Real Estate Tampa: Top Reasons to Own

We encourage our readers to realize why real estate is such a valuable asset. It is the place you call “home” whether it is a rental or you own the home yourself. As previous blogs have emphasized in the past, the real estate market is changing. We are stabilizing out here in Tampa Bay and before prices start going to high we would like to review the top reasons why the majority of America still prefers owning their home over renting a property.

• Savings

It can be a large misconception that owning a home is more expensive than renting a property. In today’s market where many renters are looking for the best properties for their money it is a very competitive market, driving rental prices up. In over 71% of America’s larger cities owning is cheaper than renting a comparable home. Looking in Tampa, you can rent a two bedrooms, two bath, and 1000 sq foot condo near Brandon/Tampa line for about $950-$1000 a month. If you wanted to own a brand new 1250 square foot townhome with two bedrooms and two and a half baths, you could pay as little as $850 a month (including taxes, insurance, and HOA dues). That is a huge difference!

• Tax Breaks and Equity

If you are looking for the extra savings in taxes, real estate is also a great investment. Whether it’s a home you live in or a property to rent out and deduct expenses, tax benefits are a great reason to own. When looking at real estate long term, you need to consider the equity your home can build for you. Knowing you have a sound investment that will build over time.

• Security

After all of the financial benefits listed above, it’s important to point out that not all benefits are defined by a dollar amount, stability and security is a huge part of owning a home. Knowing that you have a place to call home can be one of the best reasons to purchase a property. When you own, you have the opportunity to decorate and transform into your own space. You will not need to worry about rent rates increasing unexpectedly, or relying on an owner’s approval to continue your stay. You get the full satisfaction of knowing where you will sleep and share good times with family and friends.
Most of the bullet points we compiled for this blog was inspired by Realty Times. Although savings, tax breaks, and security are great benefits to owning your own home, they only represent a small portion of the advantages to home ownership. Prices are still low, interest rates are historically low, and it is less expensive to own a home in Tampa than rent a comparable property. What are you waiting for, if you are still renting and you have resources to buy a home, call SI Real Estate to get some more information. We are experience professionals who want to help you accomplish your real estate goals. We can be reached at 813.631.5144 or email us at Yourhome@SIRealEstateInvestments.com.

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Tuesday Tidbit: Bill Chadwick

SELLER: William J. Chadwick
LOCATION: Malibu, CA
PRICE: $35,000,000
SIZE: 10,480 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 9.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Brace yourselves west coast real estate freaks because it's baaaaack! In the summer of 2008, right about the time that the bottom fell completely out of the real estate markets in southern California and around the country, low profile real estate financier William J. Chadwick heaved and ho-ed his behemoth ocean front mansion on Malibu's Carbon Beach on the market with an elephantine (and insanely optimistic) asking price of $65,000,000.

The price eventually fell to $35,000,000 and in mid-September, more than three years after it first appeared on the open market, an auction was scheduled with the minimum bid price set at a substantially and somewhat shockingly lower $22,000,000.

Alas, butter beans, the auction was unsuccessful and yesterday Your Mama received a covert communique from Our Fair Godmother in Bel Air who informed us that Mister Chadwick recently re-priced the 10,480 square foot pile with an asking price of–are y'all sitting down for this?–$35,000,000.

Now, children, Your Mama is well aware we are far from the sharpest knife if the drawer. However, it seems to our rather pea-sized brain that if Mister Chadwick's Malibu manse didn't sell for $35,000,000 before and the September auction failed to entice someone with both the desire and deep pockets to sign on the deed's dotted line then it follows that the increased asking price is just pie in the real estate sky. Yes? No? Bueller?

Then again, let's get real people, what does Your Mama know about anything? We never thought someone would pay Candy Spelling more than $50,000,000 for her monster mega-mansion in Holmby Hills for which Formula One Racing heiress Petra Ecclestone coughed up $85,000,000 in cash money. We also would not have put all our chips on black 35 that sitcom queen Jennifer Aniston would have snagged $35,000,000 for her sprawling Beverly Hills mansion a few months ago either.

