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Tallahassee, FL Real Estate News

By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
8869 Glen Abby Dr, Tallahassee, FL Click here to Get Directions$869,000 4 Beds - 3 Baths - 36590 sqft Lot Photos Maps & Local Schools Print Exquisite property in the highly desirable Golden Eagle! Built by one of Tallahassee's best known luxury builders, Tom Ertl, this well appointed home with four spacious bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms lives open and bright. Featuring elevated ceilings, perfect hardwood flooring throughout most of the home, gourmet kitchen with a bar and all stainless steel appliances & quartz countertops that flows into the great room with custom moulding & built-ins, formal dining room, three generous bedrooms and a separate over-sized master suite with a luxurious bath suite (soaking tub & shower) and massive walk in closet. An abundance of windows throug...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
3905 Bellac Rd, Tallahassee, FL Click here to Get Directions$610,000 5 Beds - 5 Baths - 3.35 acres Lot Photos Maps & Local Schools Print STORYBOOK CHARM WITH MODERN FLAIR! Find yourself charmed by this spacious and peaceful home in the heart of nature, set back from the bustle but convenient to everything. With an abundance of natural light throughout the both homes, this two-building residence truly is one-of-a-kind. You will never run out of space in the enormous and updated kitchen or on one of the multiple covered patios overlooking the grounds. With generous bedrooms throughout, this home is filled with thoughtful updates for all kinds of Buyers. Enjoy the best of everything with this spacious, modern home on one of Tallahassee's hidden picturesque streets with mature trees and st...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
311 Inglewood Dr, Tallahassee, FL Click here to Get Directions$285000 3 Beds - 2 Baths - 0.27 acres Lot Photos Maps & Local Schools Print Spacious updated home that backs up to greenspace near the center of Tallahassee?! Yes Please! Real hardwood floors invite you in from the covered front porch to a combination living room/dining room. Enjoy cooking in your updated kitchen complete with quartz counter tops, SS appliances, and SS single basin farm sink that peers into the adjoining family room. Vaulted ceiling with beams, built in cabinetry, and woodburning stove add to the charm and flexibility of this home with the additional spacious family room (use as combination living room, home gym, play room, office, or whatever your heart desires!) Out back, enjoy the screened porch and view ...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
227 Daffodil Circle, Tallahassee, FL Click here to Get Directions$260,000 3 Beds - 2 Baths - 5227 sqft Lot Photos Maps & Local Schools Print *Compensation: 3% buyer's agent compensation. Welcome to 227 Daffodil Circle, a delightful 3-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom home located in a peaceful and welcoming Tallahassee neighborhood. With 1,463 square feet of thoughtfully designed living space, this home is perfect for anyone seeking a serene retreat close to the city's conveniences. Upstairs, the spacious primary bedroom offers a private en-suite bathroom and a large closet, creating a comfortable haven. Two additional bedrooms share a well-appointed full bathroom, while a convenient half-bath on the main level ensures easy accessibility for guests. One of the highlights of this home is the screen...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
Often times, we read articles written in local and national publications referring to the state of the real estate market. Much of these articles are written based upon the sales activity of both new and resale single family homes in a particular area, such as the Tallahassee real estate market.It is important to understand a dynamic that is happening in the Tallahassee real estate market that is so important to the measurement of our activity. The dynamic that I refer to regards the condominium/townhouse (CT) category encroaching on the single family detached home (SF).As land prices have skyrocketed, it is becoming nearly impossible to bring a $150,000 single family home to the market. The average price for a lot in Leon County is over $80,000 (and we seen surges higher than $100,000!...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
The final numbers are in for the Tallahassee Real Estate Market. 2007 has been completed and we can move forward to 2008! So, how do you think our market was in 2007? Down, certainly. Dead, ... think again.Overall, the Tallahassee (Leon County) residential real estate market was better than all the years prior to 2001 (with the exception of 1999). Leon County real estate sales were 4% better in 2007 than they were in 2000. I remember back in 2000, and we were thinking it was a fairly good, above-average market. This market correction was needed and is a normal part of the long-term real estate sales cycle.New contruction sales (the residential category combines Single-Family homes, Condominiums, and Town Houses) had its fifth-best recorded year ever! With all the media stories preaching...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
Promising Signs In Tallahassee Real Estate Market I have been so busy "closing out" 2007 that I haven't been very active blogging for the past month or so. This is going to change.... I figured a great way to start 2008 is with some exciting news! One chart that I track every month regarding the Tallahassee Real Estate Market is created with information from the Tallahassee Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service (MLS). This chart shows current trends and actually is useful when trying to predict the near future. The chart below is from information from all the counties in the MLS, and it shows a great new trend that seems to have started four months ago. The blue line shows the trend of monthly "newly pended (newly written but not closed) contracts," while the red line shows the tre...
