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Archive for the 'The Real Estate Process-How Does this work?' Category
Just Exactly What Is Property Tax Portability?
We all love saving money — right? If you have lived in your home for a long time and it has been declared as your primary residence (homestead), you will love hearing about how much money you can save if you sell that home and move to another one with the property tax portability feature! The savings can be HUGE!
Take a look at your property tax statement that you just received and you’ll see a Market Value figure and an Assessed Value figure. To determine what you would “port” or carry with you, subtract the assessed value from the market value.
For example, if your market value is $500K and your assessed value is $300K, then you can “port” or carry the difference of $200K with you. In order to port the entire $200K the next home you purchase must be of greater value than the home you sell.
An Example:
New Home You Are Buying: $550K
– Accumulated Property Tax Savings: $200K
Property taxes on new home will be calculated based on $350K
In addition, the property taxes on your new homestead will also be capped with the Save Our Homes feature and you will also be eligible to take deductions for homestead.
If you are downsizing to a home that costs less than the one you’ve just sold, you are still eligible to port your accumulated property tax savings but the calculation is done differently and is a bit more complicated. Call me at 904-252-5181 or send me an email at steilberg@comcast.net for an explanation of how this works.
Monday Morning Market Report – Week Ending 9/27/09
Click here to see graph
Read here to get the latest market statistics on what’s happening in the Avondale, Ortega and Riverside neighborhoods of Jacksonville. See what was newly listed, what sold, what went under contract and what prices were reduced!
As a note, I do daily searches for myself but for my readers, the report will be done on a weekly basis. So…for the week ending 9/27/09, these are the stats. The bar graph illustrates clearly that Closed Sales (11 ) plus Pending Sales (5) FAR outnumber the New Listings. Additionally, there were 12 price reductions (more about that later) which is what we are seeing more and more of as sellers realize that they must slash their prices to get an offer.
New Listings: 6
Closed Sales: 11
Pending Sales: 5
Price Reductions: 12
Closed Sales & Pending Sales FAR OUTNUMBER the new listings!! This is the most important keys to the recovery of the real estate market. In order for the market to stabilize, we’ve got to see the inventory come down which is clearly the picture represented here! Also, note the large number of price reductions. This is another major factor to the stabilization of the market. As sellers finally realize that they must reduce their prices, buyers are standing by ready to pounce and inventory will continue to dwindle.
New listings include everything from an $89,000 condo at Timuquana Village Condominiums to a waterfront single family home on the Ortega River at $2,300,000. The waterfront house is located at 4155 Lakeside Drive and is priced at roughly $400 per square foot.
The closed sales include a house in serious need of repair on Locust Street that sold for only $15,900 to a darling home 1672 Pershing Rd. (MLS # 488296) that had a wonderful new kitchen. It sold for $225,000.
The 5 Pending sales include 2 contingent sales. When a house gets an offer on it and both parties have agreed to the price and terms, the listing agent changes the “status” of the listing in the MLS (multiple listing service) to Active Contingent. This generally means that there is a condition that still needs to be satisfied. Some examples of this could be financing or inspections.
Once the contingencies have been satisfied, the sale will be changed from Active/Contingent to Pending which means that the transaction should be completed soon and the house will change hands from seller to buyer.
This darling new construction house Walsh Street is pending which means it will close soon. I showed this to some buyers and it was very nice. As an interesting note, at least four of the homes that I showed them have either already sold or are under contract!
One last statistic to take note of – price reductions! There were 12 Price Reductions this week. The most notable of those was a $500K price reduction on a gorgeous waterfront home on Richmond Street in Avondale. With over 7,000 SF of living space and over 170 feet of River front, this house is a showplace! The price drop brings the asking price to $4,490,000.
The other significant price drop was a “lot” on Woodward Road that was reduced this week to only $675K (see my earlier post “Run Don’t Walk”! There is a house on the property but the need for renovation is so strong that most would consider this to be lot value.
So…all in all, it was a great week. Tune in Monday, October 5th, for my next Monday Morning Market Memo!
Find Homes for Sale in Jacksonville from your Cellphone!
FREE SERVICE! Okay, this is something really cool! My business partner Caroline Powell and I are proud to offer our customers a new property search tool that works directly from your cellphone.
Simply text the words myhome to 87778 and the application will be downloaded directly to your cellphone.
As you are driving through a neighborhood (anywhere in Jacksonville) and see a cute house for sale, you naturally want to know how much it costs – right? Well, now you can get all the information you need directly from your cellphone!
Imagine that you’re sitting outside a house and notice a for sale sign. You want to know how much this house costs and what it looks like on the inside right now! Easy – whip out your cellphone, click on the Smarter Agent icon and search for the property by address (be sure to include the city and state).
The listing will pop up almost instantly and show you everything you want to know. Pictures, square footage, lot size, and PRICE! How cool is that?
