Melbourne Real Estate News, Brevard County FL Real Estate by Sandy Shores REALTOR®

Palm Bay Florida is one of Brevard County's largest and fastest growing communities. It is located just south of Melbourne.  It covers land from Indian River to west of Interstate 95. Palm Bay is Florida's sixth largest city. More than 88,500 residents live in Palm Bay.

Palm Bay Florida is home to one of Brevard's largest employers - Harris Corporation. Due to Harris' location, many other technology related companies are located here in Palm Bay.

Palm Bay has movie theaters, strip malls, convenience stores, and family attractions all within a few minutes drive, Palm Bay has great amenities, like fishing, boating and swimming in the Indian River.  Do you like golfing? Well Palm Bay has that too.

Palm Bay has numerous elementary schools, middle schools, and two high schools - Palm Bay High School and Brevard's newest high school, Bayside High.

Come and visit Palm Bay Florida.  You'll love it here! Palm Bay is one of Brevard County's best places to be.

Visit my website at www.SandyShoresMelbourne.com

Well, here we are...school starts on Monday August 18, 2008 here in Melbourne Florida.  We get so many questions from buyers and owners about the local school systems here in Melbourne Florida. 

Did you know that you can visit the Brevard County Schools website for the most comprehensive school information available? Did you know that you can view each individual school's scorecard to see how well that school has performed over the last several years? The county website is full of good information for parents and students.

I know as a parent, every year I look for the Melbourne Florida 2008-2009 School Calendar  for Brevard County Schools to help plan the school year

In addition, you can find school information across the nation.  You can find school rankings. You can type in a a home address and the search will indicate what school your student should be attending.  Or you can see what area is close to a specific district.

So, have a great year and see you at school on Monday!

Summer is over!  Can you believe it?  Time just seems to fly! 

Oh my gosh...how did we get here already?  Brevard County Florida students report back to school on Monday, August 18. Registration has been going on all week! 

Summer was fun!  But to talk to my teenagers you might get a different story. 

I heard one of my girls telling one of their friends, "oh, you know...we didn't do much, I guess it was kind of boring."  Now, how can that possibly be?  Boring?????  I was surprised to hear that coming out of one of my girl's mouths. Or is that just what teenagers say to each other?

They never stopped going for a minute from the beginning to the end of summer. 

Let me reflect for a minute and smile at how "boring" our summer really was...

We had a beginning of the summer pool party for 25, 13 to 14 year old teenagers, with a shaving cream fight and water balloons!

We went to the beach. We went shopping.                                                                                          

We went to Buena Vista Village and Walt Disney World for a couple of days.

My sister, Jean from Navarre Florida spent 2 weeks with us.  She's great!

They talked on their cell phones and instant messaged their friends.

We played basketball. We went bike riding. We went bowling. We swam in our pool. We went fishing.

Sam, my 13 year old went to dance camp for 4 days with the West Shore Dance Team over at the University of Central Florida. The team earned a superior trophy for their efforts.

Stef, my older daughter took dance classes at Brevard Community College 4 days a week.

They had at least 20 sleepovers with friends.

They went spent the weekend with their aunt and uncle and went boating.

Sam went to powerlifting 3 days a week.

Sam competed in the State and National Powerlifting Championships in June and earned 4 World's Records in her weight class.

We played with our dog, Bailey and took him out every chance we could.

Sam taught dance class to 3 to 12 year olds for half of the summer.

They were teacher assistants at Vacation Bible School for a week.

Stef went to a Sweet Sixteen Party at the Melbourne Beach Hilton, and went to Cirque du Soleil in Orlando, which was phenomenal!

Okay, I could go on and on, but since I lost MOST of you at, we went shopping...you get my point.   I don't think either one of them ever sat down for a minute this summer!

So, I'm still trying to figure out what part of the summer was boring.

Could you excuse me, because I'm going to take a nap!

The United States Census Bureau has reported that the United States is currently experiencing the highest vacancy rates on homes in over 50 years. 

