Real Estate Information Archive

In the Central Florida area in the month of February 2011

Inventory was  13,480
Unit Sales 2,085
Pending Sales 9,233
Average Days on Market 99
Average Sales Price vs. Original List Price: 94.47%
The current pace of sales translates into 6.47 months of supply; January 2010 recorded 8.14 months of supply.

Months of inventory is used as an analytical tool in determining who holds the power in negotiations. Months of Inventory = # homes for sale/# homes sold
Supply and Demand
Months of Inventory <4 = Sellers Market
Months of Inventory =4 = Flat Market
Months of Inventory >4 = Buyers Market

With 8.14 months of supply we are currently in a Buyers Market.
This number is determined by examining at the rate of which homes are selling today, how many months would it take for all homes currently available for sale to be sold if there were no more homes to enter the market.

Median Sales Price in Central Florida:
Normal Sale $155,000
Short sales $98,000
Bank-owned $74,000

First-time homebuyer affordability in February decreased to 195.23 percent since January 2011.

In Seminole County Sales were: 16.88 percent above February 2010

The Orlando Condo Inventory is now 43.40 percent lower than it was in February 2010

For further information on affordability of the current Real estate market, follow the link to find out about our monthly Home Buyer Seminar and attend a no cost, no obligation educational event.

Contact Erna and Petur Sigurdsson, Realtors at The Viking Team, Realty at 321-263-5096 for help buying or selling a home in Longwood, Lake Mary, Altamonte Springs, Sanford, Seminole and Orange County and the surrounding areas of Central Florida. To Search For Homes For Sale in Central Florida Click Here. 

When you buy a home that comes with a septic tank that also means that you have the added responsibility of taking care of that septic tank. Whether you like it or not, every few years that septic tank will have to be pumped out.  There is a reason why you see so many ads on TV about septic companies and products to take care of it. All too often, homeowners will postpone, procrastinate or just plain ole forget to have the septic system checked and pumped out.

The septic system something that is so easy to forget about, it sits there, out of sight, out of mind, taking your unwanted waste and processing it. It sits in the yard under a tuft of grass. So how do you make sure that you don’t run into problems with it?

My suggestion is to set up a schedule on a calendar, most cell phones now a days have one, you might also have one through Outlook, Gmail or any calendar that you use. Consult your local septic company about how often your tank needs to be pumped, most will come out for free to inspect it and give you a quote for what needs to be done, so ask them while they are there how often it needs to be maintained and put that into your calendar. Usually it ranges from 2 to 5 years, this depends on how large your septic tank is, how many people are using it and what goes into the septic tank for example if you have a garbage disposal all the food you put into it will go into the tank. Use a septic tank treatment and a cleaner every so often to keep the septic tank flowing and to avoid clogs.

Garbage disposals add about 50% of the solids in your septic tank and frequently lead to malfunctions, you should never put any oils or grease in the garbage disposal and if you want to be environmentally friendly, you can start composting instead of using the garbage disposal.

With proper care your septic tank will cost you less in the long term than using city sewer, however, when your septic tank is neglected, it will get very costly. If your septic tank starts backing up and overflowing it can run you thousands of dollars to clean it out and pump it.

Seminole County Health Department has a comprehensive list of Do's and Don't for Septic Systems.

Contact Erna and Petur Sigurdsson, Realtors at The Viking Team, Realty at 321-263-5096 for help buying or selling a home in Longwood, Lake Mary, Altamonte Springs, Sanford, Seminole and Orange County and the surrounding areas of Central Florida. To Search For Homes For Sale in Central Florida Click Here. 

Photo courtesy of Cubedude27

By Lake Monroe in Sanford is the Central Florida Zoo. This zoo is a fun way to get out of the house and spend some time with family, friends and loved ones. The Central Florida Zoo has added several attractions other than the various animals, reptiles and birds that you will find at most zoo's. These attractions are The Wharton-Smith Tropical Splash Grounds, ZOOm Air Adventur Park and Battlefield Live Orlando Laser Tag. You will also find the little Florida Coastline Railroad, a carousel, a petting zoo area, keeper chats and educational classes at the zoo.

One thing you do not want to miss out is the Butterfly garden. Yes, you read that right, the butterfly garden. It does not take long to walk through it, but it is an experience that will relax you and stun you with beauty. When you walk through the garden, you will see a variety of beautiful flowers and foliage, then you will smell the different flowers as you walk. Around the flowers and foliage fly many different species of butterflies, of different shapes and colors. It is a very neat experience. Enjoy the simple things of life.

