[MarkB]

I have a question regarding home purchase data in TV. I have just read that Florida has the highest home vacancy rate of any state in the country! The report that I read states that 1 in 5 homes in Florida is currently vacant. Now, while I know that TV is nowhere near as depressed as the rest of the state, I was wondering if anyone has an idea of asking price to purchase price ratio? I currently live on a lake in northern MN and the ration is ~85%. Thank you in advance for any input.
MarkB

[Bill-n-Brillo]

Purchase price of new homes (directly from TV) are fixed - no deals, end of story. Resale pricing can be all over the map. Many start out over-priced versus the TV market and can remain on the market for a long time. That will happen a lot with FSBOs - too much emotion involved on the part of the seller. In other cases, owner equity/debt versus current market price forces people to try to get higher prices. On all the above, you'll many times see sales price versus asking price to be a fair amount less. Short-sales and foreclosures do exist in TV but the proportion isn't nearly what it is in other parts of the country - or in other parts of FL.

If something's priced reasonably according to the marketplace in TV, it'll sell in fairly short order.

Bill

[RVRoadie]

Check out home sales on Zillow. Homes in yellow are recent sales. If you browse the homes above Hwy 466 that were built 5-10 years ago, and have had more than one resale, you can get an idea of pricing trends in TV.

[brostholder]

as always with real estate the 3 most important things are location, location, location. Even in severely depressed markets their are micro markets that are not depressed. TV is one of those. Demand is high and there is not a whole lot of bargaining on the price of new homes. It is easier to buy used homes in TV (in my opinion) because the builder is still building new homes at a fairly rapid clip, so it makes sense to me that if someone must sell their home in the villages they would price it below new homes of the same style and square footage, or else potential buyers would just figure "I may as well get a new one". Also, with used homes there is the possibility of some or all of the bond being paid off.

[scroll]

IMHO homes are like cars where new costs more than used. Were they differ is that the vast majority of cars lose value as they age WITH ONLY A FEW THAT BECOME COLLECTIBLE. However many more used homes are more valuable than new homes with TV being a strong case for this. Any finance major could do a PV analysis of cash flows for a 3, 5, 8, 10, and 15 year period and the cost of ownership on the used home will win out 99 percent of the time. There is a high price to be paid to smell new paint, have scratch free counters, and stain free garage floors. Or to put it another way you get to pay thousands of dollars for the privilege of being the first to stain your garage floor with golf cart battery acid. I myself enjoy a two week cruise in the summer to Alaska.

[2BNTV]

B&B is right about the new homes.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

I was looking in September of last year and the real estate agent was informing the offer price was generally 5% lower than the listiing price on pre-existing homes. Of course, this is the negotiating process as each situation will be different.

I aslo follow zillow.com for the asking price and the sold price.

TV doesn't follow the rest of the country as it lifestyle is so great that it generates many sales and there is great demand.

MarkB to TOTV. Keep on posting. You asked a question that I am also interested in what others have to say.

[deano_hoosier]

On pre-owned homes last spring I did some research checking out price paid vs asked on pre-owned homes. Found that closing prices seemed to run around 5-7% below asking price. That said, we were able to buy our part-timer house at 10% below asking (it was sort of like an estate sale with children anxious to close out of father's interest in the house.)

[Bill-n-Brillo]

To me, "asking price" is fairly irrelevant - it's "what is the going rate for similar houses is similar neighborhoods" that really matters when it comes to attempting to determine an appropriate purchase price.

When we bought a resale Patio Villa last fall, it was pretty easy to figure out what the going rate was since, to a reasonable degree, all the PVs in the neighborhood are in generally the same ballpark price-wise. Granted, corner lots should bring more, lots backing up to a wall will do the same, etc. But they're all priced in a fairly narrow band when sold new.

When trying to figure out if the owner's asking price was "fair", I went to the Sumter County Property Appraiser's web site http://www.sumterpa.com/ , clicked on 'Record Search' on the left, entered the for-sale property's address, then clicked on the resulting page on the 'GIS Aerial' satellite view map at the right. That will open an expanded version of the map, showing a small white box noting the current owner name(s) and the date and price of the most recent sale. Move your cursor to any other rooftop (again, you're seeing a satellite view), then click, and it will show you the same info for that particular property. Look to the right of the map (under 'Sales Info') and you will be able to see the sales history on that house - date and price are noted. I spent a bit of time looking at all the other PVs in this grouping, noting the ones that had sold within the last 12 months - and at what price - to get a feel for the "going rate".

