As a real estate market, Tampa Bay is both undervalued and relatively unknown.
There are so many luxury home sales in Tampa bay that it doesn’t cover anything under $10 million. Tampa Bay hasn’t had a sale anywhere near that price since 2012.
With their currencies dropping against the dollar, some foreign buyers no longer can afford those lofty South Florida prices and are turning to less expensive places.
Some other under-the-radar markets are Amelia Island near Jacksonville Florida, Lake Norman north of Charlotte, N.C. (a favorite of NASCAR drivers) and Chautauqua Lake in western New York.
Among larger metro areas, Nashville Tennesssee is popular because of its many universities and its “rich music history”.
For buyers and sellers of Florida real estate contact Reeta Gulati
Even Tampa Bay might be getting too expensive for Canadians, who make up its largest share of foreign buyers. With the Canadian dollar down 15 percent and housing prices up 10 percent, don’t expect to see many of our Northern neighbors in the market this year (2015).
Like other metro areas, Tampa Bay has plenty of — well-educated, technologically savvy young people (millennials) who will have a huge impact on the real estate industry in coming years.
For now, millennials seem content to stay in the rental complexes that property owners are rushing to build or upgrade with fitness centers, dog parks and other amenities to make up for the shortage of living space.
As they marry and start families, though, millennials will seek the same thing their parents did.
“We find that millennials have very conventional views,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist for the online real estate site Zillow. “They want to own their own homes. They will be a very big source of demand.”
But here’s where desire bumps into what Humphries calls “the historical crisis in providing affordable rents.”
As a result of the 2008 real estate crash, millions of Americans lost their homes and have been forced to rent. That has driven rents to their highest levels in years — $2,000 a month or more in some of Tampa Bay’s newer complexes.
For millennials hoping to buy, “The biggest problem is the down payment,” Humphries said. “It’s a vicious cycle, the rents are so high they can’t afford a down payment.”
So, do developers keep building rental apartments? Or, as millennials get older, do developers find a way to build reasonably priced homes where millennials want to be — near downtown areas like those of Tampa and St. Petersburg?
Panelists didn’t have good answers. But as Nela Richardson, chief economist for the online brokerage Redfin, put it, “That generation can have some profound effects on real estate.”
• Zillow, Realtor.com and other websites with millions of listings are also having a huge impact on the residential real estate business: 90 percent of home searches today start online. While panelists predicted Realtors will still play a role 10 years from now, their commissions likely will be less.
• Golf courses in residential communities no longer are the big draws they once were. With many younger people bored by a game that can take hours to play, hundreds of courses have been abandoned or built on. The exception: golf courses in luxury communities. “It’s an ego-driven thing; people love saying, ‘We’ve been on the course in Aspen or Nantucket,’ ” said John Klemish of West Virginia’s fabled Greenbrier resort, with its five championship courses.
The real estate market continues to fluctuate and having the right agent to help buyers and sellers adjust is vital.
Source : Tampa Bay . Com