Volusia County Real Estate Sales: 2007 year in review

I finally finished every city in east Volusia county for my 2007 real estate sales, year in review. Whew! So here is the final compilation of all that data and the charts.To read the first post in the series, which was for Daytona Beach, and contains the most physical information about our market, read Daytona Beach Real Estate: 2007 year in review.

To view each individual real estate chart for Daytona Beach Shores, South Daytona, Ormond Beach, Ormond by the Sea, Port Orange, Ponce Inlet, Wilbur by the Sea, Holly Hill, New Smyrna Beach, Edgewater and Oak Hill, click anywhere in the afore-mentioned cities. It will take you to the Edgewater post, which was the last in the series, so it contains links to all the previous posts.

Now for the combination of the data for all of east Volusia County.

And there you have it. This post concludes my 2007 real estate year-in-review series.

If you’re interested in buying or selling real estate in any of these cities, make a Smart Choice and contact Lisa Hill for all your real estate needs!

Adams Cameron & Co., Realtors - 1100 Dunlawton Ave., Port Orange, FL 32127 386-761-6100

All charts in this series were created and are copyrighted by Lisa Hill

Being Sensitive to your client’s needs: A REALTORS® Perspective

Many years ago, when I first started selling houses, I was working with a lady who told me she was deathly afraid of cats. Since one of the houses we were going to see was my own listing, I knew the owner had cats. So I told my buyer that I would go inside first and check to see if they were inside or not. (They had a kitty door.)So I went in and looked around and didn’t see either of the cats, anywhere. I even looked under the beds, in the closets and on top of the refrigerator. I covered the entire house… No cats.

I then opened the front door and told the buyer that the cats must be outside because I didn’t see either one of them anywhere in the house, and the buyer apprehensively came inside. She started going from room to room and was slowly relaxing.

She then entered the master bedroom ahead of me and 2 seconds later came running past me and ran straight out the front door and refused to come back in. I was standing there looking perplexed until I spotted, calm as can be, one of the cats, sitting on the master bathroom counter, contentedly licking his paw. *sigh*

Click here to read the rest of this real estate post.

Real Estate is Great in 2008!

Read this entire post at Real Estate is Great in 2008!

On January 2, I received a call from one of my real estate sellers, who has a house for sale in Port Orange. He was just wishing me a happy new year (don't you just love nice sellers?) and letting me know they may be reducing the price in a couple of weeks. I'll keep you posted on that one!

And today I got a call from a client who I sold an ocean front house in Ponce Inlet several years ago. He had received the Christmas card I had sent, so he too, was just wishing me a happy new year and touching base. He was also letting me know that he had filed the company info of my 2007 brokerage change in his contact manager for whenever they're ready to sell in the future.

I'm hoping these are all signs of many more good things to come in 2008. I've worked with some really great clients over the years (obviously) and hopefully, this year I'll work with many more.

Make a Smart Choice today and call Lisa Hill for all your real estate needs!

Subscribe to this blog, or check back frequently so you don't miss the next installment of my series on Florida's Vanishing Wetlands.

AND more importantly, I'll be blogging an annual update for EVERY city in East Volusia County over the next 2 weeks. Stay tuned!

(All photos taken and copyrighted by Lisa Hill)

Real Estate for Sale - Daytona-Beach, FL 32114 - Real Estate Video Tour

REALTOR Safety Awareness-Real Estate Buyers, You Should Read This Too!

I was recently reminded of an incident that happened to a REALTOR® friend of mine, a few years ago. This incident was the type of horror story we all fear.

My friend received a call from a potential buyer who had to catch a flight out of town later that morning and he needed to leave by 9:00 a.m. He was anxious to see a model in a development my REALTOR® friend was representing and the only time he was available was early in the morning. So my friend scheduled an appointment to meet this potential buyer at one of the models at 7:30 a.m.

When she arrived at the model, the buyer was waiting and they proceeded to go inside the house. A few minutes later, another vehicle arrived with a couple in it. The potential buyer told my REALTOR® friend that these were friends of his and they all proceeded to view the house.

