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Houses you can’t buy cheap enough

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I work almost exclusively as a buyers agent so I look at a lot of homes. There are times I just walk away shaking my head thinking you can’t buy this house cheap enough. No house is perfect and certainly not the less expensive ones but I sometimes see houses that need a roof, AC, new flooring and the kitchen and baths are outdated as well. One or two updates are to be expected but not all of them ! You often see these homes in 55+ communities where someone buys a home and lives in it for 20 years without ever doing a thing to it. I don’t think much of foreclosures either. Foreclosures come with a Special Warranty Deed which is a limited warranty. I’ve asked people who work at title offices if they would buy a house with a special warranty deed and every single one has said no so far. The moral of this story is that houses are usually cheap for a reason and some you can’t buy cheap enough..

Spruce Creek Preserve home for sale

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white house with tree in front

Spruce Creek Preserve home for sale. This Fir model, built in 1998 has 1,424 sqft of living area and 2244 sqft under the roof. It features newer carpeting, updated appliances, 2 bedrooms, 2 full baths and a 2 car garage. It is in an especially desirable location with no neighbors directly in back. There is a great view of the clubhouse from the Lanai. HOA fees are $117- month that cover trash pick up, use of the clubhouse, pool, fitness center, maintenance of the common areas and professional community management. Golf is not part of the HOA fees. This home is priced at $89,500-

UNDER CONTRACT  Only 57 days on the market !
SOLD

 

Confusion about Ocala 55+ homes

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houses along both sides of a street

I get a lot of buyers asking about Ocala 55+ communities. There seems to be confusion about what these communities are and are not. Ocala 55+ communities are about a lifestyle. They are communities with a clubhouse, community swimming pool or multiple pools, clubs and activities. The homes tend to be on small lots because retired people don’t want a lot of yard work. They are all located in areas where shopping, dining and medical care is close by. All of which is funded through HOA fees.

The 55+ communities are not just single family homes with big yards and a back yard swimming pool in a neighborhood with age restrictions. The closest thing we have to a 55+ community with big yards and age restrictions is Marco Polo Village. Close but with smaller 1/4 acre lots is Quail Meadow. If you write me about either of these communities be aware that they are both small with only a few resales a any given time.

Newer Ocala area homes

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I constantly get buyers looking for newer homes. The market crashed here in 2007. This is the Great Recession. There has been very little building here since the crash. Why you ask? Resales are priced below what it costs to build new. So far below that builders can’t compete. Land has gone down in price but no new large scale planned communities have been started since 07. Building materials aren’t much cheaper. Most sub contractors have gone bankrupt or cut back to much smaller companies.  A couple of retirement communities that were started before 07 are building but not much else. New home building won’t get going again until prices go up. It’s just a matter of economics.

Ocala and Marion County Florida deed restrictions

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I get a lot of questions about deed restrictions here in Ocala and Marion county. Deed restrictions are public records. This blog post will show you how to find deed restrictions here in Marion County.

1. Go to the Marion County Clerk of the Courts web site.

2. In the lower right under Records click on Official Records Search

3. On the right click Search Records Now a blue box

4. At bottom of the page use Legacy Web Search

5. Enter party name. You have to get the name exact

6. Under restrict document type by code enter RES which is restrictions and covenants

Deed restrictions can be hard to read. Some were written before computers and are old typed documents that were poorly scanned. Larger older communities can have 100’s of pages mostly of very minor revisions. Typically you will find the important stuff in the largest document.

Yes, you have to be 55 to buy in an Ocala 55+ community

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I always get this question even though you’d think it’s self-explanatory. Do you have to be 55+ to live in an Ocala 55+ community? At least one person on the deed has to be 55.  HOA’s require proof of age in the form of a driver’s license. Some also make you sign an affidavit to that effect. This is true of every Ocala/Marion County retirement community.

Ocala retirement homes with a view

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I always have buyers looking for a retirement home and an item high on their wish list is a nice view.  Most retirement communities are laid out with parallel streets and the homes are back to back. This is especially true of newer communities. If you think about it this makes a lot of sense. The builder gets a maximum number of homes on his land.

There are options for what you’ll see in back of a 55+ home.

1. A house right behind you, which is by far the most common.

2. A house right behind you screened by a buffer of trees or shrubs. In this case you’ll still see you neighbor to some extent

3. A view of woods. You find this in a home located on the outside perimeter of a community.

4. A golf course view. This is a premium lot that adds a great deal to the price of a new home but you do find deals on resales.