Over 2 million homes were sitting empty in the first quarter of 2008, as reported on Interest.com. That's almost 3% of all homes in the United States. Many of these homes are properties that are short sales; the owners have made an arrangement with their lender to sell them for less than the mortgage balance. Other vacant properties are sometimes bank foreclosures.

These empty homes are providing attractive buying opportunities for buyers.  Some are being negotiated with favorable financing and lower prices.  Many banks are getting more and more of these properties on a monthly basis, thus it behooves them to be negotiable. Unfortunately, not every bank is agreeable to favorable terms.

Here in Brevard County Florida homes being offered by individual owners can sometimes be favorably negotiated, depending on when the owner purchased the home and the owner's current mortgage balance.  Homes purchased 5 or more years ago, here in Brevard County can often be purchased for competitive prices.  A vacant house can often times signify a highly motivated owner. However, if owners are still holding out for 2005 prices, they may eventually be just another short sale or foreclosure statistic. As, those prices are a thing of the past.

So, if you're thinking of buying a Brevard County Florida Home, keep your eyes and ears open.  The deals are out there.  Educate yourself to the market and get your financing in order.  So you are ready to proceed ahead when you find the "right home".

Visit my website at www.SandyShoresMelbourne.com and go to the search the MLS page.  Look for Brevard County Homes for sale.

We've all seen them...

We all drive by them everyday...

We all feel for them...

Those stale listings that just sit and go unsold...

But why?  Why are they still for sale?

Over priced? Poor location?  No curb appeal? No staging?  Poor condition?  Knee high grass? Or just plain old bad luck? Which is it? Or is it a different situation for every one of them?

Well, frankly for me...I feel for the sellers... but, let my clarify myself......I feel for the sellers that truly have an interest in selling their home...BUT CAN'T!

Everyday I drive by the same 4 homes that have been for sale for over a year and one for over 2 years now.  Let me use one as an example...

This particular home first went on the market here in Melbourne Florida in Brevard County. Our market peaked in 2005 and began a steady decline in 2006. 

• Listed for sale in June 2006 with a real estate company for $269,000.  In my opinion, 10% too high for the market.
• Home withdrawn.
• For sale by owner for 6 months at $259,000.
• Real estate company #2 listed it at $239,000. I viewed the home at an open house...the agent asked what I thought...I told her it needed new carpet, fresh paint inside, the rooms needed to be cleared out and opened up to get that 'musty' feel and smell out. The price was again 10% high for the current market.  Remember, our market was continuing to decline.
• The listing expired and company #3 took it at $199,000. They had an open house and I visited. The agent asked me what I thought and I told him, the items from the previous company open house had not been been corrected. The listing expired.
• A discount company has the listing now.  The price has been dropped from $199,000 to $188,900 to $164,900 and the house is still sitting on the market since June 2006 PRICED $105,000 LESS THAN IT WAS THEN!  
• Today's list price is less than what similar homes in the area are selling for and no one is biting!
• The location is good, the floor plan is good, the curb appeal is attractive and there have been no less that 8 houses in this area that have come on the market and sold since this seller placed her home on the market.

We see it everyday, that home that doesn't get the careful consideration it needs; all the work MUST be done before the sign goes up.  And the property should be priced carefully for current market conditions.

Do you know what your neighborhood walkscore is in Suntree Florida?

Did you know that you can find out which of America's neigborhoods are most walkable?

Your walkscore is a number between 0 and 100. The higher the number, the closer your home is to area conveniences. My neighborhood walkscore in Brevard County is a 42 out of 100. For me, I find that my neighborhood is convenient to most of the spots I want to walk to.

I love walking; anything to get out in the fresh air and enjoy the beautiful sunshine.  I like to walk to the store to pick up a couple of items, to walk to get a taco, or a movie or some chinese take out food.  My dog, Bailey the Boxer loves it even more than I do. 

Are you thinking of buying a home? But wondering how close it is to major conveniences? 

