Days, months, years. Anniversaries, national day of this and that, and seasons. All of these are ways to remember or measure time. Ray and my wedding anniversary is on June 1. We rode our Harley Davidson to Margaritaville in Pensacola Beach to exchange our vows. Yep, I had my wedding dress and shoes carefully packed on the bike. Since then we have celebrated each of our anniversaries on a Florida beach. This year we beach bummed on Anna Maria Island for a few days. We love that we can drive 30 miles and be totally on vacation! Living where others vacation is such a wonderful concept!
Our anniversary shares the start date of an important Florida season—hurricane season(June 1 through November 30). Being prepared for hurricane season is important. A few helpful ideas we have learned over the years of living in Florida. Make sure you have a copy of your insurance policy. You might even make a copy of it and put it on a thumb drive. You can also upload pictures of your home onto the thumb drive. When you are thinking about food to have on hand, think beyond Pop-tarts and jerky. Stock up on things you will eat later, like peanut butter, canned tuna, graham crackers, nuts, and even some canned vegetables. As far as water, you need a gallon of water per person per day. Do you have water dispenser containers you use at parties? If a named storm is coming, start filling those or if you have a five-gallon water jug for camping that will work great. Of course, you should have batteries and flashlights. Do you have a radio that runs on batteries? Those are just a few things off the top of my head, below are Hurricane Preparedness links for Manasota, Sarasota, and Charlotte county …
Manatee County Hurricane Preparedness
Sarasota County Hurricane Preparedness
Charlotte County Hurricane Preparedness
Since I mentioned in the opening paragraph “national days of this or that '' did you know today, Monday June 13th, is National Klutz in the Kitchen Day. That’s right! Let’s celebrate our kitchen mishaps. I do have two quick klutz in the kitchen stories. First one is about one of my older sisters. It was her night to make the family dinner. We were having chili. My sister was following my mom’s handwritten recipe which called for ¾ cup gr. pepper. My sister thought that seemed like a lot of ground pepper but if that’s what the recipe called for, who was she to question mom’s recipe. Yes, she put in 3⁄4 of a cup of black pepper. The “gr. pepper” should have been read as ¾ cup green pepper. Oh, it was not easy to eat. My sister was in tears. But, my Dad ate it and said to her it was spicy just the way he liked it.
The second one is my own klutzy move. Once, when my kids were little, I was making sloppy joes’ for dinner. I went to grab the chili powder and grabbed the cinnamon by mistake. You can’t undo that mistake. We all gave it a try and then we all ate pb&j’s for dinner instead. To this day I hear them tease me with, “Are you sure you have the chili powder?”
I would love to hear your Klutz in the Kitchen stories!
Is the market right now a Cat 5 or just a tropical storm?
In the newsletters I keep referring to months of inventory being low, which is still true. Have you wondered what “months of inventory” means? This refers to how many months it would take to sell all the houses on the market if we had no new listings. A balanced Buyer/Seller market would be six months of inventory. Meaning if nothing new came on the market we would sell out in six months. At our lowest inventory point we had one week of inventory. Right now, in many price points we are close to a month. As an example In the last month we had several listings come on the market. One had 10 offers, one had 21 offers and another had 6 offers. When our listings hit the market, we know it will be an intense few days. The market is still very much in the Sellers favor. So, I would say we are more in a Cat -2 market, it’s intense but we are going to be ok.
Here are a few interesting articles about the real estate market crashing (or not crashing)
Forbes Article on Will the Market Crash
Times article When will Home Prices Drop
DATA & STATS:
Let’s look at the average home stats. (What I think is an average home is 6 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, 10 car garage with a screened in Olympic sized pool. Just kidding—seeing if you were still with me.) What I am using as average is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, garage, and pool with over 1200 square feet.
(For easy to read in-depth market information you can click on the county name below)
Manatee County: there are 68 active listings, 9 have sold in the last 2 weeks getting about 102% of list price. LOWEST priced home fitting my average home description: $399,000
Sarasota County: there are 123 active listings, 8 have sold in the last 2 weeks getting again 102% of list price. Lowest priced pool home- $365,000
Charlotte County: currently 182 active listings, 15 have sold in the last two weeks getting 100% of list price. Lowest priced pool home- $340,000
We can create a custom report for you in a neighborhood or town in any of these counties. Just call us!
#MaryRayWestbrook