Is Big Government Leaving The Mortgage Market? - 01/31/11 07:35 AM
We have been tracking the real estate market on a daily basis and reporting the rise and fall of the recovery due to the Federal Government getting involved in the mortgage market and real estate market. Our readers have tendered several questions on this subject, and recently “Harry” asked the following question:
Hi Joe – I was not a fan of the government stepping in and trying to save the mortgages of people that overextended themselves. I felt that doing that simply delayed the inevitable failures – it added more national debt – and it prevented the housing prices from  bottoming … (4 comments)

Foreclosures Down 29% In 2010 - 01/29/11 11:08 AM
 
2010 represents the third year that we have been tracking foreclosures in Tallahassee, so we have some history in which to compare 2010 foreclosures and we can identify some key trends. This report contains a list of all Tallahassee foreclosures that were filed (lis pendens) in 2010 and has some interesting foreclosure graphs.
During 2010, there were 1,430 lis pendens filed and 751 foreclosure sales. The current ratio of foreclosure sales to lis pendens filings is roughly 53% , but is due to the acceleration of previous years filings finally making it to a foreclosure sale.
Overall, the news is … (4 comments)

Video Explains The Reasons Why Your Home Is Not Selling - 01/29/11 04:03 AM
ActiveRain and Kodak have created a video contest in an attempt to get more rainer's using video. This parallel's a major goal of mine for 2011, so I have created a Real Estate Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page on my website, and a new channel on YouTube (www.youtube.com/realestatefaq).
My first video frequently asked question is about the reasons why a home is not selling. I would love any feedback, both here and on my new YouTube Channel. While you are there, please subscribe!
The Reasons Why Your Home Is Not Selling
 
This post is written as a submission to … (8 comments)

Keep A Watchful Eye On Failure Rates For Home Sellers - 01/29/11 02:49 AM
One statistic that we have been maintaining at The Market Bulletin is a measurement that we refer to as the “Sales Success Rate.”  Recently, the one-year trend has dropped from a two-year high, after returning from a low of 30% reached in June of 2009.
By dividing the total number of closed sales by the total number of new listings, over a specific time period, we can show a trend that gives a hint at how many homes (as a percentage of the total) are actually selling.

Conversely, we can measure the home sales failure rate as the total number … (4 comments)

Housing Market Decline: Real Versus Relative - 01/29/11 02:44 AM
With 20 years of home sales data to review, it is sad to see that 2010 surpassed 2009 as the worst year on record.
What makes this even worse than what we can see in the real estate graphs below is that our population is roughly 20% larger today than it was in 1991.

The relative drop in the market is far worse than the real drop that we see. With a larger local population, there should be more people that need to move, thus recent years would have more home sales than previous ones if there were not market … (0 comments)

Current Real Estate Demand Stifles New Home Builders - 01/28/11 05:41 AM
Real estate supply and demand figures are stifling home builders in their attempt to re-enter the housing market in Tallahassee. Even after coming off of two years of historic lows in new home starts, home builders are finding that the market is still way over supplied with inventory from existing home sellers.
This post contains three real estate graphs that show the dilemma that home builders are facing. The first two chart building permit and sales relationships for single family detached homes, while the third graph displays the current months of supply of homes for sale in Tallahassee.

Sadly, the … (2 comments)

The Problem With Housing Reports - 01/27/11 06:33 AM
 
I sometimes find it difficult understanding housing reports that are published or reported by the national news media, and apparently I am not alone. You see, most of the national reports that appear on the television and in print are a synopsis of monthly reports by the National Association of REALTORS (NAR), so you have to recognize that “our lobby” is putting a positive spin on everything that is being reported.
Recently, a reader of the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog sent in the following question, showing that it is not always easy to understand housing reports that are being thrown … (8 comments)

Stuggling Homeowner Needs Help - 01/26/11 05:25 PM
 
I recently received an email from a reader who is a homeowner having problems trying to figure out what to do with an upside-down home. The saddest thing about this email is that such requests are not uncommon in today’s housing market. Here is what “EG” has to say:
I have a house that I owe $160,000 on.  I’m 16,000 behind in my mortgage. My lender denied a modification, because I got a modification in 2009.
They will only allow 1 modification during the life of the loan. Do you have any ideas about creatively selling my house without going … (6 comments)