Anyhoodles poodles, Mister Chadwick's bulky and hulky quasi-Cape Cod style beach house sits on an unusually large .54 acre parcel, claims an almost unheard of for Malibu 150-feet of beach frontage, and includes a long list of fancy features such as an attached three car garage with direct entry, 90-foot long great room, 6 en suite bedrooms, a total of 9.5 bathrooms, 4 fireplaces, a 16-seat state-of-the-art home theater, formal dining area with 5-seat built-in wet bar, wine cellar (natch), an ocean front gym, paneled library a wall-sized aquarium–breathe, breathe, breathe–a small patch of grass for piddling pooches, a 4,500 square foot ocean side entertainment terrace with outdoor kitchen and barbecue station, and a 75-foot long two-lane lap pool.

This beach house is without question unreservedly lavish and amenity-loaded in that pseudo-casual sort of way that billionaires seem to like to decorate their super-sized beach shacks in the Bu. It is also a weighty and high-maintenance real estate albatross around Mister Chadwick's pampered neck from which he's not been able, despite years on the market with heaps of international publicity and a last ditch effort auction, to un-tether himself.

Your Mama imagines that Mister Chadwick must be about as frustrated as a bee stuck in a jar of honey but we also expect that free-floating real estate schadenfreude will keep Argentina from crying much for Mister Chadwick and his ongoing real estate woes.

listing photos: Westside Estate Agency

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Tuesday Tidbit: Ellen Degeneres

Late last week Your Mama discussed the 26-acre equestrian extravaganza in Thousand Oaks, CA that chat show host Ellen Degeneres and her actress wife Portia de Rossi have on the market with an asking price of $16,500,000.

Celebrity real estate gossips and watchers know the horsey spread in Thousand Oaks isn't the only posh property in the Los Angeles area the Missus Degeneres and de Rossi own but want to unload from their property portfolio. Rumors started to slip and slide down the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine in early 2011 that the couple desired to divest themselves of the deluxe Beverly Hills, CA compound they've spent many tens of millions of dollars amassing and customizing.

In the fall of 2007 the property mad pair coughed up an almost unbelievable $29,000,000 for the main portion of the compound, which they bought from residuals rich Will & Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick. A few months later the compound loving ladies shelled out an additional $8,500,000 for the property next door that they razed and replaced with a serene, watery garden with long views down the rugged, mansion-dotted canyons and over the twinkling lights of Lala Land.

The following June the real estate flip-floppers spent $5,000,000 for an adjacent fixer upper and just a month later they shelled out another $5,500,000 for a hillside house with oblique views into the backyard of the main house. Altogether, according to our ever-present bejeweled abacus, the Missus Degeneres and de Rossi dumped an astonishing forty-eight million clams for the various properties that comprise the compound, not counting renovation and customization costs.

In late May (2011), the swankety-swank Degenere-de Rossi compound finally hit the open market with an undisclosed price that several sources swear was $60,000,000 for the entire multi-parcel, multi-residence compound. A few weeks ago, amid rumors that Formula One Racing heiress Tamara Ecclestone rejected the compound as not grand enough for her grandiose real estate tastes, the property disappeared from the listing agent's website.

Lo and behold, yesterday the couple's compound popped back up on the market with an official asking price of $49,000,000.

New listing information shows the compound contains a total of 9 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms spread throughout a sprawling single-story a main house, a detached guest house tucked into the hillside at the front of the house and and guest/staff apartment, fitness facility and underground parking garage tucked discretely underneath the swimming pool with its adjacent pavilion. The compound includes an additional and separate 3 bedroom house for staff, security, extended family, or whatever.

Listing information goes on to reveal there are more than half a dozen fireplaces on the property, lavishly landscaped grounds that include a meandering pond and grassy back yard with infinity-edged swimming pool and spa, and state-of-the-art security systems.

Certainly the Missus D. and de R. sit high on a mountain of money that would make the knees of ordinary rich people turn to jelly with envy and Your Mama needs a god damn nerve pill to smooth out the bitter agita caused by the financial flabbergast that overwhelms us when we consider the the monetary resources it takes just to pay the taxes and upkeep costs for their high-maintenance Beverly Hills compound as well as their Thousand Oaks horse farm.

