Hi there. In this post I'm going to explore the history of a couple of recent foreclosures (REOs) that have just been placed under contract (pending). I figure this little exercise will give you some incite on the cyclical nature of real estate and property values. 

Both of these properties were sold by me, prior to opening up Tutas Towne Realty, 10 years ago.

The first one is a 3 bedroom 2 bath pool home with 1670 sq ft of living area built in 1991 and sits on a ½ acre lot. 

Read more »

OK it's time to rumble!!! I didn't do a Poinciana market report for May, so instead of going backwards, this month, I decided to do a report for the first 6 months of 2008 compared to the same period last year. First let's start with a little chart then I'll add my commentary. 

This data was pulled from the Mid-Florida Regional Multiple Listing Service and is deemed to be reliable. I'm using the data for zip codes 34758 and 34759, Poinciana Neighborhoods. It does not include Solivita, Cypress Woods, Crescent Lakes or Lake Marion. Jan 1-June 30. 

Read more »

OK....this one should be fun!! This post is to explore current market conditions in Poinciana FL. Also, this is my opinion of what's happening in the Poinciana FL market and where I think it's heading. 

First let's get into some cold hard data.
All of this data was pulled from the Mid-Florida Regional Multiple Listing Service (MFRMLS) on 5-20-2008. It is deemed reliable but is certainly not exact. The data is for Poinciana neighborhoods and does not include Solivita, Crescent Lakes, Cypress Woods or Lake Marion Golf resort.

• Today, there are 1,170 properties for sale(active). The average property being a 3 bedroom 2 bath home built in 2004 with 1,777 sq ft living area priced at $165.051 or $95.72 per sq ft. 

• There are 144 properties under contract(pending). The average property is a 4 bedroom 2 bath home built in 2004 or later with 1,914 sq ft of living area priced at $134,721 or $71.94 per sq ft. 

• There have been 131 sales this year. The average property sold was a 3 bedroom 2 bath house built in 2004 or later with 1,791 sq ft living area and sold for $136,000 or $78.43 per sq ft. 

OK, the first thing I notice is price per sq ft. The active listings are at $95.72. The sold listing were at $78.43 and the pendings are at $71.94. What does this show you? It shows that properties on the market today are over priced on an average by $17 a sq ft or 1,791 sq ft X $17= $30,447. 

Read more »

I just saw this yesterday and thought you may find it interesting. Poinciana is certainly going through a difficult time right now. When will it end? I wish I knew.

Check it out: POINCIANA FORECLOSURE NEWS 

If you are struggling with your mortgage payments¦.give me a call. I may be able to help.

Hi folks. Today I want to try to get my head around the distressed property market in Poinciana FL. By distressed properties I mean, banked owned and short sale listings. These stats are from the Mid-Florida Regional Multiple Listing Service and assume that the data was entered correctly. I’m sure there is a small percentage of incorrect data so the percentages may be a tad low. If I had to take a guess I would say they are low by about 2%-3%.

So what I’m doing is comparing the figures for Poinciana neighborhoods, zip codes 34758 and 34759 excluding Cypress Woods, Crescent Lakes, Doral Woods, Lake Marion Golf Resort and the other “sub” subdivisions WITH Kissimmee excluding Poinciana.

I want to see what percentage of the Active, Pending and Sold listings since Jan.1, 2008 are distressed properties(REO/SS).

My goal is to see how Poinciana Villages stacks up. Let’s see what we have:

THIS CHART IS FOR POINCIANA

THIS CHART IS FOR KISSIMMEE

Now what does all this mean? Well, the obvious is that Poinciana is quite bit worse off than Kissimmee. It also shows me that the distressed properties are on the rise in both markets. This is evident by the percentage of pending listings that are distressed properties.

Read more »

I wish I could say this was an April Fools Day joke.....but it's not. It's my March market report for Poinciana FL.

The following is the reality of the market in Poinciana.

There were 31 closings for March. This is actually a 50% increase from February. So that's a good thing.

