lemon tree.

Much to my surprise sales in November at 266 homes were down from previous months. Sales in Marion County in October were 344, September 302 and August 293. I am really surprised by this and I doubt it is any sort of trend. There are 588 houses listed as Pending but of course not all of them will close. It’s important to realize sales are the result of contracts that take 30 to 45 days to close and often more in the case of foreclosures and short sales.

Once again foreclosures at 95 sales and short sales at 25 sales are an important part of our market. It should be no surprise that about half of all foreclosures are concentrated in just a few subdivisions such as The Shores, Marion Oaks, Rolling Hills, Rainbow Park, The Ocala Waterway and Ocala Park. The rest are scattered around in various areas and price ranges.

Buyers if you are trying to figure out if the market is near the bottom consider the following. Interest rates are at historical lows and may even dip below 5%. There is a federal tax credit but you have to get your house under contract by the end of April. Finally, a lot of buyers are interested in the newer foreclosures in Marion County. There is a finite number of newer foreclosed homes and some day the supply will run out. For example there were a lot more large, almost never lived in, foreclosed homes in Rolling Hills 12 months ago than there are today.

Statistics used for this blog post are from the Ocala Marion County MLS and are deemed to be accurate but are not guaranteed at the time this blog was written and are subject to change

The First Time Buyer Tax Credit has been extended to April 30, 2010. There have also been some changes, the biggest being that the credit has been extended to existing home owners. I have created the chart below to show the differences between the current tax credit and the new one that just got signed into law.

First time buyers can also use their tax credit as part of their down payment.  This is done by a bridge loan that you get through the State Housing Initiatives Program, better known as the SHIP program. Call or email me for contact info. It’s important to realize that there is both a city of Ocala and Marion County SHIP.

The temperatures are finally returning to normal after an exceptionally hot October. October temperatures were in the mid ti high 80’s instead of the lower 80’s all month. It was also pretty humid most days, more like September than October.

November should be in the 70’s during the day and the 50’s at night with no humidity. Hopefully this will turn out to be true. I think October through the end of December is a great time of year. You don’t need AC or heat and no humidity. In Ocala we look forward to the winter months.

I have a new Ocala Weather page on my web site with average temperatures and rain fall for all 12 months.

If you’re interested in moving to Ocala see my Ocala Real Estate web site for a ton of Ocala information.