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Jacksonville Beach, FL Real Estate News

By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
  Here are the numbers of active property listings, those under contract, and sold properties for Single Family Homes in Jacksonville Beach, FL for the month of December 2008: Active              265 active listings for Single Family Homes (no condos) Pending               18 pending  (inspections & financing have been done) Sold                 12 sold New Listings       29 Active listings have decreased by 6% year to year, which indicates unmotivated sellers pulling their listings off the market, which is a good thing. The pending listings this month are 38% year to year, which is terrific. The sold listings are also UP 50% from 2007 to this year.  New listings on the market are flat year to year. Here are the December 2007 numbers for comparison: Active              282 active listin...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
No, really I did!  And, more than one life. How? I donated a pint of blood. It's that simple. Each pint of blood donated in the North Florida area helps the lives of 3 people. And, the North Florida Blood Alliance serves local people and hospitals that need it. It takes virtually no time to donate, and you feel terrific for having helped someone who needs it - it could be a family member, a friend or a neighbor. I urge everyone who can donate to do so, especially during the holiday season. Happy & Safe holidays to all!   Carol Zingone is a Broker Associate with a 100% Customer Satisfaction Rating in Jacksonville Beach, FL with Vanguard GMAC.  She helps buyers and sellers throughout the Beaches, Intracoastal West and Greater Jacksonville, FL areas. She can be reached at 904/993-9048 or v...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
Here are the numbers of active property listings, those under contract, and sold properties for Single Family Homes in Jacksonville Beach, FL for the month of August 2008: Active            315 active listings for Single Family Homes (no condos) Pending              10 pending  (inspections & financing have been done) Sold                13 sold New Listings       50 Active listings have decreased by 5% year to year, which while small, is still a step in the right direction. Pending and solds are up impressively - 150% and 44%, respectively and  these numbers indicate there are buyers who are able to get financing, and the homes are appraising. Here are the August 2007 numbers for comparison: Active             333 active listings for Single Family Homes (no condos) Pending             ...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
Here are the numbers of active property listings, those under contract, and sold properties for Single Family Homes in Jacksonville Beach, FL for the month of September 2008: Active             314 active listings for Single Family Homes (no condos) Pending               10 pending  (inspections & financing have been done) Sold                 7 sold New Listings       50 Active listings have decreased by 7% year to year, which is helpful for sellers in a shorter time to sell their home. Both Pending listings and solds are fairly flat year to year. New listings are down by 25%, another good factor. Here are the September 2007 numbers for comparison: Active              338 active listings for Single Family Homes (no condos) Pending               13 pending  (inspections/financing have b...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
Jacksonville Beach Market Data 10/08 Here are the numbers of active property listings, those under contract, and sold properties for Single Family Homes in Jacksonville Beach, FL for the month of October 2008: Active             284 active listings for Single Family Homes (no condos) Pending               9 pending  (inspections & financing have been done) Sold                 8 sold New Listings       31 Active listings have decreased by 15% year to year, which is good news overall for decreasing the time it takes to sell a property. Both Pending listings and solds are fairly flat year to year. Here are the October 2007 numbers for comparison: Active             337 active listings for Single Family Homes (no condos) Pending               13 pending  (inspections/financing have been do...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
At a networking lunch yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised by the opportunity, as a member, to speak for 2 minutes. Normally, I would have focused on just real estate, however, I thought it was more important to focus on how to stimulate the LOCAL economy now.  Personally, I take every opportunity to do this, and help keep local businesses IN business, and I urge everyone to do the same. Help someone buy or sell real estate.  It could be a first time home buyer, a vacation home or a foreclosure.   Support your local bars and restaurants.   Budget tight? You can choose the house wine or happy hour specials to spread the wealth.    Volunteer - you will feel terrific for having given back to the community.   Pass more referrals to your network. I tell everyone I meet that I have a vast ne...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
I had a great opportunity the other day: I found a foreclosed oceanfront condo, 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom priced at $229,900. WOW! I sent that property out to about 10 buyers I'm working with to call it to their attention, showed it that afternoon, and had a purchase and sale agreement the next morning. My buyers wanted to know what price to offer, and I said "Full price - this will end up being a multiple offer situation, and if you really want it, we need to make the cleanest offer we can." There was another offer, and we were not highest and best, HOWEVER, the other offer had  both financing and inspection contingencies, and we were clean, so we got the condo. This same condo sold in June 2006 for $381,000.  There are terrific deals at all pricepoints right now - I pulled all the homes s...
