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Pinellas County real estate becomes a sellers’ market

Here’s a recent development in real estate that I don’t think too many people would have predicted: In recent weeks, we’ve sort of quietly shifted from a buyers’ market to a seller’s market.

 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.

Tags: Clearwater, Dunedin, Palm Harbor, pinellas county, real estate, sellers' market, Tarpon Springs

Walking in Pinellas County is enjoyable, but not highly rated by some

It’s funny; before we moved to Florida we lived in Bath, Maine, a quaint and attractive small city on the Kennebec River. While Bath was scenic and pleasant, I almost never walked anywhere when I lived there.

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.”

Tags: Dunedin, Palm Harbor, real estate, Tarpon Springs, things to do, walking

That new Pinellas County home just got more affordable, thanks to historically low interest rates

     What is it with interest rates? They just seem to get lower and lower. Today’s rates are at historic lows. Is that stimulating home sales? It doesn’t seem so – not that much, anyway.
     How low are interest rates? Right now they are as low as 3.90 percent, or even a bit lower. Last year at this time the average rates for a conventional 30-year mortgage loan were a little over 5 percent, and we thought that was breathtakingly low.
     It is the lowest that interest rates have ever been in this country.
     Just for comparison, rates four years ago were around 7 percent, and we thought that was pretty darn good.
     So, should you actually consider refinancing if you bought your house a year ago? Maybe so.
     Let’s say you bought your house last February, and you financed $200,000 at 5.05 percent. That would make your principal and interest payment $1,079.76.
     Refinance that same $200,000 amount now at 3.87 percent, and your principal and interest payment would drop to $939.90. That’s a monthly saving of $139.86, or 13 percent. Not bad.
     I spent many years in the mortgage business, before I returned to my first love, real estate sales. I know a lot about the ins and outs of home financing. If you have questions about your plans for buying and financing a home, get in touch and we’ll talk – 727-643-7100, or beth@bethfrederick.com .

Tags: Dunedin, home sales, homes for sale, interest rates, Palm Harbor, pinellas county, real estate

You otter live in Dunedin!

You probably know by now that I like Florida’s birds, and I can’t help taking pictures of birds of all types when I come across them in my travels throughout Pinellas County.

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.

Tags: Dunedin, Florida, otters, pinellas county, real estate, real estate for sale

Interest rates are low, but they won’t always be. Remember that when you consider buying a home in Pinellas County

What single factor may splash cold water on the recovering housing market? According to a CNN/Fortune Magazine report, it could be interest rates.

“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.

Tags: Dunedin, home, interest rates, Oldsmar, Palm Harbor, pinellas county, purchase

Waterfowl love living in Dunedin

As I’ve said before here, I love Florida’s birds — they are one of things that make living here so interesting.

There’s a pond a few steps from my back door, and it attracts all sorts of different birds. There’s a family of ducks that live there, and they are there every day, but other waterfowl pop in for vistits pretty regularly.

I was outside the other day when this big guy dropped in. I think it’s a heron of some sort, but I’m no expert and I couldn’t find a picture on the internet of a bird that exactly matched this fellow, so I’m not really sure what he is. If you recognize it, please post what you know.

What’s the point of bird pictures on a blog that specializes in Pinellas County real estate? Good question. But it’s my blog, and I like birds, so you can expect to see some photos of birds that I come across in Pinellas County. This particular guy is in Dunedin, a little south of Palm Harbor.

Tags: birds, Dunedin, Palm Harbor, pinellas county, real estate, wildlife

A short life remembered on a small patch of Dunedin real estate

There are two golf courses in Dunedin, and we live in a condo right between them.

 Step out our front door and walk to the left, and in a minute or so you are in front of Dunedin Country Club. Walk to the right, and in about the same amount of time you are walking past a par-three public course, Dunedin Stirling Links.

 I usually walk east, in the Dunedin Country Club direction, when I walk Bo, our puggle. My husband usually goes in the other direction, and heads past Dunedin Stirling Links when it is his turn to walk the dog.

