Archive for the 'Homes For Sale in Tampa' Category

Tampa Property Taxes and Required Disclosures

June 9th, 2008 categories: Tampa Real Estate, Homes For Sale in Tampa, Hillsborough Property Tax

Did you know that buyers of residential real estate in Florida are required to have presented to them a property tax disclosure? The purpose of the disclosure is to inform prospective buyers that what the current property owner pays in taxes, may not be an accurate reflection of what will be paid by the new homeowner. And I’ve heard many homeowners complain about how the taxes went up incredibly after purchasing their home.

The important thing to remember here, as a home buyer, is to not rely on the seller’s tax amount as an indication of what you’ll be paying. Property taxes are based on an assessed value, and that new assessed value will be based on the purchase price of the property.

This is especially true when purchasing from a seller that has owned a homesteaded property for many years. That seller was most likely protected from big tax increases for those many years. And when the property changes hands that protection is wiped away, and the taxable value will be brought in line with the current market.

The disclosure is conveniently placed in all Florida Association of Realtor purchase contracts and reads:

BUYER SHOULD NOT RELY ON THE SELLER’S CURRENT PROPERTY TAXES AS THE AMOUNT OF PROPERTY TAXES THAT THE BUYER MAY BE OBLIGATED TO PAY IN THE YEAR SUBSEQUENT TO PURCHASE. A CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP OR PROPERTY IMPROVEMENTS TRIGGERS REASSESSMENTS OF THE PROPERTY THAT COULD RESULT IN HIGHER PROPERTY TAXES. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS CONCERNING VALUATION, CONTACT THE COUNTY PROPERTY APPRAISER’S OFFICE FOR INFORMATION.

So how does the Tampa home buyer estimate property taxes? The easiest way is to visit the property appraiser’s website and use the tax estimator. Using the purchase price and whether or not the property will be homesteaded, one can get a fairly accurate range of the property taxes after reassessment.

Tampa Property Tax Estimator

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Posted by Lenny Gurvich | No Comments »

Searching Homes For Sale In Tampa Florida

February 12th, 2008 categories: Tampa Real Estate, Tampa MLS, Homes For Sale in Tampa

We’ve made it easy it search for homes for sale in Tampa, Florida with our Tampa MLS search site, SearchTheTampaMLS.com. With virtually all central Florida MLS listings included, this is the only home search site you’ll need for Tampa Bay area home listings.

One of the great features of SearchTheTampaMLS.com is the map search. Simply select an area of the map, enter any additional criteria, and the results are displayed graphically on the map for you.

You can also save your search criteria and get an automated e-mail alerting you of new listings matching your criteria. Give it a test drive at SearchTheTampaMLS.com.

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | 2 Comments »

Bank Of America Market Conditions For Tampa, Florida Real Estate

December 4th, 2007 categories: Tampa Real Estate, Homes For Sale in Tampa, Tampa Market Conditions, Tips for Sellers

One thing I attempt to do with this bit real estate in cyberspace is to keep anyone who may be interested informed of the Tampa real estate market conditions.

And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, here are the latest results from the Bank of America monthly housing survey. First, a little background:

Bank of America surveys real estate agents across the country on a monthly basis. The questions are related to buyer traffic, home prices, seller incentives, inventory, and days on the market, etc. Bank of America uses this survey to give those who may be investing in companies whose bottom line is affected by the housing industry a gauge on where things are going.

As real estate agents, we are on the front-line so to speak, and any changing trends should be noticed by us early-on, so the thinking goes.

So let’s look at the most recent survey results for Tampa, Florida:

The headline pretty much sums it up. Nothing new here really. It should be noted however, that relatively speaking, buyers are pretty scarce in the last 6 weeks of the year anyway. “Unfortunately, we expect the turmoil to continue in Tampa as prices continue to spiral lower”, is BofA’s take, based on the Tampa respondents answers.

And that’s how I see as well. The few buyers in the market are making mostly lowball offers in an effort to stay ahead of the trend in downward home prices.

“There is no traffic”, was one of the responses. And while that may be true of many listings, we are getting some level of traffic on most of our listings. In fact, 611 properties have gone under contract in Hillsborough County since November 1^st, 321 of them in the City of Tampa. So, yes, there is traffic and there are buyers.

How about supply? The number of homes for sale in Tampa has remained stable since I last reported a few weeks ago. But we still have a great supply of homes for sale with little demand for them, a fact that points to downward pressure on prices of course.

But all of this is very general. Real estate is much about location and much about the product as we know. Some locations and some property types are holding their own, while other property types in other locations, are taking a beating. A blanket generalization, gives a blanket picture.

We have a great tool for our website visitors to use to get a more detailed picture of the market conditions in a specific neighborhood, for a specific property type. It is called Market Snapshot and is easy to use. The data is grabbed directly from our MLS, and the process is automated. Give it a try.

