It’s time for me to retire

I started selling real estate here in Ocala in 2006. I immediately developed my website OcalaHouseHunter.com and went live in January 2007. In 2009 I started this blog OcalaRealEstateTalk.com. It’s now time for me to retire. I’ve been slowing down for the past 2 years and giving buyers to another agent from our office, Valerie Ostrom. She did a very good job and all the buyers I sent her seem happy. I am now selling Valerie my website and blog and she will continue to help people with homes here in Ocala. Like me Valerie specializes in 55+ homes. Valerie lives in On Top of the World and is an expert on Ocala retirement communities.

 

Ocala Real Estate Market Report July 2021

Market Report
CLOSED SALES 647
MEDIAN SOLD PRICE $234,900
AVERAGE SOLD PRICE $300,568
MEDIAN % ORIGINAL LIST PRICE 100 %
MEDIAN TIME TO CONTRACT 9 days
MEDIAN TIME TO SALE 62 days
NEW PENDING SALES 646
NEW LISTINGS 759
ACTIVE LISTINGS 825
MONTHS SUPPLY OF INVENTORY 1.3 months

Closed sales for July were down from the previous couple of months. Sales are typically lower in the summer here. Prices keep going up if you compare average and median sold prices to previous months. Active listing have gone up and that is good news but the months of inventory is still really low.

Buying a house in Ocala in 2021

It’s getting harder and harder to buy a house in Ocala. I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of months now and the following are random thoughts.

Unless you live in Ocala or within reasonable driving distance you’re screwed. No one will hold a house while you jump on a plane and come down here. You can’t even trust that a home that looks active doesn’t already have an offer.

I don’t see the market changing anytime soon. This is pure supply and demand. There is also a catch 22 thing where people are afraid to sell even at high prices because they don’t know where to go next.

If you are out of state and absolutely want to move there are a couple of things you can do.

  1. You could make an offer on a house sight unseen. Yes people actually do that but it’s highly dependent on your personality.
  2. You could sell your existing home. Store you furniture or sell everything but very important and personal items. You could then try and find some sort of rental which is very difficult or stay on a hotel for a month or two. I have heard there are rentals in The Villages in the summer off season. Some people have relatives to stay with or a few lucky ones might have an RV.

I did an informal survey of the community I live in, Stone Creek. A few homes are selling below list price but most are selling at or above list price. There were a lot of cash sales but sellers are still taking offers where the buyer is getting financing. I can’t tell if sellers are taking a contingency on the sale of an existing home or not.

Ocala Real Estate Market Report June 2021

Market Report
CLOSED SALES 855
MEDIAN SOLD PRICE $235,000
AVERAGE SOLD PRICE $298,774
MEDIAN % ORIGINAL LIST PRICE 100 %
MEDIAN TIME TO CONTRACT 8 days
MEDIAN TIME TO SALE 60 days
NEW PENDING SALES 740
NEW LISTINGS 817
ACTIVE LISTINGS 757
MONTHS SUPPLY OF INVENTORY 1.0 months

Homes are selling very fast often in less than a week and prices seem to be going up constantly. The average sale price is up 30% over June 2020 and the median sale price is up 43% over the same period. New home builders are adding an escalation clause to new builds allowing them to increase the sale price since homes are taking 7-9 months to finish. I don’t see this stopping any time soon. The only positive is that Ocala still seem cheap compared to other parts of the country and further south in Florida.

Ocala weather report summer 2021

We went from a very dry may, one of the driest on record to June where I swear that it rained every day. Some summers are wetter than others and 2021 is off to a very wet start.

All summer the weather is much the same. Mid to high 70’s first thing in the morning. Heating up to the high 80’s or low 90’s with extreme humidity all day 24/7.

It’s hurricane season. Hurricane Elsa just hit north of Cedar key as a tropical storm, winds less than 75 mph and we got rain and light winds here in Ocala. The hurricane season ends in October and the chance for hurricanes increases as the ocean water gets warmer over the summer.

I like to say that the hot humid summers are a small price to pay for no winter and no snow or ice.