Just 30 days left for the tax credit

Hi Everyone!

I hope all of you are doing great today. It's the last Sunday of the first quarter and we are kicking into high gear. I'm not sure if it's my great marketing or if it's the tax credit, but our office is extremely busy right now. This month, March, we have set new records in written contracts. I'm very proud of my Agents and admin staff for how hard they work to keep our customers happy. Most of you don't know, as I didn't before getting in the business, that this is one of the hardest jobs out there. Agents, at least ours at Tropical Realty, work 24/7 and take each transaction very personal. We truly care that our customers have gone through their transactions with the least amount of stress. We absorb the stress so they don't have to feel it!

If you have been thinking about buying and taking advantage of the tax credit, this is the time. You will have to have a contract by April 30th and close by the end of June. I don't think they will extend the credit...at least I don't know where they will get the money to pay for these credits, once this is over. I'm not sure where they are getting the money for the current program! So if you are thinking about this 6, this is the time. And by the way, it's a great time to buy! House prices are the cheapest I have seen since 2001. It's amazing!

So what else is new? This year we started really taking listings as part of our business model. We had spent the last 4 years not taking them or at least being very selective when we did take them. The reason we are taking them now is I believe people understand that their home's value is what it is. The numbers don't lie and no matter what some other Realtor might say, we can still only get what the home will appraise at. No higher.

I ran into a guy yesterday morning at the golf tournament. He had asked me to list his home 3 years ago. At the time I told him it was worth no higher than the mid $500's. Of course he had two other Realtors tell him that they could sell it in the mid $600's. I told him I wouldn't take it at the price because it would waste a lot of money on my end and not do him any favors. In the end, because of his price, he would not sell it. He opted to list with one of the other Agents for $650k. Three years later, he finally sold the home for $350k. When I saw him yesterday, he told me that if he had just listened to me three years ago, he would have made an additional $200k.

Here is the deal. If you are going to list your home, don't always go with the Agent saying they can get the highest price. Anyone can say anything, the numbers are the numbers. There are plenty of Realtors who will take your home at an inflated price just to get their sign in your yard. To me, it's wasting everyones time. Look at the numbers, look at the comps. That's what is going to determine your price. Just because your home has an upgraded this or that, doesn't really matter much these days when it comes to selling. Sure, it helps sell your home, but the price isn't going to change to much. If your neighborhood is selling at $200,000, don't expect to get $250k. It just isn't going to happen...and if you are lucky enough to get a contract at that price, it won't appraise and you will be starting all over again.

If you are interested in finding out the true value of your home, feel free to contact us as I'm always glad to help.

That's it for now. If you need anything, we are always here to help. Have a great week ahead!

Mitch

What an amazing month!

Hi Everyone! I know, I'm doing a terrible job of keeping up with this blog these days. I'm going to try to do a better job but I'm working so much right now, it's tough. Here I am at 1:52am on a Friday night and I finally had a couple of minutes to fill you in on what's going on.

Business has been booming since the first of the year. This month we are close to hitting an all time record for homes under contract in a month and it's a short month. Our record is 46 and right now we are at 41 with the weekend to go. I'm so proud of my Agents and how hard they are working to help all of you, our customers. I am so blessed to have such a great group of Agents and a wonderful support staff. I don't know how we would be able to do all we do without our assistants, marketing coordinator Lindsay, and our office manager, Pat. They are all awesome as I know most of you have already learned!

So we are starting out the year on track to have another great year. This year we have made a decision to bring on more listings. I know I have talked about this in the past, but since January of 2006, we pretty much stopped taking listings here. It really didn't make much sense from a business standpoint. And, after all, I was a businessman way before I got into Real Estate. In January 2006 we had somewhere around 75+ listings. Not one had sold in about 6 months and it was becoming more and more costly to carry these. They were all way over priced and the owners were calling yelling at me and the Agents. I even spent a small fortune over the 6 month period on print advertising which I knew didn't work, but I wanted to show our sellers that it didn't work. I think I wasted close to $50k. Not only did we not sell any of our listings back then, we barely got any phone calls.

Fast forward to a few months ago, the end of 2009, and now we are ready to take on listings again and we have been. We actually started taking them last year and just being very selective by only taking listings that were priced appropriately. After all, when a seller says let's see if we can get this price (way overpriced), why would I take the listing. It costs me a good amount of money to market the property and if it is over priced in this market it will not sell. Even if we were able to get a contract, it would never appraise. Of course most sellers don't think, or most likely don't care, that they are wasting my money. Then again, I don't know that I would have given a second thought prior to becoming a Realtor. I didn't know as I'm assuming most of my potential customers don't either.

I believe right now we have about 50 listings or so. I know we had 12 or 13 this month alone. Over the past several months our listings have been selling and because of our systems, we have been selling 40% of them in house. Why are we having so much luck selling our own listings? Well for one, we have been, since 2006, the number 1 office in buyer transactions out of over 450 companies in Brevard County. So because we have so many buyers, we are able to sell more homes inhouse. It does make for a much cleaner transaction as we know that the Realtors are going to work great together to be sure that our customers are serviced properly.

