Serendipity or Crafty Marketing?

And so it goes. I went to Satellite Beach yesterday to check out what looked to be a compelling oceanfront condo listing that had just been reduced to $245,900. The unit was described in the MLS as "Sought after South East corner condo with awesome ocean views".  Not a bad price for an upper floor, direct ocean southeast corner with 1305 square feet. I arrived to discover that the unit was a southwest corner on the A1A side with a north facing front door not west facing as indicated in the MLS. There was not a single east facing window or slider in the unit. The views of the ocean over the parking lot and adjacent property were nice. Now I realize a lot of people have trouble with directions and confuse east, west, north and south. Maybe that's the case here. Serendipitous mistake for the listing agent if it is. She got me there and has probably fielded quite a few inquiries. Maybe she's even been successful at steering a buyer disappointed with this unit to another bona fide southeast corner. Mistakes can be profitable.

The photo is of the beach at the end of Minutemen this past Friday. You can probably guess from where the shot was taken.

"Sometimes serendipity is just intention unmasked.” __Elizabeth Berg

Stretching the Truth

From this morning's hotsheet of new, sold and price changed listings in Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral; a Portside Villas 2/2 unit that closed yesterday for $97,000. At $97,000, I consider these big (1211 square feet), 8 year old units to be an attractive buy. What I have never considered is that they could legitimately be described as "across the street from the ocean". The description in the MLS states "Adorable 2 bedroom, 2 bath Condo across the street from the Ocean!!! (Triple exclamation marks not mine) Technically, there is but one street between Portside Villas and the ocean. What an internet shopper might not know is that the walk from the unit to the beach is within a few feet of one mile. If a buyer was a bird, she'd be but 4402 feet front door to the beach. Unfeathered residents will have to walk to the nearest road that winds to the beach and according to Google maps that closest ground route is 4945 feet. Listing agents, please consider that you foster the bad opinion the public has of all of us when you do stuff like this. That unit would have sold just as fast if you had said "One mile to the beach". Larry out.

Written across the bottom of the inside of a bathroom stall door.
BEWARE OF LIMBO DANCERS

5000 Words

Too Much Information

I figure it's been long enough now, eleven days into the new year, for almost all the laggards to have updated their sold listings on the MLS for 2013. Here are what we'll arbitrarily call the "final" numbers. These numbers apply to Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral only and reflect just those property sales reported to the MLS. There were a handful of non-listed sales during the year that aren't part of these stats.

As I mentioned in a previous post, 2013 saw the highest number of condo sales since 2005. Cash still dominated the purchases with three out of five buyers stroking a check rather than getting a mortgage. The number of distressed sales continued to decline with short sales shrinking to only 7% of the total. One in three listings sold in less than a month on the market.

2013 Total condo sales - 660

Purchased with cash - 402

Short sales - 43

Bank-owned - 109

Sold in 30 days or less - 226

The story was similar with single family homes sales in 2013. Almost half of the buyers paid cash. Distressed sales were few and short sales were but a tiny blip on the screen. Almost half of all homes sold had a contract in less than a month from listing.

Total single family home sales 2013 - 125

Purchased with cash - 56

Short sales - 8

Bank-owned - 12

Sold in 30 days or less - 56

As of this morning, there are 62 total single family homes in the two cities for sale on the MLS. Seven of those are either under construction or not yet built. Two are short sales and three are bank-owned.

There are 303 condos for sale with 23 of those not yet built (possibly never). Of the 303, seven are short sales and 25 are bank-owned. Of the 25 bank-owned units, well over half have been on the market for more than 50 days, with four growing mold for over 100 days. This is a reflection of the banks' too-optimistic recent pricing.

The surf temp is lingering in the high 60s making short sessions without a wetsuit still possible. With winter guests arriving every day, the days of breezing through nine holes in less than two hours are over until after Easter but with today's forecast high of 79, I'm going to brave it.

Snowbirds, don't forget to tip your server. She is probably being paid $4.91 per hour (the minimum in Florida for tipped servers) which means she needs your tip to feed the babies.