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By Richard Newquist, 3 Minute Video Ads
(3 Minute Video Ads.com)
Here I go again!  I thought I had learned from the last caper with a short sale.  My client is a first time home buyer and is getting down payment assistance from a State of Florida organization. We finally found a house that would pass FHA so we made an offer.  At $96,000, our offer was 12% below the asking price and after nearly a month of haggling, the bank turned us down. The bank is clearly losing money on our offer but it will cost them double that to foreclose. My theory is that with the possiblity of a "bailout", the banks aren't negotiating.  It seems like they're waiting to see what they can get from the government before accepting lower offers. Anyway, we've found another house that may work.  It's a short sale!    
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
You might think I'm talking about a foreclosure property with the headline, right? WRONG! This would be MY HOUSE this past weekend! I came home to get ready for a wedding, to find a dead rat on my porch (courtesy of my trio of cats, no doubt) and a live snake in my bedroom. Now, I'm not faint-hearted, but a live snake in the bedroom is just wrong.  Plus, I had exactly as much time to get ready for the wedding as I needed, and there was no time to mess with dead rodents, and snakes. I managed to get an empty shoebox over the snake (he was attempting to hide behind my bedroom door) - he was a young'un, so I figured that plus a hefty issue of Vogue on top of the shoebox would at the very least corral him until I had time to deal with him. The shoebox did work, but the snake was pretty darn...
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By Ronda Densford, Realtor - Jacksonville and Northeast Florida
(Magnolia Properties)
The Beaches area continues to feel the wrath of Tropical Storm Fay.  It's not like she's in a big hurry to get out of here or anything.  Quite the contrary!  Like a guest that's over stayed their welcome, it's past time for Fay to go.  She has been lurking off of the coast of Northeast Florida for two days.  When she finally headed West today, she brought buckets of rain with her.  Along with the buckets of rain, she brought 40 mph winds with gusts up to 55 mph.  It's been a rough afternoon here at the Beach.  The damage so far is minimal.  There have been numerous reports of flooded streets and a few trees down, but all in all, we've been lucky.  We've been spared any real serious damage.  Property damage is very low considering how bad it could have been... I wish the story ended here...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
We all get questions about why particular houses sell and why others don't. Or we get questions about why a house down the street sold in 7 days, and your house is still on the market after 7 or more months. Looking through the Multiple Listing Service today, I was amazed at the number of listings that have ONE EXTERIOR PHOTO. That's it. That's the agent's brilliant marketing plan: let's use the one tool that EVERY REALTOR looks at, and let's put in just one photo. 84% of buyers and sellers access information on the internet before they contact an agent about showing or listing a property. If buyers see one photo only, they don't know what the interior looks like. They don't want to waste their time or anyone else's by looking at properties that don't fit what they are looking for. Ask ...