With Walkscore you can find out how easily you can get around in an area without a car. You can type in an address and walkscore indicates the proximity that location is to shopping, groceries, dining, parks, libraries, schools, etc. 

You can find out what 40 US cities have the most walkable neighborhoods

So type in your address today and see what your neighborhood walkscore is. 

My teenage daughters, Stef, 15, Sam, 13 and I painted the inside and outside of our rental, including all the cut in work in 2 days, in between raindrops!

I have to say that I truly love the comaraderie of working together with my family on one of our rental houses here in Melbourne Florida in Brevard County.  It is such a feeling of accomplishment when we walk out, at the end of the day, with a job well done.

Our girls have been working on our rental houses with us since they were both 1 and 3 years old. We take them with us each time a tenant moves out and we need to get the house ready for the next tenant.  We are fortunate in that we are able to do 95% of our own work on our houses.

I am so incredibly blessed to have such incredibly hard working daughters. 

We all go into separate rooms and know exactly what has to be done and in what time frame it needs to be done. We also know the more we get done this weekend, the less we have to do next weekend.

Now, mind you, by the end of the day in between their paint fights they had as much paint on themselves as they did on the walls!  We were absolutely cracking up! 

They were so proud of what they had accomplished in completing the house and so proud of how much paint they got on each other!  They were both pretty well covered from head to foot.

It was a GREAT time! They were so funny! I love working with my girls!  They are both absolutely incredible!

Remember; Work hard, play hard and live, laugh and have fun doing it!

Currently, there are almost 90 million Americans that rent their homes. 

And about a million more are expected to be added to that number this year alone. These will be previous homeowners that have sold their homes by short sale, or for less than the balance of their mortgages. And, there will be owners that have lost their homes to foreclosure.

So, what does this mean to the landlords? 

Some rental houses will begin filling up.

But, what about landlords that rent to only people with perfect credit?

Will some landlords have to shift their thinking?

There will be previous homeowners joining the tenant ranks, but the ones that went into foreclosure and many who had to short sale their homes won't have perfect credit.  In fact, their credit may possibly be destroyed. 

So, what is a landlord to do? Perhaps, some will have to change their way of thinking.

As a landlord, I have no problem with renting to people with blemishes on their credit.  Bad things sometimes happen to good people.  I know many hard working people that pay their bills on time.  Some people just get stretched too thin. I look at every individual's situation on a case by case basis.

I also know many owners that can pay their mortgage payment at $1000 a month, but as soon as it jumped to $1400 a month, they were no longer in a position to pay it. 

So, in this ever changing real estate market, if landlords reposition their thinking, they'll soon be able to get their properties rented to good, hard working tenants that previously had hoped to own a slice of the American Dream.

If you're a landlord, are you rethinking your position in today's market?

Did you know that you can find out which of America's neigborhoods are most walkable?

My neighborhood walkscore here in Melbourne Florida located in Brevard County is a 42 out of 100. For me, I find that my neighborhood is convenient to most of the spots I want to walk to.

I love walking; anything to get out in the fresh air and enjoy the beautiful sunshine.  I like to walk to the store to pick up a couple of items, to walk to get a taco, or a movie or some chinese take out food.  My dog, Bailey the Boxer loves it even more than I do. 

Are you thinking of buying a home? But wondering how close it is to major conveniences? 

With Walkscore you can find out how easily you can get around in an area without a car. You can type in an address and walkscore indicates the proximity that location is to shopping, groceries, dining, parks, libraries, schools, etc. 

You can find out what 40 US cities have the most walkable neighborhoods

So type in your address today and see what your neighborhood walkscore is. 

My husband's 30 year high school reunion from Satellite Beach High School was recently held at the beautiful Melbourne Beach Hilton located in Indialantic Florida, here in Brevard County.  Special accomodations were made for the guests at the Hilton.

The reunion gave us all an opportunity to stroll down memory lane and catch up on the last 30 years.  Alumni traveled from across the country to attend the special 3 day function.

I just wanted share some of the beautiful views of Indialantic Florida out the Melbourne Beach Hilton windows.