Thought I begin posting weekly activity for the week from the information provided by The Golden Isles Multiple LIsting Service.  Hopefully, this will be a weekly posting so anyone interested in what’s happening with the market can get a quick snapshot each week here!

For the time period from 7/12 – 7/19:

New listings: 77

• Average price of new listings in the market: $308,184
• Median price of new listings in the market: $195,000
• Highest price: $2,600,000
• Lowest price: $32,000

Solds: 15

• Average sale price: $149,952
• Average list price: $166,247
• Highest price of a property sold: $415,000 (list price $499,000) for a lot in Hawkins Island on St Simons Island
• Lowest price of a property sold: $22,000 (list same) for a lot in Woodbine in North Camden County

Sales include all properties types in Brunswick, St Simons Island, Jekyll Island, Waverly & Woodbine.

While I realize that we’re in the middle of summer, it’s time to think about school again.  Real Estate school that is.  The Academy for Real Estate Education and Consulting is now enrolling for the Fall 2010 Real Estate PreLicense class set to start Monday, August 23.  This course meets the Georgia Real Estate Commission’s requirement that any applicant seeking to take the Georgia salesperson’s license exam must take and successfully complete a 75-hour prelicense course.

In THIS market?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  Now is a great time to get licensed in real estate. Statistics show that the market this year is better than the same time frame last year, so improvement is being seen.  Starting a career in real estate is really starting your own small business.  It takes a lot more than passing the state licensing exam and finding a broker who will hold your license.  Any successful business needs planning and solid foundations.  Jumping in while the market is hot may sound like a good idea if you’re in it for a quick buck with no plans for success beyond that next payday.  What happens when the business stops dropping into your lap like it did in 2005?

Starting while the market is slow gives you time to get your bearings, put systems in place, create and execute your personal marketing plan,  promote yourself, and continue with your education.  With all this in place, you will be ready when the market rebounds… and succeed in any market no matter what.

As the instructor, I know I’m a bit biased, but I try and make this class as interesting as possible, really work to help students grasp key concepts and do my best to ensure they are all well prepared not only for the class final, but the state licensing exam and life beyond as well.

So here’s the 411 on the class…

• Session starts Monday, August 23 and final exam is Monday, November 1
• Classes will meet two nights a week, Monday & Thursday from 6-10pm with two full day Saturdays
• We meet at I-95 Toyota’s second floor classroom (don’t laugh, it’s a really nice facility!)
• Optional Weekend Cram session is included with tuition free of charge (a lot of other schools charge extra for this!)
• Tuition is $525
• Register by July 31 and receive an early bird discount and pay only $495!
• Tuition financing available $300 at time of registration and $225 due by scheduled MidTerm Exam (no discounts apply for finance option)
• Click here for more information

If you’ve been thinking about starting a real estate career or know someone who might be interested, ACT NOW and see YOU in class!

With second home buyers out of the market right now, many owners of properties in our second home/resort market are opting to cover their costs by renting.  Of course, many people own homes and condos here as investment, taking advantage of our area as a vacation destination. But for a lot of other people, they simply owned single family homes  for their own use, to enjoy on sporadic weekends or for entire seasons and are entering the rental market for the first time.

Well, the members of the Golden Isles Association of REALTORS® recently were  sent a friendly reminder from the Glynn County Community Development in regards to the ‘proliferation of single family vacation rental properties‘ and I suppose it’s with good reason.  They cite that:

These are being advertised as having a capacity in terms of the number of guests accommodated, but that number may exceed the capacity established by zoning limitations.

In vacation rental speak, we look at how many people can sleep in a given property. Say you have a three bedroom house in which you have a king size bed in one bedroom, a queen in another, and one twin bed and a bunkbed in the 3rd. You also have a full-size pull out sofa in the family room.  That house might be advertised as ‘sleeping 9′ and three couples with their combined three children sign on to rent the house for two weeks.  The problem here is that the house is zoned residential and is meant to be occupied by one family only.  In most cases, a three bedroom house would be zoned for a family of five or six: parents in one room, up to two children of the same sex in the next room and up to two children of the same sex in the other.  By three non-related families  occupying this house, they are violating the local zoning ordinance.

Dwelling units are defined as being intended for occupancy by one family. A family is defined as including any number of people who are related by blood or marriage, but limits to five (5) the number of people who are not related by blood or marriage. To clarify, if three people who are related by blood or marriage occupy a dwelling unit together with three other people who are related by blood or marriage, but the two groups are not related to each other, the definition of family is NOT met and the situation constitutes a violation of the Zoning Ordinance.