Down in that westerly direction, not quite as far as Alt. 19, there is a small tree. Its trunk is surrounded by white decorative blocks. We both have walked by that tree many times, but it was only recently that we noticed there was a small plaque in the ground at the tree’s base.

 As you travel around North Pinellas County, there are quite a few commemorative plaques, but you have to pay attention or they simply blend into the background and you never see them. All of them have been put in place for a reason, but they don’t always have room to tell the entire story.

 In this case, there isn’t much more than a name, a couple of baseballs, and a family’s loving sentiment. Here is what it says:

In Memory of
Elliott Richard Pape
Big L
2 – 7 – 87       12 – 5 – 05
We love you
We will see you again
Love Mom Dad and girls

 Someone went to some trouble to plant that tree in a young man’s memory, and I thought I’d see if I could find out more of the story.

 It didn’t take much work.  I went to the St. Petersburg TIMES website (okay, I know, its been called the Tampa Bay TIMES since New Year’s Day, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to calling it that), and found a story published just before Christmas of 2005.

Elliott Richard Pape was an 18-year-old Dunedin youth who worked part-time as a bat boy for the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team. On Dec. 12, 2005, he was killed in a motorcycle accident as he rode home.

 Here is what the newspaper said about his death:

 “On Monday afternoon, Pape was riding his 2006 Suzuki motorcycle home to Dunedin. He took the Roosevelt Boulevard exit ramp off Interstate 275 at 4:08 p.m. when he lost control in the turn, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

“He hit the brakes, but the motorcycle skidded into the guardrail, throwing him over the rail and onto the embankment, troopers said.”

 So that’s the story of the tree. I don’t know whether Elliott Richard Pape liked to play golf at Dunedin Stirling Links, but hopefully his tree will grow and prosper, and golfers will stop there once in a while to read the plaque that his family put there.

Tags: Dunedin, golf, Pinellas County real estate, tampa bay rays

200 posts about Pinellas County real estate

I started this blog about Pinellas County real estate a little over five years ago. Lots of things have changed since then — I started the blog under a different blog name, and I used a different blog platform back then.

I mention all this because we just reached an important milestone — 200 blog posts, all of which relate in some way or other to Pinellas County real estate. The blog entry about three entries back, entitled “What’s the outlook for first-time homebuyers in the Pienllas County real estate market?”, was our 200th entry.

Just for fun, I scrolled all the way back to the beginning and took a look at our first blog entry, back on May 4, 2006. It’s about Strachan’s Ice Cream. (I think I may have posted a few before that one, but I seem to remember that a handful of blog entries didn’t survive the transfer of content from one blog platform to the other.)

Anyway, that’s a lot of stories just about real estate in Pinellas County, even though a few of them have strayed a little bit from that single subject.

Feel free to page back through the old entries. Most of them are still informative about homes and real estate in Pinellas County, or more specifically real estate in Palm Harbor, Clearwater, Dunedin, Tarpon Springs, Crystal Beach, Ozona, Oldsmar and Safety Harbor.

Tags: Crystal Beach, Dunedin, Oldsmar, Ozona, Palm Harbor, Pinellas County real estate, real estate, Safety Harbor, Tarpon Springs

The Dunedin Country Club

Dunedin Country Club

Picture this:

You are a developer in Dunedin, Fla., and you have a vision about a new housing development. You want to attract people from up north who may want to relocate to a warmer, sunnier climate.

So you buy a big tract of land and you subdivide it into house lots. Right in the middle of it you leave plenty of space for a golf course. And just to make sure you make the course really attractive and interesting, you hire one of the greatest living golf course architects to design it.

Sounds like a pretty contemporary scenario, right?

In this case, however, it was not.  All of this took place in the 1920s. The subdivision included Dunedin’s Fairway Estates, and the golf course was the Donald Ross-designed Dunedin Country Club.