So there's a way to gather current pricing info - there are other methods to do accomplish the same thing as well. Granted, it's a fairly simple process for a Patio Villa given the relative 'sameness' of them price-wise. But if you were looking at a Designer home, for example, you could tour the neighborhood via car/cart, noting addresses for identical models then come back and go to the Property Appraiser's web site to find out the info on them.

Turns out in our case that the seller's pricing was right on the money in comparison to other sales considering all the factors that were of value to us - the particular location of this house, extras the sellers had done since they bought it, etc. They'd dropped their price several times (fairly dramatic amount in total) over the course of the many months they'd had it on the market and finally hit the "sweet spot" with their pricing when we stumbled across it. We paid them their final asking price and it was done!

Incidentally, this was a FSBO deal so it was up to us to do our own research - no realtor to fall back on. No big deal.......

Bill

[2BNTV]

Originally Posted by Bill-n-Brillo

To me, "asking price" is fairly irrelevant - it's "what is the going rate for similar houses is similar neighborhoods" that really matters when it comes to attempting to determine an appropriate purchase price.

When we bought a resale Patio Villa last fall, it was pretty easy to figure out what the going rate was since, to a reasonable degree, all the PVs in the neighborhood are in generally the same ballpark price-wise. Granted, corner lots should bring more, lots backing up to a wall will do the same, etc. But they're all priced in a fairly narrow band when sold new.

When trying to figure out if the owner's asking price was "fair", I went to the Sumter County Property Appraiser's web site http://www.sumterpa.com/ , clicked on 'Record Search' on the left, entered the for-sale property's address, then clicked on the resulting page on the 'GIS Aerial' satellite view map at the right. That will open an expanded version of the map, showing a small white box noting the current owner name(s) and the date and price of the most recent sale. Move your cursor to any other rooftop (again, you're seeing a satellite view), then click, and it will show you the same info for that particular property. Look to the right of the map (under 'Sales Info') and you will be able to see the sales history on that house - date and price are noted. I spent a bit of time looking at all the other PVs in this grouping, noting the ones that had sold within the last 12 months - and at what price - to get a feel for the "going rate".

So there's a way to gather current pricing info - there are other methods to do accomplish the same thing as well. Granted, it's a fairly simple process for a Patio Villa given the relative 'sameness' of them price-wise. But if you were looking at a Designer home, for example, you could tour the neighborhood via car/cart, noting addresses for identical models then come back and go to the Property Appraiser's web site to find out the info on them.

Turns out in our case that the seller's pricing was right on the money in comparison to other sales considering all the factors that were of value to us - the particular location of this house, extras the sellers had done since they bought it, etc. They'd dropped their price several times (fairly dramatic amount in total) over the course of the many months they'd had it on the market and finally hit the "sweet spot" with their pricing when we stumbled across it. We paid them their final asking price and it was done!

Incidentally, this was a FSBO deal so it was up to us to do our own research - no realtor to fall back on. No big deal.......

Bill

Bill:

Thank you for your excellent information. Great post

[Bill-n-Brillo]

You're welcome, 2B!

Bill

[JohnN]

Sumer Co site is great!!!
I think lyle gant (realtor) provides info on sales price vs. asking on his site
lylesellsfl.com (I believe), when I last checked sometime ago, it was about 95%

[Vinny]

One thing people seem to have a hard time with is that asking price is not an indicator of anything, especially value. Something's value is what the market is willing to pay for it so difference in asking price and selling price is like comparing wishes to reality.

[Pturner]

Originally Posted by MarkB

I have a question regarding home purchase data in TV. I have just read that Florida has the highest home vacancy rate of any state in the country! The report that I read states that 1 in 5 homes in Florida is currently vacant. Now, while I know that TV is nowhere near as depressed as the rest of the state, I was wondering if anyone has an idea of asking price to purchase price ratio? I currently live on a lake in northern MN and the ration is ~85%. Thank you in advance for any input.
MarkB

MarkB,

Welcome to TOTV! I agree that asking price is not necessarily an indication of market value, especially with FSBO. However, I think if you crunch the numbers further, you are likely to find that, in general:

• The longer a home has been on the market, the more discount below asking the seller is willing to accept.
• The more motivated the seller, the more room for negotiation.

So, depending upon the circumstance, the state or even community average might not apply to the house you are interested in.

Bottom line: Don't fret too much about the average ratio. Come on down and see what you can find!