For children, the petting zoo, named Animal Adventure Children Zoo, inside of the Central Florida Zoo is a must. Inside the gift shop you can make a donation of a dollar to get a cup of animal food and then go pet and feed the animals they have there, including, Zebu, Llama, Barbados Sheep, Boer Goats and Domestic Turkey.

We suggest taking a trip to The Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens in Seminole County and follow it up with a cruise on the St. John's River with The Rivership Romance.

Contact Erna and Petur Sigurdsson, Realtors at The Viking Team, Realty at 321-263-5096 for help buying or selling a home in Longwood, Lake Mary, Altamonte Springs, Sanford, Seminole and Orange County and the surrounding areas of Central Florida. To Search For Homes For Sale in Central Florida Click Here. 

Since the recession, we have seen many people having problems with their credit. Having good credit is important to buy a car, rent or buy a house, getting credit cards and having low interest rates. But how do you get good credit?

It takes time to build up good credit, have patience because you will not see your credit score jump quickly. By having a steady income and paying your bills on time, your credit will improve over time.

The following steps will assist you with being educated and knowing how to protect yourself from scams.

1. Check www.annualcreditreport.com to see what is on your credit report. This is a free service and you can view all three credit reporting agencies reports at the same time once every twelve months, or you can check on one every four months to continually track what is in your credit report.
2. Avoid credit repair scams. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a web-site dedicated to how to avoid scams and what to do if there is something incorrectly reported on your credit.
3. Be educated. Understand your rights and how to make educated decisons about your credit. FTC Credit & Loan.
4. Make a budget and stick to it. By planning ahead you can anticipate expenses and start saving up for emergencies.
5. Monitor your credit score. There are some credit cards that offer this with their cards as a free service or there are ways to buy access to your score. We know of one web-site, creditkarma.com that gives you an estimate of your credit score based on what is in your credit report for free. The one drawback about this site is that it is full of advertisements.  

Just remember, good credit takes time and doesn't happen overnight, but with conscientious effort and planning ahead, it will come.

When you are ready to buy a home or have questions about how to buy a home, give us a call. We would be happy to discuss with you your goals and how to make your goals a reality.

Contact Erna and Petur Sigurdsson, Realtors at The Viking Team, Realty at 321-263-5096 for help buying or selling a home in Longwood, Lake Mary, Altamonte Springs, Sanford, Seminole and Orange County and the surrounding areas of Central Florida. To Search For Homes For Sale in Central Florida Click Here. 

We understand that moving is a very complex process, because there are many things to think about when you move we have made a simple checklist with links to help you make the process a little easier on you for your move to Seminole County, Florida.

• Find a Place to Live
• Order a Moving Truck - U-Haul - Budget Truck Rental - Penske
• Order Moving Boxes - Bungo Box, a Central Florida Business
• Get a New Driver's License
• Register Auto Tag & Title
• Set up Electricity Service
• Set up Water and Sewer System
• Set up Phone Service
• Set up Cable Service
• Register your Pets
• Register to Vote
• Find nearest Bank Branch or a new bank
• Apply for Homestead Exemption
• Search for a Job
• Apply for a Business Tax Receipt (Formerly Occupational License)
• Sign up for Newspaper Service
• Register Your Children for School
• Notify the US Post office of an address change

When you buy a home ask us about The Viking Team, Realty "House Warming Party".

"There is no place like home" -Judy Garland (The Wizard of Oz)

Contact Erna and Petur Sigurdsson, Realtors at The Viking Team, Realty at 321-263-5096 for help buying or selling a home in Longwood, Lake Mary, Altamonte Springs, Sanford, Seminole and Orange County and the surrounding areas of Central Florida. To Search For Homes For Sale in Central Florida Click Here. 

Many tenants have questions when they find out that the home that they are renting is in foreclosure. With so many foreclosures out there, I wanted to take a moment and address the most common questions that I recieve from tenants.

  Q: If the home is foreclosed on, do I need to move out immediately or will I be evicted by the bank?

  A: No, as long as you have a written lease with the former owner the bank has to honor that contract when they foreclose on the property. It is possible that the bank may negotiate with you for an early termination, but you do not have to move any sooner than what your lease says as long as you continue to make payments.

  Q: I just found out that the owner of the property I am living in has stopped paying their mortgage. Do I still have to continue making rent payments if the owner is not paying for his mortgage?

