We’re here to tell you that NEW is the new market trend! Nationwide, eager buyers are looking for newly built homes, says Dave Ramsey; recent real estate news suggests that the slow rate of new construction is contributing to the rising prices over the last few years. In fact, new home construction is projected to increase by 8% in 2019!

While the Ocean Reef real estate market typically sets its own trends, we seem to be following suit with the new construction bandwagon. New construction and recent renovations seem to be sold before the listing hits our MLS.

Take these recent pending beauties as examples: (Two of them didn’t even last a month!)

 
(Above: 17 Country Club and 23 Dilly Tree)

 
(Above: 7 South Harbor Drive and 50B Fairway Lakes)

As you know, hind sight is often 20-20 in real estate; especially at Ocean Reef. Buyers who are “new construction” homeowners are scoring the most desirable homes by acting quickly. 

Our recommendation is to act fast with an agent you trust; don’t suffer from “I'm Not the Buyer Remorse.” 

https://www.daveramsey.com/blog/real-estate-trends

https://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/articles/what-to-expect-from-the-housing-market

Florida is known for sunshine, blue skies, and hot wives (referencing those funny air conditioning billboards- you know what I’m talking about). Us Floridians are used to 365 days of 80-degree weather with temps only fluctuating about 10 degrees depending on the time of day. However, this “winter” has been a wacky one with “cool fronts” coming through just about weekly! These cooler temps have us thinking about fireplaces, cozy sweaters, space heaters (Thank you 19^th Hole!).

If you have a fireplace in Florida, I’m sure you’ve actually felt compelled to use it this year so we are here to give you answers to your top 5 fireplace questions; from how do they work, to whether or not they are safe and how often you should clean them. Here Zillow does a beautiful job of breaking it all down. We also found this article for you with tips to help achieve maximum coziness in your home; who would have thought perfecting your hot toddy game was one of them!

Investing without a return can burn! Good thing we’ve found a list of four types of renovations that are better left undone, including a study that the National Association of Realtors came out with on the different characteristics that increase and decrease the price of new housing.

We do take this list with a grain of salt since we are such a unique community; heck, most of the time we set and follow our own trends. However, according to Andrew at BiggerPockets, four things to add to your “Thou Shalt Not” list when it comes to rehabbing your properties include: Fixing a Property Up Too Nicely, Awkward Additions or Upgrades That Don’t Fit the Property, and Upgrades That Are Mostly Just a Headache.

Of all the information packed into this article, the fact that the National Association of Realtor’s still finds that adding a pool adds a whopping zero percent to the sales price never ceases to shocks us!

Do you believe that a pool adds to a home’s sale price? If so, why?