SI Real Estate Tampa and The Beaches

A recent report by Florida Realtors reports that Florida’s pending sales, median home price and closed sales all increased in the month of October . Real estate closings for existing home sales were up 25.3% from a year ago and totaled 17,779 transactions. Florida boasted a median sales price for existing homes of $184,300 in September which is up 11.4% from this time last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. This is actually higher than the national average.   The President of Florida Realtors, Summer Greene, reported that the state’s unemployment rate fell to the lowest it has been in four years! This coupled with the increases in pending homes sales, closings and prices will bring an even brighter outlook to the real estate market in Florida. Condo sales saw a year over increase of 16.4% and a median price of $107,000, which is also up 20.2% from a year ago.   On a national level, housing starts experienced a 3.6% uptick as well, reported by th...

Both home sales and home prices saw positive annual growth during the third quarter according to the last report published by the National Association of Realtors. The national median existing home price rose 7.6% from a year ago. This is significant because it represents the highest increase we have seen in any quarter since 2006. At a local level, real estate in Tampa, Florida we saw an increase of 14.3% in median home sales price compared to a year ago. Tampa, Florida also posted a 7.6% increase in the National Association of Home Builders “Improving Markets Index” which identifies areas that have improved from the low point of the downturn.   This is the third consecutive month Florida metropolitan cities showed a gain, but what’s even more encouraging is that this also represents an even larger improvement when looking at the number of cities that posted a gain this time last year. CoreLogic recently reported that the third quarter brought about the most building permi...

Tampa’s premier home builder, Standard Pacific has recently published an article that sheds light on market conditions and trends in our area. The article is based on a report done by Barclays Capital that forecasts home prices rising as much as 5% – 7.5%! The article also reveals some significant factors that are pushing home prices in an upward direction and how this is being done in two different types of markets. It gives an interesting look into the prime “A and B” markets, and also tells why the “C, D and F” locations will soon become more desirable. On a local level, we are seeing this first hand. New homes in New Tampa are in higher demand than previous years and inventory is quite scarce. We are constantly in multiple offer situations and sometimes loosing the bidding war due to home buyers submitting low ball offers that do not hold up. Standard Pacific has a great presence in the New Tampa area and will soon run out of homes to sell. Don’t miss out on a home of your ...

A report by the Commerce Department showed that the rate at which builders started new construction on single family homes and apartments was the highest last month than it has been in four years. Plans for continued building are set at an even higher rate than we have recently seen, a clear sign of buyers taking advantage of record low mortgage rates, low inventory and builder confidence on the rise. Not only is this good for the real estate market in general, but new home construction creates jobs which is essential in today’s economy. In the last two months we have seen a fifteen percent increase in new construction. About two thirds of this increase deals with single family homes while the other portion is made up of apartment homes. This coupled with a twelve percent increase in building permits shows that there are no plans of slowing down anytime soon. Homebuilder stocks saw am increase as a result of the increase in permits and plans to keep building. The National Asso...

A report published by the web based real estate company, Zillow, shows that the amount of homes for sale fell by 19.4% in the last year! Zillow divided the statistics by price tiers. The greatest reduction of inventory has come from the top two tiers. Three metro areas of Florida made the list with Tampa, showing a year over reduction of 19.8% for the top tier, and 23.3% for the mid-tier homes. The overall average reduction in inventory was 22.9% for Tampa Florida real estate market. This should make it easy for fence sitters who are waiting on the sideline for the “right time” to list their homes. Those who have questioned selling their home for the last year are beginning to realize that they missed the bottom a while back and may be scrambling to catch up. As far as buyers are concerned, the time has passed for them to offer $10,000 under listing price. The days of low ball offers are over. Buyers are now starting to participate in bidding wars over properties that used...

In many cities across the nation, and especially here in Tampa, Florida, we have seen a dramatic increase in multiple offer scenarios in our real estate market. This is of course a seller’s dream and somewhat of a “price is right” guessing game for home buyers and their real estate agents. However, this shouldn’t be viewed as a negative occurrence for either side of the transaction. For sellers, having the option to consider multiple offers at various price points had been a thing of the past. This year, it is finally becoming more and more prevalent in our real estate market. An article published by Inman News identifies that most cities that are in real estate recovery (or beyond!), like Tampa, are seeing bidding wars on homes prices in all price ranges. This has nothing whatsoever to do with distressed homes. Other advantages of multiple offers for sellers include: generally quicker sales, less home disruption due to showings, and a “safety net” for the seller is created in cas...

As we continue to see the ever changing real estate market take a positive turn upward, some people are asking themselves what to do in these times. Based on recent home sale statistics, homes are being sold at a much faster rate than we have seen in years. A healthy real estate market usually has about 6 months of supply at any given time. Today we have seen that number cut in half, and the shelf life of homes for sale has dropped to about 69 days. A clear sign that the real estate has shifted to a seller’s market . August 2012 posted numbers for existing home sales that surpassed 9% increases from this time last year! Chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, Lawrence Yun said, “The Florida market is experiencing inventory shortages, which are placing pressure on prices.” This shortage of real estate inventory could lead to other advantageous recovery factors like new construction projects, which in turn stimulates the market with job growth. Lending conditions...