  A: Yes, if you do not pay rent your landlord may file for an eviction.

  Q: The Home Owners Association has started demanding that I pay them the home owners dues my landlord should have been paying, can they do that?

  A: Yes, in 2010 new laws were put in place that allow HOA's to collect from tenants when the owner fails to pay the dues. They cannot charge you more than your monthly rent payment and the remainder of the rent still has to be paid to the owner.

If you would like to ask a question, feel free to post it in the comment section or e-mail Erna Sigurdsson, Realtor at Erna@TheVikingTeam.com

This blog is not intended to give legal advice and if you feel that you have a situation that requires legal advice, please seek the assistance of a qualified lawyer.

Contact Erna and Petur Sigurdsson, Realtors at The Viking Team, Realty at 321-263-5096 for help buying or selling a home in Longwood, Lake Mary, Altamonte Springs, Sanford, Seminole and Orange County and the surrounding areas of Central Florida. To Search For Homes For Sale in Central Florida Click Here. 

Longwood Plantation

A quiet subdivision located off of Ronald Reagan Blvd in Longwood, FL. This neighborhood was built by Centex Homes in 1997-1999, there are 94 homes in the neighborhood, with a neighborhood dock to East Lake, there is a playground area that is appropriate for children 6 to 12 years old that also serves as a gathering area for events such as the Easter Egg hunt, HOA BBQ's and the monthly movie nights.

The homes built in this neighborhood are either one story or two story homes, ranging from 1,687 sq. ft. homes to 3,524 sq. ft. homes which are anywhere from 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms to 6 bedrooms with 4 bathrooms, built with block and stucco with shingle roofs, all the homes in the neighborhood were built in the same time period with one builder which means all the homes are in the same style. There are 3 streets in Longwood Plantation, those are Freeman Street, Balogh Place and Kaiser Lane. Longwood Plantation was an actual Plantation before and the building at the entrance of the neighborhood that now serves as the legal aid office used to be where the Plantation owners home used to sit.

Longwood Plantation has several events that happen throughout the year, during the holiday season the neighborhood gets together and puts up luminaries that light up the sidewalks and people go for a walk to meet the neighbors and some neighbors offer egg nog and apple cider for their neighbors. At Easter the HOA puts on an Easter Egg hunt at the playground and every so often there is a community garage sale where those who wish to participate can have a garage sale with their neighbors.

Please visit the Longwood Plantation HOA web-site for the most up to date information about the neighborhood.

If you are interested in Buying a Longwood Home, fill in the form and we will e-mail you Longwood, FL listings as soon as they enter the market.

Contact Erna and Petur Sigurdsson, Realtors at The Viking Team, Realty at 321-263-5096 for help buying or selling a home in Longwood, Lake Mary, Altamonte Springs, Sanford, Seminole and Orange County and the surrounding areas of Central Florida. To Search For Homes For Sale in Central Florida Click Here. 

Recently the Orlando Regional Realtor Association reported that Bank-owned and short-sale properties account for a record 75% of home sales. (February 14, 2011) This is no surprise to us that live and breath the market. After the Real estate bubble burst more and more homeowners have become distressed and the real estate market has been saturated with distressed sales.
However in 2010 only 8% of home buyers bought a home in foreclosure. This is because foreclosures are in much worse condition than the short sales and normal sales and a lot of work has to be done to the property before it can be used as a home again. This actually presents a great opportunity for investors. It is difficult for home buyers to buy these homes because usually home buyers need a mortgage and when you are buying a foreclosure it may not even reach the minimum for the home buyer to get a mortgage on the property. When you find a foreclosure that is selling for $30,000, mortgage companies will not finance that purchase.

Case Study: We helped an investor purchase a property in Sanford in Seminole County, Florida

This property was a Fannie Mae property, it was 5 Bedrooms, 2 Bathrooms, 1,400 sq. ft. heated. The investor bought the property for $42,900, after inspection and closing costs it was $45,000 to buy the property. This 2003 home had not been lived in for 2 years prior to the sale, with no A/C running inside the home humidity started building up inside, this lead the cabinets being ruined because they had become warped. The A/C unit outside was missing as well as the inside unit had been stripped, doors were missing, the thermostat had been ripped off the wall, the waterheater did not work and all the appliances had been trashed.

This is exactly the kind of property that the investor was looking for!

The cost of restoring this property was almost $10,000.

Once the property was ready, it was rented out immediately. We had found tenants for this property while it was still being fixed up.

