About Ozona's Ozona Shores

There's this cool new technology that will let you search for that nice piece of Dunedin real estate by surfing the Tampa Bay MLS just like a Realtor does. It's free, it's easy, and you can sign up here.

It's called Listingbook. You'll see new listings as they hit the market, price changes, contracts that go pending, how many days a home has been on the market and so on, just like we do. You get to drive the bus and customize your searches any way you like, and as often as you like.

We've been offering Listingbook for a while now, but we heard it can offer a lot more, not just for those of you wanting to purchase a Clearwater Beach condo, but for our Crystal Beach FL home sellers, too. So, yesterday, we jumped at the chance to attended a free advanced training session presented by Tara Jacobsen of Marketing Artfully and sponsored by Joyce Smith of Somers Title and Ingegrity First Funding Group in Dunedin. Tara blew our hair off. We're going to be working hard in the next few weeks to bring you all of the bells and whistles we learned about to help make you the most informed Pinellas home buyers and sellers out there!

Sign up and tell us what you think. Surfs up! (yes, that's Matt being an off-duty Realtor and our son catching a few waves at Lido Key in Sarasota).

Lately, when not in the Keller Williams Realty Palm Harbor office, we've run into far too many bored Palm Harbor real estate agents. Some are from real estate offices that are on the verge of closing. I plead to them "There IS hope. There IS a success plan!". Most often it lands on deaf ears. I must not be conveying my message with enough conviction, or maybe I come off as annoying, or maybe I'm just too busy to do so properly.

On Monday, I was told about a Palm Harbor real estate agent, a fairly well known one just a short year or two ago, was looking for a part time job. We'll call her Sally.

On Tuesday, I ran into another Palm Harbor Realtor that used to do a LOT of business in Pinellas County, and let it suffice to say that the opposite has been true for her lately. We'll call her Sue. Sue was working the election polls for the day doing her civic duty (hats off to her for that). Sue confided that she was there because she was bored and had a lot of time on her hands because there's not a lot happening in real estate any more. I was polite and tried to not let my mouth hang open too much, but has she not seen the numbers? Just as many homes are selling this year as were a year ago!

This week I had a transaction not come to fruition. The other agent involved, we'll call her Samantha, spent countless hours of her time, and as much of our time as possible, on the paperwork details and commiserating over what might have been instead of proactively finding the next buyer for this fantastic house.

This morning I had FOUR agents whom I've never met call me on some of our listings. Each one wanted to chit chat at length about how bad the real estate market was and tell me their tales of woe.

Sally, Sue, Samantha, these 4 Pinellas real estate agents and countless others haven't been blessed yet with the ability to go out there and make things happen while ignoring the negative media, declining Pinellas home prices and stories of the sky falling in. It's heartbreaking.

We aren't saying this to brag, but Suncoast Partners' business is humming along at a full-tilt boogie like never before. We're fully engaged in this wildly fun and challenging real estate marketplace. We're busy working hard for our clients, marketing their homes like never before, negotiating Pinellas short sales for buyers and sellers alike, attending home inspections for upcoming closings, answering phones that are ringing all the time, previewing hundreds of homes at fantastic prices for our buyers, staying in touch with people we've worked with in the past, finding plenty of new clients and making new friends, staying in constant touch with Brian Forrester of TriCounty Mortgage who keeps us up on the latest mortgage industry news, answering a flurry of Internet inquiries, crunching Pinellas real estate statistics so we stay on top of the latest trends, assisting other agents whenever asked, writing the occasional blog post, and about 2,343,698 other things.

If you are that bored agent, or perhaps just feeling a little overwhelmed or hopeless, give us a call. There are countless ways to turn your situation around, and we'd be happy to share what others were kind enough to share with us. Know that we've been there, too, and that's why it's part of our life's purpose to share the secret of how to grow a successful real estate business - in any market.

If you are looking to buy or sell real estate and are interviewing agents, ask questions and do your homework to find out how many homes they've sold this year, what their list to sale price ratios are, days on market for their listed homes, if they are experienced and certified in Pinellas short sales and Pinellas foreclosures, etc. Don't forget to ask for references!

You might even want to contact us. We'd be thrilled to have the opportunity to interview for the job of being your Pinellas real estate consultants for life.