I thought it might be a good idea to give you a few stats if you are thinking about listing your home and why you might want to list with us. Keep in mind though, we are going to be honest and you might not want to hear what we have to say. We don't take overpriced listings and I won't allow my Agents to do so. We will tell you at what price your home will sell. Plain and simple. Right now selling your home has two ingredients. It's all about price and exposure.

Our exposure is as follows:

Currently we have over 35,000 buyers in our Suntree database and another 19,000+ in our Merritt Island database. That's over 54,000 buyers!

Last month, January 2010, we had over 91,000 visitors to our 4 sites. with over 2,300 new buyers registering on our sites.

Our average listing was clicked on over 300 times per month and that number will most likely increase as our visits to our sites go up.

So as you can see, exposure is our specialty. My background as most of you know is Internet Marketing. We upload all our listings to 20 or so major sites including Google, Yahoo, Homegain, Zillow, Trulia and more! My belief is if we can't sell your home, nobody can!

I think it's time for me to get some sleep. We have our yearly office kickoff party tomorrow night and I have a busy day before hand. Unfortunately I have to go home early after the party and go to bed for a few hours. I have a 6am flight to San Fran to teach a class on Internet marketing to Real Estate Agents and Brokers from all over the country.

As always, if there is anything we can do to help. we are always here for you. Have a great night and a better weekend!

I can't believe it's been so long

First I need to apologize for not writing for so long. I have been non stop since the end of the year and here we are, Feb. 1, 2010 already! So what's been going on you might say. Well it's been an interesting past year in 2009, and I expect another interesting year in 2010.

In 2009, we ended up being the number 1 office in the county out of around 450 offices in buyer transactions. What does that mean? It means that we helped more buyers than anyone else in 2009. It's a great feeling to know we helped so many people move into new homes this year. We ended the year with 311 transactions. Not bad for a small company!

Starting now, in 2010, we have decided to add listings to our office. It's something that we had stayed out of the past 4 years or so as most people were not realistic in the prices they wanted for their homes. It's impossible for us to take on and carry tons of listings just for the sake of having listings. However, I do believe that now, after all this time, the market has leveled and it's time to start taking listings.

Why would someone want to list their home with a company that has spent most of it's time and effort in helping buyers? The answer is simple. What's the most important ingredient in selling your home...the answer of course is buyers. Tropical Realty has more buyers than any other brokerage in Brevard County....in fact I wonder if any one office in the country has more buyers than we do. Currently we have over 34,000 buyers in our Suntree office and another 18,000 buyers in our Merritt Island office. Pretty impressive numbers.

You may be asking though, how many of those buyers are looking in my area? We have a simple program to find out. Just go to www.tropicalrealtybuyers.com and you will be able to put your info in the form. From there we will check our database and get back to you with how many people match your home price and city. For instance, as of yesterday, if you were trying to sell your home in Palm Bay between $100k and $200k we had over 764 buyers from our Suntree database. Are they interested in your home? Of course we can't guarantee that, but we can surely tell you that we will get your home more exposure to buyers than anyone else.

My favorite saying lately is: "Why list with an agent or brokerage who lists homes when you can list your home with an agent or brokerage that actually sells home!" It makes sense doesn't it? If you are looking to sell your home, you need buyers. We might not be able to guarantee we will personally sell your home (although we sell 40% of our own listings) but we can guarantee that you will receive incredible service and most importantly incredible exposure to your home. This past month, Jan. 2010, we had over 90,000 visits to our sites. That's an amazing number of visits with over 65,000 of those visits repeat visitors. We must be doing something right if all these people come back to our sites on a regular basis.

With all the buyers in our database and an additional 50-100+ new consumers registering on our sites every day of the week, there is a good chance we have a buyer sitting there waiting for your home to come on the market. To discuss marketing your home, please feel free to call us.

BTW, is your home listed with another agent out of Brevard County? If so, we are always willing to help your Agent market your home by adding them to our site as well as uploading them to the other 22 sites we work with. Obviously the sooner you sell your home, the sooner you will use us to help you buy your new home. If this is you, feel free to contact me and I'll let you know what your Agent must do to take advantage of this program.

As always, if there is anything I can do to help you, please don't hesitate to ask. We are always here to help.

Have a great night and I promise not to take so long between posts.

Satellite Beach Office is Open!

Hi Everyone!

You would think after taking two weeks off, I would be ready to go. Well I am! I got back to the office on Monday after spending a weekend in Los Angeles for a Sturge Weber conference. This is the disease my beautiful granddaughter was diagnosed with 6 months after she was born. She is now over 3 1/2 and doing great. It's a long road ahead and with such a rare disease, we just don't know her future. We will keep our fingers crossed. Each year we do our golf tournament and my wonderful Agents put their heart and soul into helping us raise money for Sturge Weber research. Once I got back from my weekend in LA, I spent the last week playing golf with my brother from Boston. We played 12 rounds in 7 days. It was a ton of golf and a ton of fun. Unfortunately he beat me and I now have to look at his name on the trophy for the next year!

