How Do You Know It’s Time to Move in Tampa?

There are many Tampa Bay area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here to learn about our “Your Home Sold Guaranteed in 29 Days” program or for a free property valuation so you know what your home can sell for in today’s market. You may also call me at (813) 359-8990 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Today we’re going to talk about some common signs that it might be time for you to move and get into another home. There are several key signs to look out for, and we’re going to talk about 5 of them today.

1.  Money

Take a good hard look at your finances before you move. You may just want to save up for a new master bathroom or other renovation in your home. If you aren’t happy in your current house, you need to figure out what steps to take to become happy.

2. Outgrowing your storage space

There are only so many ways you can rearrange your kitchen or garage to make room for more stuff. If you’re constantly trying to rearrange things to make them fit together, it might be a good sign you’re outgrowing your current house.

3. Expanding family

This is a great reason to move. It could be that you’re having more children, or they are coming back to move in after college.

4. Shrinking family

If one or more of your children have gone off to college and you just don’t need as much space anymore, it might be time to downsize and buy a smaller home, or that condo on the beach you’ve always wanted.

5. Neighborhood is in decline

If crime has been increasing in your area, or there is a huge commercial boom, it might make it a lot more difficult to sell your home in the future.

If you’re looking to change places in 2016, we would love to talk. We can give you a good estimate of what your home could sell for, as well as a home search that feeds directly from the MLS. If you have any questions at all, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you!

We also expect this year to be a great time to sell. Interest rates are rising, and this will bring a lot of buyers onto the market. You could capitalize on these unique market conditions if you contact us soon!

Tampa & Sarasota Real Estate Market resurgence & how it can cause appraisal challenges

There are many Tampa Bay area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here to learn about our “Your Home Sold Guaranteed in 29 Days” program or for a free property valuation so you know what your home can sell for in today’s market. You may also call me at (813) 359-8990 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Andrew Duncan, Tampa Bay's #1 Realtor and expert talks about how the resurgence of the Tampa and Sarasota Real Estate market is affecting appraisals and the challenges sellers and agents are facing. He has Arnie and David Diaz of Waterstone Mortgage as guests on The Duncan Duo Show on 970 WFLA.

They explain that appraisals are based on comparables of homes that have actually been sold within a square mile and have to be within a certain percentage of your home's square footage. The appraiser has a lot of restrictions they follow to find the perfect comp that sold within the past 6 months to fit that sales price. Since the market is moving fast, something that sold 6 months ago might have sold for higher than what it is today. Andrew reminds that if the home can't appraise, it won't sell.

Andrew also shares some Ninja tips for sellers to help them when they are getting their home appraised.

To get more Tampa Bay Real Estate news and advice from Tampa Bay's #1 Realtor, tune in to The Duncan Duo Real Estate Show on 970 WFLA - Tampa Bay every Sundays at 10 am.

Online Home Evaluation Sites like Zillow, Realtor.com can have your home value wrong

There are many Tampa Bay area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here to learn about our “Your Home Sold Guaranteed in 29 Days” program or for a free property valuation so you know what your home can sell for in today’s market. You may also call me at (813) 359-8990 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Andrew Duncan, Tampa Bay's #1 Realtor and expert talks with Arnie and David Diaz of Waterstone Mortgage about online home evaluation sites like Zillow and Realtor.com that a lot of consumers use it to check their home value may not be entirely accurate. While they may be accurate for some parts of Tampa Bay, there are also parts that they are not. It is not really good to rely on the values that they give on these sites.

Zillow can be a great tool and can give you a gauge or a ball park figure of how much your home is worth, But it is not able to take into account the specifics of your home like upgrades, condition and the like. It can give you a general idea of the neighborhood in most cases but like in South Tampa that has so many different kinds of sized homes the values will not be as accurate.

Andrew thinks that they are really good at analyzing the data of appreciation and home values in a given neighborhood but per specific home is where they lack a little bit.

Zillow is a good tool to look at properties. Andrew even shared that they do a lot of advertising on it because of the amount of traffic they get.

