Vero Beach Florida Homes

Staging your home is a great way to prepare your home to sale and to make it look alluring to buyers in the Vero Beach, Hutchinson Island, Indian River Shores Florida areas. Staging your home has become popular during the last decade. Read this article to find out some great ideas on how to get your home ready for potential buyers and get it sold sooner, rather than later.

Within the first minute, people decide if they could live in your home. The problem is that there are so many homes on the market right now, that if yours doesn’t catch their eye immediately, then they have other choices. The struggling housing market is forcing people to take more drastic measures to sell their homes. Many homeowners say they need all the help they can get. With the market not being so good, there are ways you can make your house stand out. Staging your home is the way to make your house stand out in the Vero Beach, Hutchinson Island, Indian River Shores Florida areas.

The idea of home staging is to highlight your home’s best attributes and positively affect potential buyers. Staging your home isn’t about your own tastes. It is about making the home appealing to the general population. Whether you go at it alone or use a stager, you need to have the attitude that your home is no longer your home.

Following are some tips to consider:

• Take down family pictures. Potential buyers need to picture themselves in your home, not you!
• Staging your rooms to show off their true potential. Clear out clutter or other personal items that will distract buyers.
• Painting the walls yourself is the cheapest upgrading option you have. This will really attract buyers. Try a neutral tone.

Staging your home is a great option to make your home stand out in the Vero Beach, Hutchinson Island, Indian River Shores Florida areas. Let myself, Ginny Mitchell, your agent offer you advice about how to make your house more attractive to buyers.

Overall real estate sales in the Vero Beach – Hutchinson Island area were a bit stronger than last month.  The graphs and commentary below compare the sales month by month since January 2004 through March 2009.  

 

 

There are a few buyers, but they are still looking for  best-buy values and making low offers.

Barrier Island Condos:  It is good to see this class of sales rebound to 8 sales from poor January sales. Prices ranged from $130,000 for a 2 BR, 1 bath condo on Dahlia near the beach town center to $520,000 for a 2/2 in John’s Island and another at Seaquay. Months on the market ranged from 2 months for a unit Pebble Beach Villas to 45 months for the unit in John’s Island. The ratio of sale price to list price averaged 68%.

 

 

 

The Island home market showed a nice upturn with 19 sales in February. There were 4 homes sold for over $1,000,000 (one for $9,000,000) and 12 homes sold for under $500,000.  Prices ranged from $180,000 in the Wabasso Beach area to $9,000,000 in Orchid Island. Time on the market averaged 17 months and the sales-to-original-list-price ratio was 67%. Note of interest: the sales ratio on the $1,000,000 was 57%.  The time-on-market overall averaged 33 months.

 

 

Countywide house sales increased a respectable amount from 77 in January to 91 in February. The median sales price was $140,000 and 24 houses (26%) were bank/corporate owned. On the mainland,  prices ranged from $23,000 in the South Dixie Highway area to $680,000 in Pine Hammock off 70th Ave out in the county. There are still almost 2500 houses for sale, which is over a 3 year supply at the present absorption rate.

 

 

 

 

Indian River County Townhomes:  There was a jump in sales from last month. However, it was the lowest number of February sales in the past 6 years as noted on the 5 year graph below. On the mainland there were 13 sales—6 sold in Vista Royale between $28,000 for a 1 bedroom unit to $40,000 for a 2 bedroom unit. The high sale for the month on the mainland was $225,000 in Oak Harbour.

North Hutchinson Island:  Another slow month—3 condos were sold and no single family homes.  Barkley Beach Club # 803 sold for $305,000. It had been originally listed for $499,000 and had been on the market for around 25 months.  Seabreeze # 401 sold for $208,000. This was a bank-owned property originally listed for $286,000 and had been on the market for 6 months. Tiara #503 sold for $349,000. It was originally listed for $629,000 and had been on the market for approximately 36 months.

 

  

Presently there are 3549 homes for sale for sale. In Feb. 07 there were 4097 for sale, a reduction of 548 homes on the market. 

 

Are we making progress?

 

During this same 2 year time period approximately 3500 homes were sold. Even though there were 3500 sold, the overall reduction was only 548. There still is a long way to reduce the inventory down to a reasonable number of homes on the market.

 

In 2004 the average number of homes on the market was under 200/300 and a few months dropped to around 100. Starting in January 2005, homes-for-sale jumped to 700 and grew to around 3500 by March of 2006 and has stayed there since then.