It not known where Miz Degeneres and Miz de Rossi would like to reside next but Your Mama has heard–but can not confirm–from someone in a position to know such matters that the couple would like to simplify their real estate lives with the acquisition of an in-town estate/ranchette where they can both live and house their horses. We shall see, puppies, we shall see.

listing photos: Westside Estate Agency

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Conforming Loan Limits Drop In High-Cost Areas

For homeowners in high-cost areas nationwide, conforming and FHA loan limits have dropped by as much as 14 percent.

Effective October 1, 2011, the temporary mortgage loan limits that allowed for non-jumbo loan sizes of up to $729,750 are no longer.

$729,750 is above the "normal" loan limit of $417,000.

The elevated limits were put in place in 2008 as the economy and financial sector entered its crisis. At the time, there was little private money to serve buyers and would-be refinancers whose loan sizes exceeded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's maximum $417,000 loan limits.

For most people whose loan sizes exceeded that threshold, mortgage financing was unavailable. There were no lenders to back the loan size.

This was of particular importance in places such as New York City, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. where home prices routinely top $1 million. For people in these areas, unless they had a downpayment that could lower their respective loan sizes to $417,000 or lower, mortgages were mostly unavailable.

Congress recognized this and, as a result, gave Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac temportary authorization to purchase and securitize home loans of up to $729,750 in value, depending on where the subject property was located.

The program helped housing, leading Congress to pass more permanent, location-specific loan limits. Later that same year, Congress passed the Housing and Recovery Act of 2009 which, in part, made high-cost loan limit pricing permanent, albeit at $625,500.

The $729,750 temporary limits expired Friday, September 30, 2011. Today, the maximum allowable conforming loan size is $625,500.

If you live in a high-cost area, therefore, take note. Mortgage rates may be low, but the amount of loan for which you qualify may be less than you expect, and you may find yourself ineligible.

The complete list of high-cost areas is available online.

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Frances Bean Cobain Buys A West Coast Crib of Her Own

BUYER: Frances Bean Cobain
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,825,000
SIZE: 3,350 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Last week Your Mama received an enlightening missive from The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial who alerted us to a well-maintained Los Angeles, CA residence they believe was acquired–through a trust–by tatted-up teen-aged rock-and-roll heiress Frances Bean Cobain.

In case any of y'all live under a showbiz rock and don't know, Miss Cobain, now a quite striking and decidedly worldly 19 year old young woman, is the only progeny of deceased Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain, who (in)famously did himself in when his daughter was just a toddler, and Hole front woman Courtney Love, a not-particularly-stable-seeming twittering typhoon of a woman who can be counted on as rich fodder for the tabs, blogs and gossip glossies but but isn't, we imagine, on any body's list for Mother of the Year.

Miz Love and Miss Cobain have a wickedly cantankerous mother/daughter relationship. In late 2009 it was widely reported that Miz Love lost legal custody of her minor daughter and that a temporary restraining order was issued that forbid Momma Love from having any direct or indirect contact with Miss Cobain.

On the occasion of her 18th birthday in August 2010, Miss Cobain not only became a legal adult but also the sole beneficiary of a multi-million dollar trust set up in the years after her father's suicide to ensure her future financial security. Now in control of her very own and very substantial mountain of moolah, the former Rolling Stone intern turned pseudonymic artist Fiddle Tim, has indeed busted out and bought herself a home of her own in Tinseltown.

After getting word of the purchase from The Bizzy Boys, Your Mama did some asking around and our frighteningly well-informed friend and informant Lucy Spillerguts quickly confirmed the purchase by Miss Cobain of a vintage Spanish style casa tucked into a quiet canyon in the foothills just above Hollywood. Property records show the deal went down in late July 2011 in the amount of $1,825,000.

Listing information for Miss Cobain's new crib shows it measures a grown up but far from excessive 3,350 square feet with a total of 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. The two-story house, built in 1930, was designed by architect Carl Jules Weyl and retains many original architectural and decorative details such as hand-forged iron work, colorful decorative tiles, numerous stained and leaded glass windows, hand-stenciled wood beams, and vintage light fixtures and hardware.

