[MrTudo]

Originally Posted by kath2210

I have lived in Sebring for 22 years. This town has grown a lot since then. We've enjoyed living here but are in the process of selling our house and relocating back North due to my husband's health which doesn't seem too soon due to the massive amount of houses for sale here.

Hey Kath, may I ask why you would be going North for that reason? Do you not feel confident with healthcare in the Sebring-Lake Placid area?

Jammie, yes yes, considering the size of the adult work force, that's a considerable number. The cost of housing/income base ratio doesn't make sense at all. When factoring job losses like this in addition to that, it must concern everyone what the "actual" wealth, or lack therof really is. Perhaps when this reality finally sets in, perhaps people will start focusing on themselves, their own families, this country, rather than sticking noses in other peoples business, ( whether in a nice way or in many cases, in a bad way and worse than just bad ).

There's actually several houses in LP that interest us. All are overpriced in my opinion. How much overpriced, I don't know. This is the big question isn't it? If we spend 300K or more, will we lose half of our investment? 25%? 10%? None? Certainly we don't "need" another house or to move. We own a nice little house in Port Charlotte. It's renovated nicely with a light stone color tile with tumbled marble designs as borders and between doorways, nice grounds and landscaping, vaulted ceings and more, but one of the most wonderful aspects of it is the giant oaks outside. We have 4 oaks, I think they are live oaks although the previous owner called them heritage oaks..are , well, giant size! The trunks of these trees are so fat that if you put your arms around each of them, your fingertips will be at least 2 1/2-3 FEET away from touching. Two of the trees are side by side and we have a little artsie sign on one of them that simply says "Welcome to Twin Oaks" The canopy in front extends across the entire house from side to side. Very special Deeply Southen Oak Trees

There you have me going about our place. Anyway, after getting whacked from Hurricane Charley we went back and forth to western north carolina, georgia, the poconos, the panhandle of Fla ( Navarre ) and spent a lot of money and time looking around. I think just because we want a little more square ftage and as a change. The thought of having a little motorboat behind the house, without the intensity of being on salt water got me thinking about what would be fun to own and live with. A realtor of a friend of ours mentioned the place maybe 2 years ago, and we FINALLY drove over there, approximately an hour and 15 minutes from our front door and both my Wife and I got a good feeling. So we looked more and the more we looked the more we liked. Wish it was closer to some specialty stores and shopping but oh well.

So really we like where we are, it's very affordable, we'll not make much on our house when we sell it but it should be a fast enough sale we hope as the house really is nice and will be more than competitive with what's out there and assuming we can find a good contractor in the next few days to give us some ideas and estimates then yes, we plan on making an offer. Stay tuned!

In short, we like Port Charlotte, it's grown on me while my Wife always liked it, it's a great deal in comparison to south of here ( Ft Myers ) and north of here ( Sarasota) by a big percentage, but we're looking at lake stuff and a place for eventual retirement. It doesn't matter WHERE we are really for work as we own e-commerce websites ( my Wife ), an overseas real estate rental business , and my main business which as long as I have a high speed internet connection ( cable ) and a telephone, I'm in business. So I'm daydreaming about being near a big lake and it not interfering with our income.

PC is certainly closer to job opportunities but we have ours built in wherever we are. It helps.

But the state of the real estate market/ economy is a major concern as I really don't think we will see any sort of turnaround soon.

[HiRize]

MrTudo

We drove through Highlands Hammock State Park a year ago, and it is well worth the time. I would have liked to have walked some of the trails, but father in law was with us so we could not spend that much time there. We seen lots of waterfowl, native birds, gators, and 2 black snakes having sex. My wife has a zoological background so she is into it a little more than me.

We rented a convertible the last time we were there and that is the only way to see it.

Definitely knew we were not in Nebraska any more. hahaha

Cheers

Al
















hi

[MrTudo]

Thanks Al, and yup, this ain't Nebraska

Hahaha

[MrTudo]

Does anyone know what the sales statistics are for these areas? The realtor we are dealing with showed 3, THREE sales in the neighborhood we are interested in . 3.

One of those sales was December of last year. Another was in January 2007 and another was in May 2007. For the same period of time, what was the activity in 2004? 2005? 2001? Does anyone know how to access archives like this?

