How to find and buy a house in the Ocala Marion county Florida area including 55+ retirement homes, golf course homes, short sales and foreclosures.

Reasonable Expectations in Home Buying

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I had a buyer recently who thought a home that was built in 2004 needed a new air conditioner even though it was in working condition. My buyer thought that she should deduct from the list price the cost of a new AC along with a laundry list of renovations that she needed to make the house more to her liking in determining her offer. Not only did she want a new AC but the most expensive Trane model made. I thought the home was in pretty pristine condition and it is normal for a home that age to have an original AC unit. I showed her sold comps from the past 3 months to determine fair market value. Homes in that community consistently sold for $5K to $10K off list price. The home we were looking at was priced right. Her offer based on her needed upgrades was $20K off list price. Needless to say the seller thought she was crazy and we were unable to make a deal. I’m telling this story for a couple of reasons. If the list price of a house is correct it already takes into account the age of the home and the community where it is located. You can’t just ignore sold comparables and make up an offer based on nothing other than your personal opinion.

A few things to know about making an offer on an Ocala Home

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I recently read an article on making an offer on a home so I’m making my own version specifically for Ocala Florida. A few of these items are in regard to multiple offers which I have seen a couple of times recently.

1. Sellers do not have to accept the first offer. The seller can also reject or not respond to an offer they think is too low or has too many contingencies.

2. A seller and their listing agent do not have to disclose that they have multiple offers.

3. A seller does not have to accept a full price offer. However if a seller does turn down a full price offer the seller owes the listing broker a full commission seeing that the broker fulfilled their obligation under the listing contract with the seller.

4. Verbal, text and emailed counter offers are not considered a contract until both parties sign the actual contract form. Until both parties sign either can change their minds.

5. A buyer that has a signed fully executed contract cannot just change their mind. If you do you will be in breach of that contract. There is no so called cooling off period in Florida for residential homes.

6. If a buyer makes an offer and the seller accepts that offer you have a fully executed contract. That is why you can only make one offer at a time or you could find yourself in contract for multiple homes.

The above statements are based on my experience as a Florida Realtor and should not be considered legal advice. If you need legal advice call a lawyer.

Why you need a Realtor to help with new home sales

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The new home market is just beginning to pick up here in Ocala. When the market crashed in 2007 prices for resales fell so far below the cost to build new homes most building came to a stop. Only now, 8 years later, are builders having the confidence to start building again.

The reasons to have a Realtor work with you on a new home sale are many.

1) You want to see newer resales as well as new homes. Many newer resales still offer better prices or more upgrades or a premium lot. Many new home buyers want to see resales to be sure that they aren’t over paying for their new home.

2) You realize that the new home sales people are employees of the builder. A Realtor especially one that specializes in buyers has no allegiance to anyone but the buyer and will show you multiple communities telling you the pluses and negatives of each.

3) You want to see comparable sales before making an offer on your new home. Builders sales people won’t help you here. They would also like to pretend that resales in their same community don’t count.

4) You don’t feel comfortable negotiating. A Realtor negotiates for a living. Although builders don’t like to drop the price because it creates a low comp on their new home sales they do negotiate upgrades.

WARNING: builders are notorious for harvesting your contact info. If you call them, email them, request a brochure, you are added to their data base. Forever! That means they will not want to pay a Realtor a commission. Among ourselves, Realtors think who ever writes the offer gets the commission even if you talked to the listing agent previously. Builders operate by a different set of rules.

 

How to move long distance …..step one pick a city

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The first step in moving long distance is to pick a city. It doesn’t matter what the houses are like if you don’t like the area or the area doesn’t have the things that are important to you. Everyone is different. What is important to me might not even be on the radar for you.

I just spent time with a guy who decided not to buy in Ocala. His reason was that he only ate organic food and there wasn’t enough in the way of organic markets here. A quick internet search or asking me could have saved us both a lot of time.

After a thorough internet search and maybe exchanging emails with someone local like a realtor such as myself you should visit the city. Don’t bother looking at homes just spend a day or 2 traveling around the area. You could hit a few cities in a week or so. Buying a home is a huge investment. You should expect to do a lot of home work. The internet is just a start. There is no substitute for real life in person interaction.

Online Home Values

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Sometimes buyers talk about a home’s value based on some sort of online tool like Zillow. Realtors do not look at online sites for home values. That is just a data base compiled from public records without any sort of interpretation. Think of it like this. There are 2 homes in the same community. They are the same size, same number of bedrooms ect. even the same age let’s say 1997. One has never had a single thing done to it. Original everything. The other has a new roof, AC and flooring. Online valuations have no way of knowing that.

When doing a CMA, a comparative market analysis, a Realtor looks at past sales on the MLS for condition. Out MLS retains sold listings complete with all pictures going back several years. We look at homes within certain parameters for size and age and we look at only recent sales. I like to only go back 90 days if at all possible. The price a home sold for last year is not a good comp especially in a constantly changing market. Buying a home is a huge purchase and you need the latest and best data you can get.