The Philosophy Of Charles M. Shulz - 01/25/11 05:45 AM
The following is the philosophy of Charles Schulz, the creator of the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip (as sent to me in a viral email). I did nothing to check the validity of the source, it just made so much sense I thought it was worth spreading the message. It starts off with a few simple questions.
You don’t have to actually answer the questions. Just ponder on them. Just read straight through, and you’ll get the point..
1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world. 2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners. 3. Name the last five winners of the … (12 comments)

Why Do A Real Estate Newsletter - 01/24/11 05:38 AM
 
The Tallahassee Real Estate Newsletter went out to 1,547 people who subscribe last week, and our list of subscribers keeps growing. We have now published 34 editions of the newsletter and 14 editions of our “Weekly Special” real estate report. Readers are giving a lot of positive feedback (and we’re always looking for more feedback, even if it is negative).
There are two primary groups of people who subscribe to the Tallahassee Real Estate Newsletter. Both groups want to know more about the state of the Tallahassee housing market, and both have a vested interest in getting the right information, … (7 comments)

WHAT? DO YOU MEAN THAT THERE IS PLAGIARISM COMMITTED BY ACTIVERAIN MEMBERS?? I'M SHOCKED - - SHOCKED! - 01/23/11 12:45 PM
 
Lenn shares with us the common occurrence of plagiarism on Active Rain. My own blog at manausa.com is scraped as often as 25 times each day and I have no clue how to stop it. I think AR should put a button on the bottom of each post for readers to claim plagiarism when they find it.
 
Via Lenn Harley, Real Estate Broker, Virginia & Maryland (Lenn Harley, Homefinders.com, MD & VA Homes and Real Estate):
FOUR ARTICLES COPIED AND POSTED ON ACTIVERAIN???   Jeff Belonger enters the sordid world of content thieves, copyright, plagiarism, pick your ethical conundrum.  
HA!  … (5 comments)

Seller-Paid Closing Costs - How Much is Allowed? - 01/23/11 12:41 PM
Chris provides a great little cheat sheet for seller paid closing costs. It is good information for REALTORS to know before they write their offers (and good for prospective buyers to know as well).
Via The Mortgage Experts at America's Mortgage:
Here's what you need to know about seller-paid closing costs.What are seller-paid closing costs?
The seller is allowed to pay a certain percentage of the sales price towards the buyer's closing costs The amount depends on three things: The type of loan: conventional, FHA, or VA The occupancy type: principal residence, second home, or investment property The amount of the down … (0 comments)

Introducing ActiveRain Orientation! - 01/23/11 12:14 PM
If you are new to blogging (or content marketing if you don't like the "B" word), here is a great place to start. ActiveRain has helped launch many a great real estate blogger.
Via ActiveRain University (ActiveRain University):
"What is a blog, and how is this strange-sounding four letter word going to help me grow my business?"
Blogging means many things to many people. We're all going to find our own answers to the question above, and our job here at ActiveRain is to guide you in your quest to find your answer. For this reason, we are introducing a new class at … (2 comments)

What Do Your Visitors Tell You - 01/23/11 04:01 AM
One way to determine your blog's reach is to establish measurement devices so that you get feedback on what your visitors are reading and the links that they are clicking. My Tallahassee Real Estate Blog is a self hosted WordPress Blog that uses several different metrics packages, one of which is WordPress.com Stats, which is free!
Key Metrics Report Blog Visitor Interaction My favorite function of this statistical package is the report it generates on most active pages (articles) on my real estate blog in Tallahassee. The following list shows my most popular pages (with the current count of total visits), … (5 comments)

Finding Foreclosures In Tallahassee - 01/21/11 06:51 AM
I was recently asked about the best way to find Tallahassee foreclosures from a reader who was bouncing around from one site to another. He was very frustrated, because it seemed there was no consolidated foreclosure site and he felt the time it took to "find them all" was way to cumbersome. But that's when I let him in on a little secret.
We know that people shopping to buy a home in Tallahassee are looking for all sorts of distressed properties, including foreclosures, short sales, and REO properties (bank owned properties). We have created this list and we update it … (3 comments)