If you're in a cookie cutter or newer neighborhood where more or less the houses are the same, the Zestimate would be close within 5% points because again, it's not able to take into account the upgrades, features like a pool, it doesn't know if you're on a busy road, the condition of the home, and other factors.

To get more Tampa Bay Real Estate news and advice from Tampa Bay's #1 Realtor, tune in to The Duncan Duo Real Estate Show on 970 WFLA - Tampa Bay every Sundays at 10 am.

Tampa Bay, Sarasota & Manatee March Real Estate Statistics Recap, Values & Analysis

There are many Tampa Bay area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here to learn about our “Your Home Sold Guaranteed in 29 Days” program or for a free property valuation so you know what your home can sell for in today’s market. You may also call me at (813) 359-8990 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Listen as Andrew Duncan, Tampa Bay's #1 Realtor and expert talks about Tampa and Sarasota Real Estate statistics for March.

The average sale price of homes in Tampa went up about 15% from last year. The 2.9 months of inventory or very little inventory means homes are selling fast especially in the mid-level price range and changes a little bit as you climb the price chart. When you reach the million dollar range, there is still a lot of inventory but ultimately it is a healthy Real Estate market with a lot of great signs and stability.

Sarasota is a bit different because it's more of a vacation market. The peak season is opposite than that of Tampa's. Single family homes in Sarasota County has an average sale price of $356k which increased 17% from last year. Inventory has increased from 4.5 months to 4.7 months. SF homes in Manatee county also rose in price from $330k to $342k and inventory increased from 4.6 to 4.8. The increase in inventory is because this is not their in season. Their in season is from December-February when the snowbirds are down there looking for vacation or second homes. For townhomes and condos in Sarasota, there was also a 17% increase in the average sale price and inventory from 4.6 to 5.4. In Manatee county, the average sale price dropped 3% from 255k to 199k but the inventory went up.

He also talks about the differences between the Tampa and Sarasota markets. He discusses how the million dollar market differs in Tampa and Sarasota where the saturation rate in Sarasota is not as bad as Tampa's market.

To get more Tampa Bay Real Estate news and advice from Tampa Bay's #1 Realtor, tune in to The Duncan Duo Real Estate Show on 970 WFLA - Tampa Bay every Sundays at 10 am.

How Is Your Buying Power Determined in Tampa Bay?

There are many Tampa Bay area homes for sale. Click here to perform a full home search, or if you're thinking of selling your home, click here to learn about our “Your Home Sold Guaranteed in 29 Days” program or for a free property valuation so you know what your home can sell for in today’s market. You may also call me at (813) 359-8990 for a FREE home buying or selling consultation to answer any of your real estate questions.

Today we are going to give you some important information if you’re thinking about buying a home in Tampa Bay. We are going to talk about the four numbers that determine your buying power. You need to pay special attention to each of these numbers, as they could be the difference between you getting the home of your dreams or missing out on it entirely.

1. Credit score

This is one of the first things lenders are going to look at to determine your ability to pay back your loan. You need to know your credit score and have it ready to present to the lender.

2. Down payment

The higher your down payment, the more overall buying power you have, and the more home you can afford.

3. Debt-to-income ratio

You can make a great income, but if it’s all going out the door in payments, it doesn’t mean much and certainly won’t help you get a mortgage. The lower debt you have, the better.

4. Assets

These are things you own and what you owe on them. If you have real estate assets already, lenders are a little more flexible because they know that you have these assets and can use them to pay off your debts if it comes down to it.

If you’re thinking about buying in Tampa Bay, each of these four numbers is crucial to getting the home you want. In the future, we’ll talk about the different loan products, and the down payments and credit scores required for each.

Make sure to check our real estate radio show this Sunday at 10 a.m. on 970 WFLA . Also, check out boltshomevideos.com to check out some of the videos we’ve shot with the Tampa Bay Lightning. We give away one signed hockey stick per month, and you can enter here for your chance to win.

If you have any other questions for us, don’t hesitate to give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you!