Pensacola Homes will Sell… If Priced Correctly

There’s nothing wrong with the Pensacola housing market that several thousand more stories like Greg Chapman’s won’t cure.
Chapman put his East Hill home on the market in November 2005 at a time when residential prices were approaching post-Hurricane Ivan highs. But it also was a time when the inventory of unsold homes was starting to climb rapidly.

Over the next three months Chapman got only three half-hearted inquiries about his three-bedroom brick home, listed originally at $193,600. Frustrated and disillusioned by the process, he pulled his home off the market, deciding to bide his time and wait for the stae to strengthen.

“To be honest, I was sour on real estate agents,” said Chapman. “I just became leery of them after the first go-around when the house didn’t sell.”

But this past spring Chapman had a change of heart after being approached by Connell & Manziek Realtor-associate Keith Harrod, who specializes in East Hill properties.

“Keith gave me an analysis as it (the property) stood,” said Chapman. “He made a lot of sense. I listened to his advice and thought about it a while, then called him up and said, ‘Let’s do it.’ ”

Harrod convinced Chapman to price the house at what he considered a fair Florida housing market rate for that section of East Hill. The result: the house sold the first day on the market at a price - $165,000 - Chapman said made him “extremely happy.”

Chapman’s quick success offers a broader lesson for the overall Pensacola housing market: Price the property right and it will sell.”I’ve had a number of clients who have priced their homes too high and have been sliding down with the market,” said Harrod. “And, in the end, they’ve probably lost money.

Inventory at record highs
Flying in the face of that simple strategy, though, is the growing glut of overpriced, unsold homes, which hit a record high in May of more than 7,100.

And that number doesn’t include homes for sale by owner, and the many hundreds of new spec homes offered by builders.

But while Florida home prices are coming down, and once-stubborn sellers getting more realistic about pricing their homes, overcoming the huge inventory of homes remains the Pensacola market’s biggest challenge.”If we were to continue selling homes at the present rate of between 400 and 500 a month, it would take 16 months to sell all those 7,100 homes if no others came on the market,” aid Bill Chavis of RE/MAX Horizons Realty.

Chavis, like most other Realtors, says he has little difficulty selling a home if it’s priced right. But he adds that “there are so few buyers right now.” Conversely, Doug Gooch, president of the Pensacola Association of Realtors, says the Florida mortgage loan buyers are coming back, and the number of sales is approaching pre-Ivan levels - between 400 and 500 a month.

“Sales are looking like they’re getting back to normal,” Gooch said. “Housing priced at market is moving. If the pricing is right, that’s the key.”

Gooch says it’s also important to find the right real estate agent or Realtor who thoroughly understands the local market, as well as the buyer and/or seller’s needs and desires.

Buying smart
With around 2,500 real estate agents and Realtors working in the Pensacola area market, finding the right one can be a daunting task for prospective Florida mortgage applicants and sellers who know little about the local housing market.

And that is especially true for out-of-town buyers like Sandi and Barry Huster of Dothan, Ala.

The Husters were in Pensacola recently looking for a home with veteran Realtor Alexis Bolin, recommended to the couple by a Dothan Realtor.

“We heard there were a lot of houses for sale, and that it’s a buyers’ market,” Huster said. “Taxes and insurance concerned us a lot, and we knew we wanted a Realtor to help us.”

Despite their concerns about taxes and insurance, buyers like the Husters have best of both worlds: falling prices and thousands of homes from which to choose.

Many local real estate agents are optimistic prices finally are bottoming out, that inventories have peaked, and some semblance of normalcy is returning to the Pensacola Bay area market.

But that optimism does not apply to all areas of the Pensacola market.

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