Comments 53
By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
Mortgage Rates At 2 Year Low Are you taking advantage of the lowest interest rates in two years? Homeowners have a few exciting options right now. Compare your current loan with today's low interest rates. If you are happy, do nothing. But be informed. Compare your current loan with today's low interest rates and refinance to lower your rate and thereby lowering your payment. If you are comfortable with your current payment, sit down with an expert in the Tallahassee Real Estate Market and determine how much home your current payment can buy with today's interest rates. Regardless of the choice that you make, I would encourage you to be informed. Historically, interest rates are in the 8 to 9% range on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. Right now, they are below 6%. You might be able to sav...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
Inventories Dropping In The Tallahassee Real Estate MarketIf you have been observing the Tallahassee Real Estate Market for any time (or reading this blog for that matter), you'll know that we are in a market cycle where supply is greater than demand. We have been in an over-supply state for quite a while, and we all have been wondering when the supply-side would quit growing. It is bad enough that we have more than enough homes on the market, but it seemed that each month for the past three years we were seeing this supply grow!Well, 2008 brings us some great news! I was checking our inventory trends this morning and I am happy to report that inventory appears to be dropping. This trend began back in May, but it took until November to really outline the trend. In the chart below, the b...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
Tallahassee Real Estate Season The Tallahassee Real Estate Market moves faster or slower every year at different times. While not all years are the same, over time we have come to expect activity levels at predictable times. We refer to these activity cycles or changes as seasonality. I have measured seasonality for many years in order to better prepare my Tallahassee real estate brokerage company for the changes that occur throughout the year, and I always get excited in mid-January because this is when the market starts to heat up for its strongest time of year. The following charts demonstrate this. These charts are based upon closings, but the actual activity that creates closings (people making decisions and writing contracts) actually starts 45-60 days prior to the closing. Based ...
Comments 53
By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
The December numbers are in and I'm preparing an extensive analysis of the 2007 Tallahassee Real Estate Market. This report will be published in the next few days on this blog.As a quick preview/overview, I thought I'd mention a few items that first come to mind:Average Prices remained fairly stable, with an overall decline of about 4%. Not nearly the decline the "bears" were predicting. (Click For Larger Image) Lot sales were down significantly, which is expected when new construction starts decline. One reader (Gooch) asked "I'm curious how dirt is doing.Tallahassee seems like a crazy place for empty subdivision lots. Have they dropped accordingly with the home market?" At this point, I am not certain that the price trend is affected more by the slowing of speculative "upper end" home...
Comments 53
By Peggy Dye
(Dye and Wright Realty, LLC)
GOOD NEWS...YAHOO!Leon County's real estate market was called "thoroughly stable" by noted economist Hank Fishkind in his second annual Attorneys Title Fund report on the state of Florida's residential real estate market.  Fishkind's assessment of the Tallahassee market was a high note in the report that noted Florida population and economic growth will be "very slow, especially during the first half" of 2008.But, this is good news for Leon County...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
One of my major goals when joining Active Rain (about 6 months ago) was to find out as much as I could about web traffic, SEO, internet marketing, etc. I have learned so much here on this site.I knew I needed to upgrade my primary website. We had a "stock" product that was delivering weak leads at best. So I searched Active Rain for somebody who seemed to be well-versed in the areas of SEO and Web Site Development and was happy to find a member, Brad Carroll, of Dakno Marketing.His company has helped us build our site, all with original content, and we went live on it two days ago. While we have a lot of "kinks" to work out, I believe it is the site that we were seeking. Please check it out when you have time at http://www.manausa.com.
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
"JUST THE FACTS, MA'AM."I had a conversation the other day with one of our real estate agents.  He was complaining about a customer of his being "all over the map" on what they wanted in a home in Tallahassee.  "They have been bouncing around for weeks now!"  So, I asked him if he had taken his customers through our discovery process.  "Oh, that just takes too long."  Longer than guessing at what they want for weeks????I'm dumbfounded how some people insist on doing things the hard way.  The first time I tried to buy a house was long before I got into the real estate business.  The only thing my agent, not a Tallahassee Realtor, asked me was how much I wanted to spend a month.  She didn't even pre-qualify me!  And worst of all, she never tried to discover my motivation for buying.  Over...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
 One technique that we here at Century 21 First Realty have been having great success with lately is our office tours. This month we have had a 100% success rate on listing presentations performed with this technique, all of which were well priced.  We have taught our agents to do two part listing presentations.  First is the preview.  This is exactly as it sounds.  The agent goes out and takes a good hard look at the property.  They take note of anything that will affect value.  They also tour the neighborhood to see first hand the immediate competition and to get a feel for the area. The second part is the close.  We are highly encouraging our agents to bring their prospective sellers into the office for this phase.  This affords our agents many advantages.  One, it gets the prospect...
