Vero Beach Florida Blog

By Nadia Vanderhoof (Contact)

We were quoted in this article by the Press Journal…

Vero Beach has the most undervalued real estate nationwide, according to a recently released housing study.

IHS Global Insight, an economic research and forecasting firm, ranked the Vero Beach region as having the most under-priced homes out of 330 metro markets nationwide.

The IHS report, House Prices in America, said Vero Beach’s average home price dropped to $125,400, during the first quarter of 2009, a 29.7 percent drop from the first quarter of 2005.

“I tell my buyers that real estate is ‘on sale’ in Vero Beach and now is the time because we believe that we are close to the bottom here,” said Billy Moss, a commercial real estate agent with Lambert Commercial Real Estate in Vero Beach. “I believe 2009 will be the time in the future when investors who hesitated will look back on and say, ‘I should of, I could of, I wish I would of.”

The report said real estate in Vero Beach is currently undervalued by 42.5 percent. “We researched average prices across the state and up the eastern seaboard and found that no other seaside community could match what your dollar will buy in Vero Beach,” said Sally Daley, broker and owner of Daly and Co. Realty, which has listings across the Treasure Coast. “And with Vero’s notoriously stringent low profile height and density regulations, our housing inventory remains essentially fixed to insure property values will not be diluted by the sprawl that’s adversely affected other communities across the state.”

Paul Kitchen, broker and owner of Vero Beach-based Starfish Real Estate and LivinginVero.com agreed. He said this past season, his firm saw an increase in interest from out-of-town buyers particularly in the price range quoted the report.

“We’re starting to see multiple offers from people in that price range,” Kitchen said. “This past season was wild, as far as how many buyers were here.” The report has already been published by news outlet CNN. Kitchen hopes that publicity will bring more interest to the region. “This is definitely telling people that Vero Beach is the top spot to buy,” Kitchen said.

Houma, La. ranked No. 2 on the report with homes prices at $113.500, about 41.4 percent undervalue.

There was no ranking for the Fort Pierce-Port St. Lucie Metropolitan Statistical Area, but the report said prices there stood at $118,500, undervalued by about 33.3 percent. The study said “the bursting of the housing bubble in once-overvalued areas in California and Florida was severe,” and prices in those states had fallen more than 50 percent from their peaks.

The report said Atlantic City, N.J. remains the most overvalued housing market nationwide, with prices coming at $243.600, 44.1 percent over-priced.

Where’s My Waiter?

by Paul Kitchen

So, it was pointed out to me recently that we hadn’t sent a Vero Beach Deal of the Week out for a while. I was also informed that I hadn’t done a Vero Beach Real Estate Update since March. Turns out it has been about two months without any updates on either front. Though it’s no excuse, it has been a pretty wild ride here lately, with this years ‘Season’ easily surpassing the previous years. Our web traffic is up an amazing 70% over 2008, and the clients we had in town this year were also up dramatically – nearly 100% over last year. I’m very happy Cheryl Goff is here this year, or we couldn’t have dealt with the demand. And I don’t believe for a second any other agent has shown the number of homes Cheryl has. Ridiculous!

May is looking to be our largest month by far for closings, which is a great sign for our market. Our recent clients have gotten great deals on homes in Pointe West South Village, Caledon Shores, Waterway Village, Falcon Trace, Legend Lakes, Trillium, The Laurels, Sebastian Highlands and Vista Gardens. There is zero chance you can go wrong in this market, particularly if you’re planning on holding your home for a few years.

Now, as many folks know, volume also brings a few crazies out of the woodwork. Have you ever been to a very busy restaurant, and the food and service were great? How about going to a relatively empty restaurant – ever notice that the service is poor and the food takes forever? Point is, when I heard today that a client read Cheryl’s recent blog post about showing nearly 300 homes last month, only to then accuse Cheryl of being too busy to wait on her properly, I just had to laugh. This particular buyer will certainly find that empty restaurant, even if I have to give directions, and I hope she enjoys the service!

