Calum's Blog: All Categories

There continue to be some positive signs in the New Tampa real estate market. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal showed Tampa, Florida as one of only four metro areas with declining home inventory.   In New Tampa, despite a close to 12% drop in sales from July 2007, compared to July 2006, home inventory is down from 943 homes in June to 913 homes in July. There was a 6 % drop in the average home price, compared to 3% gain in July. Although I have to admit, I was surprised to see even such a modest gain in the price of a New Tampa Home.   For the second month in a row the lowest priced home and the highest priced home in sold in New Tampa were located in the Hunter’s Green community. The lowest priced home was a 1 bedroom, 1 bath condo with… Read Full Post

Say hello to Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dean, Erin and all their friends. If this year proves to be as active a hurricane season as the meteorologists predict, you could well be on a first name basis with them soon. While it’s probably impossible to completely hurricane-proof your home, there are some steps that you can take to lessen the damage your home is likely to sustain.  

Inspect your home.

FLASH (Federal Alliance for Safe Homes) offers a DIY Wind Inspection checklist with step by step instructions. Download it, print it out and spend a Saturday afternoon checking your home for vulnerabilities to the high winds. The more you know, the better you can prepare yourself. After you’ve identified problems, figure out which you can fix yourself… Read Full Post

In January, Florida voters will decide whether or not to approve the new amendment to the constitution proposed by the Senate. Under the amendment, Florida’s Amendment 10 – the Save Our Homes amendment – will be phased out and its place taken by a “super-exemption” which will also replace Florida’s $25,000 homestead exemption. Before you decide how to vote, it may be useful to figure out how you’d benefit under the new super-exemption.   Under the Super-exemption, homesteaders will have the option to retain their current Save Our Homes assessment cap or to take the super exemption. New homes and resale homes will be subject to the super exemption, without the option for Save Our Homes. Since part of the problem with Save Our Homes is that the assessment… Read Full Post

For the most part the Wesley Chapel real estate market is tracking similar to other Tampa Bay markets. There continue to be declines in year-to-year comparison, sales for June 2007 are down 31% compared to June 2006 and the average price of a home has declined 7% for the same period. The good news is inventory is down slightly, in March there were 1,120 active listings in Wesley Chapel, compared to the 1,075 active Wesley Chapel listings today. Although not a drastic difference, it’s going in the right direction, if you remember at the beginning of the year inventory was actually increasing.

As I’ve mentioned in a number of my other posts, see Tampa #1 Buyer’s Market and The Doom Sayers vs. the Silver Lining, this is starting to look like a great time to…

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The New Tampa real estate market was down 22% in June 2007, compared to June 2006. The good news is that June 2007 finished 46% above May, and May was ahead of April by 15%, so that’s an encouraging trend. The average price of a New Tampa home fell 6.4% to $353,000, while the median price dropped 19% to $276,000.   Hunter’s Green was the lucky community this month with the both the highest priced home and the lowest priced home in New Tampa. The lowest priced home was a 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo, while the highest priced home was a 5 bedroom, 4 bath home with over 4,500 sq.ft.   New Tampa home inventory is down slightly, with 943 New Tampa homes currently for sale, compared to 1,001 in early June.

 

New Tampa Home Sales for June 2007 …

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According to Forbes Magazine, Tampa is the number one market for home buyers.  Although there is an excess supply of home inventory, primarily due to investors, Tampa's strong economy and future job growth make it a great candidate for a healthy recovery.  Other Florida cities in the article included Sarasota, Palm Bay, Tallahassee, Pensacola, and Miami.  You can read the full article here.

This backs up what I mentioned in my recent post, The Doom Sayers vs. The Silver Lining, which is essentially that Tampa is more than the sum of it's real estate market. Although Tampa is currently in a buyers' market, Tampa's economy, jobs, and population trends all remain positive indicators for future growth.

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If your home has been on the market for several weeks with no offers, you may be tempted to toss in a little incentive or lower your asking price. In the current market, “buyer incentives” have been attracting a lot of attention. The incentives we’ve heard of recently include big screen HDTVs, motorboats, cruises and even new cars. Should you consider tossing in a buyer’s incentive to get your home moving?   Before you waste money on “buyer incentives”, consider other ways that money could be spent to much better effect. The very best buyer incentive is a beautiful, well-kept home that captures a prospective buyer’s heart at first sight. Instead of offering expensive “goodies” in the hopes that a buyer will overlook the lackluster backyard, use the money… Read Full Post

Many parents and educators were dismayed when the state released its new school grades at the end of June. Thanks to a change in the grading system for schools, the number of Florida schools that received F’s nearly quadrupled from 2006 to 2007 – from 21 to 82 schools with failing grades. At the same time, fewer schools than last year were able to achieve A ratings, and many schools saw their grade slip at least one letter grade downward.   What happened?   In short, the state imposed new grading standards. Comparing this year’s scores with last year’s is like comparing apples and oranges. This year, for the first time ever, the grading calculation included the scores achieved by students on the Science section of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment… Read Full Post