Archive for August, 2007

Old Tampa Home Photo Collection

August 31st, 2007 categories: Tampa Real Estate

If you’ve been in Tampa for anytime, you’ve most likely seen the old black and white Gasparilla photos that many offices seem to have. Those photos, as well as thousands more, were shot by the Burgert brothers, Jean and Albert, in the early years of last century. The Burgert Brothers Photography Studio shot over 80,000 photographs for clients in Tampa and West Florida from 1899 to 1963.

The Burgert Brothers photographs and negatives have been purchased by the Friends of The Library of Tampa-Hillsborough County, and the collection is now housed and preserved at the John F. Germany Public Library in downtown Tampa.

The Burgert Brothers photographed many Tampa homes during that period as well. There are some great photos of Palma Ceia homes, the great old bungalows in Hyde Park, and a great old photo of a historic Mediterranean Revival home in Beach Park, on Shore Crest Drive. There are also many photos of south Tampa businesses that are still around today. Most of the photos have the large water mark of the library on them which makes online viewing somewhat difficult however.

You can find the collection online at: http://www.hcplc.org/hcplc/liblocales/jfg/H&G/burgert/

Try searching on keywords such as these to find some great old Tampa home photos:

Hyde Park, Palma Ceia, Beach Park, Bel Mar, home, Bayshore, downtown, etc.

Some of my favorite finds:

The Austin Building on Henderson, just down the street from our office. Photographed in 1959, it still looks pretty much the same.

Galloway’s, a great contemporary furniture store, just across Henderson from our offices. Photographed at night in 1957.

The gates to Maryland Manor, at Bay to Bay and Manhattan, photographed in 1931. When and why did they get rid of them?!

Jake Walker’s Chicken and Chips at Dale Mabry and El Prado (NW corner), now a garden shop, same building.

A great shot of Bel Mar Shores (my neighborhood) during the early stages of development back in the early 1950’s.

Be careful, you can spend hours browsing the collection online.

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | No Comments »

Transparency Of Mortgage Loan Terms

August 30th, 2007 categories: Tampa Real Estate, News on Interest Rates, Tampa Market Conditions, Mortgage Rate Watch

The juxtaposed headlines in today’s Tampa Tribune’s business section:

Fed Urges Mortgage Options and Fewer Buyers Seeking Home Loans

In the first article the Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke , is quoted as saying that having “a broader range of mortgage products which are appropriate for low and moderate-income borrowers, including those seeking to re-finance” might help the current situation, and that said new mortgage products “could be designed to help avoid or mitigate the risk of prepayment shock and to be more transparent with respect to their terms”.

How do you make the terms of a mortgage more transparent? The fact is that many buyers/borrowers never fully understand what they are agreeing to when they sign the docs or what the agreed upon terms could mean down the road. Most just focus on the rate, the payment, and the closing costs. Once those three are acceptable it’s “where do I sign?”, “let’s get this thing over with!”.

Let’s face it, mortgage terms are difficult for most to understand, especially first time borrowers. Mr. Bernanke’s reference to “pre-payment shock” exemplifies this lack of understanding. Many borrowers recently took out these adjustable rate mortgages that are now adjusting, and not in the favor of the borrowers. And when they see how much the payment is going to be once the adjustment is made, the re-finance alarm goes off, and the call is made to see “what can I do?” It’s then that the borrower realizes that there is a substantial cost to get out of the current “product” in which they are in, the pre-payment penalty. Maybe they were aware of it, maybe not.

According to Craig Duncan with First Security Mortgage, one of our lender partners, an example pre-payment penalty is 6 months of interest if you pay off the loan within the first 2 years. That can be about $6500 assuming a $200k balance with today’s rates. The lender will often require the penalty so that they are guaranteed a certain return on the loan. The borrower usually gets a better rate. If you’re considering a pre-payment penalty, ask your lender if a “soft” pre-payment penalty is available. With this type, should you sell the property, no penalty would be due. A refinance however, would be penalized.

But the point here is that loan terms are transparent to the borrower. The borrower must sign the Truth In Lending form that discloses all of the terms, including any pre-payment penalties. Home buyers need to really think ahead when considering a pre-payment penalty. The terms are there. Just read and understand them. If you don’t, ask your Realtor or some other third party individual. And the best advice I can give is to work with a good team of real estate professionals that can give you the best guidance through all aspects of a home purchase. Realtor, lender, home inspector, etc. are all key elements in protecting buyers’ interests in a real estate transaction. Get a good team and use them to your advantage.

