Real Estate Views from St Pete

Ever wished you could pick up the phone and ask a knowledgeable friend what's happening with the latest hurricane or tropical storm? Here's the next best thing - visit Jyotika Virmani's blog. It has a conversational tone and her predictions have been right on more often than not. Jyotika has a Ph.D. in oceanography from the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida here in St Petersburg. She did postdoctoral research on hurricanes. Forecasting hurricanes is just a hobby for Jyotika - her "day job" is as Executive Director of the Florida Coastal Ocean Observing Systems Consortium.

Progress Energy is proposing to increase electric bills by 31% in Pinellas County, Florida, starting in January 2009, according to an article in the St Petersburg Times. Progress Energy says this is due to increases in fuel prices and commodity prices and increased transportation costs. 31% is a huge increase! What will this do to families who are already struggling to pay their mortgages each month? What about retirees and others who are on fixed incomes? Their annual cost of living increases aren't anywhere near 31%. Progress Energy still needs to justify this increase to the Public Service Commission - let's hope the PSC really does look into that justification before approving the increase.

For months I haven't taken the time to go over to Trulia and see what's happening there (after all, how many places can we visit each day?). This morning I did.

My listings are there on Trulia, from luxuryrealestate.com and other "providers". So, should I register and "claim" them, so that inquiries come to me? Yes, I think that's a better alternative than having them call someone else about my listings. Who knows the most about them and can best market them? Me, I believe.

Then I went over to their Questions and Answers section, and checked out questions submitted on St, Petersburg. Hmm, there are several St Pete agents already there answering questions. Some questions were about neighborhoods where I have listings. Shouldn't I be out there marketing my listings by answering questions appropriately?

Just because we ignore a site, or don't join a site, doesn't mean it's going away. Why participate in only the top 1 or 2 sites, when we can be missing clients and marketing opportunities elsewhere? It's certainly worth participating for a trial period and evaluating the return on time invested.

What have your experiences, good or bad, been with spending time participating in Trulia?

It's hurricane season here in Florida, and once again we are tuned to the updated coordinates that come out every 3 hours, and plot the course - or just listen to the news. There's a lot of hype on the news, so some of us just plot the coordinates and avoid the tv. Unlike earthquakes or tornados that occur rather suddenly, we track hurricanes, so yes, we can be prepared, but we can also be stressed for long period of wondering where the hurricane's going to hit.

It looks as though Gustav will miss the Tampa Bay area, though hurricanes have minds of their own and change directions and even circle back on themselves, not following the forecasters' projected paths. I'm glad it appears we'll miss this one, but can't help but be concerned about our friends in the New Orleans area - or Mississippi or Texas if it veers a bit.

In addition to our biological families and friends, we also care about our many Active Rain friends. Whether it's hurricanes or fires or floods - it's affecting people we care about.

Tonight I was reminded once again of a phenomenon I've noticed here in Broadwater. a waterfront neighborhood in southwest St. Petersburg. Having many clients and friends in the neighborhood, I'm often invited to parties, or over for dinner or sunset cocktails. Regardless of which cul-de-sac or street they live on, people tell me they are so glad that they live on the "best" block in Broadwater. They have the best neighbors, the best friends. The interesting point is that every block is saying this. It's not a coffee klatsch area, but neighbors do care about each other and look out for each other.

Can you imagine this view from your new waterfront home in St. Petersburg, Florida? You can watch dolphins and manatee playing in the water. You can watch cruise ships, cargo ships, and occasionally Tall Ships as they pass under the Skyway Bridge. You can build a dock for your boat or yacht; you can catch fish from your seawall.

Why aren't people seeing this? Because they're seeing the 3 bedroom 2 story house already on the property, and the detached garage, and the pool. They don't see the wonderful building site (nearly an acre, at 100 ft wide by 350 ft deep) in an area of estate homes. But - the 2,700 sq ft house really needs to be torn down.  Because the house is there, we can't list is in the MLS as a lot - we have to list it at a house.

