New Tampa Sales and Tax Credit

Next week week I will be posting and emailing the final numbers for May 2009. This will include sales broken down by community in New Tampa, Wesley Chapel.  Listings spiked in May a traditionally high month of the year for homes going on the market. The school season is almost at a close and families across the country are on the move.  April, May, June and July are Florida’s best month for sales.  Sales in the area were very slow in the first quarter of this year but have risen in the second. At the same time prices are still falling due to the large amount of bank owned and pre-foreclosures homes on the market forcing all other values down. Rates this week rose but are still below five percent. In other good news the State of Florida may decide next week whether to credit sellers at closing the federal tax credit of $8,000.00.  Stay tuned.

Are you ready for interest rates to rise?

Interest rates are going to rise, sooner rather than later. The ten year treasury note has risen for the last two weeks. Most interest rates are tied to the ten year treasury bill or LIBOR (London interbank over night rate).  With governments across the world printing stimulas money and pumping it in to their economies inflation will become a factor. Inflation will push up interest rates on homes, car, charge cards and anything else you buy with credit.

If you are thinking of purchasing a home, car or other long term investment soon is better than later.  GO to our calculator to find out what your purchasing power can buy you at 5%  vs. 6, 7 or 8 percent.  Click on mortgage calculator under links.

Meadow Pointe Sales

Yes, sales are improving. Meadow Point now has about 6 months of unsold inventory versus the rest of New Tampa/Pasco County which has about 14 months of inventory. In the last 45 days there were twenty sales consisting of single family, villa and town homes. There were 84 single family homes for sales as of today May 26th 09. Forty four of those are pre-foreclosures and a few bank owned properties. So that number has actually come down a little. There are still two builder’s model available for sale, both are from Saurez Housing. Saurez is the last single family builder left in Meadow Pointe all of the rest have gone out of business, not building in Florida or have no lots to build on in Meadow Pte. Either way there is really no competition from new homes within the community. This is good news for resales.

Appraisals the next real estate challenge

When you are purchasing a home or refinancing your lender will hire an appraiser to estimate the value of the property before they lend on it. But what if the only homes that have sold in neighborhood are short sales (preforeclosures) or bank owned property. The condition isn’t as good as yours but they are now your new comparable sales. Lenders in an effort to protect themselves want the most conservative estimate of value. Many economist and lenders believe housing prices will fall further. In an effort to make sure they don’t lose any more money they are encouraging below market appraisals.  In effect this helps drive housing prices down further.  Banks will only lend on the appraisal amount, any difference between the sales price and the appraisal price would have to paid by the buyer. The buyer isn’t going to pay it, so the sale doesn’t close and the home goes back on the market.  Lenders kept the boom going and now are causing an even further downside to the market.

Liz DeAmbrose, Broker-Associate Coldwell Banker   813-956-6487