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | 4 Comments »

Flying Over Tampa Neighborhoods With Google Earth

August 24th, 2007 categories: Tampa Real Estate, Tampa Condos, South Tampa, Tampa Waterfront Homes, Tips for Sellers, Tampa Realtor

The Internet has obviously changed the way Realtors market homes and has changed the way home buyers search for homes as well. Buyers today are hungry for information at their desktops. Buyers, and the agents who represent them, want multiple photos, video, virtual tours, floor plans and other pertinent property information available online at the left click of a mouse. Many listing agents and brokerages have realized this, and offer all these components to help sell their clients’ properties.

Google Earth, a free application from Google, is a great tool for real estate, and provides yet another excellent way to display a property to prospective homebuyers. If you have not already used it, Google Earth allows you to do a virtual “fly over” of any property and/or neighborhood. It’s like having your own private plane and pilot, soaring across the neighborhoods of Tampa and checking out the surrounding area of any properties you may be considering.

For instance, I can create a place mark on a condo listing that shows not only where that building is located, but I can also show where in the building the particular unit is located. It can be that precise. The satellite photos of the Tampa area are pretty darn good. I can also attach a description to the place mark with a link to a more detailed page about the property. I can then make the place mark public if I want to and share it with the Google Earth Community.

So not only is Google Earth a great tool for conducting property and neighborhood research, but it also serves as another online tool for marketing a property to any prospective buyers. I can save my place mark as a file and then attach it to any electronic marketing materials that we have. I can also e-mail the file to buyers who inquire about the property. When a user opens the file, Google Earth will open and fly directly into the property place mark. A click on the place mark icon opens the description box which also contains a link to get driving directions. Pretty cool stuff.

If you don’t already have Google Earth, you can download the free version here. If you already have Google Earth installed, or once you do, you can download and save this file, and then open it with Google Earth.

Google’s take on Google Earth:

Google Earth streams the world over wired and wireless networks enabling users to virtually go anywhere on the planet and see places in photographic detail. This is not like any map you have ever seen. This is a 3D model of the real world, based on real satellite images combined with maps, guides to restaurants, hotels, entertainment, businesses and more. You can zoom from space to street level instantly and then pan or jump from place to place, city to city, even country to country.Get Google Earth. Put the world in perspective.

http://earth.google.com)

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | No Comments »

“Market Snapshot” Provides Just That

August 17th, 2007 categories: Tampa Condos, Tampa MLS, Tampa Florida Real Estate, Tampa Market Conditions, Tampa Realtor, Channelside Market Updates

You gotta love automation, queries and databases. Anything to give us instant gratification with instant information. We recently installed a new service on our websites called “Market Snapshot”, that provides a look at listing and sales activity around any given address. It is connected to our local MLS, The Mid-Florida Regional MLS. The MLS is the database used by real estate agents and brokers to list homes for sale and record sales data. As a Tampa Realtor, this is where you go to search for homes for buyer clients and/or do research to determine estimated market values.

So the Market Snapshot will go out and automatically pull current listings as well as recently sold homes comparable to any address provided in the form. It then shoots the user an e-mail with a link to a graphic presentation of the market conditions in and around the neighborhood of that particular address. Users can also set up future, automated reports on selected schedules.

And while this Market Snapshot is really no match to a professionally prepared Comparative Market Analysis, it does provide some good information in short order, and provides the instant gratification that we all desire. Check it out (in the right column there) and feel free to provide any feedback.

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | No Comments »

Tampa Market Conditions Report… Advantage: Buyer

August 14th, 2007 categories: Tampa Real Estate, Tampa MLS, Tampa Market Conditions

For the first 6 months of this year I was posting a weekly report on the Tampa real estate market conditions focusing on the supply of homes for sale in Tampa as opposed to the number of listings under contract. After things began to stabilize in June, I figured I switch to reporting on a monthly basis. Here’s this months report:

Supply

As #1 in the chart above shows, we had a pretty steep increase in the number of active home listings through May when things began to stabilize somewhat. Today the number of homes for sale in Tampa stands at 8957, very near the level it was back in mid-June. Summary: Stable

Demand

As #2 in the chart above shows, the number home listings under contract has fallen recently. Seasonally, this is to be expected. At this time last year there were about 2000 listings under contract in Tampa. Summary: Low and slowly falling demand. Again, there is a seasonal component here. Home sales usually fall off in late summer-fall.

Difference

As #3 in the chart above shows, the difference between the number of active listing (supply) and the number of pending listings (demand), is the greatest it has been all year, and the greatest it has been since I started posting these reports back in early 2006. Summary: Big gap between buyers and sellers right now, a standoff if you will.

If it’s not obvious, this all points to ADVANTAGE: BUYER

Data used is from the Mid-Florida Regional MLS where city = Tampa

Subscribe to these reports.

Posted by Lenny Gurvich | No Comments »

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