That’s right, buyers are having to scramble to get good, solid, timely offers in on the homes they really want to buy. If they don’t, POOF! The house is gone to someone with quicker reflexes.

 And this shift does not just apply to Pinellas County homes; it’s a phenomenon that’s being noticed across the country. The WALL STREET JOURNAL even wrote about it today.

 According to the JOURNAL, buyers are increasingly competing for homes, and even entering into bidding wars. I haven’t seen anything that I would describe as bidding wars locally, but I have had several buyers submitting offers above the asking price, knowing that the house of their dreams won’t stay on the market.

 According to the JOURNAL (and my own sense of what’s going on locally), this sellers’ market is not so much about increasing numbers of sales – it’s more about a lack of good, desirable properties on the market.

 It makes sense when you think about it. Sellers keep their homes off the market because of declining values. If someone owes $300,000 on a home that is now worth $200,000, why put it on the market if you don’t have to?

 And we are now about six years into the housing slump, which means a lot of homes that would have been sold in a more normal market have simply never been listed.

 And there’s another reason, too. Lenders have been extremely slow to put their foreclosed properties on the market. There’s plenty of foreclosed-upon, unoccupied homes out there, in this market and most others, but the lender-owners seem to fear more value declines if they put all those properties on the market.

 It’s a strange market, no doubt. But it is a market with many great opportunities, for buyers and sellers alike.

There were two reasons: (1) Much of the time it was REALLY cold, and (2) it was very hilly. Walking down the hills wasn’t so bad, but walking back UP was no picnic.

When we moved to Florida, I was delighted to be able to increase my walking. It was always warm (okay, maybe TOO warm in the summer, but you can always walk in the early mornings, before the toasty factor gets too high), and the nearly flat terrain means none of those challenging grades.

Since I find walking to be much more enjoyable here than up north, I was a bit surprised to find a website devoted to the “walkability” of various communities, and to note that our area of Florida, Pinellas County, and more specifically Dunedin, Palm Harbor and Tarpon Springs, were rated pretty low on the walking scale.

Even more surprising was that cold, hilly Bath, Maine was rated very highly by this website, www.walkscore.com. Here are the scores:

Bath, Maine: 78 (out of a hundred), “very walkable”

Palm Harbor: 37, car-dependent

Dunedin: 45, car-dependent

Tarpon Springs: 38: Car-dependent

Okay, I actually get this. Our Florida communities are relatively young and they are spread out all over the place. Many lack a real central downtown, and you do need a car to get around and run errands. Bath, Maine (and other up-north older cities) are old, and many were established on the banks of rivers. They were centrally laid-out, as automobiles weren’t even around when they were founded.

Still, if you want my opinion, I’d rather walk right here in Florida. Walking in Maine? No, thanks — especially in January.

By the way, Walkscore.com says it ”helps you find a walkable place to live. Walk Score is a number between 0 and 100 that measures the walkability of any address.”

The Federal Housing Administration has a new rule – if credit bureaus show unpaid collection accounts in your name that total more that $1,000, your loan application will not be approved.

Previously, the FHA was fairly lenient about such things, preferring to base your loan approval on your overall credit history and performance. Now, however, an unpaid account of more than $1,000 (or several smaller accounts that add up to $1,000) will shoot your application down.

What kind of unpaid accounts are we talking about here? Medical bills, overdue student loans, or any and all sorts of retail credit accounts that are delinquent are good examples.

What if a mistake was made and you don’t really owe the money that the credit bureau says you owe? Too bad – the FHA still won’t approve your loan. So the best advice about that is to check your credit bureau report and take steps to clean it up if it contains erroneous negative reports.

Critics blamed the FHA for too-lenient lending when the home finance market melted down. Obviously, the FHA is trying to address those criticisms.

The new policy went into effect April 1.

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If you are planning on buying a home anytime soon, we should talk about your home buying plans AS WELL AS your plans for financing your purchase. As a former mortgage loan officer, I can help you with both of those things. Get in touch — 727-643-7100 or beth@bethfrederick.com.

The National Association of Realtors says that the sale of both investmnent homes and vacations home increased by quite a lot in 2011:

• Investment home purchases rose 64.5 percent, from 749,000 in 2010 to 1,23 million in 2011.
• Vacation home sales rose 7 percent, from 469,000 in 2010 to 502,000 in 2011.

(The NAR defines vacation homes as recreational properties purchased for the buyer’s personal use. It defines investment homes as residential properties  purchased with the intent to either rent to others or to keep as investments.)

The market share of vacation and investment homes purchased in 2011 is at its highest point since 2005, NAR reports. The information was contained in NAR’s 2012 Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey.

Accortding to NAR’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun, investors used cash to take advantage of the favorable market conditions in 2011.

Lawrence Yun

“During the past year, investors have been swooping into the market to take advantage of bargain home prices,” he said. “Rising rental income easily beat cash sitting in banks as an added inducement.”

Yun also said 41 percent of investor buyers purchased more than one property during the year.

The upswing in sales, Yun said, show that the market is able to absorb the foreclosures that are coming into the market.