Rainers, Tweet My Governor! - 01/20/11 07:30 AM
 
I am going to Twitter Florida Governor Scott tonight at 7:00 p.m., and I encourage all Tallahassee Twitterers to do the same. In an attempt to quell complaints about accessibility, Scott is going to hold a “Twitter Town Hall Meeting” to answer questions from as many people as he can. For those not familiar with Twitter, it is a micro-blogging social media service that often times breaks news story before the conventional media has time to assemble a story for mass production.
Florida Governor Scott made the following announcement yesterday on Twitter, saying:
“Join me for a Twitter Town Hall … (2 comments)

Buy And Hold Real Estate Investors Are Coming Back - 01/19/11 08:51 AM
Real estate investment has been sketchy for the past 8 years, as property values soared with a booming market. Traditional “buy and hold” investors had lost their paradigm and were trapped into sitting back and watching, having only rare occasion to pick up a strong long-term hold opportunity. But times change.
If you are a long-time reader of the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog, then you know I am not the typical “now is the time to buy” real estate agent. You know the type. In 2006, when the market was beginning to drop like a rock, all the NAR cheerleaders were … (0 comments)

Better Utilizing Home Selling Technology - 01/18/11 08:02 AM
Today’s home selling technology requires home owners to have an understanding of where their house fits into the flow of the real estate market when it comes time to sell a home in Tallahassee. We can no longer afford to “test the market” without suffering costly consequences if we are serious about moving from our current home to the next.
The evolution of home selling technology has quickened its pace in recent years. It seems for the longest time a sign in the yard and a home flyer distributed to the neighbors was all the “hi-tech” we had to be. The … (3 comments)

Rainers Vocal About Equity Sharing Solution To Housing Crisis - 01/17/11 09:43 AM
 
For those of you who missed my last blog post titled Equity Sharing Is A Solution To Housing Crisis, you might want to check it out before reading today’s follow-up article. The blog was featured on Active Rain and we received some good reader response. Not surprisingly, several readers thought the equity sharing plan to solve the housing crisis was not very good.
Most of the comments were sound and were legitimate concerns about undertaking such an enormous task to put an end to the housing crisis. I would like to list them and provide my take on their concerns.
… (2 comments)

Housing Crisis Can Be Solved With Equity Sharing - 01/14/11 08:07 AM
 
Recently, there was an OP-ED in the New York Times that proposed Equity Sharing as a solution to the housing crisis. The opinion is sound and it is an attempt to forge an alliance between lenders and their borrowers, which ultimately might be the only way to fix the housing market.
Currently, lenders are at a gross disadvantage to the conditions of the real estate market (many would argue, the market that they helped create), and they are not able to fix mortgage delinquencies in the traditional manner. Distressed properties have historically been such a small percentage of the market … (27 comments)

Promotion Cannot Be An Afterthought In Home Sales - 01/13/11 08:17 AM
 
Today's post was inspired by a reader comment on a post written nearly one year ago titled 3 Keys To Selling A Home In 2010. Of course, to sell a home in 2011, the advice still holds true as we saw it validated through all of last year. Last year's post went into great detail addressing promotion of a home with three key concepts:
Think like a buyer Promotion - Be visible where buyers are shopping Follow the market Yesterday, reader "Richard S." read the post and commented:
Interesting article, but as someone with a house for sale, I … (2 comments)

New Home Sellers Drive Real Estate Seasonality - 01/12/11 08:56 AM
Every year in January, we review real estate seasonality and see how the previous year performed compared to our long-term expectations. For example, we know that we usually sell more homes in July then we do in January, so if we measure sales every year, we can usually forecast monthly expectations.
Additionally, we know that there is an early rush each year by homeowners who need to sell a home so they place their home on the market. This first real estate seasonality trend can be observed by studying the 30-day trend graph over a long period of time. The graph … (0 comments)

Why Your Home Is Not Selling - 01/11/11 08:05 AM
We receive questions from readers all the time, and some of them are very unique and perhaps do not make the best "blog fodder" because of the situational aspects of the questions.
But we also receive some questions that make for great blogging, like today's question from "Matt" who is a frustrated homeowner who's home is on the market, listed with a real estate agent, and among other things wants to know why is my home not selling?
Matt, All it takes is a simple review of Marketing 101 For Real Estate to know what questions to ask of yourself … (8 comments)