Some of your best bets for finding a home with out another home directly in back of you are Oak Run and Ocala Palms. Oak Run isn’t laid out with parallel streets. It is divided into neighborhoods and a lot of homes face a buffer between these neighborhoods. Ocala Palms was set out to maximize the number of golf course lots. There are great prices on homes with golf course frontage in Ocala Palms.

If you’re interested in Ocala 55+ retirement homes then either call me, email me or better yet use my Ocala Dream Home Finder.

 

There’s more to buying a house than just a low price

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Here in Ocala we have the lowest median home prices in Florida. We have foreclosures, estate sales and even great prices on traditional sales. I mostly work with buyers and I’ve seen 100’s of such homes.  I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a big mistake to concentrate on just the price. Buyers don’t think enough about condition.

I think the big 4 are the age of the roof, the AC heat pump unit,  the flooring and the kitchen appliances. When looking at newer foreclosures I’d add landscaping to this list.

The roof. Standard shingles here last about 15 years. Some insurance companies won’t insure a house with a standard shingle roof over 15 years old. Architectural shingles are good for 20 years or so.  The heat of our summers give a roof a real beating.

The AC unit, which in most cases is a heat pump, is harder to judge. An AC guy told me that they can break in 5 years and I’ve seen them 20 years old.

Flooring is really taken for granted. To carpet an entire house, as can be the case in an estate sale or even a newer foreclosure, can cost as much as a roof. For some reason buyers who would walk away from a house with a bad roof will have no problem replacing flooring. Flooring prices vary a lot from builder quality carpet to tile and wood floors.

Kitchen appliances can be 20 years old in an estate sale and missing altogether in many foreclosures. Here again there is a big difference in price between builder quality and top of the line. I do think appliances are at the bottom of the list price wise though.

Landscaping is often totally absent in foreclosures. No shrubs or trees, dead sod in the front of the home and a back yard that never had grass in the first place because builders here for some reason give an amount of sod that won’t cover the whole yard. You don’t over seed a bad lawn here. You rip out the old sod and lay down new sod.  Mature trees and shrubs won’t add anything to an appraisal. However I owned a landscape company and I can tell you an extensive landscape job on the house in an empty field can cost as much as all the four items above combined! Curb appeal is what makes a house a home.

Am I trying to sell more expensive houses? No I just believe too many people are “Penny wise and pound foolish”. I’ve walked out of what at first appeared to be low priced homes and said to my buyers that they couldn’t buy that house cheap enough to make up for all the work it needed.

What to look for in an Ocala area home.

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I work with a lot of first time buyers and out of state buyers and as we look at homes I try and point out things that make one house better than others. Here are some things that I think make for a quality home here in Ocala.

CBS or concrete block and stucco construction. Everything else is considered inferior do to the termites. CBS homes can get termites because there is wood framing in the walls and roof but CBS is considered the best material and commands a higher price than frame house. Read more

Ocala Property Taxes

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Property taxes in Ocala, as in the rest of Florida, are pretty confusing. A lot has to do with the Save Our Homes initiative, also know in real estate as amendment 10. Save Our Homes was supposed to keep seniors from getting taxed out of their homes by capping tax increases on homestead properties by 3% or the rate of inflation, which ever is lower.

The problem with amendment 1o is that you can buy the exact same house as the guy across the street, who has been there for 10 years, and pay twice the taxes that he does. Another example of politicians helping one group at the expense of another.

Now that property values have dropped like a stone here in Florida a new issue has come up with Save Our Homes.  This is called the recapture rule. The recapture rule states that tax assessors must increase the assessed value of a house by up to 3% as long as that it  is less than the homes market value.  This is why most peoples taxes are not going down even though their homes value has gone down.

Now here’s some home work. Below are 2 great links. One is to the Marion County property appraiser. Read the FAQ and check out the tax estimator. If you live in Florida read the portability calculator because you can bring your Save Our Home exemption with you to a new house. The other link is to an article from the Ocala Star Banner which has a detailed explanation about why taxes aren’t going down.

Marion County Property Appraiser

Ocala Star Banner

If you buy a foreclosure or short sale in the Ocala area it is important to understand that you will be assessed at market value and not the amount you paid for your house.

Finally, when you see the taxes on a real estate listing be aware that it is not the amount that you will be paying. Taxes adjust every time a house is sold.