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Joe Manausa - Tallahassee Real Estate

Congress Tells Homebuyers "We Will Print More Money"

Obama Will Give You A Wheelbarrow Full Of Money If You Buy A House in TallahasseeCongress has extended and expanded the homebuyer tax credit. The modifications will become effective when President Obama signs the bill, which could occur as early as November 6, 2009.

I have received numerous emails and comments from readers who asked for me to report the changes to the First Time Homebuyers Tax Credit when they occurred, and the changes most likely will occur immediately. This post will review the changes and enhancements so you should be able to understand the new housing tax credit. I

The Obama Administration Says Buy A Home

Buy a house and you can take part in the Obama Stimulus plan. The Obama train is printing wheelbarrow loads of money for everybody who wants to buy a home now, not just first timers! So, how does this all work?

The $8,000 homebuyer tax credit for first-time buyers, due to expire November 30, 2009, will be extended through June 30, 2010. First-time buyers who are in the process of making a purchase will no longer need to worry about qualifying for the $8,000 credit if they close after the November 30 deadline. The new legislation increases the income limit for couples with income up to $225,000, roughly a $55,000 increase above the level in existing law.

For the first time, the new legislation states that buyers who already own a home are eligible for a credit. A $6,500 maximum credit will be available to existing homeowners who have lived in their current residence for five of the prior eight years. The legislation limits eligibility for the existing homeowner credit to homes worth $800,000 or less.

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Download Home Buyer Tax Credit Changes Flyer[Continue To Home Buyer Tax Credit Download]

Tallahassee, FL: Killearn Lakes Unit 1 Home Sales Update

Tallahassee Neighborhood Home Sales ReportThe Tallahassee Real Estate Blog regularly reviews Tallahassee neighborhoods in order to get a feel for what home values are doing. You can click any one of the links in the right side bar (see pictured on the right) for a list of any blogs when the corresponding neighborhood in Tallahassee is mentioned.

When we last looked in on Killearn Lakes Unit 1, we noted that the home prices were holding fairly steady, though values (when looked at price per square foot) were falling. This told us that people who were buying a home in Killearn Lakes Unit 1 were buying larger homes, making the market look stronger than it appeared in standardized real estate reports.

Killearn Lakes (Unit1) Home Values

Home values continue to fall in Killearn Lakes (Unit 1). The best way to track real estate appreciation (or real estate depreciation) across a single Tallahassee subdivision is to track resale price per square foot data on a one-year trend.

The following real estate graph shows that the average number of homes selling in Killearn Lakes (Unit 1) each month has dropped below 2 per month (from a peak of nearly 5 home sales each month), and the average price per square foot of a home has dropped below $120 per square foot.

Killearn Lakes Home Sales Report Price Per Square Foot Real Estate Graph

Remember, using the average price per square foot is an excellent way to track area home valuations over time, but it by no means is an accurate way to determine a home’s value. Killearn Lakes (Unit 1) features many different types of homes sitting on different types of home sites.

Some homes in Killearn Lakes (Unit 1) are on water front lots, while others are on the interior. Some have additional features such as swimming pools and multi-car garages. An individual home valuation must consider all of the differences, not just heated and cooled square feet.

Average Home Prices In Killearn Lakes (Unit 1)

Many real estate reports feature average home prices in an area. This is good to know if you are considering buying a home in an area such as Killearn Lakes (Unit 1), but it by no means an accurate depiction of true real estate depreciation (or appreciation).

Killearn Lakes Home Sales Report Average Home Price Real Estate Graph

The real estate graph above shows that the average home price in Killearn Lakes (Unit 1) did not start dropping until late in 2008, well more than a year after the rest of the Tallahassee real estate market. What we found in our previous analysis of Killearn Lakes Unit 1 was that buyers were selecting the larger homes when buying in this neighborhood.

This meant average home prices looked to be staying the same, while our average price per square foot report showed that homes in Killearn Lakes (Unit 1) were depreciating at a rate consistent with the rest of the Tallahassee housing market.

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Recent Home Sales In Killearn Lakes (Unit 1)


[click to see list of recent home sales in Killearn Lakes (Unit 1) …]

Home Supplies Dropping - New Report Available For Download

Tallahassee Home Inventory Report Available For DownloadFor those of you who like to carry a one-page summary of the current supply and demand report for Tallahassee housing, you can download this report from the right sidebar of the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog. It looks like the picture on the right and you only need to click the top link. Every month I post the updated report at this location.