Explaining The Meaning Of "Arms Length" - 01/10/11 07:27 AM
If you want to know the definition of “Arms Length” in a real estate transaction, you have come to the right place. You are not alone, as this is one of the hottest questions being asked in the housing market right now.
We’ve dedicated a 3 minute video to answering the question on our Real Estate FAQ Page. The full answer is in the video, but a readers digest version of the answer to “what is the definition of arms length” is
The parties to a transaction are independent and on an equal footing… both parties are attempting to get the … (4 comments)

A Comprehensive Review Of Housing Supply And Demand - 01/09/11 01:50 PM
The following tables demonstrate housing supply and demand dynamics in the Tallahassee real estate market as of January 9, 2011. Each area of Tallahassee (Leon County, Florida) is summarized with homes for sale, homes that have sold over the past 12 months, and finally the relative supply of homes for sale (measured in “months of supply”).
note: If the tables do not display correctly, you can see them at the Tallahassee Housing Report Currently, there are just under 12 months of supply of homes on the market in Tallahassee. This will continue to put pressure on home prices until we see … (0 comments)

Market Snapshot Shows The Glut - 01/07/11 09:41 AM
 
I just received my year end data for Wakulla County, so I thought I would share a market snapshot with our readers. I mostly focus on Leon County (Tallahassee real estate market), but the surrounding counties certainly influence our market with an effect on the supply of homes for sale.
When first analyzing the real estate market in our southern boundary county, I like to plot out supply and demand to get an idea about what market forces are having the most impact on home sales. The following real estate chart shows that real estate in Wakulla County is worse … (2 comments)

Implementation Of Real Estate Innovation - 01/06/11 08:27 AM
I was recently asked what our most innovative effort was in 2010, and I knew the answer in the blink of an eye. Our real estate innovation for 2010 was the re-birth of the Tallahassee Real Estate Web Site. Unlike most real estate websites that are created on the backbone of nationally duplicated content, our web site contains 100% original content created by myself and others at CENTURY 21 First Realty.
Opportunity Drives Innovation In Real Estate According to an NAR survey of recent homebuyers in 2009, 94% of Home Buyers used the internet during their search for a home to … (2 comments)

Technology Makes Property Searches Rock! - 01/05/11 08:10 AM
The word is out that we are developing the premiere Real Estate FAQ Page (Frequently Asked Questions) and we are starting to receive some great questions. Today we will answer a recent reader question who wanted to know how to simplify his home searching process. Zach wrote:
I really like your property search function with everything on the map. However, is there a way to conduct the search and limit the results to new listings. While I like to peruse the available homes, after looking at all the homes in the areas I am interested in it becomes slightly cumbersome to … (2 comments)

Using Square Footage For Home Valuations - 01/04/11 06:31 AM
 
One of the most common questions that we get from people wanting to sell a home in Tallahassee relates to how to use square feet in home valuations. They want to know what price per square foot they should use or even worse, they already have an idea or opinion of what it should be. I’m hoping to put this issue to rest today.
Using price per square feet is a great way to generalize home values in defined areas, but this method is not very useful when trying to determine the value of a specific home. For example, we … (12 comments)

Top 10 Blog Posts In 2010 - 01/03/11 09:33 AM
2010 is over, and we look forward to the recovery of the Tallahassee Housing Market. While today is the first weekday of 2011, let’s take one last look backward to see which blog posts were the most popular last year. The top 10 real estate blog posts for 2010 gives me an idea of what our readers most enjoy seeing at the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog, and I will use this as a reference for what is written here in 2011.
Long time readers of the Tallahassee Real Estate Blog will not be surprised that I monitor our traffic (statistics) on … (12 comments)

 
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Joe Manausa - Tallahassee Real Estate

Tallahassee, FL

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Century 21 Manausa and Associates

Address: 1140 Capital Circle SE #12A, Tallahassee, FL, 32301

Office Phone: (850) 386-2001

Cell Phone: (850) 508-1544

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