Yes, in the comments, of course we say that this is a "tear down" and is priced at only the lot value. Yes, when a prospect or an agent calls, we tell them that this is not a home for a remodel, it's really a tear down and only suitable for someone who wants to build a new house there.

More times than not, the prospect or agent will say, Yes, I know, I still want to see it.  And every one has said, "Yes, you're right, it's a teardown. We really don't want to build, we want to renovate." It's a record that's stuck (for those of you who remember records).

Many prospective buyers just can't see beyond the house.  Why can't they just see the lot? Well, what is, is.

We've suggested to the ssellers that they tear down the house, so that we can market it as a building site. We just got an estimate for the demolition: to remove the house, the garage and the pool, is only $11,500. Perhaps they will. That worked for a multimillion dollar property in Palm Beach - we think it will work here, too.

Waterfront home site in St. Petersburg, Florida with open water view - million dollar lot, multimillion dollar view.

Once upon a time,

        buyers would look and look until they found a house they loved. Then they'd make an offer on it, and usually we'd negotiate to a contract. That was then.

It's not uncommon today for buyers to look and look, and then say, "OK, after this weekend we're ready to start making offers. This generally means

• they're not fixed on just one house;
• home love isn't the motivating factor;
• their offers are probably going to be low;
• they're probably going to make offers until one of them is accepted.

Are these buyers predatory? Probably not. Most likely they're concerned about what they see in the media, concerned about protecting their equity in an uncertain housing market, and concerned about making a prudent investment. They're willing to spend time waiting for the right accepted offer.

What does this mean for sellers? It means they should think long and hard about whether they want to sell now and proceed with their next goal in life ... or wait. And often waiting means watching the market erode.

Just yesterday I had sellers ask me if a buyer who made an offer six months ago, when their home was new on the market, would still be willing to buy at that price. Sadly, no. They had bought another house in the neighborhood for $100,000 less than they offered on this one.

St Petersburg, Florida is a peninsula, and since home construction started around 1910, there's very little land left, especially premium waterfront land. So - if you want to build, you generally have to buy a house, then tear it down, and then start to build.

That was the case with this home, which is being built on a prime waterfront lot on a cul-de-sac, giving it privacy and great views. Due to FEMA requirements, most new homes have to be elevated, so due to our small lots, the ground level is usually used for garages (a 3 car garage in this case) and storage, with the living on level(s) above that.

This photo shows the roof of the home next door, a typical single story home, and next to it, you see parts of the second and third stories. This new home has lots of corners, projections, and roof lines, so it will fit in much better than a big, rectangular box, though the box would be less expensive to build.

Many people don't know what's involved in tearing down an old house and building a new house, so I'm chronicling this from the beginning. Here's the continuing story of building a new home on a waterfront lot in St. Petersburg, Florida. Lots more photos there, too.

Agents listing short sales will probably get to closings - for agents representing buyers, it's a real long shot. We've written offers on probably two dozen short sales this year, and today, for the first time, got to a closing.

Rob (my son and colleague) worked with this buyer starting in mid-September of last year (yes, that's nearly a year ago). He wrote an offer for them on this property back in February. It wasn't until this month, AUGUST, that we had a response from the lender - who after six months of waiting wanted a closing within 2 weeks!

The Pinellas Realtor Organization recently reported that 34% of contract pendings were short sales.

Target stores agreed to a $6 million settlement because its website was not suitably accessible for the blind, accoording to an article in the Wall Street Journal today. I don't know much about the screen reading software mentioned, but I'd have to agree with Target that I thought the Americans with Disabilities Act referred only to physical buildings.

Have any of you considered whether your site complies with the Disabilities Act? How accessible is your site to the blind? I have to admit I've never considered whether the blind could access my website and my blogs.

Today was the "Grand Opening" of The Frame Shop on Central Avenue in St. Petersburg, Florida, in the Grand Central Business District.