 

Why I moved to Ocala

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swimming pool under a screen cage

My pool

When I’m driving around with buyers the conversation always turns to why I moved to Ocala. The defining moment occurred in the winter of 2004. I lived in the western mountains of Maine at the time in a log cabin in the middle of no where. I had a 600 foot driveway and I owned a 30 hp Kubota tractor with a front end loader and a 6′ snowblower on the rear. I was snow blowing the driveway and my wife was shoveling the walk. We had a metal roof on our house and all the snow let go at once burying her. Between crying and swearing like a sailor she said this was our last winter in Maine. I was all for moving. We decided we wanted to go some place it never snowed and there was no ice. That actually eliminates a lot of America. We then decided we’d rather have a lush tropical humid climate as opposed to the desert of the South West. Even in 2004 we were able to do a lot of research online. We liked Ocala because of the low home prices and we thought it was the least likely city in Florida to get hit by a hurricane. We grew up in Mass and lived in Maine for 11 years. Both states have no natural disasters unless you count ice storms. We came to Ocala thinking about a small farm but then we saw pool homes with a pool under a screen cage just off the lanai. That was totally new to us and we loved the lifestyle. We weren’t old enough for a 55+ at the time and I don’t think we would fit in even now. My dog you see on my website would get us thrown out ! Any way that’s my story.

Buying a Home in Ocala contingent on Selling an Existing Home

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Sellers here in the Ocala area will often accept an offer contingent on the successful closing of a buyer’s existing home. The buyers home must be under contract with a reasonable closing time of say 30-60 days.

Florida real estate contracts have firm performance dead lines. When negotiating a contract the buyer and seller agree on a closing date. In general we expect to close on the agreed on date.

A problem can result if the buyer is from a state without a firm closing date such as New York. In NY for example they close on or about a given date. I have no idea how people can plan their next move or schedule movers or anything that way. On 3 separate occasions I have had buyers from NY who were not able to close on time here in Florida due to some delay with their existing home sale.

Real Estate from the Seller’s Point of View

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I occasionally take listings but the majority of my real estate work is in representing buyers. When working with buyers a lot are sellers at the same time usually in some other part of the country. In the Ocala area buyers often will make an offer contingent on the successful sale of their existing home which would have to be already under contract. Looking at buyers contracts I’m struck by several things.

1. People will accept offers with really low escrow or good faith deposits. There are plenty of people who can afford to walk away from a $1,000-  if they really want to but not many will walk away from $5,000-. Having said that I often write offers with a low escrow deposit and I’m surprised how seldom the seller counters.

2. Don’t seller’s look at their buyers ability to buy their home ? If a buyer makes you an offer with no money down and wants you to pay closing costs isn’t that a weak offer ? As opposed to cash for 30% down for example.

3. Pre approved. You know that doesn’t mean the buyer is 100%  guaranteed to get a loan right ? In some cases this just means a lender asks some questions about their finances. A seller might want to ask if the lender looked at bank statements, tax returns ect. It is the underwriters who approve loans not the banker or mortgage person who initially interviews the buyer. Underwriters are extremely tough these days and do not rubber stamp loans !

4. Some lenders are notorious for not closing on time. This can be a big problem if you are trying to sell one house and buy another at the same time.

These are just a few thoughts about selling your house. They are all things an experienced Realtor should be bringing up before you get an offer.

Why you should always do your own inspection

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My buyer found a house they liked and it seemed odd that the seller had only lived there a month or so. Apparently she regretted her purchase and wanted to go back home. After accepting my buyers offer the seller’s agent offered my buyers the inspection that the seller had just had done several weeks ago. I cautioned about using an existing inspection. Sure enough one of the inspectors I like found several problems that the first inspector missed. Pretty obvious things like leaky faucets, a frozen valve on the hot water heater. Nothing serious but the seller was required to make those repairs under the Florida real estate contract that we used. All things the previous seller should have repaired.

Another time my buyer walked away from a deal because the AC was shot. We knew it was old and had an AC tech do an inspection in addition to the home inspection. Someone had rigged the AC so it wouldn’t blow out freon ! The listing agent gave my buyers inspection to the next buyer never knowing the results of the independent AC inspection.

So there you go. Never trust an inspection that you didn’t order and pay for.

Some things just don’t exist

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I deal mostly with out of state buyers. Sometimes people are looking for things that either don’t exist or are extremely rare.

Pool homes in 55+ communities are a good example. There are some but 99% of 55+ homes don’t have a private pool. Why have a pool to maintain when you are paying HOA fees for a community pool ?

Same goes for “I want a 55+ home on a huge lot with no or very low HOA fees” Retirement homes are on small lots because most people don’t want yard work anymore. Retirement communities are also about a lifestyle and not just age restrictions.

Yet another home type I get asked about all the time are farms under $100,000-. I guess if an old mobile home on an acre with Ag zoning is your idea of a farm then they do exist. We have some inexpensive homes here on standard sized lots but farms are not that cheap.

I think people get an image in their mind of their ideal home before knowing an area and what to expect. I see my job as being just as much about educating buyers as just showing them houses.