But there is no better way to get a more accurate estimate of value than by getting a professionally prepared appraisal, or by getting a professionally prepared Comparative Market Analysis or CMA. If you are interested in selling or need to sell, don’t hesitate to contact us to get the ball rolling, or to just discuss the market. That’s what we do.

Some data used is from the Mid-Florida Regional MLS, all brokers/agents included (does not include private sales or “For Sale by Owner” properties).

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | 3 Comments »

How Long Does It Take To Sell In South Tampa?

October 23rd, 2007 categories: Tampa MLS, Homes For Sale in Tampa, Tips for Sellers

I’m a numbers geek and the great thing about our MLS is that it’s full of numbers. If I’m looking for a particular statistic to share with a client I can grab the data, download it to my machine, open it in MS Excel and tweak it any way I see fit.

One such number that is very useful in our MLS database is the Days to Contract or DTC figure. This indicates how long a particular property was active on the market until it went under contract, aka pending.

Why is this number so important? The DTC number tells you how long it took to market the home before finding a buyer. Listing agents/brokers are required to update the status of the property to pending within 48 hours of an effective contract. We must then enter the date that the property went under contract.

So in looking at the average DTC number for a comparable set of properties, we can at least gauge how long it may take to find a buyer. This is a huge generalization because there are so many factors that determine how long it will take, pricing being the number #1 determining factor.

You can often assume that there is a buyer in the store, so to speak, whenever you first list a home for sale. If that buyer sees value at the opening price, the seller may get lucky and have a DTC of less than 5 days. If there are no buyers in the store and/or those buyers don’t see the value in the pricing, then the DTC number will certainly be higher.

But this is a big generalization. If you’re looking at these numbers you better be comparing apples to apples, oranges to oranges. There may always be a buyer in the store for a South Tampa 3/2 with a pool and garage for under $400k. But is there always a buyer around for a South Tampa home priced at $5.2 million dollars? The answer, most likely, is no.

So back to the title of this post. In looking at the South Tampa residential properties that closed in September, we find the average DTC is slightly more than 106 days. By contrast, that number for September of 2006 was about 80 days, and about the same for September of 2005 as well.

And for the South Tampa residential properties that are in pending status? The average time it has taken those sellers to find a buyer is just over 136 days.

So you can see that the data we have available through the MLS database can be very valuable for home sellers and their agents in planning how to price and best market a Tampa home. A good agent can analyze this data and help home sellers make the best decisions in meeting their goals in a tough market. Getting the price in the shortest amount of time is a common goal for home sellers and their agents. Don’t underestimate the importance of the wealth of data available through the Tampa MLS.

Subscribe to these reports.

More tips for Tampa home sellers.

Data used is from the Mid-Florida Regional MLS and does not include private, non-brokered home sales.

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | No Comments »

Notable Hillsborough County Home Sales 2nd Quarter 2007

September 3rd, 2007 categories: Tampa Condos, South Tampa, Homes For Sale in Tampa, New Projects (Condos), Tampa Market Conditions

Hillsborough County has 54 residential properties priced at $3 million dollars or higher as of today. During the second quarter of 2007, there were 3 sales of $3 million dollars or higher. A home on a 3/4 acre lot on Bayshore Boulevard sold in June for $3.25m after 368 days on the market. This home has 3 bedroom, 3 and 1/2 baths in 6500 square feet of cooled space, a lap pool and a lagoon style pool. Listed by The Toni Everett Co.

Also back in June, a 7500 square foot 5 bedroom, waterfront home in Culbreath Isles sold for $3.3 million dollars after 188 days on the market. That sales price represents 83.5% of the list price at the time the contract was signed. Listed by Keller Williams Realty Tampa Central.

In May, a 7000 square foot 5 bedroom home in Avila sold at $3.3 million dollars, or 93% of list price. This home went under contract after only 4 days on the market (MLS). The home sits on the 11th green at Avila and has a wine cellar capable of storage for 1500 bottles according to the information on the Tampa MLS. Listed by Century 21 Shaw Realty.

As for size, the aforementioned home in Avila, was the largest home sold in April – June of 2007. As for the highest price per square foot paid, that goes to a South Tampa waterfront home in the South Westshore area that sold in mid-April for $539/sqft. Sitting on just over a 1/4 acre, the 3400 square foot, 4 bedroom home sold for $1.85 million dollars after 186 days on the market. Listed by Smith & Associates Realtors.

How about Tampa condos? Tampa doesn’t have many condos over 3000sqft., but there were 3 of them that sold during the 2^nd quarter of 2007. All were on South Tampa’s Bayshore Blvd, including 2 of which are in The Bellamy on Bayshore. In all of 2006 there were only 35 condos over 3000sqft that sold in Hillsborough County, Florida, all of them in the South Tampa area, mostly in The Alagon, The Bellamy, The Stovall, Christianstead, and other highrise buildings on Bayshore and Harbour Island. Many of those sales were the new construction closings.

Data used is from the Mid-Florida Regional MLS (private sales not included).

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | No Comments »

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