Do you want to know what's really happening with Pinellas Real Estate? Want to avoid the sugar-coated smooth talk and just want honest answers?

Suncoast Partners and The Pinellas Peach take pride in providing meaningful knowledge, insight and data to assist you with making informed Pinellas real estate investment decisions. Above is our first monthly installment of data that's seemingly too difficult for the educated Pinellas real estate consumer to find these days.

PRO, The Pinellas Board of Realtors, dispenses boat loads of data each month. Some meaningful and some, quite frankly, will put even the most analytical types to sleep. ZZZzzzzzzz. We've assembled the parts we believe are important, but we need you to please let us know what you like, don't like, and what data, if any, you would like to see that's not here.

This data shows us that for Pinellas home SELLERS (reverse this if you're buying or buying up):

The Good :

1. Just as many homes are selling this year as last year.
2. The number of homes on the market has declined slightly, which is good news for everybody because it's an indicator that we've got fewer non-serious sellers.
3. Our MSI (Month's Supply of Inventory) numbers are down significantly for single family homes and down slightly for condos - a healthy sign toward market correction.
4. In August we saw the lowest 'Days on Market' numbers we've seen in months. Homes are selling more quickly than they were earlier in the year.

The Bad:

1. Prices are down significantly from last year - roughly 14% for single family homes and 22% for condos. Keep in mind this is just a snapshot for the past two months over last year. The thing I hate about statistics is that one can slice them and dice them to suit just about any purpose, but know that the numbers being bantered about by those in the know is that Pinellas home prices have come down about 16% in the last year.
2. Prices are still declining as the Palm Harbor foreclosures and Dunedin Short Sales continue to pop up. (The rate at which that is happening and what we expect to happen is subject matter for another post).
3. These low interest rates aren't going to last forever (they were already up again to between 6.5% and 6.75% today), so it's going to continue to get harder and harder to find qualified buyers to buy your Ozona FL home. If you're considering a purchase, it's time to get your game shoes on (yet another subject for another post).

The Ugly:

There's nothing ugly about real estate as long-term investment, a great tax write-off, and most importantly, a place to call home sweet home.

Remember, tell us what you think. Your opinion matters!

At The Pinellas Peach, we are raving mad about The Pinellas Trail, which is the stupendous 34-mile artery that connects residents from Tarpon Springs to St. Petersburg.

Originally the Orange Belt Railway in 1884, The Pinellas Trail is now used by over 90,000 bicyclists, runners, roller bladers, and Sunday strollers per month. In 1983, the trail was the brainchild of a man who's son was killed while riding his bike. By 1990, the first 5-mile section opened connecting Taylor Park in Largo to Seminole Park in Seminole.

The trail has now grown to over 34 miles long as shown on this map, and just this year plans were put in place for the Pinellas Trail Loop, which will connect The Pinellas Trail from downtown St. Petersburg to SEE REST OF STORY HERE

Effective October 1st, you can no longer have the seller pay your down payment on your Palm Harbor real estate investment, or even a hut in Timbuktu. Unless you're a veteran of the armed forces, you will need at least 3% of your own or gifted money to purchase a home anywhere in the US - with no exceptions. The reason? The recent approval of HR 3221 and all that it entails.

The passage of this bill eliminates ALL seller-funded down payment assistance with FHA-guaranteed loans. In addition, if you were thinking of buying a new home, home buyers will no longer be able to rely on nonprofits that funnel money from home-builders into seller-funded down payment assistance programs.

HR 3221 therefore finalizes HUD's long quest to end that practice as well. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) claims that the provision of monies from the seller causes an artificial inflation in the housing market statistics. This is because the record of the transaction at closing, (known also as the HUD), reflects the price of the home to be higher to compensate for the closing costs paid by the seller (a fair argument).

The belief is also that the odds of the homebuyer defaulting on the loan triples as they are basically buying the home with no money out of their pocket but with money provided by another party. Seller-funded down-payment assistance has become extremely popular as it was used on more than 35 percent of all home purchase loans insured by FHA in fiscal year 2007. This is a dramatic increase compared to less than 2 percent seven years ago.

We want you to be aware of how the changes can affect you and your home purchase plans. Feel free to contact us regarding this pending change.