This story starts in the early years of the 20th century, when Baron Otto Quarles arrived in Florida from Europe. He bought a huge tract of land north of Dunedin and built a large mansion on the site, but within a few years he lost interest and relocated to the other side of Tampa Bay, in Tampa.

About 20 years later, a developer acquired the land and announced very ambitious plans. Two golf courses, a casino and more than 6,000 home sites were part of the scheme. But then came the great Florida real estate bust of 1929, and the project went bankrupt.

Before that happened, however, Donald Ross was retained to design the golf course. Ross was a native of Scotland who designed more than 300 U.S. golf courses during his career. He was based in North Carolina and designed many courses there, but Florida was fertile ground for his talents, too. Ross-designed golf courses are highly prized; today, fewer than 20 Donald Ross courses survive in Florida.

The Depression took its toll on the course. By the mid-1930s it was in need of major repairs and maintenance. In 1938, the city of Dunedin obtained ownership of the course. Money was invested in the course, and golfers began using it again in 1938.

A real break for the course happened in 1945, when it was selected to become the home course of the PGA of America. The PGA leased the club and made Dunedin its national headquarters. That relationship lasted until 1962, when the PGA moved to another location in Palm Beach Gardens/

During those years the course was played by some of the greatest name in golf — Ben Hogan, Sam Snead. Bobby Jones and Babe Zaharias among them.
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The Dunedin Country Club has been going through some financial and management issues lately. Here’s a link to a story in the St. Petersburg TIMES:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/article1017449.ece

Tags: country club, Dunedin, real estate

Dunedin awaits rebirth of Fenway Hotel

Dunedin's Fenway Hotel

If I could travel through time, I think I might like to visit West Central Florida around 1925. The area was in the middle of a big land boom, and communities such as Clearwater and Dunedin were in the middle of exciting growth.

 Downtown areas were being developed, new hotels and commercial buildings were being built, and some beautiful and expensive private homes were going up.
 
Some residents of Dunedin felt that their community was being left a bit behind. Visitors to the area were attracted to Clearwater and St. Petersburg, not to Dunedin, which didn’t have the kind of resort hotel that people flocked to in the 1920s to escape the cold and snow of their native northern homes.

A local realty company decided to try to do something about that, and started pushing the idea of a very high-end resort hotel on Dunedin’s Main Street (now Edgewater Drive). The financing scheme seems a little offbeat – the developers asked every Dunedin resident to chip in a few bucks, and quite a few stepped up and did just that.
 
A Clearwater developer, George H. Bowles, paid $250,000 for a controlling interest in the still-unfinished hotel, and he was able to find the financing necessary to complete the project. The hotel opened in 1925.

One interesting feature that Bowles brought to the new hotel was WGHB, the first commercial radio station in the area. Bowles was a big radio enthusiast, and the December opening ceremonies of the Fenway were carried on a six-hour broadcast that was beamed across the country.

Remains of the Fenway Hotel pier

The Fenway attracted many wealthy visitors and it was an important icon of Dunedin through the late 1950s. But like many grand hotels of that era, it fell into disrepair and went out of business. It later became the campus of Trinity College, which then took the name of its parent institution, Schiller International University.

In recent months, a St. Petersburg attorney, George Rahdert, has stepped forward with plans to re-develop the old Fenway. There has been a lot of vigorous debate about what the Fenway’s future would be, from demolition to a reinvigorated hotel. Rahdert wants to restore the existing hotel and add new wings.
 
Some neighbors aren’t very happy about a new commercial enterprise operating near their homes. Other local residents are delighted that such an historic relic might be saved and restored.
 
The Fenway by the Bay Hotel that Rahdert envisions would include a ballroom, a 150-seat restaurant and more than 100 hotel rooms. What the developers have in mind is a “condotel,”. a facility where people can purchase suites which they could occupy for part of the year and rent out as hotel rooms at other times.

The project is now going through county review and approval processes. 

Go here for more information about the Fenway Hotel project.

Tags: Dunedin, fenway hotel, North Pinellas County, real estate