Smile! Do you remember the first time you saw someone taking a selfie? I do, it was about a decade ago and Ray and I were at Fin’s enjoying a wonderful date night as the sun set over the Gulf. As the sun was setting, I noticed a girl, she must have been in her late teens, sitting by herself and smiling at no one except her phone. Then it hit me, she was taking a selfie. It was such an odd thing to see. Now, it is so common to see people clicking pictures of themselves, their family, their friends, their pets, their games, their meals, their milestones, and well, their every moment of the day. Just a couple of weeks ago social media allowed us to peek into the lives of our friends and families having fun celebrating our country’s birthday. Humans love to celebrate.
We celebrate marriages, babies, graduations, careers, and homeownership (this is a real estate blog so eventually I was going to bring real estate into the narrative). Homeownership is celebrated as the way to build wealth. The desire to own a home is ingrained in us, like wearing red, white, and blue on the 4th of July. Owning a home is something worth celebrating.
After the crazy fast paced market we just came through this might be a good time to remind Buyers and Sellers a few of the basics that got lost for a couple years. Buyers, if you are getting a mortgage your offer has a high probability to be accepted. Buyers, have your pre-approval letter ready and talk to your lender about the different products that are available to you. Also, investigate a few different lenders and if possible, work with a lender based in Florida. Market experts are not seeing home prices crashing or interest rates falling so work with your lender to create your strongest buying power strategy. Ray and I can offer further details on being prepared and we can provide you with names of fabulous local lenders!
Sellers, you need to declutter. What exactly does “declutter” mean? The most basic version of decluttering is simply: clean. When we take customers into a neat and tidy house you can actually see the buyers relax. Declutter doesn’t mean to take down all family pictures and art, but some will need to be packed away. Ray and I have a wall of family photos that we know we will need to take down and then patch and paint before we list and market our house. Decluttering also means minimizing the decorating. After all, you are preparing to move so go ahead and start packing. If you have drapes that
Speaking of RealVitalize, I see commercials for real estate companies that say they can handle everything for you, they can provide cash offers, they can provide cleaning services, mortgages companies, etc. Coldwell Banker has all of that too! We have a cash offer program if that is what you want to do, we have lenders we can recommend, we have RealVitalize that can do the honey-do’s for your listing and we can recommend title companies or attorneys. Coldwell Banker, a name that is recognized and trusted worldwide because it has been selling real estate for nearly 120 years, offers all that and so much more. Making Real Estate Dreams a Reality -that is our mission statement and our goal. Homeownership is an achievement worth celebrating and smiling about.
STATS AND DATA
Have you noticed the articles that I provide are rarely national real estate stories? That’s because location, location, location is as important for the stats and data as it is for pricing a house to sell. At the end of the stats and data you will find several articles that you might find interesting regarding everything from who prepares for a hurricane to why real estate is a good investment to entertaining real estate marketing photos.
The data we will be digging into for July is looking at stats for just the last week. The snapshot hyper focusing on a week will give a good picture of the summer market in Southwest Florida.
Looking at the single-family homes on the market in the counties of Charlotte, Manatee, and Sarasota this is what happened in the last seven days…
Charlotte County
Total single-family homes on the market : 1020 How many decreased their price: only 119
New to the market this week: 70 How many went PENDING: 57 How many SOLD: 47
Click to see Coldwell Banker water access pool home
Sarasota
Total single-family homes on the market : 1339 How many decreased their price: only 184
New to the market this week: 93 How many went PENDING: 141 How many SOLD: 93
Click to see this beautiful Wellen Park POOL home
Manatee
Total single-family homes on the market : 1027 How many decreased their price: only 144
New to the market this week: 95 How many went PENDING: 94
How many SOLD: 63
click to see Coldwell Banker Luxury Listing in Anna Maria
As you can see in all three counties homes are coming on the market and homes are going under contract. That is what we all want to see; the market keeps moving forward. Measuring the market by inventory numbers we have over three months of inventory in most price points. Translation, it is still a Seller’s market but Buyers have inventory to choose from. Prices are not crashing either. In each of the counties it was under 15% had price adjustments.
Do Floridians Evacuate for a Hurricane?
Is Buying Real Estate an Investment Now?
The Reality of Mortgage Rates
Time to SMILE!
It's been so dry in Southwest Florida!
HOW DRY IS IT?
It is so dry this happened...
(Actual photo at a house we were showing).
A cactus growing in a gutter in Florida is not normal. LOL
Send me your funny house pictures and you might see them featured in the newsletter
click here to see more Funny Real Estate Photos
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