Robin Sherman, CRS, Broker Associate Robin@PensacolaForYou.com

It's Raining Real Estate Contracts in Pensacola - Okay, it never fails. Those of us who have been in real estate for ANY time know the scenario well. Get in your car or hop on a plane; anytime you head out of town, HERE COME THE REAL ESTATE CONTRACTS!

In my small office on Pensacola Beach we joke that if we hit a dry spell in terms of real estate contracts all we need to do is plan a vacation.

So, on Wednesday as I got in the car for my six hour drive to Atlanta to start my vacation the first call came in to negotiate a real estate contract. Thank goodness for real estate teams, portable computers and cell phones. By the time I hit rush hour traffic in Atlanta I had three properties under contract.

The great news about this is that they are all properties that have been on the market for some time, so perhaps we are beginning to work our way out of our local real estate slump.

I have worked to adjust the price on all of these properties and perhaps that was the real trick. However, I'd just as soon think getting these real estate contracts had something to do with the vacation.

Is your market slow? What are you waiting for? Get on the phone with the airlines now!

Related Article: "Market Trends in the Pensacola Bay Area"

A front page article in today's Wall Street Journal (Real Estate Woes of Banks Mount) laments the fact that we continue to see turmoil in the banking industry on the heels of mounting bad loans the industry made to finance home and condo construction.

The same article includes the sentiment that there are signs of improvement: "At the same time, regulators praised the banking industry for raising capital and for building up reserves against losses. They added that some pockets of the credit markets were showing signs of improvement."

With all the signs pointing in different directions, even according to the Wall Street Journal, what's the poor consumer to do?

As I've said before, the time to buy and the time to sell if "When you need to." It's not always dictated by the top - or bottom - of the market. That being said, we are seeing signs of a bottom in our market as investors and home owners with good credit and money for downpayments are making purchases based on the perception of VALUE.

This week I put three Pensacola Bay Area properties under contract. All three are listings that had been on the market for some time and all appropriately priced for the current market. As one of my real estate conterparts once said, "There's no problem with a property that price won't cure."

Wall Street Journal Front Page - Real Estate Woes Mixed Bag

Vacant Homes? How does the number of vacant homes impact your pricing strategies? One of our broker associates just sent me some research she has conducted on the Pensacola Multiple Listing Service (MLS). The numbers show 26% of the Pensacola residential detached resales are vacant. Mind you, this does not count new construction, homes under construction or homes about to be constructed, that are also listed on the MLS. To be specific, of 4,063 resales actively listed, 1052 are vacant and another 832 are in some stage of construction.

My friend attached a "daily tip" from real estate coach Rick DeLuca noting that vacant homes mean motivated sellers.

Do you know how many vacant homes are in your market? If not, perhaps it's time to take a look. We need to get the facts in the hands of the sellers, many of whom have - you guessed it - a vacant home on the market so understand motivation.

We need to get our housing stock priced right or we need to get it off the market until the market catches up with the "potential seller's" expectations. Until we get this done we will continue to be in a saturated buyer's market.

Vacant Homes in the Pensacola real estate market . . . what about your market?

Crab Jubilee - Okay, I'll admit it. I'm 50. Fifty is the new 40 you know (But, of course, in my case it's the new 30). Since I'm being honest about my age I have no problem telling you some of the things I remember about the Old Florida. That's the Florida that came WAY before the internet . . . heck that's the Florida that came WAY before Cable television and the 8-Track (if you don't remember 8-tracks, they came WAY before CDs).

When I was a kid we would finish our hastily prepared dinner, load the Igloo cooler with snacks and head to Santa Rosa Island (Pensacola Beach). We would pull the battery out of the car - no kidding - plunk it in a galvanized tub sitting in an inner tube and connect it to lights we floated on the water. My grandfather would tie the inner tube to his belt loop with a rope and pull the entire contraption behind him as we walked through the Santa Rosa Sound (Intracoastal Waterway), nets in hand. What in God's name were we doing you ask? CRABBING - this is the way you caught your fill of Blue Crab in those days and as a kid, it was more fun that Halloween and the Interstate Fair all wrapped into one.