Relative Home Supply Dropping!

As we have discussed often in the past, there exists a glut of homes for sale in Tallahassee. The Home Inventory Reports tell us not only how many homes are available (real home supply), but they also show home availability in terms of months of supply (relative home supply).

Both real and relative home supply dropped again during the month of October by just over 1/2 months of supply. Currently, Tallahassee has 13.7 months of supply of homes (more than double a market at equilibrium).

Buyers’ Market Continues In Tallahassee

This tells us that while still a very strong home buyers’ market, we are seeing improvement in the number of homes for sale in Tallahassee. [click for housing supply and demand graph…]

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Tallahassee, FL:Sable Chase Home Sales Report

Like many people who live in Killearn Lakes Plantation, I’ve discovered a great little neighborhood (56 homes) that joins Killearn Lakes to Bannerman Road. It’s called Sable Chase and it is relatively new, with new home sales that started just five years ago.

Unlike some of the larger subdivisions in Tallahassee for which we report, Sable Chase has fewer than 1 home sold each month, so the trends are not as clear to see. The key to trend reporting is to have enough sales (liquidity) that you can draw clear conclusions from the data. With fewer than 1 sale per month, we see quite a bit of “noise” in the data.

Sable Chase Tallahassee Home Sales Graph

In the real estate graph above, the vertical blue bars show the average number of homes sold in Sable Chase each month, while the red field represents the average price trend. Like most neighborhoods in Tallahassee, Sable Chase home prices have been on a steady decline since the top of the market.

Sable Chase Home Values Dropping

In order to get a feel for the level of depreciation in Sable Chase, we look at the overall average price per square foot of arms-length existing home sales. We can see that the peak of the market enjoyed home values that exceeded $150 per square foot, but recently, prices have trended down to $125 per square foot. This seems consistent with many other areas which have seen similar drops.

Sable Chase Tallahassee Average Home Price Graph

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Recent Home Sales In Sable Chase

[click for list of recent Sable Chase Home Sales…]

Real Estate Needs Politicians OUT

Rip The Bandaid Off In Real EstateDo you remember when you were growing up and falling down all the time, Mom would put a band aid on your fleshy scrape to keep it from getting infected. That band aid made you feel really good, but it came with a price.

Removing a band aid from a messy wound is not a pleasant experience. There are two schools of thought on how to remove the band aid:

  1. Take your time – Be very slow, gently trying to “peel” it away from the would without damaging new skin or pulling hairs out.
  2. Grip it and rip it – Get hold of a tiny corner, count out loud from 1 to 3, then violently pull the band aid away from the wound in a nano-second.

Both ways cause pain, but most would argue that the latter produces better results (less pain and shorter recovery period).

The Real Estate Market Is In A Scrape

So why does somebody who writes a blog about real estate start a discussion about band aid removal? Great question … and the answer is because it was the best analogy that I could come up with to describe what is going on between our politicians and our wayward real estate market.

If you were paying attention on Friday, you might have heard that Senators reached a compromise to extend the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit. They also added a $6,500 tax credit for other primary-home purchasers and raised the qualifying income limits to $125,000 for single taxpayers and $225,000 for joint taxpayers, housing-industry sources said.

Under this proposal, home buyers will have until June 30 to go to close on their purchases. But this is not a “done deal,” as the measure still faces votes in the full Senate and the House.

The Treatment For A Broken Real Estate Market Is “More of the Same?”

Albert Einstein Definition of Insanity

  • Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
  • Congress’s Solution to our housing market woes: Create unfunded financial incentives to propel the market beyond the extent to which it could perform under normal market conditions.

Hey, WAIT A MINUTE, isn’t this how we got here in the first place. Didn’t we (the government) push to achieve results in home ownership rates by creating loan programs for consumers who historically had a high rate of default? Didn’t this stimulate home-buying to such an elevated level that we produced significantly more homes than we needed?

Then, rather than see the good times come to an end, didn’t the mortgage industry create even crazier loan schemes to keep the good times rolling?

And roll they did.

Congress To Send Housing Market To Detox

[click to view Detox Plan as envisioned by Congress…]

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