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By Eva Armstrong, Environmental Visions
(Environmental Visions)
The long-awaited pictures from my trip up the Blueridge Mountain Parkway... are finally here!     This was even with the fog still hanging over us!                                                              The reds were more prevalent this season...  and we were really lucky that the leaves turned while we were driving north-east towards Virginia!                                                                      We did have some surprises - like when we started our adventure at Milepost 269 in Cherokee, NC , we came across the most astounding find:                   But he wasn't the only one!   These bears were beautiful!  The one below was outside the post office---    There were lots more inside a parade ground but we couldn't get close enough to take pictures...  The one that ...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
Several readers have commented about the charts, graphs, and data that I have been providing via my Tallahassee Real Estate Blog. I am happy that people are enjoying them and I appreciate the comments that I have received, even the negative ones. It allows me to adjust what I am doing so that I am providing a service to as many readers as I can.I utilize two main sources of information. The most complete data that I have on sales in the Tallahassee Real Estate Market comes from Metro Market Trends. This is every recorded sale in Leon County, dating back to January of 1991. The other source of data that I use is the Tallahassee Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service (MLS). While this does not include every sale that occurs in Leon County, it does provide roughly 2/3rds of the sales i...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
Looking back over the past twelve years of information that have been compiled on home sales in the Tallahassee Real Estate Market, we can see that the pace of sales over the past five years has cooled off. I decided to graph the sales of residential units (Single Family, Condominiums, and Townhomes) in order to see how 2007 was doing versus the previous years. Since I have the data on hand for the county, this was not difficult. The results were not surprising. The number of sales in Leon County in 2007 make this year just above average for the twelve recorded years. As we can see from the graph, 2002 - 2006 had more unit sales than this year, while 1996 - 2001 were lower. These sales figures are recorded from the County Courthouse by a company (Metro Market Trends) that gathers all o...
Comments 52
By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
With all the talk of increased inventories in the Tallahassee Real Estate Market, I decided to take a look at what was available and where it existed. In order to do this, I accessed the Tallahassee Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service (MLS) and pulled all of the properties that we actively listed for sale. I included Leon County, Gadsden County, Wakulla County, Jefferson County, Franklin County, and "Other" (which means all properties for sale by the Tallahassee Board of Realtors that are not located in the previously named counties). Perhaps the first thing that I noticed is how active the surrounding counties are. It wasn't long ago that our MLS only tracked Leon County Real Estate. Additionally, note how there are more Lots and Land listings in Wakulla County than there are i...
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By Eva Armstrong, Environmental Visions
(Environmental Visions)
Ok - so I've been gone for a couple of weeks... I have a really good excuse ---I murdered my laptop !  Yes - you read it right--- murdered my laptop!!!!  Made a real mess of it to boot - not clean and totally bloodless like Dexter (for those of you who have read the books or watched the TV series on Showtime).Noooooo, I really did it up goooood.Three Sundays ago, I returned late from showing houses to a really nice client.  We looked at or visited about 9 homes and I was tired (my excuse for this mess).  It was about 6:30 in the evening and I still had 2-3 hours of computer work ahead of me, including my AR blog, etc.... so I thought to myself:   "hum,,,, I think I'll fix a martini, salty, shaken - not stirred - with an olive, to sip on while I work!"So I did.  And I set it down - - - n...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
How Long Does It Take To Sell A Home In Tallahassee? Often times, I see reports referring to the average market time that it takes to sell a home in Tallahassee. Unfortunately, these reports are based on data that is not accurate.They are a compilation of MLS sales data, where the market time is measured by taking the date the property was sold and subtracting the date the property was listed in the MLS. While this is an accurate way to measure the market time for that specific listing in the MLS, it fails to measure other critical components: Many properties are listed and fail to sell Many properties are listed for a period, pulled off of the market, and then re-listed (the only market time measured is the final listing period). Many properties are placed into the MLS after a Realtor...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
To Sell A Home In Tallahassee - Seller Must Optimize Exposure I have been writing this blog while examining the Tallahassee Real Estate Market in depth. While a few readers have had differing opinions that they have shared, it seems that we all agree that inventories are at very high levels right now. This is a normal cyclic event, but it is important to understand what a homeowner needs to do to sell a home in Tallahassee under the constraints of today's market conditions.The first thing one must have when deciding to sell a home in Tallahassee is a good understanding of the underlying market conditions. After all, a home placed into the market must compete with other similar homes. Knowing the overall market, as well as the competing market, is a great starting point.This first chart ...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
HOW DO YOU PERPETUATE YOUR PROFESSIONALISM? Okay, quick show of hands.  Who here considers themselves to be a professional? Good. Now, who here would say that they consider the majority of their fellow REALTORS as professionals? Hmmmm... What constitutes a professional anyway? One definition is "a person who is an expert at his or her work." And how does one become an expert at his or her work? I would submit that experience and knowledge are certainly important ingredients.  I think we all can agree that the basic REALTOR's licensing course is a far cry from the be-all and the end-all of professional education. And while required continuing education courses are a good practice, they are hardly enough to build expertise. More education and training is clearly required for anyone to con...
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By Joe Manausa - Tallahassee, FL, Tallahassee Real Estate
(Joe Manausa Real Estate)
Have you ever considered moving to a new school zone for your children, but did not know what the average price of a home in that zone would cost? Well, if you have, than today's blog will be perfect for you. I charted home sales in the Tallahassee Real Estate Market by school zone. I have them separated by High School, Middle School and Elementary School. There were so many Elementary Schools that I broke them down to 2 different charts.We can see that if the highest average price for a home was in the Chiles High School zone, while the lowest average price was in the Godby High School zone. Obviously, we expect to see similar results from the zones in the Middle Schools that correspond to the above High School zones. For the Middle Schools, Deerlake Middle School had the highest avera...
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