The average sale was a 1857 sq ft home listed at $140,201 and sold for $137,609 in 131 days. $75 per sq ft living area. The sold price is down about 5% from February.

Out of those 31 sales, 21 one of them were banked owned properties(REOs). 4 were short sales. 2 were builder inventory and 4 were owned by Mr. and Mrs. Average Home Seller. This is right in line with my last market report, "Selling Retail listings in a wholesale market".

Now let's look at a few of the houses that came on the market today:

Property #1: 4 bedroom 3 bath pool home with 2013 sq ft living area built in 1987. This property was last sold in May of 2005 for $280,000. It came on the market today as a bank owned property priced at $149,900.

  Property #2: 4 bedroom 2 bath home with 1563 sq ft living area built in 2005. Last sold new in June of 2005 for $186,000. Today it hit the market as a bank owned property priced at $78,900!!!

Property #3: 3 bedroom 2 bath home with 2003 sq ft living area built in 2004. Last sold in December of 2006 at $230,000. Today, you can purchase this home from the bank for $99,900!!

Folks, I said about a year ago that the first thing that needed to happen in Poinciana, before the market had a chance of turning around, was that buying a rental needed to make sense. Once this happens Investors will start buying up some of the inventory. Well look at those prices.

Do you think purchasing a 3 year old 4 bedroom home for in the mid 70s would make sense? This house would rent for about $750 to $800. Bought with a 20% down payment it would pay for itself. It makes sense.

So for all you Investors out there.....give me a call. It's time to start buying some single family rentals. Does that make sense?

Hi folks, today I want to talk about market conditions in Poinciana FL. The problem I'm running up against is Mr. and Mrs. Average Seller are just not able to compete with the wholesale market i.e. banked owned properties and short sales.

As primarily a listing Broker, I have been banging my head against the wall for about a year now. The biggest issue is a lack of equity. Homeowners in Poinciana have lost about 40% in value in the last 15 months.

What this means is most Sellers are just not in a position to sell, unless they are able to bring money to the table or they apply for a short sale. But what if they don't qualify for a short sale? What if they are making payments but need to sell for health, financial or any other valid reasons that are not related to being in a pre-foreclosure situation?

They're screwed! Wanting to help these folks but not being able to is very frustrating. But....I have to try. So we price them as best as we can based on that Seller's particular situation. Sometimes it works.....and most of the time it doesn't. No amount of marketing will overcome pricing.

Unfortunately, I don't see much light at the end of the tunnel, for the near future, in Poinciana FL.

Here are some stats for Poinciana Fl. These stats only include residential properties in the Poinciana neighborhoods and were pulled from the Mid-Florida Regional Multiple Listing Service on 3-26-2008. It's deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Read more »

Hi folks. Here is my new market report for Poinciana FL. I decided to lump January and February 2008 together and compare it to the same period for 2007.

This report is specific to Poinciana zip codes 34758, 34759 and only includes homes in the Poinciana Neighborhoods. That means Solivita, Cypress Woods and Lake Marion Golf Resort are not included. It's also limited to residential properties. 

OK let's get started. There are currently 1,166 properties on the market (active) as of today, 3/12/2008. The average property is 1,802 sq ft living area and is priced at $179,759. The median price is $175,000. That means 50% of the properties are priced lower than $175,000 and 50% are priced higher. Remember these are ASKING prices not sales prices.

Read more »

MARKET REPORT
POINCIANA NEIGHBORHOODS
SINGLE FAMILY HOMES
2007

(INFO COMPILED FROM THE MID-FLORIDA REGIONAL MLS
SEARCH CRITERIA: ACTIVE 34758,34759 SUBDIVISION POIN)

 Comments from Bryant Tutas
Broker/Owner
Tutas Towne Realty, Inc 

OK folks, I broke this analysis down to month by month in order to give you a true picture of what is going on in Poinciana Fl. Yearly averages will not work in a declining market. As you can see, the market in Poinciana is in dire straights. Properties ARE selling but they have to be priced below recent sales and they have to be in very good condition. 

