Palm Coast Real Estate News Clips: April 23, 2012
Impact fees, local merger, fraud alert, Grand Haven Realty, CBV Homes, April home sales
Palm Coast, FL – April 23, 2012 – Miscellaneous real estate news tidbits for Palm Coast, Flagler County and beyond.
Impact Fees
Bunnell has already placed a moratorium on its impact fees to encourage new construction. Other Florida jurisdictions are doing the same.
Polk County commissioners agreed last week to hold a public hearing May 15, 2012 to decide whether to extend the impact fee moratorium. Commissioners imposed a moratorium on transportation, parks, jail, police, ambulance service and libraries that went into effect August 1, 2010. They later voted to extend it to July 31, 2012. Impact fees for school facilities were unaffected. Commissioners seemed inclined to support continuing the moratorium. "I don’t see the economy changing in six months," Commission Chairman Sam Johnson said.
For the second straight year, the Marion County School Board has decided to suspend the collection of school impact fees. The board voted last week to suspend the impact fee on new construction from October 1, 2012 through September 30, 2013. The board will revisit the impact fee again in spring 2013 for the 2013-14 fiscal year. The suspension of the impact fee must be approved by the County Commission. Source: Florida Home Builders Association
Local Merger
Preferred Management Services announced its merger with RE/MAX Oceanside and Commercial World, Inc. The team will now consist of Lea Stokes of Preferred Management, Donna Tofal of RE/MAX Oceanside, and Rob Robinson of Commercial World, Inc.The combined firms will do business under RE/MAX Oceanside for real estate leasing and sales, and Preferred Management Services for property and association management services.
Fraud Alert
Time-share fraud continues to be a big problem in Florida and other resort states. In the most common fraud, companies convince timeshare owners to pay upfront fees for pending sales. The pending buyers are non-existent. Read more >>> 2 more people charged in $30 million timeshare scheme
Grand Haven Realty
Grand Haven Realty has recognized Frank Sockman as the top selling agent for the firm in 2011. Sockman sold 33 properties in Grand Haven and had 14 of his listed properties sell at the master planned community. His total sales volume was in excess of $5 million.CBV Resort Homes
CBV Resort Homes and Cinnamon Beach Realty have been selected by the developer to help build out Beach Haven, a Key West-style community of over 100 home sites near Marineland. House/lot packages will start at $299,000.
CBV was recently awarded "Preferred Builder Accreditation" by American Strategic Insurance. Locally, CBV Resort Homes utilizes Kopec Insurance as its local insurance agency of choice.
April Home Sales Brisk
Palm Coast/Flagler home sales are on track to exceed last April’s 153 homes sold. Cash sales (56.7%), lender-owned sales (34%) and short sales (17.9%) continue to dominate pricing. Inventory remains low with only 825 Flagler single-family homes listed in MLS. This represents only 4.5 months of inventory at the current sales rate and current prices. 634 homes are under contract.
The average "Days on Market" is an incredibly low 67 days. Down from 159 days in April 2011 and 235 days in April 2010. With an absorption rate of 4.5, we are verging on a sellers’ market, but everyone is behaving as if it were still a buyers’ market. The market has clearly turned the corner, but the buyers and sellers don’t know it yet. It’s possible that sales may actually begin to slow because of a lack of marketable (well priced) properties.
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