Archive for the 'Tips for Sellers' Category

MLS Market Snapshot Shows Tampa Real Estate Market Conditions

April 30th, 2008 categories: Tampa Market Conditions, Tips for Sellers, Tampa Home Buyer Tips

Do you see the Market Snapshot form over there in the right hand column? The Market Snapshot is a great tool for Tampa home buyers or sellers to keep tabs on what’s for sale, and on what’s selling in any Tampa neighborhood. And what’s best about this tool is that it automatically sends you an updated report every six weeks, or for whatever time period you select.

The report, sent by e-mail, shows active listings, recent sales, asking prices vs. selling prices, and other data that help Tampa home buyers and sellers understand the local market. You can select a zip code, or better yet, click the zip code lookup and just just select a spot on the map in which to center your reports.

The data we use on the Market Snapshot is imported directly from the Mid-Florida Regional MLS, the database of all brokered listings and sales. Good stuff. Give it a try, or, contact us and we’d be happy to set it up for you and answer any questions about the market, your home’s value, specific neighborhoods, etc.

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | No Comments »

Pent Up Demand About To Be Being Released?

April 10th, 2008 categories: Tampa Real Estate, Tampa Florida Real Estate, Tampa Market Conditions, Tips for Sellers

Spring has sprung and along with it so has buyer traffic. From my perspective as well as the perspective of other Realtors, buyer traffic is way up. Listings are getting much more attention in recent weeks, website traffic and inquiries are way up as well. But the ultimate gauge of activity and demand as I see it is the amount of pending sales out there. Yep, that’s up too.

More importantly, the gap between listings and pendings, my measures of supply and demand, is trending tighter. Sure, ’tis the spring season and we expect this to be the case. But with the last 2 years of price corrections and sales declines, many would-be buyers who have been waiting on the sidelines are beginning to hop of the bench and move forward.

So I’ll be keeping a close eye on the number of pending contracts in the City of Tampa to see if all this traffic is converted to more listings being sold. If you can get the financing or have the cash, it’s great to be a home buyer in Tampa. And if you’ve been considering a sale, we are approaching the busy season.

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | 1 Comment »

Closings…Hurry Up And Wait

March 12th, 2008 categories: Tampa Real Estate, Tips for Sellers

As I prepare for a closing later today I can’t help but think about the nature of people to wait ’til the last minute to get things done. We have a contract that specifies a closing date, and in this case it’s on or before March 12th (so much for the before and we’ll cross our fingers for the on). All parties involved get a copy of the contract within days its effective date. Buyer and seller have copies, along with their agents. The title agent has a copy. The buyer’s lender has a copy as well. All parties mark the date on the calendar.

So how is it that the rush always seems to be on to get the thing closed? Title agent leaves me a voice mail late yesterday informing me that she has no package from the lender as of yet. Seller’s agent calls me and says that the seller, who is now living out of state, has failed to get the remaining furniture out of the home.

And unfortunately, my clients have yet to see a an itemization of their final costs and what amount of money they need to bring to the closing table. This is always detailed on a form known as the HUD-1. You hope to get the HUD well in advance to review it and nip any problems in the bud. But that’s the exception rather than the rule.

But all of this is normal and comes without any great surprise, to me at least. But to first time buyers, the whole thing seems strange. They cooperated with their lender and followed the lender’s checklist of items needed early on. The loan commitment was provided by the lender over a week ago. But the title agent notes that someone at the lender’s office mentioned that there was “no one in the office today who could work on the file”. Excuse me?

As stated though this really should not surprise anyone in the business of closing a real estate transaction. There are many parties involved, each working on a different schedule seemingly. My last closing, in which I represented the seller, was another case in point:

We had an “on or before” date on that one as well. The lender calls me 10 days before the “on” date to let me know that the buyers would like to close in 3 days. The seller had yet to move out. So we all decided that a few days more were needed. So it’s the day before that closing and guess what? The lender notifies me that it ain’t going to happen tomorrow. The buyers were still trying to complete a form that the lender required. So we waited and additional 2 days before sitting down to sign the docs. Then the lender failed to wire the loan funds to the title company until the following day.

So even though all parties usually have 30 days or more in which to get their acts together, it is not uncommon, and actually quite common, to experience the scramble to get it done. Everyone’s on a deadline, and with so many individuals in the mix, the chance that someone will be rushing is pretty darn good. As long as both buyer and seller are working to get it done, don’t fret it.

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | 4 Comments »

Tampa MLS Search Site Traffic On The Rise

March 10th, 2008 categories: Tampa MLS, Tampa Market Conditions, Tips for Sellers

In terms of overall users, February of 2008 was a record setting month for our Tampa MLS search site, SearchTheTampaMLS.com. We had 1169 users in February up from 1112 in January, the previous busiest month.

The site allows users to search virtually all central Florida MLS listings. It’s really a one stop site for Tampa residential real estate searches. The map search has proven to be the most popular feature of the site. Users can select just the portion of the map in which they are interested in searching for Tampa homes for sale.

Other features allow users to save their searches and then get an automated e-mail whenever a new listing meeting their criteria hits the market. E-mails can also be sent when the price of a listing changes. The Favorites feature allows users to save listings of interest so that they can easily be found when returning to the site.

But serious home buyers will find that there is still no substitute for a good agent who can do a much more detailed search on the Mid-Florida Regional MLS. As Realtors, we can search using much more specific criteria such as flooring materials, room sizes, roofing material, presence of a formal dining room, etc. A good agent will also have knowledge of soon to be listed properties that may fit a buyer’s needs. The best properties are often sold through an agent/broker network through word of mouth or other network marketing such as e-mails, fliers or postcard mailings.

So if your just beginning your search, or simply like to browse homes for sale, check out SearchTheTampaMLS.com. Once you decide to get serious and put to use the skills of a professional, give us a call.

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | 2 Comments »

Property Tax Portability Deadline Looming

February 26th, 2008 categories: Tampa Real Estate, Tips for Sellers, Hillsborough Property Tax

We voted for it-now take advantage of it!

PROPERTY TAX PORTABILITY

Only three days remain: Friday is the deadline for homeowners to apply for a homestead exemption, and, for 2007 home buyers, the last day to apply for property tax portability – the right to take tax savings from a home protected by Florida’s Save Our Homes amendment and transfer it to a home purchased last year.

If you or someone you know moved from a homesteaded property in 2007, you can bring whatever tax savings you had through Save Our Homes with you to your new homesteaded property.

Here’s where to do it:

http://www.hcpafl.org/www/downloads/pdfs/dr501tn0308.pdf

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | 2 Comments »

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