In The Gardens

Community Pool in Blues Creek

There are 9 homes for sale now. They range in heated and cooled space between 1207 and 1792 square feet. Their ages are 1996 to 2005. The sellers are asking between $118.000 to $154,900. Their average days on the market is 200.

click here to see the Garden Homes for sale

There are two homes that are waiting to close ranging in square foot from 1326 to 1380. Their ages are 2000 and 2003. They were asking $110,000 and $123,000. Thea average time spent on the market before going under contract was 132 days.

There were 2 homes that closed this year in the Gardens. They were 1207 and 1545 square feet heated and cooled. Their ages were 2001 and 2004. Their close out price was $94,900 and $139,900.

That means there is over a two-year inventory of homes in The Gardens.

In Blues Creek Proper

The regular larger homes had about the same amount of activity.

There are 4 listed for sale. They range in square footage from 2147 to 2829. Their ages range from 1992 to 2007. Their asking prices are $215,000 to $325,000. Average days sitting so far on the market is 332.

Click here to see the Homes for Sale

There are two homes waiting to close. They are built between 1994 and 1997 with square footage ranging from 2556 to 2933. They are asking $239,000 to $274,900. Average days on the market was 334.

There were three that closed since January 1, 2011 ranging in age from 1993 to 1999. The heated and cooled areas were 2239 to 3024. They closed out at $210,000 to $315,000. Their average days on the market were 107.

There is about a year’s worth of inventory in Blues Creek at the moment.

A photo from last month's meeting - our induction to the group! (Bonnie Seide, Kathleen Seide, and Adam Bolton)

Great Food

The monthly membership meeting for the Builder’s Association of North Central Florida was held today.  As usual the Best Western Gateway Grand provided great food and wonderful service!

Adam Bolton started the meeting off with his soon-to-be-infamous jokes, and we got down to business.

State of Alachua County

County Manager, Mr. Reid

Randy Reid, County Manager, Alachua County Commission, was our main speaker this month.  Mr Reid give a State of the County Address, which is in constant flux along with the rest of the economy.  As things stand now the county is looking at an 8% reduction in revenue for 2010, which is more painful when we consider that revenues have been dropping consistantly for several years now.

We are coming to a difficult point in our local government – how do we balance our budget?  There is an option of combining services where the city and county overlap, but cost savings that result are questionable in many cases. Smaller cities in Alachua are having serious problems providing fire or police services and may ask the county to take over those services.

Keynote Speaker: County Manager, Mr. Reid

Alternative Futures

There isn’t much more fat that we can trim away from the budget, because the last few years have already seen reductions in hiring staff as well as other methods of lowering costs by attrition.  The citizens of Alachua County will have a few options – we can look hard and long at what services we think are most important and cut funding to the rest, or we can allow the Commission to increase our property taxes to pay Alachua County’s bills.

I know it will be painful to reduce or eliminate funding for many of our programs & services, but considering the financial pain that many of our citizens are feeling I can’t see causing more by increasing property taxes.

Public Meetings

Mr. Reid mentioned that his office is holding public meetings to talk about funding and where it should go, to get an understanding of what the people of Alachua County want to do with our money.  I would suggest attending one of the meetings, so that we all can understand how our money is being spent and so we can have a voice in where it should be spent in the future.

I have emailed Mr. Reid asking for information about the meetings and will post more info, and hopefully dates, when I hear back from him!

Information on the County Budgets and the County Manager’s office:

The County Manager’s Blog - Mr. Reid hasn’t added anything new here for a while, but it is an interesting way to learn about the man and his perspectives.

Community Update Newsletter – published by the Communications Office & intended to keep citizens in the know about the business and events of the County and the Board of County Commissioners.

First, you need to define what your goals are. It is important to take a few moments to organize your thoughts and write them down. Usually the first question that needs to be answered is ‘Why do I want to sell my home”. There are many different conditions that can cause you to sell, and each one affects your timeline in a different way. For example, if you have a contract on another home you may have a concrete ideal sale date. If this is a second home and/or the mortgage is paid off you may have a more flexible ideal sale date.

Next you would want to consider your situation if the home doesn’t sell by your ideal sale date. If you are leaving the area you may need to hire lawn maintenance or cleaning companies; if you are purchasing another home you may have two mortgage payments. Consider what issues you may have, and how you would deal with them. The answer to these questions will tell you a lot about pricing your home and how early you should put your home on the market.

Once you have an accurate understanding of your goals you should talk to your Realtor® to discuss marketing times for your area. Once under contract most sales close +/- 30 days, but you need to know how long it may take to get a contract on a home in your area. Your Realtor® has access to information about marketing timeframes in your area, how many homes are being sold, and what the sale prices are. Once familiar with your home any Realtor® with expertise in your area can explain where your home fits into the area averages. After this conversation you should feel confident about when to list your home to best meet your needs.

Lastly, you should ask yourself what you would do if your home sells right away. Some sellers ‘beat the average’ and receive an acceptable offer in the first few days. Understand that you have control over which offers you accept or decline and the details of them, so you are not trapped. However, it is a good exercise to consider such a situation and whether you would be prepared to move quickly. If your ideal sale date is important to you, your Realtor® can include a comment in the MLS stating this.

After answering these questions you should have an understanding about how much time you need to give your Realtor® to sell your home, so that it sells when you need it to. Many people wait until they are ready to move before they call their Realtor®, but it is to your benefit to start talking several months in advance so that you can take advantage of her expertise.