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Dec

31

The New Year Count down for RealEstate

Filed Under Economy, Finance, Helpful Information | Leave a Comment

You know it?s almost New Years. The tell tale signs have been everywhere. In our News Papers all the adds for Weight Loss and Final Year End Sales at the malls, not to be out-done by the late night infomercial’s and local news casts extolling the virtues of a healthier you and the vices of setting unrealistic resolutions.

So as a Realtor are you set with your game plan for 2008 ? Resolutions and Restitution is the the theme for New Years here in the Greater Tampa Bay Area. Some predictions came true last year and many did not, ready or not the predictions are starting to roll in.

The Housing crisis this year has fueled one of the top three industries reported to be in distress in 2008. In the annual Trend Watch Poll sponsored by the Turn Around Management Association, 60% of respondents say that homebuilders will be hit with the ?greatest financial and or operation difficulties? on 2008. Additional predictions include struggling business to continue for mortgage lenders (35 % of respondents) and residential loan origination and servicing firms (32 %). Let?s hope that these predictions are way off mark in the opposite direction.

With better planning, preparation, networking and technology we are setting realistic goals for 2008. Here’s to seeing you on the other side and hoping that your goals and aspirations are much greater in 08.

Will rate resets spoil the New Year ?

Is there an upside to real estate downturn ?

Are Florida Realtors up for the challenging time ahead ?

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Dec

27

Video Blogging ready for prime time RealEstate ?

Filed Under Helpful Information, Technology | 3 Comments

Ok Christmas is over and soon the New Year will be upon us. So what have we been doing besides eating way more than we should ? Well we have been doing a lot of research and making plans to kick the doors off of this BLOG and bring the content and readership into new levels. As Real Estate agents both Theresa and Marie have been very busy this month. As I am writing this Theresa is doing a walk through prior to a closing that will happen before the New Year. Whether you are in the Business or a prospective Home Buyer or Seller you may want to review the video clip I am attaching. This is from over at the Inman The content discusses how video and podcasting are effecting the industry and is a lead in to a large discussion that will take place in January at the New York Bloggers Connect Work shop.

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Videoblogs, or vlogs, are relatively new to the real estate industry so stay tuned as we dissect this video and the forthcoming information from the convention. The NEW YEAR will be all about New Media and our connection with Virtual Interactive Systems will shed new light and intuition for those that are interested. We are really looking forward to bringing our clients and readers new ways of getting the best information available on the Real Estate trends and daily goings on here in Tampa Florida.

Realestate In Tampa Florida - It?s a Wonderful Life

Real Estate Blogger Aims to Kick Butt

Dec

25

Christmas Greetings from Tampa Florida

Filed Under Helpful Information | Leave a Comment

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It has been a hectic couple of weeks leading up to Christmas this year. It?s now past 1:00 AM, we are just completing the last of the gift wrapping and getting the kids presents all set. Earlier in the evening we met with family and friends and then joined together at our local church for our Traditional Christmas eve. Here in Florida the weather is nice, not too warm and not too cold. No snow or frosty evening but some how Santa will still make it to see the kids. On the Real Estate side of things we have been busy this month. One great closing and working on another for later next week to close out the month and make our Christmas a little better after some long slow months. This last week was also spent acknowledging our great customers over the year who have helped us as we have helped them.

We opted for the home made cookies and cheer this year and hope that our clients enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed making them ?

We wish everyone a very Happy and Merry Christmas from the Greater Tampa Bay Real Estate Team.

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Dec

20

Home Town Democracy petition drive heats up

Filed Under Economy, Finance, Helpful Information | Leave a Comment

There has been a few more articles written this Month on the entire Home Town Democracy debacle or as we can call it now a battle.

What I find interesting is that most local citizenry in North Florida areas, especially the Greater Tampa Bay Area, do not even know the truth about this issue. The main reason for this is, that the opposition campaign is being run like a political campaign and has from the very onset of this issue.