So, we are finally starting to expand. I've held off until I felt like we should be listing properties and the fact is, if a property is priced correctly, they will sell. Our new Satellite Beach office is located next to The Dove restaurant at 1790 Hwy A1A. If you have never eaten there, it's a great restaurant!

Some people have asked me why I'm opening another office, especially in this real estate market. There are a few reasons. Firstly, we are doing fine. As mentioned in a previous blog, I had made the decision to concentrate on buyers over the past 5 years. We took very few listings as it didn't make much sense to me. Because of that decision, we have been able to become the number Real Estate office in the county in working with buyers (out of 500 offices). Of course I couldn't have done that without all of you! Secondly, there are a lot of consumers who believe that if your office isn't located beachside, then you don't know beachside. As much as this isn't true, I still felt we should have an office there to quell those concerns.

On December 1, from 5pm - 7:30pm we will be holding a customer appreciation/grand opening/ ribbon cutting party. If you are local, please mark it on your calendar to come help us celebrate our new opening! I hope to see some of you there.

As always, if there is anything we can do for you, please don't hesitate to ask. We are always here for you!

Tropical Realty is opening a new office in Satellite Beach

So here I sit, another long day coming to an end. Today was another day of dealing with lending issues, appraisal issues, growth issues and more! The fun never stops. One of my favorite things about being an entrepreneur is that fact that life changes with the flip of a switch. Being a Real Estate Broker probably has more switches than any other business I have owned. On top of our normal crazy life these days, I decided it was time to bring Tropical Realty to the Beach. So, starting November 1, we will be opening Tropical Realty Beachside in Satellite Beach. I'm a little nervous, but I'm also very excited. We do a lot of business on the beach, but there is always the fear of opening something new.

Opening a new brokerage is no different than opening most businesses. Finding the right space was pretty easy. We just took over another Brokerages space as they are retracting in this market. This saved us a lot of time and money since it is all set up to run pretty much. Of course there is still quite a bit to do. Pat, my office manager has been incredible as always. She has been amazing in all aspects of my business and this is no exception. Between her and Lindsay, they are doing a great job organizing the new space.

Some have asked me, "why would you open another office in this market"? I guess this is my sign to you that I believe the worst is behind us in Brevard County. Do I think we are going to have some more ups and downs? Probably. However, have we hit the bottom? In my opinion, I believe we have done so. With that said, it made sense to be to start expanding a little so we can be ready when the market comes back to normal. I believe this will happen the second half of next year. I think we will stay pretty consistent over the next 9 months or so. Prices should stay level for the next year or so. One of my beliefs is will most likely rebound fairly quickly when the market starts to come back. The two reasons I believe this is:

1. There are over 77 million baby boomers who will be retiring over the next 10 years.

2. Prices in Brevard County are one of the lowest priced, if not the lowest priced, waterfront communities in the state.

These are the two reasons I believe the Housing Authority in Brevard County will have a good chance of coming back. Does that mean we are going to see our market have price gains like we have seen in the recent past. I hope not. Hopefully we will see a normal increase in prices over the next several years. Price increases like we had are part of the reason we are in the place we are now.

We will be letting you know about our grand opening party at the new office on the Beach. It will probably be around the first of December and I'm sure it will be fun! We always have fun! In fact, my motto, "if it ain't fun, I ain't doing it" is what I live by.

Have a very fun night!

Mitch

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

Brevard County Real Estate is hopping!

Hi Everyone!

I know I have said this before, but if you are really interested in buying a home in Florida, this might be the best chance you will ever get! Interest rates are at 5% and below with good credit. Home prices are back to 2002/2003 and sometimes a heck of a lot lower. I don't know anywhere else in Florida where you can buy a home for under $200k that is 2o minutes or less to the beach.

Currently our inventory is down from a high over over 7,000 single family homes to 6,000 single family homes. This means that homes are moving again and once the inventory is down to 3,000 homes or so, you can expect the prices to start back on the rise.

Here are the facts:

• Brevard County is the least expensive waterfront community in Florida.
• Beachside homes can be bought for under $200k and you can walk to the ocean!
• In Palm Bay you can find homes built around 2005 with 1800 sq. ft. and sometimes more for around $120k and less!
• There are 77 million baby boomers retiring over the next 10 years....we know some are coming here and the prices are going to rise.
• Some experts have said that they expect our homes to be back to 2004 levels by 2012.
• Are you looking for an investment? We have many areas of Brevard County that offer a great opportunities to buy, rent and hold for a few years while the market comes back. And they cash flow!

I really can't think of a better time for you to buy your new home, vacation home, retirement home or to get into investing. You can listen to the media and miss out on a great opportunity, or you can look at the facts and realize this isn't going to last very long and prices are bound to go up!

As always, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. We are always here to help. If you have been thinking about getting a great deal with a foreclosure, follow this link and we will send you a list of foreclosures and send you all new foreclosures that come on the market. Go to:

http://melbournehomesearch.com/index.cfm/Foreclosure_List

Have a great night and we will see you on the beach!

Mitch