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Tallahassee, FL Real Estate News

By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
One of the benefits of working in a real estate office that utilizes a team approach to customer service is that I get a whole bunch of feedback from our great real estate agents. During our past company business meeting, we were reviewing some of the common mistakes that we see homebuyers make in the Tallahassee real estate market. With this fresh information on the top of my mind, I figured it would make for great blog content this morning. Based upon our conversation, here some key observations from a Tallahassee real estate office and it’s agents regarding mistakes being made by homebuyers: Creating A Budget – One of the more confusing aspects of buying a home is the loan qualification process. Loan programs vary, so how much home you can buy under each program varies as well. But ...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
The herd mentality in real estate is often funny at times. Experts pop up and spout their sage truths, and everybody seems to follow suit until a new prophet (or profit) arrives. So, in order to help our readers know just which direction the market is heading, I have created the Manausa Housing Herd Barometer which can be employed in any market, at any time, to determine what is going to be happening next. Avoid The Housing Herd In Real Estate As we observe in the graphic above, an extreme in any of the housing market cycles are caused by a sense of fatalism, whether negative or positive. At the top of the housing market, the herd is all buying because it knows home values can never come down. They have seen record price movements for months or even years, so the euphoria of the bull ru...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
I received an thought provoking email yesterday from Tallahassee Realtor Jay Novak. The message made me wonder if there was a current real estate relativity index, which might reflect long-term values of common assets when compared to real estate. For example, how has a 2000 Rolls-Royce Corniche Convertible fared financially when compared to a home in the Tallahassee real estate market? When the 2000 Rolls-Royce Corniche Convertible hit the market, only 374 were built and they sold for $359,900. Nowadays, you can find them selling for merely 1/3rd of that on Ebay, with a recent listing for one with only 24K miles and an asking price of $109,000. Real Estate Relativity Index Using the automotive example from above, could you imagine the home on the left (which sold for $350,000 in 2000)...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
I have found that there are many home selling lessons that can be learned on the golf course. This weekend my good friend, Ron Rice, was in town to participate with me in a golf tournament at Golden Eagle Country Club. He and I like to compete in tournaments, and through the years we have discovered that though we are not necessarily that good of players, we seldom make mental errors in tournaments. Our favorite quote that we use to remind ourselves about the importance of the “mental” game comes from the late, great John Wayne: Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid. - John Wayne (via Woody Simmons) When selling a home, you are competing against the field of others who also wish to sell their home. There is plenty of information available to help a home seller make the corr...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
The past two blog posts have been dedicated to thinking outside of the box and using creative real estate solutions for home sellers who are having a tough go at selling their homes in the Tallahassee real estate market. Yesterday, we posted two riddles and asked readers to respond with the correct solution, and “Bill” was the first to respond with both correct answers. The correct answers for our creative real estate riddles were: He was a lighthouse keeper. The other three were women. So, thanks Bill and everybody who commented and emailed their answers to us. Creative Solutions For Homebuyers While the past two blogs focused on techniques that home sellers could use to get their homes sold today, they all have one thing in common. They are ways to increase the number of prospective b...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
Yesterday I posted some riddles and asked if our readers could solve them (click here to visit yesterday’s real estate blog). I was pointing out the parallel between these tricky riddles and the daily problems that home sellers in our struggling real estate market  face every day. Both require creative thinking (outside of the box thinking) to effectively solve. Yesterday’s sleuth was David Freni, who was the first to post the correct answers in the comments section at the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog, though many people emailed them to me … Nice job David! David’s response was spot-on: Riddle answers 1. The last person took the basket with the egg in it. 2. Take the 2nd full glass and pour it into the 2nd empty glass. David Freni Today we have two final riddles to stay on this creativ...
