Brevard County Homes are Selling Fast!

Hi Everyone!

Well first I must apologize for not keeping up with this as much as I should be. There's a good reason, we have been swamped! Last month, we wrote more contracts (41) than we have ever written in any month prior. Our record before this was 35 contracts. Since the slow down we have been averaging around 20-25 contracts per month. The uptick in home sales is a welcome relief to all of us. We all know that our economy will only come back when the housing market becomes more stable...it appears this is happening.

So what have I been up to? Obviously with more business it means I'm busy helping my Agents deal with the increase in business. But also, we have been in a tremendous education mode. I personally have hired a business coach to help me keep things organized and to come up with better training programs for my Agents. This has been a great success. I have also been spending a lot of time designing webinars and presentations to help educate our customers. You can check out our webinars for consumers at:

http://www.melbournehomesearch.com/index.cfm/Webinars

These webinars are to help you better understand the Real Estate market in Brevard County. We have had so many people lose out on great deals because of what they are hearing in the media, I figured it was time to educate our customers on the reality of our market.

The two areas where most of our customers seem misinformed are Short Sales and Foreclosures. If you listen to the media, they would have you believe that you can offer 50 cents on the dollar. However, in reality, homes are selling at 91.8% of their listings prices. Of course we have many homes that are still over priced, but those are not short sales and foreclosures. F

Foreclosures are priced based on Market Value. They are selling at between 5% under list price to as high as 10% or more than list price. This depends on the list price.

Short Sales are priced based on our market value in the area. However, regardless of what price the property is priced, the bank will only agree to sell the home through this process if the home is priced within 10% or less of the appraised value.

To learn more about both these type of sales, ask your Realtor or feel free to contact me. I'm always available to help anyone. Maybe I should really get a life!

What else is going on these days in our Tropical Realty life. We just held our Tropical Realty Charity Golf Tournament. It was a tremendous success and we raised about $15,000 for Sturge Weber. For those of you who don't know about Sturge Weber, it's a rare disease that attacks the brain. My beautiful granddaugher, Lola, was diagnosed with this disease when she was less than 6 months old. She has had two major seizures and we just don't know what the future is for her. Sturge Weber is one of those "orphan" diseases that counts soley on people like us raising money. We are hoping that with the money we raised this year, we will be able to receive grant money.

Other than that I am spending most of my time working. My golf game is terrible but I'm still playing at 6:44 every Saturday morning. I did, after 25 years, start a new band. It's fun to be a rocker again, but with a lot less hair! I think I'm going through a midlife crisis!

That's it for now. I'll try to be better at keeping on top of this. If you are thinking about buying a home...this is the time. I would hate to see more of our customers lose out on some of the best deals in the state!

Take care and call us if you need anything.

Mitch