"I embarrassed a lot of people. At this point I should know better than to make political statements."  __Dennis Rodman

It IS Different Here! [another past favorite]

[This post was originally published on Halloween Day 2008. It is still relevant and true so I thought, partly motivated by laziness (if that isn't a contradiction), that I'd repost for the newer readers enjoyment.]

There is a long list of thought-terminating real estate clichés that are to the truth as fingernails are to a blackboard. Among the nominees for the best is the title of this post. Other self-serving RE industry creations are "Now's a great time to buy", "Real estate only goes up", "Interest rates are at historical lows", "Buy now or be priced out forever" and on and on. In spite of the transparent purpose of these phrases when used by Realtors about the real estate market, I will venture that "it is different here" has some compelling resonance when said about Cocoa Beach as a community. I'm not speaking as a Realtor, rather, as a resident. Our market is subject to the same influences as other markets across the state of Florida, but, it only takes a drive down A1A through the four or so blocks of "downtown" or a stroll along the uncrowded beach on a beautiful day to realize that the absence of crowds and the small-town sense of community here is a rare commodity to be treasured. I am guilty of taking what we have here for granted but it only takes a moment mired in traffic in any another coastal community in our state to remind me how good we have it. Name one other coastal Florida town that has a "Walk your child to school day" or that has a maximum speed limit of 35 MPH or whose population has not increased in the last 20 years. That is Cocoa Beach. It IS different here. If you're looking to purchase here, do your homework, know what represents good value and bargain hard. Remarkable deals continue to happen in the best little beach town in Florida.

Mosquitoes can be a problem in many areas of Florida but the constant sea breeze keeps the ocean side of the road pretty much free of them and other flying insects. On those few days that the wind shifts around from the west, mosquitoes and other small insects get blown over A1A to the ocean side and tuck into the lee of oceanfront buildings. When this happens, the dragonflies come out en masse to take advantage of the easy meal. The photo at the top is of one of these other-worldly creatures that share our airspace on offshore days like we've had recently.

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
______Anais Nin

In the Rearview

It's the last day of 2013 and the time when we look back at the significant events of the year. For the Cocoa Beach real estate market it was a year of continued recovery with one massive unexpected event. Our big event was the change of MLS providers in July that destroyed the Melbourne Association of Realtors. Without going into detail, their leadership went all-in on an MLS bluff that was called by the membership. Brevard County will have one united Realtor association in 2014 as a result. Democracy won the day. I suspect my suggestion of a new name, Florida United Brevard Area Realtors, will be rejected because of the unfortunate acronym. Whatever.

As was evident much earlier in the year, 2013 finished as another record-breaking year in numbers of sold properties in Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral. The MLS this morning is showing 659 sold condos and townhomes in the year in our two cities and 121 single family and half-duplex homes. We have to go all the way back to 2005 to find another year that exceeds those numbers. Active for sale inventory stands at about half the sold numbers for the year. Subtract the yet-to-be-built (and unlikely to be built soon) properties and pickings are slim.

The lowest priced single family home to sell in the year was a 1000 square foot 3/1 in need of a lot of work in Cape Canaveral close to the beach that closed for $85,000. Highest price paid in the year was $1,430,000 for a furnished seven year old 4/3.5 with 3379 square feet on 50' of ocean in south Cocoa Beach. Just over half of all single family homes sold were waterfront.

Eight small (+-400sf) condos sold at prices between $20,000 and $30,000. A total of 165 sold for less than $100,000. In the half million dollars and up range, there were 23 sales with the highest at $750,000 for a penthouse 4th floor 4/4 corner on the river at West End Rd. behind Florida Seafood. It was furnished, had 10' ceilings, 4299 square feet and came with 2 garage spots. Eight of the $500,000+ sales were at the Meridian.

23% (149 units) of the closed condos were either short sales or foreclosures. There are 32 total short sales and foreclosures currently for sale out of 312 total.