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By Carol Palacios
(Century 21 Manausa & Associates)
Joe Manausa | Century 21 First Realty | (850) 386-2001 000 Pemberton Court, Tallahassee, FL .25 acres Vacant Land offered at $25,000 Lot Size .25 acres DESCRIPTION GREAT LOCATION, GREAT SCHOOLS, SUITABLE FOR SINGLE FAM., MODULAR HOME OR MOBILE HOME see additional photos below ADDITIONAL PHOTOS Photo 1Photo 2Photo 3Photo 4Photo 5Photo 6 Contact info: Joe Manausa Century 21 First Realty (850) 386-2001 For sale by agent/broker Equal Opportunity Housing Posted: Jul 28, 2010, 12:22pm PDT
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By Carol Palacios
(Century 21 Manausa & Associates)
Joe Manausa | Century 21 First Realty | (850) 386-2001 12233 North Meridian Road, Tallahassee, FL 2BR/1BA Manufactured offered at $120,000 Year Built 1992 Sq Footage 728 Bedrooms 2 Bathrooms 1 full, 0 partial Floors 1 Parking 2 Covered spaces Lot Size 4.88 acres HOA/Maint $0 per month DESCRIPTION Fenced 4.88 acres lot with mobile home (728 sq.f., total including porches 1378 sq.f.) on the edge of town and nature. Property near Lake Iamonia, backs up to timbers, private pond. Open kitchen with eat-in bar, front & back screened porches. Panoramic view from Back porch of the pond. Lots of storage area. Plenty of room for entertaining and outdoor living. see additional photos below PROPERTY FEATURES - Central A/C - Central heat - Living room - Dishwasher - Refrigerator - Stove/Oven - Micro...
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By Carol Palacios
(Century 21 Manausa & Associates)
Joe Manausa | Century 21 First Realty | (850) 386-2001 4701 Miccosukee Road, Tallahassee, FL 3BR/2BA Single Family House offered at $187,900 Year Built 1988 Sq Footage 2,040 Bedrooms 3 Bathrooms 2 full, 0 partial Floors 1 Parking 2 Car garage Lot Size .71 acres HOA/Maint $0 per month DESCRIPTION Lovely home on Canopy Road right across from the Miccosukee Greenway. Large lot with huge Live Oaks. Super clean home being sold AS-IS with right to inspect. see additional photos below PROPERTY FEATURES - Central A/C - Central heat - Fireplace - Tile floor - Family room - Living room - Dining room - Dishwasher - Refrigerator - Stove/Oven - Microwave - Yard ADDITIONAL PHOTOS Photo 1Photo 2Photo 3Photo 4Photo 5 Contact info: Joe Manausa Century 21 First Realty (850) 386-2001 For sale by agent/br...
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By Carol Palacios
(Century 21 Manausa & Associates)
Joe Manausa | Century 21 First Realty | (850) 386-2001 2930 Oakwood Drive, Tallahassee, FL 3BR/2BA Single Family House offered at $99,900 Year Built 1983 Sq Footage 1,336 Bedrooms 3 Bathrooms 2 full, 0 partial Floors 1 Parking 1 Uncovered spaces Lot Size .24 acres HOA/Maint $0 per month DESCRIPTION Couple with infant require 2 hour notice please. Call Mary at number above - no answer call LA. Great house for students or first time homebuyers with unexpected extras!. Close to FSU, TCC. Garage enclosed in for large family room. Well maintained. Great backyard with large pole barn. Surround sound and water softner. see additional photos below PROPERTY FEATURES - Central A/C - Central heat - Tile floor - Family room - Living room - Dishwasher - Refrigerator - Stove/Oven - Microwave - Washe...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
I received a great newsletter from a friend, David Rich, who included a few “thinking outside of the box” riddles that made me see a parallel between what we are doing now to help people sell their homes and solving these riddles. When the housing market is balanced (supply and demand are at equilibrium), it does not take a whole lot of skill to sell a home. In fact, during the boom years when everybody acted as if they wanted to own several homes, real estate agents only had to get “out of the way” and real estate sales seemingly came together on their own. Today, things are very different. We have to use all of our experience and creative home selling skills in order to bring together the few buyers who are in the market with the right home sellers in the market. As our regular reade...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
Home sellers are competing for an increasingly smaller pool of homebuyers, and our recent housing market reports are providing proof that the market is going to be tough going for home sellers for some time to come. In case you missed yesterday’s blog on the rapid growth of foreclosure sales, it is worth a review. The bittersweet news is that banks are finally starting to really take action on their bad loans, but this is going to flood the market over the next 6 to 18 months with bank-owned inventory homes (Real Estate Owned or REO properties). In the simplest sense, it is like a new builder coming in and bringing hundreds or thousands of new homes for the real estate market to consume, but at prices lower than current home sellers are offering. Pending Home Sales Show Home Sellers Pli...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
The Tallahassee MLS shows that the relative home supply in the entire MLS dropped during the month of June. While the Tallahassee Real Estate Market Report mostly focuses on Leon County, Florida, we occasionally look at the overall and surrounding markets including our neighboring counties. By using information in the Tallahassee Board of REALTORS® Multiple Listing Service (MLS), we can measure the supply and demand for homes in Tallahassee and its surrounding counties. While it is one thing to know how many homes are for sale, we feel that it is more important to know the relative home supply … the number of homes for sale expressed as the amount of time it will take to consume the entire inventory. Thus, we express relative home supply in terms of “months of supply.” In the graph belo...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