Then they got to the master bedroom. At this point, the original potential buyer pulled a gun out of a briefcase, then used garbage bag ties on my REALTOR® friend, and put her in the closet of the master bedroom.

Read the rest of this post about REALTOR® Safety Awareness-Real Estate Buyers, You Should Read This Too!

Take a Real Estate Survey

Take a survey about your views on real estate, or past real estate experiences. Just follow this link.

Take the real estate survey

Daytona Beach River Front Condo For Sale

Daytona Beach Real Estate- Direct Intracoastal River Front Condo For Sale

The Glamorous Real Estate Life

Realtors live such glamorous lives. At least that's what many people think. How about a reality check?

Buy House in Ormond Beach Forida

Port Orange Real Estate Market Update

I've had so few real estate calls lately that I'd be checking to make sure my phone is working if it weren't for the calls I was getting from parties who were interested in renting my condo conversion project listing. So I decided to do a little research. I gleaned the usual revealing information from the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) for the Daytona Beach Area Association of REALTORS® and decided to share it with you.

As of November 15, 2007 there are 972 active MLS listings for Port Orange Florida. Here's the breakdown of the active listings.

• Houses 685
• Single Family Attached (IE Duplexes) 134
• Condos 87
• Manufactured Homes with land 60
• Condotels 4
• Homes selling for land value only 2

For the month of October there were only 40 sales. Here's the breakdown.

• Houses 28
• Manufactured Homes with land 7
• Single Family Attached 5

I guess this isn't showing me anything I didn't already know. So to further depress myself I decided to compare sales for the month of October each year for the last few years. Here's a graph of the data.

Read my other post about real estate listings and sales in Daytona Beach Shores.

To buy real estate in Port Orange FL, make a Smart Choice and contact Lisa Hill.

Daytona Beach FL Condos to Buy or Rent

I have a condo-conversion project listed, with 42 units available for sale. There are studios, 1 bedroom and 2 bedrooms units available, priced from $114,900 to $148,900.

• Before I get to the point, I'll insert a side not here and thank Rick Garcia for his assistance when I started working with this particular seller. You see, the seller lives and works in south Florida and kept bringing up methods of doing business there. Knowing I had seen quite a few condos listed on their Miamism and Active Rain blogs, I gave Rick and Inez Garcia a call. Inez was out in the field so Rick graciously answered all my rambling questions. Thanks Rick!

Now to get to the point of this post. With the Daytona Beach area's real estate sales becoming increasingly more slow, my seller decided he would rent or sell the units in Surfside Villas. Now Adams Cameron & Company does not do any property management, and the local property management companies I called did not even want anymore properties in their inventory. It seems the rental market, especially for beachside condos, is just as slow as the real estate market. But my seller decided he didn't need property management. He just needed someone to actually rent out the units. So with my brokers permission, I said I'd give it a shot.

We agreed on a commission (a percentage of the lease) for me to have potential tenants fill out the personal information documents, applications and background check authorization, and collect their deposits. My seller is preparing the actual leases. So the week before last, I took my first rental application, collected their money and now have to move our sales office. (I rented out my office. D'oh!) I was off to a great start!

And then the flakes started calling *sigh*. Since it's about a 20 minute drive from Port Orange, where I live and where my office is, to the condos located on the beachside/peninsula in Daytona Beach, I scheduled 3 appointments at 30 minute intervals so I wouldn't have to drive back and forth. Of my 3 appointments, only 1 showed up. I just spoke with all of them yesterday! Thank God I didn't have to drive back and forth 3 times!

Thankfully the one that did show up is very interested, has a steady job, was very nice, and looks like a quality tenant. But a word to the wise, be glad you work with real estate buyers instead of renters! So far, this whole rental adventure has shown me a much flakier clientel than I'm accustomed to. I can't imagine being in property management! Oh wait. Yes I can. I'm subscribed to Rich Kruse. I'm particularly fond of his post called Tenant Did What? or how about Robbed and Kidnapped at Gunpoint.

I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings...

Condominium for Sale - Daytona-Beach, FL 32118 - Real Estate Video Tour