There is a house we are interested in as a case in point. ( actually there's so many houses for sale we've picked out 4, but I'm just talkinig about one of them here) It was sold at exactly the same month as ours in 2003. We would be HAPPY to get 60% over our cost now, and that's not including the renovations we made which we are just considering part of life. The house there that we are interested in, sold for 30% more than ours did in 2003. They have it priced however at 110% more than what they paid for it in 2003 which brings it to 300K.

The house is "ok" but needs maybe 25K in immediate renovations, then eventually more will be spent on it. All things considered, if we add 30% on to that house and look at it the same as when both of our houses sold in 2003, the price, based on our getting that 60% more than what we paid brings their house to roughly 219K. We were going to make a one time offer of 225K.

The realtor told me she didn't think that would fly and that we should try 250K ( maybe ). If the market was good, I'd do that. But the market isn't good. And when ALL the renovations and upgrades are done to that house we'll wind up investing more than 100K in upgrades. That's a lot of money in that area and frankly a good chunk anywhere.

So we're talking it over as to what to do . I saw a thread here that talked about the worst place for sales, ( Ocala ) followed by Tampa, Orlando, Miami, etc and obviously being told that there were only 3 sales that were in a similar price group, then this area is depressed as well.

Ideas, suggestions, links etc would be most appreciated.

[Jammie]

Well, I guess your realtor and I couldn't get along. I realize it was only a suggestion how much you should offer, BUT she's lining her own pocket, too.

The only thing that I can tell you is that the building industry is still booming in Sebring and they are selling many new homes. Sorry but I don't know about the homes on the market except that they seem to have been there for a long time. Not sure what's been going on in Lake Placid though.

But for somewhat valuable info~Have you checked Zillow to see the current price of homes there so you can compare? It sounds like you already know that the house wasn't just bought recently and they have a mortgage they have to pay off so that is one plus on your side. IMHO if the realtor doesn't want to take them your offer, you may either look for a new realtor or pick a different house. If buyers keep paying an inflated price for houses, the taxes and insurance and the repo'd homes will continue as it is right now.

Also, for that kind of money couldn't you just buy a newly built house?

[MrTudo]

Hey Jammie, I don't put any stock in Zillow although that's a good idea, certainly to have an additional source of information.

Nothing is selling there, or here as far as I can see. 3 solds in the neighborhood in the last 8 months is beyond dismal. I think it's the same here too, an hour and 15 minutes away.

Far as building a house. Maybe. But there is no way I would subject my Wife and I to the potential fraud that is rampant in that industry. Too many horrow stories and even when it's all over you have an un-tested commodity. I'd rather find something similar to what we want and plan on renovating and making changes to it.

The one we are looking at is about to get an offer I think.

[Mover On The Go]

Efficiency or 1 bedroom, can anyone help me out?

[jet4624]

Hey MrTudo:

I live here and have since 1987. I don't think you should worry about the diffTerence between the stats for local income and the price of houses with waterfront.

Of course, don't try to make sense of the city-data income for Lake Placid. You realize that these figures only speak for the people who live inside the city limits don't you?

Probably none of the neighborhoods you are looking at are within the city limits.

[rudydddd]

Sebring is nice, you don't have the ocean but do have the lake. Less expensive than coast but hotter in summer. Best counties St. Lucie & Indian river on east coast and Citrus County on the West Coast. Look at Panther Woods in N. St. Lucie County. Rural, reasonable, 10 mi. to beach.

[MrTudo]

Originally Posted by rudydddd

Sebring is nice, you don't have the ocean but do have the lake. Less expensive than coast but hotter in summer. Best counties St. Lucie & Indian river on east coast and Citrus County on the West Coast. Look at Panther Woods in N. St. Lucie County. Rural, reasonable, 10 mi. to beach.

Thanks. I don't care about the beach. I used to live on the beach ( Hillsboro Mile ). Before that I literally lived on the beach LOL when I came down here penniless and destitute!

I like the possibilities of being on a lake. I'll only take so much of the B/S coming out of there before swinging our attentions elsewhere though. And boy oh boy is there plenty cominig out of there.

Looks like even more "for sale" than in Charlotte Cnty but the denial factor which has been whittled away by time in Charlotte is still hanging in there in Highlands. It's the realtors fault. They're the ones who pumped their customers full of crap and now that nothing is selling will soon be essentially looking for a new "profession". We see similar stuff in my business.

Soon as we find a credible contractor to give is an estimate on an addition we'll be making a new offer on a different house we like there. Trouble is finding a fair contractor. We've spoken to 2 different ones and I think I mentioned this in another thread. I WILL be posting names when the time is right.