To put Starfish Real Estate in a different light, I was talking to an agent with another broker here in Vero Beach, and he informed me that many of the agents at his firm could not even write a contract! So, not only is the restaurant empty, the chef can’t cook! Geez…

Anyway, the update is we’re swamped. The websites are hovering at the top nearly everywhere, for everything, and the clients that are flying in to work with us are leaving very happy and making great purchases. Those prospects sitting at their computers in some part of the world waiting for us to run around and take pictures and deliver gramatically correct double spaced property comparison disertations, all the while promising to not-get-too-busy, are most certainly wondering where their waiter is….

The New Buzz Word

By Cheryl Goff

I’ve got a favorite new word in my vocabulary – BUSY.  I have been very busy showing homes and condos in Vero Beach Florida. In the last month, I have showed an average of six to eight buyers a week with the average buyer seeing eight to ten properties. That equates to around 250 properties a month. WOW, no wonder my shoes are looking worn. I wonder how many miles I’ve walked!!

Everyone is looking for the deal.  Some buyers are capitalizing on the great deals that exist; others are being very cautious and waiting in the wings until they feel the timing is right.

In meeting my clients, there is a common theme that seems to resonate. They target a particular property on the Internet and they decide that this is going to be the property for them. They have researched it, mapped it, and some have even diagrammed and placed their furniture in it. They have found their new place in the Sun and are ready to make it their own!! They are so excited to see that property and make the deal only to be disappointed when they actually see it and the surrounding location. That’s when the buyers turn to me and seek my advice and expertise in finding another property that will suit their needs. While the Internet is great and you can find most of your answers and information to help you, it does not take the place of actually physically seeing the property and the area around it. No matter how far advanced technology becomes, buyer’s agents are still a much needed commodity to help find that perfect property.

So if you find your dream Vero Beach Real Estate property while surfing the net, let me know and I can assist you in making it a reality!!

It’s been a few weeks since my last Vero Beach Real Estate update. My lead buyers agent Cheryl Goff has been extremely busy working with a lot of different buyers from all over the place, and we’ve both written offers this week on great properties for sale here. I also won a long standing arbitration case this past week, so the good guy can still win.

As far as the latest Vero Beach Market Statistics, we’ve started to notice that properties we’ve shown recently are no longer available, having gone under contract rather quickly. We’ve even lost a couple deals here lately because it turned out to be a multiple offer situation, and our buyers were out-bid. I agree with what Donald Trump said on CNN last week, that this may turn out to be one of the best times in history to buy real estate. Think about it: The year is 2009, and yet many of our clients are getting 2003 and 2004 pricing on things – it’s ridiculous. Interest rates are lower than in the boom as well. As our web traffic keeps going up, we can’t impress upon folks enough that we are running into multiple offer situations, just like the old days. What does that mean? There are only so many great deals out there, and you must be prepared to move quickly, and make an educated offer, because those that don’t are leaving town empty handed. We’re not making this up. If you follow the weekly Vero Beach Real Estate Sales that I post, the average list to sell ratio is 88% or higher. And some properties sell above asking price.

We’ve also introduced a brand new website: Vero Beach MLS Listings, which now lets you search by street as well as house number. We plugged some of that functionality into Living In Vero as well. Let us know what you think about that. If you can remember the house number, but not the street (or vice versa), it’s pretty cool to be able to drill down and locate something easily.

On a personal note my Dad visited Vero Beach for the fist time a week or so ago, and was really impressed with the place. Some of the things he liked the best were all of the public beaches, public boat ramps, parks, walking trails, free parking, etc. It’s what makes Vero Beach Florida so special…

Paul Kitchen
Broker-Owner
Starfish Real Estate
1705 19th Place Suite C-1
Vero Beach, FL 32960
(772) 539-8420
(772) 539-8360 fax
(800) 793-7304 toll free
Vero Beach Real Estate
Vero Beach Real Estate Blog