So if you’re a property owner in this or any vacation market, keep in mind that you many be violating local zoning ordinances.  Don’t say you haven’t been warned!  For more information, contact the Glynn County Community Development office at 912-554-7428.

So the WordPress Workshop is officially ON!!!  Scheduled for July 19-24 at the Golden Isles Assoc. of REALTORS building at 7 Glynn Ave, Brunswick, GA.  Get step-by-step guidance and hands-on experience building your own self-hosted WordPress blog/website from start to finish.

It’s designed with REALTORS in mind, obviously, but anyone with an interest in creating and managing their own site easily is invited to join us.

Click here for more information and to register on-line!!!

Looking at numbers year-to-date so far for the Island so thought I’d share.  Overall, we’re up in the number of single-family homes sold by 159% over this same time last year.   Here’s a chart showing a breakdown of sold transactions by area:

For condo sales, which have been trending lower, total Island transactions are up up by about 87% to last year.  Here’s how it looks  in units by area on the Island…

See, people are buying homes!  Some more trend analysis to come!

]]> http://midishaw.com/st-simons-island-real-estate-sales-stats/feed/ 0 http://midishaw.com/local-this-and-thats-st-simons-island-brunswick/ http://midishaw.com/local-this-and-thats-st-simons-island-brunswick/#comments Sun, 23 May 2010 18:28:01 +0000 Midi http://midishaw.com/?p=1507

As with any community, change is always in the air.   I’ve noticed changes occur most frequently in the restaurant business… so this post should bear no surprises when you see that it mostly has to do with places to eat…

Noticed the other day that the two empty store fronts next to Target was being combined into one space.  They had formerly been home to a mattress store and a discount shoe store.  I did a general Twitter call out to see if anyone knew what was going in and a friend said she thought it was a buffalo wing place.  Seems my friend might be right.    I just did a search of the Buffalo Wild Wings site and while Brunswick didn’t show up on their ‘Coming Soon’ section, I did find two job openings for a Buffalo Wild Wings ‘opening soon in Brunswick’ on Indeed.com, a job search site.  We’re always excited when there’s a new place to eat around here!

More on the food front, Pranzos has taken up the spot in the small retail center along Frederica by the Shops at Sea Island, behind Oglethorpe Bank at 44 Midway. It had been home to Frankie G’s, which started out with some promise for me but ended up being fairly inconsistent in their quality.  Some other restaurant went in and I can’t even recall the name – all I know is that it didn’t last very long.  So now, Pranzos has taken over that location.   I’m assuming they are expanding and haven’t closed their downtown Brunswick location which I really like.  But the one on the Island is much closer to home!

They’ve torn down the facade of the old Gisco Seafood building which was most recently the home of Southern Soul Barbecue which burned down at the end of March (See post).  Not sure what they’re doing with the place but I find it sad that the bit of character that old building brought to the ‘new’ traffic circle is gone.  I’m sure whatever the owners build on that spot will never have the campy charm that the old seafood shack turned into a bbq joint did.

Down in the Village, I’ve noticed the empty space where Subway used to be now has a sign saying that ‘John’s Pizza’ was coming.  Don’t know when… and don’t know who this John is.  Subway, by the way, moved into their new digs on Mallery sometime earlier this year or at the end of last year… under Rafter’s.  The space had been empty ever since.  I’m particularly intrigued as it’s in the building next to the one my office is in… so any decent lunch place in walking distance is always welcome!

So aside from my on-going gripes about the new entrance to the Island with the psuedo-traffic circle – which I’ve decided is more of a jug-handle turn (anyone from New Jersey out there?) than a circle… and the fact that no one seems to pay any attention to the yield sign as they merge from King’s Way… that’s all for now!

While Island sales are still down by half of what they were for this same time period when compared to the peak market in 2006, the numbers I pulled today are fairly positive.

In looking at sales in our area from the beginning of the year to today, April 26th – the numbers fall out like so:

St Simons Island

Single Family: Overall, the number of sales on the Island is up 258% with 43 closed transactions versus only 12 this time last year.  The average asking price was up 48.2% at around $615,000 with sales averaging $515,000, up 38.9% to last  year’s numbers. The average Days on Market (DOM) was flat at 230 days from list to close.  The list to sale percentage is down slightly from 89.3% last year to 83.7% this year.  This means that seller’s on average sold their homes for 83.7% of their asking price.

Looking at the various sections that make up the Island – the South (S1) end saw the greatest increase in sales at over 600% to last year.  Traditionally the most active part of the Island due to it’s proximity to the beach and Village, S1 saw 14 closing this year as opposed to only two last year.  Average asking price was about $1.0 million – up 96.1% from last year’s average which was around the half million mark. The average sale price was $838,000, up 112.2% from last year’s average of about $395,000.