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By Thomas Martin
(1st Continental Mortage)
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
I'm upgrading my laptop to either a notebook or a tablet pc and am looking for input from the pros in the field. I'd love to know what helped sway your purchase decision, and what specific factors you were focusing on. In my mind, I'd love to have the ability to complete offers on the road, to save my buyers and sellers time.  The tablet pc's can do this. A wireless printer would make me a true road warrior, and that would be a next purchase. If you have have a tablet or notebook, do you just use it for the road? If so, what do you have back at the office as the office workhorse? Do you have trouble syncing your data between the two? I know Realtors get deals from Dell - what other offers are floating around out there? Suggestions, input, research links are all welcome - I want to hear ...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
Price is important.  Every consumer (and we all consume) makes decisions based on price and how well the product suits their particular needs. For example, someone who previously filled up their gas tank with premium may make a change to regular these days based on price alone. It's exactly the same with homes.  Let's say there are 103 active listings that have 3 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms (this is a true statement for my market, based on active listings in one market segment.) The prices range from a low of $169,900 to a high of $985,000. Obviously, not all of these homes have the same amount of square footage, or are the same age.  As a Realtor, I would not show all 103 homes to one single buyer, because they won't ALL fit the needs of my buyer.  So, I narrow down the list to focus on ...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
I attended the Northeast Florida Builder's Association Sales & Marketing Council for a breakfast program today.  Their programs are always terrific, but this one especially so. Matthew Ferrara was the speaker, and he was very insightful as to how to communicate to the first time home buyers of today, vs. how we THINK they want to be communicated to. A quiz first, to check your knowledge: (answers are at the bottom). A )  What is the median age of First Time buyers? B)   What percent had no children at home? C)   What percentage used agents? D)   What percentage of all buyers were 1st Time buyers? The primary way we can improve our technique is simply communicating the way the buyers want us to communicate. They don't want floor plans, or descriptives like "brick paver driveway, 42" cabi...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
Here are the numbers of active property listings, those under contract, and sold properties for Condos in Jacksonville Beach, FL for the month of May 2008: Active              362 active listings for condos (no single family homes) Pending               13 pending  (inspections & financing have been done) Sold                 9 sold (prices ranged from $125,000 to $650,000) New Listings       51 This is the first market report for condos that I've posted. The active listings have declined 23% year to year. I imagine most owners decided to rent their units and wait for the market to rebound in this category rather than take a hit now.  The pending listings are technically flat, however, there  is one more unit pending right now, which is better than the Single Family Data I just posted. ...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
Here are the numbers of active property listings, those under contract, and sold properties for Single Family Homes in Jacksonville Beach, FL for the month of May 2008: Active                 318 active listings for Single Family Homes (no condos) Pending                   17 pending  (inspections & financing have been done) Sold                    7 sold (prices ranged from $146,000 to $500,000) New Listings           39 The active listings have decreased 14%, which helps stabilize prices. The pending listings this month are flat, which is good: we are keeping pace with last year's activity. The new listings are down 41% year to year, which means sellers are more serious this year rather than simply testing the waters. The sold listings have declined quite a bit from 2007 to this year;...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
Got closings?  Do they all have happy endings? Mine from yesterday does - a cute 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 78 year old beach bungalow that I had listed for an incredible period of time, CLOSED yesterday at 9:30am! The buyers went straight from the closing to the house, and started pressure washing, trimming trees, cutting grass, etc. This poor house had been vacant for at least 1 year, and really needed to be "adopted". My seller is thrilled the buyers will be fixing it up and renting it out - she sent me an awesome thank you note and copied my broker. I was happy to drive by and see this house being cared for again - I really felt as though I had fostered it for the past while, and now the new "parents" were taking over - made me feel so good!  I told the new owners I would be stopping to...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
I've been taking golf lessons recently, first time ever, and have found the lessons to be not only fun and interesting, but have applications off the golf course. For example, I have a bad habit of "flipping" my left wrist after hitting the ball. They have worked with me on this, having me work on the separate steps of the golf swing, and breaking them down one by one. I even paid close attention to the TPC on TV to really analyze how they swing.  And, practiced with my foam golf balls in my house while the TPC was on. The point to muscle memory is this: if you have an improper way of doing something, such as a golf swing, and flipping your wrist, every single time you swing and flip your wrist, you are creating muscle memory. This means you will continue to do the action the same way u...
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By Carol Zingone, Global Realtor in Jax Beach, FL - ABR, CRS, CIPS
(Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Florida Network Realty)
Here are the numbers of active property listings, those under contract, and sold properties for Single Family Homes in Jacksonville Beach, FL for the month of April 2008: Active                320 active listings for Single Family Homes (no condos) Pending             6 pending  (inspections & financing have been done) Sold                  7 sold (prices ranged from $180,000 to $460,000) New Listings       44 Great news all around! First, our total area inventory (for Jacksonville overall) has decreased from approximately 19 months of inventory to 16 months, a reduction of 15%.  The active listings have decreased 6%, which is a good start for stabilizing prices. The pending listings, while down 33% statistically, are flat in terms of their relation to active listings at approximately ...
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