“Small-time investors are helping the market heal since REO (bank real estate owned) inventory is not lingering for an extended period,” he said. “Any government program to sell REO inventory in bulk to large institutional companies should be limited to small geographic areas. Even where alternatives are needed, it’s best to rely on the expertise of local businesses, nonprofit organizations and government.”

Yun said 49 percent of investment buyers paid cash in 2011, as did 42 percent of vacation-home buyers. Half of all investment home purchases in 2011 were distressed homes, as were 39 percent of vacation homes. Of buyers who financed with mortgages, Yun said, large downpayments were typical.

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Want to talk about investing in Florida Gulf Coast real estate, or about purchasing the perfect winter vacation home? Get in Touch! 727-643-7100, or beth@bethfrederick.com.

 

 If things get better economically, rates will rise.

 Here are a few factors that indicate the economic picture is starting to brighten:

 RETAIL SALES ARE GOING UP: Retail sales make up about 70 percent of the U.S. economy, so it is a very important factor when trying to predict the nation’s economic future. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, retail sales went up to $335 billion in February, an all-time high and the 19^th month out the last 20 to record an increase in retail sales.

 NEW JOBS ARE BEING CREATED: People have to have jobs if they are going to be able to make mortgage payments.  In the past five months, more than a million jobs have been created.

 MANUFACTURING, BUSINESS INVESTMENT, CONSUMER CONFIDENCE UP: All of these categories need to improve if an economic recovery is to take place. And all three of them are improving.

 THE FED IS CONFIDENT: The Fed takes steps to keep interest rates low when the economy is suffering. The Fed takes NO action when the economy is doing well or heading in the right direction. The Fed is saying that a recovery is underway and that it is happening faster than expected; that means that further Fed intervention in interest rates is unlikely. And THAT means that interest rates are likely to rise.

 Rates are still good. But they may not be REALLY good for very long if all these trends continue.

 Want to know the best steps for taking advantage of still-low interest rates? Get in touch and we’ll talk about what you want to accomplish – 727-643-7100 or beth@bethfrederick.com.

Food trucks line Main Street in Safety Harbor

As I’ve said on this blog many times, there’s always something to do in North Pinellas County, or in all of Tampa Bay, for that matter.  Local residents love to get outside and enjoy the warm sunshine, and the local organizations and communities know that and plan all sorts of activities throughout the year.

This past weekend, Bill and I drove over the Safety Harbor to check out that town’s first-ever Food Truck Rally. About a dozen different food trucks were on hand, offering everything from barbecue to doughnuts to Korean food items.

Ordering up snacks at the Korean food truck

The city blocked off a couple of blocks on Main Street so folks could enjoy strolling from truck to truck without the danger of passing cars.

We sampled a number of items and really enjoyed it. We also enjoyed some live music.

This food truck idea has been held in a number of different local communities and they are pretty popular. There has been a little friction about some of these events – some local restauranteurs have objected to food trucks coming in and allegedly stealing away some business from local restaurants. But in this case, local Safety Harbor businesses were “in the loop” and helped with the planning of the events. If there were any objections, I didn’t hear about them.
“The idea is not to compete with our local restaurants, but to enhance our active community and get them downtown on a Saturday afternoon,” Joe Cooper, Special Events Supervisor for the city, said before the event. “We also hope to bring in new faces to the city that will come out and enjoy our shops, restaurants and pubs.”

These food truck events are becoming more popular. We’re looking forward to the next one.

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But birds aren’t the only wildlife you are apt to see when you drive through Palm Harbor, Oldsmar, Dunedin or other parts of Pinellas County.

This morning I was in a Dunedin neighborhood, and I noticed some loud splashing in a creek that ran behind some houses near the Dunedin Community Center. I walked over to investigate, and saw two otters frolicking in the water.

After I watched them for a few minutes, I realized there were more than just two — there were four in all, splashing in the creek and then chasing each other around one of the backyards.

There’s all kinds of wildlife in Pinellas County, and you usually don’t have to travel very far to find them.

“What’s that?” you say. “Interest rates are at historic lows. Interest rates seem to be the one single thing that we don’t have to worry about when we think about the housing market.”

Yup, you are correct.  But according to the report, rising interest rates could be looming. And if that comes true, it will retard the housing market recovery.

According to the report, there are a number of factors that should have favorable impacts on a better housing market – strong improvements in the rate of single-family housing starts, more construction permits being pulled, and an upward trend in home sales across the nation, to name just three.

And let’s not forget really, REALLY low interest rates.

But, according to the report, interest rates will inevitably rise. And when they do, mortgage costs will go up. And that will be an impediment to a market recovery.

Those historically low interest rates are around 4 percent right now. But the MEDIAN interest rate, looked at long-term, is more like 9 percent. The report says that when interest rates go up, as they inevitably will, the effect is likely to be like an anchor on the recovery of the housing market.

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Something else that is probably inevitable – people saying, “Wow, I wish I had purchased a home in Dunedin or Palm Harbor when the prices and interest rates were really low.”

That doesn’t have to be you. Call or e-mail me now and we’ll discuss what you want to accomplish home-wise. I’m always available! beth@bethfrederick.com, or 727-643-7100.