The daily closed home sales information graph has been updated. The Homebuyer Tax Credit has come and gone, and by the looks of it the Tallahassee real estate market benefited as planned by our leaders in Washington. The real question now is will the stimulus provided over the past year be a starting point in the housing market recovery? Or will it have been just a wasteful exercise in government spending that only acted as a temporary band-aid for a harder ailing market? The easiest way to find this answer is to observe daily closed home sales and not the current one year trend. If the trend is rising, the market is strengthening, if it is falling, it is weakening. Remember, the one year trend removes all seasonality and is very good view of the current trend in the Tallahassee real es...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
After conducting a preliminary study on foreclosures and lis pendens in Leon County last week, we knew that something exciting was happening and it needed to be analyzed with much more scrutiny. In case you missed the blog, it was titled Tallahassee Foreclosure Report Posts Positive News and it contained evidence that the banks were both slowing down on new lis pendens filings, as well as speeding up on pushing through foreclosure sales. For those of you new to the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog, we report both lis pendens filings (the beginning of the foreclosure process) as well as foreclosure sales, in order to see how many distressed properties actually make it to auction on the court house steps. No Great Change In Location Of Foreclosures In Tallahassee The first thing that I did w...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
A lot of homeowners who are upside down in their homes are wondering how to handle a short sale. They are plagued by rumors, incorrect assumptions, and hearsay that often times leads them away from making the best decisions. Long time reader “Sarah” read yesterday’s blog regarding Parents of FSU Students who are looking at real estate to offset (reduce) the cost of college and wondered how this could help her decide how to handle her short sale situation. She asked: What of home owners who *most likely* will want to sell in the next 3-5 years? That’s our situation as we are looking at finishing grad school in a year or two. Our options are always stay here, rent it out, or sell. But it is not so simple, is it? First of all, Sarah is very astute to point out the options are relatively si...
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By John Stehmeyer
(Pro Players Realty)
It may very well be true that you can buy a champagne home on a beer budget. Cheap Tallahassee luxury homes are one of the best deals out there right now.   That doesn’t sound like a bad trade-off, to grab a bargain-basement deal on the home of your dreams, though, does it?
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
  Home Sellers must decide to stay or go. It is as simple (though very painful) as that. This has been a recurring theme in real estate conversations that many of my troubled customers and I have discussed on a regular basis for more than two years. There are enough buyers in the market that we can sell just about any home, so ultimately the ability of each and every homeowner to sell their house is in their own hands. Home Sellers: STAY OR GO! If you go back to articles that I was writing in 2008, I urged homeowners to make the “Stay or Go” decision in order to save money. If a home sale was ultimately going to happen, I advised selling fast as prices were dropping thus a seller would get more early than they would at a later date. This turned out to be very accurate, as some sellers f...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
Recently, we received a reader question regarding how to set the asking price for a home. The question stemmed from the blog titled Why Real Estate Is Always A Sellers Market, where “Robert S.” asked: Not to be overly cynical, but wouldn’t a realtor in a slow market be anxious to convince sellers to list houses for less than they are worth, since some commission is better than no commission? First of all, I do not believe this is a cynical shot at what I wrote, rather it is a perfectly reasonable and fair question to ask. After all, I do advocate pricing a home to sell, so why wouldn’t I just “trick” the home seller into a low asking price for a home, thus enabling me to get a quick commission? Best Asking Price For A Home The question about setting a low asking price for a home raises...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
  There are some homebuyers sitting on the fence right now, wondering what will happen if they buy a home and home prices continue to fall. They are wondering if it is smart to buy now, or maybe they should wait until prices hit the bottom. I am getting a lot of questions from customers and readers wondering what to do, specifically with how I believe the Tallahassee real estate market will trend over the next few years. Despite being a real estate expert in Tallahassee for nearly 20 years, I always hesitate to answer this question without quite a bit of preamble. Obviously, I have a view, as I write about the housing market in Tallahassee all the time. But I have also seen enough market cycles to tell you that nobody can accurately predict market timing all the time. Two Types Of Homeb...
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