2014 promises to be interesting and different than 2013. Sellers can reasonably expect to get more than they may have gotten this year. Whether they get enough to make up for the cost of waiting remains to be seen. I expect the number of sales to be less in the coming year even as prices are higher and I expect the decline in distressed sales to continue as well. To those involved in our market I wish you a prosperous new year. Snowbirds, stop by my office while you're in town and say Hello. Don't forget to make some room at the free coffee station at Publix for your fellow birds. Happy New Year, all.

For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
_____Bob Dylan

Blast From the Past

Another One Bites the Dust (originally posted October 4, 2007)  In 2013 we saw almost all the remaining Magnolia Bay units finally sell. It's been a long hard road. I thought the readers who may not remember the drama of 2007 during the construction might appreciate this look back at the time of construction and some of the unintended consequences. There is a new store in the old Express Grocer spot now and they seem to be doing OK. The site of the old trailer park is occupied on one half by a self-storage facility and the other half by nothing. I have no idea where Sam and Gary are these days.

Oct. 4, 2007 - This unwinding of the housing bubble has touched many lives. Besides the flippers who were too late to the party and people who bought more home than they could afford with exotic mortgages, some innocent victims have been dragged down, too. A deadbeat homeowner in my building has decided to walk away from her mortgage and will be leaving the remaining owners with thousands in unpaid assessments. My life will go on even though it riles me to have to pay for someone else's bad choices. It may hurt more for my retired neighbors. More heartbreaking is the impact on the decent people who run the small grocery store close to my home. They didn't speculate on pre-construction condos or try to flip houses and yet their lives have been changed forever.

It all began when construction began on the big empty parcel of land that was to become Magnolia Bay. Business picked up as workers walked over for lunch, snacks, cigarettes and so forth and the promise of all the new families that would be moving in made the future look bright. Shortly thereafter, the trailer park next door that housed the biggest part of our grocer's customers was purchased. With plans to build townhomes on the site, the trailers were progressively moved out or torn down until the property was empty. Things were still looking good even with the loss of the regulars. With 77 new half million dollar plus Magnolia Bay units and 18 new townhomes right next door, the customer base was growing and being upgraded and the construction workers were providing business in the interim. Life was good.

Then, Magnolia Bay sales slowed and the planned 4 buildings got scaled back to 3. Scheduled closings failed to happen and the construction workers finished their work and moved on. Today, the grand buildings at Magnolia Bay are mostly empty and dust blows in the sea breeze on the site of the old trailer park. The only townhomes there today are in the picture on the "coming soon" sign. Business at the grocer who stocked my favorite beer in a corner of the walk-in cooler at my request dried up to a trickle and, this week, he told me that this is his last month there. He can't make it any longer.

There are multiple losers in this story; the developers of Magnolia Bay, the trailer park residents, some of whom had lived there for decades, the owners of the trailer park property, the customers of Express Grocer including me and, most of all, Sam, the grocer and his family, and Gary, his long-time employee, who has been known to extend credit to a down-on-his-luck customer or two. Sam, your family, and Gary, you will be missed by many. You are good people.

My favorite Express Grocer memory will always be the sign that appeared on the door one day. It read:

Do not ask Gary for credit. He is not allowed to give it anymore. Sam

Optimistic Bankers

US temps 12-11-2103

I made a quick mention in the last post about the trend in asking prices for foreclosures. The recent trend has been towards higher and less aggressive asking prices. In the not too distant past, most foreclosures in the Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral market would have multiple offers within the first few days after hitting the MLS and would usually sell for full or above asking price. That is no longer true. The buyers have given a collective Ho Hum to the banks' recent optimistic prices and many attractive foreclosure properties are not getting quick offers. Of the 23 bank-owned condos on the MLS this morning, 11 have been listed for longer than a month and 9 have reduced the original asking price, one by 24%, still without a sale. Five of the 7 short sales currently active have reduced their original price.

Our takeaway: just because it's a distressed sale doesn't mean the asking price is a deal. Know the current value and offer accordingly. As always, knowledge is power.

""If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem." ___unknown