[azrairc]

Is seabring Florida that bad?

I'm looking in an area near downtown

I'm priced out of basically anywhere surround orlando unless to buy a crappy mobile home. I was looking as far as inverness.

In seabring I can buy a nice little house and have plenty of savings left over

[floridarebel]

It's okay. Lots of low income people who are on a fixed income. Area is cheap"er" than surrounding major metros for sure. Housing prices have also gone up a lot in the last five years. There is crime from time to time but Avon Park is worse in that regard. Are not too many parks here.

[azrairc]

Originally Posted by floridarebel

It's okay. Lots of low income people who are on a fixed income. Area is cheap"er" than surrounding major metros for sure. Housing prices have also gone up a lot in the last five years. There is crime from time to time but Avon Park is worse in that regard. Are not too many parks here.

That's disappointing, I nearly bought a house in Dunnellon but they refused to negotiate over a discovered crush sewer line

love the parks in

crystal river
inverness
Dunnellon

Plenty of nice parks where I live but it's raining/freezing for 7 months out of the year, im sick of it. I have to drive 90 minutes to get to the big city anyways seabring maybe isn't too bad

[EscAlaMike]

Originally Posted by azrairc

Is seabring Florida that bad?

I'm looking in an area near downtown

I'm priced out of basically anywhere surround orlando unless to buy a crappy mobile home. I was looking as far as inverness.

In seabring I can buy a nice little house and have plenty of savings left over

No, Sebring is fine.

The reason it's cheaper is because it's nowhere near the beach or any big cities. It's heavy on retirees.

[azrairc]

Originally Posted by EscAlaMike

No, Sebring is fine.

The reason it's cheaper is because it's nowhere near the beach or any big cities. It's heavy on retirees.

When darn the house went pending... I reached out to 3 realtors to write me an offer. 1 said they would get back to me and 2 never responded

it's a knife fight and I swear most realtors are trash if your not buying something super expensive

[davephan]

Crystal River freezes many times each winter. If you're looking for property where it doesn't frequently freeze during the wintertime, you need to stay at or below the Tampa to Orlando line. If you're inland too far, away from the larger cities, then it can also freeze several times during the winter.

To check out areas for crime, look up properties with the Trulia real estate website. Then click on Crime Map. You'll learn pretty quickly which areas have higher and lower rates of crime. Usually, there more expensive property areas have less crime. The Trulia crime map used to used colors in shades of red, but know it uses colors in shades of blue. That makes it harder to see the crime areas, because ponds, lakes, and rivers are also blue.

Check out how far the property is from stores and medical clinics that you might use frequently. Also, check the entry / exit of each community. Some communities have very dangerous, uncontrolled entry / exits. Check out how much road noise is near the community. Living too close to an airport can also be a problem. If you're near Orlando, be prepared to spend $200 to $300 a month on road tolls, or suffer in the traffic to try to avoid the toll roads.

When you are ready to buy, you need to be in Florida. When you are looking at properties on the Internet from out of state, by the time you contact your realtor to setup a showing, and fly to Florida, the property will most likely be "pending" from another buyer. Sometimes properties only last a day or two on the market, sometimes the property might not sell for weeks, sometimes much longer. The real estate market is very hot in Florida because of the all the retired people moving to Florida from up north. Plus, there's a huge migration from blue states, such as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, Illinois, and even California and the west coast states to Florida. Many people from those blue states are also allowed to permanently work remotely, which also increased the migration to Florida. When the blue states lock down again, that will only increase the migration to Florida.

Many properties have increased 36% to 38% in the past year because of the migration to Florida. Thousands of new communities of new homes are being built, but that cannot keep up with the huge demand. So, when you are close to being ready to buy a property, you need to be in Florida, ready to pull the trigger on signing the purchase agreement. If you don't know anyone in Florida, I recommend staying in a vacation rental property while you are doing your scouting and house hunting. It's very risky to rent long term or buy property sight unseen!

[kyle19125]

Sebring is fine but as stated lots of retirees from the Northeast primarily with very modest savings or month to month on social security benefits. You might also look at Lake Placid too. Have you considered Port Charlotte? There's quite a bit there too in the under 200K bracket with many around 150K-170K.

[azrairc]

Originally Posted by kyle19125

Sebring is fine but as stated lots of retirees from the Northeast primarily with very modest savings or month to month on social security benefits. You might also look at Lake Placid too. Have you considered Port Charlotte? There's quite a bit there too in the under 200K bracket with many around 150K-170K.

pretty much am considering anywhere decent at this point

as the above poster stated I usually drive down to look at houses after I put in an offer if they're accepted because I always exercise my right to cancel within a time period of inspections. I lived in orlando maitland in the past as well as winter springs but recently discovered "old Florida". When I look in a new area I need a realtor for that area. Back when I started looking last summer there were still options in davenport, lakeland and haines city but now there's nothing, coincidentally I had less cash and purchasing power back then. Now I have a realtor who covers marion and citrus county to write offers at my command but seabring is way far away from her

ocala, citrus and seabring occasionally something pops up worth looking at but inventory is still pretty low. I think even a modest increase or slowdown in the market would help me out, with interest rates popping up maybe it will happen

Really I'm looking for the smallest price and house possible. I don't mind doing some extensive rehab work but those houses aren't even going at good deals for the 10's of thousands of dollars you'd have to put back in. I'm not even 100% opposed to mobile home on an acre lot but it seems like they have been terribly maintained in many cases, and the newer ones are going pretty high up to 200k. The older ones cannot even get insurance apparently !

[TOMD]

Originally Posted by azrairc

When darn the house went pending... I reached out to 3 realtors to write me an offer. 1 said they would get back to me and 2 never responded

it's a knife fight and I swear most realtors are trash if your not buying something super expensive

That’s partly because they are part timers and probably retired themselves. I would look on Zillow to find a property you want to see then call the listing agent which is identified. Realtors are becoming dinosaurs. They aren’t needed if you know anything. The title company will do most of the work. My last 3 sales on my property I did myself. I had so many realtors calling me with crazy ideas I started getting mad at them. They think they know something but they don’t they just try to get paid for doing little to nothing.

[TOMD]

I think you just need to put you time in. Use Zillow and establish search parameters that will meet your criteria and price range . The search all the areas of the state that interest you. You will find something eventually. I have noticed prices have increased significantly and I don’t know why. Also don’t overlook for sale by owners.