Now, this is a thing most people have never witnessed, but I count myself among the lucky few (relatively speaking) who have been on the beach at the height of a Jubilee. The biologists will tell you a Jubilee occurs when there is too little oxygen in the water and the crabs make their way to the shore. I will tell you that a Jubilee is a CRAZY TEAMING MASS of Blue Crab making their way to shore by the hundreds of thousands come hell or high water.

I have only seen one Jubilee in my adult life (a small one at that), so I suspect we have done something to alter our environment in such a way as to eliminate this amazing phenomenon. But I cherish the memory of being a child, dozing off in the back seat of a Ford Fairlane, surrounded by buckets of Blue Crab, bubbling their last breaths as we trundled down the highway toward a backyard overflowing with aunts, uncles and cousins all gathered around a bonfire prepared just for one of our southern crab boil get-togethers.

Crab Jubilee - The Florida Panhandle

For More Articles like this:

Blue Crab Jubilee - Wild Delaware

Alabama - Great Days Outdoor Magazine

Mobile Bay Jubilee - Wikipedia

Five Things to Love about Pensacola, FL - What? Only five? I'll have to make them REALLY Good!

1. The Beach - Where else can you find miles and miles of accessible Gulf front bordered by white sand beaches?

Of the 1,474 acres of Santa Rosa Island controlled by Escambia County, about 77 acres are approved for hotel development - a little more than 5 % of the total acreage. By contrast, more than 600 acres are reserved for preservation, conservation, recreation and beaches. That's in addition to the 1,742 acres of Gulf Islands National Seashoreland preserved to the west of Pensacola Beach toward Fort Pickens and the 1,598 acres of National Seashore that will remain undeveloped to the east. Hotels are built along a central stretch a little more than a mile long.

2. The Blue Angels - Pensacola is home to the Navy's Flight Demonstration Team, the Blue Angels. The Blues call Sherman Field at Naval Air Station Pensacola home, so Pensacola residents are lucky enough to have two official Blue Angels Show, the July show on Pensacola Beach (usually the second week in July) and the Homecoming Show in November when the show season ends. But the best part is all the "unofficial shows" as the Blue Angels practice on Tuesday and Thursday mornings when they are between shows and in off season.

3. Historic Downtown Pensacola - How many U.S. towns can say their downtown dates back to 1559? Only one! Spanish Explorer Don Tristen DeLuna arrived in Pensacola with several ships and over 1500 colonists only to be met a few days after making landfall with a horrendous storm. Had it not been for the storm Pensacola would carry the title of oldest continuous settlement in the Untied States (an honor that now belongs to St. Augustine. However, Pensacola's historic downtown still maintains the Spanish influence. A day touring sites like Plaza Ferdinand, Seville Square and Christ Church make Pensacola a SUPER vacation spot.

4. Festivals - I think Pensacola must hold some kind of record for festivals. You can't find a weekend in the Summer (and many in the Spring and Fall) without a festival on tap. From the Fiesta of Five Flags, to Mardi Gras and the Greater Gulf Coast Arts and Crafts Festival . . . and all manner of festivals in between, this is the place for entertainment. And . . . every Tuesday through the summer there is a free concert on Pensacola Beach as well as a free concert at Seville Square. HOOOO . . . I'm getting tired just thinking about all of them.

5. Fabulous Housing . . . and friendly people to make your day! When it comes to housing inventory, we have an incredible variety. Do you want to sip your ice tea (sweet, of course) on the front porch of a 100 year old Victorian cottage or is a state-of-the-art beach condo more your style? We've got them both and MORE. With over 6,000 homes currently on the market in the Greater Pensacola Bay area . . . we've got the perfect home for you!

Five things to Love about Pensacola - shoot . . . heck, I've just gotten started . . .