Our clients, the Rohrs, opened this business after buying a bungalow in nearby Kenwood - an older neighborhood just featured in a national bungalow publicatrion.

Just a few blocks from home they opened The Frame Shop. Jeremiah can do wonders in two or three dimensional framing.

The Grand Central Business District is an interesting, low-key, neighborhood business area, adjavent to Kenwood. As a matter of fact, in the same block is the Charles Edwards Salon, where Nick, my hairdresser, operates his business.

One of the benefits of blogging is the google juice, and that people searching for a topic can find us.

The correlary of that is that people will contact us about what we blog about - so, if you blog about something, that's what people may call you about.

Blog about equestrian properties, and expect to be contacted by people looking for equestrian properties. Blog about first time homeowners, and expect to be contacted by first time homeowners.

In effect, what you blog about is what you're asking for.

                                So - be careful what you blog about, you may get it.

The Wall St Journal's real estate site, realestatejournal.com, is now offering property ads online for your luxury listings. The cost is $350 for 60 days, far less than advertising in the print Wall St. Journal.

A new benefit for members of the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing is a luxury listing on the Wall St Journal site.

So many designations ask for an annual fee to keep the designation, but offer no other value. That is not the case with the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing. Just this one benefit alone is worth more than the cost of the annual membership.

Thanks, Laurie Moore-Moore, for continuing to add value for your members.

The rainy season on the central Pacific coast of Costa Rica really turned out to be much like August here in Florida - sunny mornings, then sometime during the afternoon the heavy rain comes ... and goes. We just don't call it a rainy season here - we talk about the time of afternoon thunderstorms. We have thunder and lightning and power outages, which were less prevalent while we were in Costa Rica. Everyone moving to Florida should be sure to have surge protectors.

Of course with Flo somewhere in the state, rain is a constant. Ah, well, it's much better than a hurricane.

We've noticed that a large percentage of properties we pull to show are short sales - and we always include a session on Short Sales as part of our initial Buyer Counseling Interview. The Pinellas Realtor Organization ran some statistics and found that 34% of all properties under contract are short sales! Considering that many are offers that haven't been accepted yet, that figure is probably considerably higher.

What I'd really like to see is what percentage of actual closings are short sales.

Mmm - Costa Rica was wonderful. Away from it all.

Guess I really have been away, since I've been gettin some e-mails asking if I'm ok since I haven't blogged lately. Thanks for caring!

Tami and I went down to check out some potential investments for some of our clients, and we stayed at the del Pacifico development between Jaco and Quepos on the central Pacific coast of Costa Rica.

I was content to walk on the beach early in the morning - Tami went galloping down the beach on horseback.

The Ticos (Costa Rican people) were calm and friendly - no road rage here. We felt so welcome. The owners and prospective owners who shared the weekend at del Pacifico with us were great fun and many of us are making plans to see each other again.

What a shame we had to come back to reality.

Despite the economy, it seems strange to me that in a slow economy attendance at real estate courses and conferences is lower than usual. This is a great time (more time on our hands) to learn, and the market means that we should be pursuing new niches as well as perfecting our basis skills. Much of the market is really Back to the Basics - but with new knowledge.

Can you tell what's in this photo?

It's 2,008 people - Chinese - in perfect coordination during the Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

The precision of the performers in the various Opening events was astounding, whether on the ground or in the air.

The Marriott Marquis in Atlanta had some interesting building facades.

Tami and I stayed here this week while teaching a CLHMS class in Atlanta. It was a huge hotel and had some startling views.

I'm just watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, and yes, I'm glad that our President is there.

The first of the opening ceremony was 2008 Chinese giving a masterful and inspiring performance on 2008 drums. What beauty, what coordination. How much more significant it would have been to be there.

Fireworks, light displays. Footsteps of light going from the old city to the new building.

The world IS flat - and the better we can all share and cooperate the better.