Be careful if you are counting on a home equity line of credit for any of your financial needs. Your access to those funds could be cut off in the near future.

Lenders have the right to close out your line of credit for an array of reasons beyond being late with payments … or even anything to do with you or your credit.

We’ve already seen this happen to thousands of people nationwide who were depending on access to those funds. The chances are good this trend will continue as lenders are trying to stay in business, and are worried about declining home values.

http://www.smartmoney.com/consumer/index.cfm?story=20080424-HELOC

I’ve been hearing a lot of opinions that go from one end of the spectrum to the other. In any given day, I’ll talk to two people who will tell me two different things … one is that homes here aren’t selling, and another is that we’re just about out of this “down market,” and the turnaround is right around the corner.

The stats show that neither of these statements is true.

Homes ARE selling in this market, by professional agents through hard work and aggressive strategies. In March, 6 percent of the inventory sold in Pensacola, 4 percent in Gulf Breeze, 8 percent in Navarre, and 10 percent in Fort Walton Beach. The insinuation that “no one is buying” and “homes aren’t selling” just is not true.

On the other hand, the statistics simply aren’t backing up the belief some have that the market has bottomed. We’re still not making a dent in the inventory. If another home were not listed in Pensacola, for example, it would take about 23 months to deplete the inventory. A healthy market has about a 6-month supply of homes. We also know that a good number of people have a desire to sell, but have pulled their homes from the market until the market heads upward again. These stats don’t even take those people into account. We also expect to see a large increase in bank-owned listings, which further pushes prices down.

I do believe that the long-term outlook for real estate in this area is wonderful. Baby boomers will be retiring in huge numbers in the next 20 years, and many of them will turn to sunny Florida for primary and vacation homes. Real estate, like life, runs in cycles.

Only 44 detached single-family homes sold in Navarre in September, according to statistics from the Emerald Coast Association of Realtors, which shares data with the Navarre Area Board of Realtors.

Between 61 and 74 homes had sold in Navarre each Month since March. September marked the second straight month home sales in Navarre have been on the decline.

The average sales price in Navarre for homes sold in September was $229,011, with the median sales price being $195,897. The average days on the market for the homes that sold was 101.

Fifteen of the homes that sold in September were in Holley by the Sea. The average price per square foot in that subdivision was $114.15, the average sales price was $234,133, and the homes took an average of 157 days to sell.

Here is a link to the Holley by the Sea sales.

Santa Rosa County has passed a new ordinance making it illegal to walk on the dunes on Navarre Beach, or to access the beach via private lots rather than by using the designated walkover points.

The fine is $15 for the first offense, and $100 for the second offense.

Here is a link to the article in the Pensacola News Journal.

The Navarre Beach Area Chamber of Commerce is complaining the fines are too low. Quite a few posters to the PNJ attacked the county for taking on this subject at all.

I’m more than a bit surprised that people posting on the PNJ forums found the ordiance to be petty and worthless. We need to do all we can to protect the dunes, and to protect the beauty of Navarre Beach. I think the ordinance is fair. You have a lot of people who simply won’t know the first time around, and $100 for a second offense is nothing to sneeze at.

Tip #5: Upgrade the condition of your home.

It was just a couple of years ago that buyers would have only a handful of homes to look at in their price range. “Repainting? Re-carpeting? No problem! I have to knock down a wall? Piece of cake! I’m just glad to have a home after losing out on bidding on the last three!”

With a 10-month-plus supply of homes on the market, that’s thousands of homes in this area, buyers now are slow to decide, and picky, picky, picky. Most don’t want to do any work on the home, because they’ve already looked at five they like that are in move-in condition. When I say most don’t want to do anything, I mean ANYTHING. I’ve seen buyers rule out great homes based on the smallest things.

Do all you can to make your home as attractive as possible, inside and out.  Holding off on repainting and replacing the carpet because the buyers might prefer to choose their own colors? Big mistake. That’s too much trouble for most buyers these days. Go ahead and make the cosmetic upgrades, using neutral colors.

Will you get your money back? Probably … not! Yes, I said probably not. But it WILL mean your home has a chance of selling in this competitive market. Don’t do it, and your chances to stay in the 90 percent of homes that don’t sell every month increase dramatically.

I also work with design experts who can “stage” a home prior to sale for a reasonable fee. This can help with upscale homes, homes that are difficult to sell, and vacant homes.

Don’t do extensive remodeling, but do all you can to make the home look good, smell good, and to feel like home for the buyer.

If you still need to sell and are having trouble getting over the “But my home was worth … ” syndrome, think of this:

We tend to think our situation here in the Navarre area is unique. It’s not. Most markets in the United States have switched over to being a buyer’s market.

If you’re planning on buying a home after selling your home here, look at it this way: anything that you feel that you have “lost” by not selling in the past will often times be made up … and then some … when you purchase another home in the same market, or another market. You might not have lost at all … in fact, you might even come out ahead on the deal!

A South Florida newspaper has set up a website that links to all of the addresses that filed flood insurance claims in 2004, the year of Hurricane Ivan. This can be useful to research a home that you are considering buying in the Navarre, Pensacola, and Gulf Breeze areas, as well as other towns in Northwest Florida.

Here is the link to the database.

Tip #4: An agent’s training and track record … this year. 

What training does an agent you are considering have about how to get homes sold in a declining market? I can tell you that some agents have no training on how to get a home sold in this market. Ask your agent that you are considering hiring what specific training on getting homes sold in this market he or she has taken in the last year. Ask the agent what, exactly, the step-by-step plan is to get the home sold, and what results the agent has had selling homes this year. How many homes agents sold in 2005 doesn’t really matter. What matters is, how have those agents adapted to today’s market, and what results are they getting?

Tip #3: Active vs. passive selling

Your real-estate agent needs to take an active and aggressive role in getting your home sold. Every qualified buyer lead MUST be pursued to get your home sold. No stone can go unturned. A lead that falls through the cracks can make the difference between your home going under contract today and not selling at all! Your agent also cannot sit back and wait for the phone to ring. He or she must follow up with all buyer leads … and follow up with all agents who show your home … to gain valuable feedback that can help sell the home, as well as to further encourage the agent and customers to bring an offer.

Tip #2: Exposure to the public.

A few years ago, an agent could list your property, stick a sign in the yard, put the property in the MLS, and chances were great it would sell in anywhere from a day, to a week, to a couple of months. Well, those days are gone!

Your property needs to be exposed to the public in the most effective ways. The traditional efforts of real-estate agents (and by people trying to sell the home themselves) do not work effectively in most cases in a declining real-estate market.

Your property needs exposure to the public through the methods people REALLY use to search for homes today.