Just check out this latest article File Attachment: Costly Home Town Debate.pdf (94 KB)

They (the opposition to Home Town Democracy? FSG) do not want you or I to have our say over continued growth in the State of Florida. They have since changed their tune a little. At the beginning they did not want to even let us participate in any votes for growth anywhere in Florida. They, the Businesses want to control everything. Then as they realized that their was an opposition, they concocted an amendment that they say gives you choice, only under total control by them.

?The FSG amendment would let residents decide on any change to the local growth management plan if 10 percent of residents signed a petition for a referendum. The petition for a referendum could only be signed at the office of the appropriate county supervisor of elections, county clerk or a similar election authority, meaning few would make the effort or know of it ?.

This entire issue is of course about money. New developments means more money to developers and to large business like Banks that provide the funding. Speaking of which one of the articles this week is about FSG being headed by a former Bank of America President. Well their is your Banking connection.

FSG has big business backing it. They also have the FHB and FAR contributing money to their cause. This also portrays false and misleading information to the average citizen who thinks that all Real Estate agents are against this. Because of who they are associated with they have basically strong armed all the Real Estate Brokers who in turn have sent messages to their minions to vote against the Home Town Democracy amendment. They use scare tactics citing that if we should be lucky enough to gain a win that we would likely cause the already bad Real Estate markets in Florida to become even worse. What a load of crap that is. But is is sympathetic to those that have suffered under the current conditions, some lost money some lost homes and many lost jobs. This is not what this is about or what will happen.

OK, besides all the hoopla here, a lot of this is getting nasty just like the Political campaigns. This is really about choice for you and I. I do not like that the Home Town Democracy has to rely on funding from the likes of the Sierra Club. This paints it as a kind of rogue organization and gives Floridians for Home Town Growth the opposition group a lot of ammo to work with. I am not a tree hugging liberal nor do I condone what Sierra Club is generally involved with. What I am is a concerned citizen that follows events and wants to ensure that the Florida I know is still around when my children grow and have children of their own.

I want to make sure that the areas for growth are the right ones. I don?t want big business making those decisions for me. I like many of those that are for the Home Town Democracy amendment are educated individuals.

Vote with your conscience and sign a petition to take your full right to question something that you either don?t agree with or don?t understand. Make them work for you and I instead of the other way around.

So - Sign and gain freedom from a possibly squandered future File Attachment: FHD Petition.pdf (23 KB)

Home Town Democracy - John Thraser or Times Lying ?

Are you the Idiot Developers say you are ?

Dec

18

Florida Housing Statistics for December 2007

Filed Under Economy, Finance, General, Mortgage, Real Estate | 1 Comment

A company called Altos Research has issued a new report that will add some real time perspective to market conditions. Since most of the reports take months to generate, Altos intends to lower the playing field by providing quicker market statistics. Their inaugural report looks at 20 major metro markets which allows them to publish key statistics about pricing, supply, demand and trends, while drawing conclusions about what’s happening in local markets.

The Real IQ figures by Altos consulting for December indicate that the National Picture is still not looking too great. I have singled out the data for the Florida market and compared Miami with Tampa and you can see that Tampa is still showing signs of distress but did better than Miami with number of days on market averaging 109 days over the last 3 months.

While listing inventories fell some what in Tampa and around the U.S Miami fluctuated upwards slightly.

Where Tampa and Miami fared close was in the Percentage of Inventory with Price Reductions as they were both in the middle of the pack.

Tampa and Miami were close in the Median Home Price and the data shows that the Florida Market still dropped more than the National Average.

A few of the key Florida statistics indicate:

Tampa market had increases of more than 20% in number of days on market from September through November.
Tampa market experienced -4.2 % price reduction over the last 3 months.
Miami markets experienced a -2.9% price reduction over the last 3 months.
Miami experienced the longest time-on-market spans with an average days-on-market of 137 in November.
Miami Listing Inventory was basically unchanged showing only a 0.3% increase.

While the statistics don?t look that good, we have seen some movement here in the Greater Tampa Bay Area for December.

It is still too early to determine if any of the Government sponsored Mortgage initiatives will help or hinder the market though.