Oh, and by the way, it’s FREE!! No cost to you — a complimentary service from the Powell Steilberg Team!
It will also show you other homes for sale nearby so that you can be sure to see them all. If you decide you like what you see and want to learn more about the house or possibly go have a look, simply press the call to see button and you’ll be patched through directly to us and we’ll schedule an appointment — Easy!
Determining the Value of your Home – A Puzzle or a Process?
A CMA is short for a Comparative Market Analysis . We all like to compare – don’t we? It’s human nature. We compare our new laptop to our co-worker’s laptop, our cars to our neighbor’s car, our bodies to other people’s bodies and our houses , well….to our neighbor’s houses. Guess what? We realtors compare your house to other people’s houses too!
In order to figure out this crazy housing puzzle, we systematically compare your house to ones that have either sold recently or are currently on the market. There are many factors involved in a CMA. There’s 1) square footage 2) lot size 3) number of bedrooms and baths 4) interior improvements (fancy gourmet kitchen or original cabinets with formica countertops) 5) exterior curb appeal (good landscaping counts for a lot) 6) location (busy street or prime street in fancy neighborhood), etc…
If you work with a good realtor who’s been in the business for a while (me), she’s seen a LOT of houses and has a good idea of what’s attractive to buyers. I take the hard facts (closed sales & active competition), add in healthy dose of market knowledge, mix it with a little intuitive know how and mix it all together to help you solve the puzzle of how to properly position your house in today’s volatile real estate market. A final word… PLEASE listen to me! I do this for a living — all day, every day and I work hard to come up with an accurate opinion of value — so trust my market expertise and let’s price your house so that it will sell!
What’s the Best Way to Determine the Value of a Home?
You’ve decided that you’re ready to buy a home! Great decision — it’s a buyer’s market and now is the time to get a great deal! But how in the world do you determine what a great deal is?
A lot of realtor’s use a method called Price Per Square Foot or (PPSF). To get this, take the asking price of the house (say $200,000) and divide it by the number of square feet in the house (let’s say 1,800 SF).
So, in this example, the asking price of the house is approximately $111 per square foot.
The house that you’re interested in is renovated with a nice kitchen and bathrooms (more value) but lacks that awesome garage (less value) that you really wanted. It’s on a nice quiet street (more value) so you won’t be woken up by the rushing noise of passing traffic.
As you can see with this example, the price per square foot gives you a “jumping off” point or a good starting place but then you need to manipulate the figure based on the improvements, location and supply. Are there a lot of houses just like this one (less value) or is it unique (more value).
Beginning to get the picture? The valuation of a home is an art, not a science. You need a realtor who specializes in the market where you’re looking and who has seen thousands of homes to compare it against.
A realtor knows how much to add for the quiet street and can look up homes that’ve sold recently (within the last 4 months — essential to pick recent sales in this rapidly changing market) as comparisons.
Sometimes, things cannot be reduced to a simple equation — there’s the BIG picture to be factored in — how quickly do you need a home? Do you LOVE this one? – the advice of a realtor specializing in the area where you’re looking can guide you to a proper evaluation of price.
Caution – Be Careful with your PPSF?
What is PPSF anyway? It stands for Price Per Square Foot and is a GREAT tool for helping establish the value of a home. To get it, you take the asking price of a home and divide it by the number of square feet it has (air conditioned space only) and ta-da – you’ve got the price per square foot (PPSF)!
With PPSF, you can easily compare one home to another. This applies to homes that are available for sale as well as ones that have recently sold.
A word of caution – PPSF is only good as a starting point! Why? There are lots of differences in properties that heavily influence what a proper price per square foot should be. Take a look at the example below.
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House #1 is listed for $300,000 and has 1,000 square feet of living space so it’s ppsf is $300.
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House # 2 (the one next door) is listed for $400,000 and also has 1,000 square feet so it’s ppsf is $400.
House #2 must be WAY overpriced! Right? The answer depends on a lot of factors.
House #2 might have an awesome kitchen, a much larger lot or a brand new swimming pool, fancy outdoor summer kitchen and an awesome guest house. Or…maybe the owner of house #2 is just dreaming!
If you’re a buyer and trying to determine what a fair price for a house is, call a realtor that works in the area and ask for a list of recent comps (comparable sales). In the tough real estate market that we’ve been experiencing, the list of comps can only be four months old or less. A local area expert has probably seen many of the homes on this list personally and can help you determine what the factors are affecting a home’s ppsf.
If you’re a seller and wondering what you might be able to sell your house for, it’s critical to know that buyers will be using the PPSF method to evaluate your home and you’d better be prepared to defend your price! Call someone who works in your area to get an honest opinion of what your PPSF should REALLY be!
Thanks for reading. I hope you’ll join me for my next discussion of real estate in the Avondale, Ortega and Riverside neighborhoods.
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