Condos:  Condo sales are up 66.7% from last year with 25 closed transaction so far this year.  Compared to this same time frame during one of our busier years, this is not that far off from the 35 transactions closed for this same time frame in 2006.  Keep in mind that 1st quarter is traditionally quiet here.  Average asking price is up 51.7% with an average list price of $388,000 and the average sale price is up 56.3% with a sale averaging $370,000.  DOM is actually up 9% while the list to sale ratio is up slightly by 3% which means sellers of condos are getting 97% of their asking price. One possible explanation is that condos, having suffered greatly as the resort/second home market languished under the pressures of this economic downturn, sellers have priced their condos more realistically.

Once again, the South end of the Island saw the most activity with 18 closings on condos during this reporting period.  The average list price was around $460,000, average sale price around $440,000 – which means sellers got about 91% of their asking price.  DOM in this area did quite well at an average of 190 days, down from 215 a year ago for a drop of 11.6%.

Brunswick/Mainland Glynn

Sales in Brunswick has been a bit more stable.  However, there are a great deal of foreclosures still being worked through here.  All in all, the area is up 18.3% in the number of closed transactions with 110 closings so far this year.  The average list price is $161,000, down only about 1.3% from last year.  This is down about 24% from where it was at the height of our market when average list prices rose over $200 at around $214,000.  Average sale prices are down only 1.8% at around $149,000…also down almost 29% to the peak market.

The word that I’ve been hearing from outside of this area as well as agents within my own market is that buyers with things to sell in other areas are getting their properties under contract.  This bodes well for us here as we rely heavily on people relocating from other parts of the state and country and as long as they were unable to sell in their own market, they were unable to buy in ours.

On the eve of the Annual Blessing of the Fleet in Darien, GA, several shrimp boats caught fire late last night.  According to my sources, officials are looking into two theories on how this fire may have started.  One theory is that someone may have left a generator on overnight which leaked gas and started the fire which spread to neighboring boats.  The other theory is that someone was welding on a boat and a spark may have landed on combustible material and smoldered for awhile before catching into a full blaze.  I don’t believe that arson is suspected though I’m sure they are investigating all avenues.

Here’s a photo sent by a friend of the fire last night…

The Darien Annual Blessing of the Fleet is a huge event for this small community located just north of the Glynn County line in McIntosh County and part of what is considered the Golden Isles.  It’s a full weekend event beginning today (Friday) with vendor booths of all types, helicopter rides, concerts, food, and a parade on Saturday morning.    Basically, it’s a big ol’ weekend party to celebrate their shrimp boat fleet…

Does anyone think it’s odd that two of my last four posts have to do with things burning down???  Well, the other two posts had to do with taxes…  hmmm.

Apparently, there was a little known tax added at the last minute to the Obama Health Care Reform Bill.  Many questions have been tossed around and it became clear that not many people were aware of this new tax that would obviously affect the real estate industry.  Well, thanks to our friends at the Georgia Association of REALTORS (GAR) and through them, the National Association of REALTORS (NAR), I was given this FAQ about this new tax.

Essentially, it is referred to as a Medicare tax and it will affect those sellers of real property who will be otherwise taxed on capital gains under current tax laws.  By this, I mean… Under current laws, if you sell your primary residence and meet the ‘time ‘ criteria, you are exempt up to $250,000 or $500,000 (filing individually or jointly).  Any amount realized OVER that amount is taxable under current tax schedules based on income.  As such, this new tax will apparently be added to the current capital gains tax burden IF your income is over $200,000/$250,000 (filing individually or jointly).

For those selling second homes and investment properties, the tax, once again, will be applied to the amount of gain realized.  More incentive to use a 1031 Tax-deferred exchange, yes?

Check out this link for the complete FAQ provided by NAR to learn more about this tax, how it may impact you, who it affects, and when it goes into effect.

Q&A 10 – Medicare Tax on Net Investment Income – 3-25-2010

Time is running out on the Federal Tax Credit for homebuyers.  I suppose since April, aside from being allergy month here in the deep South, is tax month, our friends at the IRS has passed on some links to valuable IRS information.  Check these out!

Energy Incentives for Individuals

Seven Facts About the Nonbusiness Energy Property Credit

First Time Homebuyer Credit

Seven Important Facts about Claiming the First-Time Homebuyer Credit

Five Tips About the First Time Homebuyer Credit

Ten Important Facts About the Extended First Time Homebuyer Credit

Who knew the IRS could be so helpful???  I suppose if Sear’s can have a softer side, then the IRS can too!