This particular investor will have made back his investment in 6.5 years, in that time the property will also have appreciated.

These photos show the before and after of the Kitchen remodel on this Sanford property. For more photos of this investment project visit our Facebook page.

Contact Erna and Petur Sigurdsson, Realtors at The Viking Team, Realty at 321-263-5096 for help buying or selling a home in Longwood, Lake Mary, Altamonte Springs, Sanford, Seminole and Orange County and the surrounding areas of Central Florida. To Search For Homes For Sale in Central Florida Click Here. 

I hear people frequently now a days talking about the fact that they bought their home a few years ago during the housing boom and now they owe more on it than it is worth. This is the message that first time home buyers are hearing. Buyers are afraid that the same thing will happen to them when they buy a house.

During the housing bubble when the homes would come on the market and have several offers on it in one day, no one was predicting the kind of backlash this would have on the market. It was the time to buy and that was everyones focus. The mortgage companies laxed their standards, allowing more people to buy a home and many people that should not have been allowed to buy were buying homes that they could not afford.

Now that we have gone through a recession, banks have failed because of the mortgage crisis, people are struggling with their mortgage payments and homeowners are finding it hard to swallow that the beautiful home that they bought a few years ago is now under water on the mortgage, we need to step back and think of the long term. Your home is not just a monetary investment, it is an investment in your family and for the long term. There needs to be a shift in thinking, people need to start thinking of their homes as their homes again and stop focusing on how much they have lost in equity, if this truly is a long term investment the equity will build up again.

If you are a buyer and you are working with a team of professionals, then you will be able to find the home that you want and within your budget. Try to find out why you really want to buy. Is it to build equity, because you want your kids to be growing up in a stable environment, because you are tired of giving your landlord a big rent check every month or some other reason. Once you have figured out the why, then work on the how. When you are ready to start looking for homes, you can sign up for a daily e-mail alert of Homes for Sale with up to date information on the latest Real estate listings fitting your search criteria. 

Erna Sigurdsson offers a Free Home Buyer Seminar for Central Florida buyers, this is a no-obligation, no-cost educational seminar perfect for buyers looking to buy within a year and even for those looking to buy sometime in the future, but need guidance about how to build your credit towards a home purchase.

Contact Erna and Petur Sigurdsson, Realtors at The Viking Team, Realty at 321-263-5096 for help buying or selling a home in Longwood, Lake Mary, Altamonte Springs, Sanford, Seminole and Orange County and the surrounding areas of Central Florida. To Search For Homes For Sale in Central Florida Click Here. 

In the Central Florida area in the month of January 2011

Inventory was  14,398
Unit Sales 1,950
Pending Sales 8,777
Average Days on Market 96
Average Sales Price vs. Original List Price: 90%
The current pace of sales translates into 7.38 months of supply; January 2010 recorded 8.74 months of supply.

Months of inventory is used as an analytical tool in determining who holds the power in negotiations. Months of Inventory = # homes for sale/# homes sold
Supply and Demand
Months of Inventory <4 = Sellers Market
Months of Inventory =4 = Flat Market
Months of Inventory >4 = Buyers Market

With 7.38 months of supply we are currently in a Buyers Market.
This number is determined by examining at the rate of which homes are selling today, how many months would it take for all homes currently available for sale to be sold if there were no more homes to enter the market.

Median Sales Price in Central Florida:
Normal Sale $145,000
Short sales $94,500
Bank-owned $75,000

First-time homebuyer affordability in January increased to 197.98 percent since December 2010.
First-time buyers who earn the reported median income of $36,383 can qualify to purchase one of 6,193 homes in Orange and Seminole counties currently listed in the local multiple listing service for $159,783 or less.

For further information on affordability of the current Real estate market, follow the link to find out about our monthly Home Buyer Seminars and attend a no cost, no obligation educational event.

In Longwood East (zip code 32750) 19 homes were sold in January 2011, the average price was $129,482, 4 of those sales were bank owned and 4 were short sales.

In Longwood West (zip code 32779) 20 homes were sold in January 2011, the average price was $228,523, 9 of those sales were bank owned and 6 were short sales.

Contact Erna and Petur Sigurdsson, Realtors at The Viking Team, Realty at 321-263-5096 for help buying or selling a home in Longwood, Lake Mary, Altamonte Springs, Sanford, Seminole and Orange County and the surrounding areas of Central Florida. To Search For Homes For Sale in Central Florida Click Here.