There are currently 1,065 active listings (single family homes) in the Poinciana neighborhoods. This does not include Solivita, Lake Marion Golf Resorts, Cypress Woods, For Sale by Owner properties or properties listed with non-MLS members. 

With an average of 35 sales per month we have a 30 month supply of inventory. What that means is, it would take 2.5 years to sell current inventory if no other properties were placed on the market. The absorption rate is right over 3%. That means 3% of the homes on the market are selling every month.  

The MEDIAN sales price, in the chart above, means that half the properties sold for less and half sold for more than this amount. For example, in December there were 38 sales. 14 of these sold for less than $150,750.  

Values are steadily declining and are down 27%-33% thus far, for an average decline of 30%. This means a house worth $200,000 in January is now worth approximately $140,000. 

So where do we go from here? That's a good question and I truly wish I had a crystal ball so I could give you a precise answer. But I don't. But I can make an educated guess based on my 14 years experience with selling hundreds of properties in Poinciana Fl. So here goes. 

Unfortunately, prices still need to come down about 10% to 15%. Once this happens inventory should start decreasing. Less inventory and lower prices will help us get back on track. I would be very surprised if this happens in 2008. 

2008 is going to be the year of adjustment. Poinciana has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the State. It's my opinion that foreclosures are on the rise and Poinciana, especially the Polk county side, specifically Village 7, is going to be hit very hard. These foreclosures will drag our values down even further. 

The average and the median sales price was $130,000 in 2004. That's where we are headed and that's where the market will start to balance out. 

OK, that's it. I hope this helped give you some insight on the market in Poinciana Fl. Please give me a call if you have any questions.

Our local major paper, the Orlando Sentinel, has been running a series on foreclosures and how they affect the market in Central Fl. There's a link below to the article that ran this past Monday. The Sellers, who are the feature of the article, are my Sellers in Poinciana. Some of you guys may know them as "The Lovely's". I'm briefly in the article as well. Anyway,here's the link, check it out.

Here are a couple of excerpts from the series:

"Only 924 homes were sold in September by Orlando Realtors in their core market, the fewest re-sales since January 1999. By comparison, sales in September 2005 -- near the market's record-setting peak -- totaled 2,964. A year ago, 2,054 homes changed hands in the core market, which consists mainly of Orange and Seminole counties but includes some deals in surrounding counties"

"South Poinciana is home to the worst-hit ZIP code in Central Florida -- 34759 -- where nearly 300 homeowners have defaulted on their mortgages so far this year"

Hey....do you see up there where it states: "South Poinciana is home to the worst-hit ZIP code in Central Florida" Isn't that cool? My market is numero uno baby!!!! Hey if you have to be something you might as well be number 1. We don't do things half-ass in Poinciana!

My market encompasses two zip codes. The worse, South Poinciana, is 34759 and has 386 homes in some stage of default (at least 3 payments behind), foreclosure or auction. North Poinciana, zip code 34758, has 307.

Currently there are 1673 active listings (single family) homes in these two zip codes. That's actually down about 50 listings from last month. Most of those properties have been removed from the market. I withdrew 9 listings myself. In September we had 32 closings TOTAL! September 2006 there were 102. So we are holding steady at about a 60% decrease in sales for the year. Year to date there have been 480 sales. Last year same period 1184. So again holding steady at around 60% decrease. Now if I were to extrapolate out the sales for this year we may hit 575. That means our absorption rate (amount of time needed to sale existing inventory) in Poinciana is about 3 years.

OK, that's it. Can anyone out there beat these numbers? My opinion is that Poinciana Fl is the worse market in the country right now. Any one able to prove me wrong? PLEASE!!!!!  Oops! Got to run....my shift at Wal-Mart starts at five. Or not!!!

****All data is from Realtytrac, The Orlando Sentinel and the MFRMLS and of course Broker Bryant