The terra cotta tile floors in the entrance hall turn to restored wood floors in the "formal" living room that features a wood-burning fireplace, vaulted wood ceiling with exposed and stenciled beams, a row of leaded glass windows at the front of the house and a bank of pane-free French doors that open the room to a large tiled terrace at the rear of the property.

Like the entrance hall, the formal dining room has an articulated ceiling treatment and connects to the kitchen/service area through an old-timey swinging door. The fully updated and upgraded kitchen isn't huge but is well-equipped with white Shaker-style cabinetry, open shelving for daily dishes and glassware, high-grade commercial-style stainless steel appliances, and white subway tile back splashes. The kitchen complex also includes a long and narrow walk-in pantry with washer and dryer and an adjoining breakfast room with shallow barrel vaulted ceiling.

A room next to the kitchen is labeled as a "Media Rm" in the listing description of the property but is so exiguous that even a committed and unashamed tee-vee addict like Your Mama would rather scrub terlits with an old toothbrush than be trapped in that claustrophobic cubicle of a room with a blaring boob-toob.

Anyhoo, the wood-floored staircase winds up to the second floor bedrooms that include a modestly-scaled but nicely appointed master bedroom that listing information indicates includes a small private terrace, a wonderfully cacophonous tiled bathroom with separate soaking tub and stall shower, "generous closets," and a separate dressing area charmingly outfitted with built-in vanity and adjustable three-sided mirror.

Although the rear yard is, as per listing information, "pool-sized" there isn't a swimming pool. There are several outdoor areas where Miss Cobain can take advantage of the classic (and somewhat cliché) indoor/outdoor California lifestyle. The main dining/lounging and outdoor entertaining area is a tree-shaded, courtyard-like patio accessible through French doors located in various rooms on the main floor of the residence. A short, gated driveway cuts along the side of house and leads back to a detached garage currently converted to a studio/office.

It unclear how much time Miss Cobain plans to spend in Los Angeles given that she reportedly attends private, pricey and proudly arty-farty Bard College in upstate New York.

Your Mama asks that the children keep in mind that the perfectly banal day-core depicted in listing photographs reflect the tastes of the seller and not Miss Cobain who we imagine (and hope) has far less traditional and more quirky ideas about how to turn a house into a home.

listing photos: Prudential California Realty

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Latest Update

Got a request from an escrow company for a payoff amount on hard money loan #17, so that should be closing soon. Another short loan - just 5 months.

Got an update on the Houston apartment complex a couple of weeks ago for the month of August. It wasn't a good month. Our occupancy stayed stable at 93%, but expenses were up. The main culprits were higher utility bills during the summer - water and electricity are running about $10,000 more per month than they cost in the winter months. The good news here is that those bills should start declining. Management has said the September bills are running about $7,000 lower than August.

Another expense was an "extraordinarily high" number of counter top resurfaces for the 22 units that were turned over. Not sure if these were just really destructive tenants or if these units were just getting to the point where this needed to be done after several tenants had lived there. And, as mentioned previously, our loan payment has switched from interest only to principle and interest, so our mortgage went up. All these factors combined to create a negative $18,000 cash flow for the month - the largest monthly lost so far this year. And for the year to date, the property has a $10,000 loss. Unemployment in Houston is creeping up again and management is warning that we may start seeing higher turnover as tenants move out due to lost jobs.

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Fall Fix-Ups For Your Home

It's October and the fall season has officially started. For homeowners throughout WA and nationwide, the change of season is a well-timed, "preventative maintenance" reminder.

As temperatures cool, there are a handful of do-it-yourself projects you should undertake in order to keep your home in tip-top shape through the winter. This 4-minute piece from NBC's The Today Show highlights just a few of them.

Calling it a "Fall Fix-Up Checklist", The Today Show's interview is fast-paced and wide-ranging. Some of the topics covered include :

• Pick up all fallen leaves to limit damage to grass and "critter" invasions
• Unclog gutters to protect windows and foundations
• Turn off outside water sources and remove water from pipes and hoses

The home-tip video also shares how to find air leaks in your home, and how to fix them. Reducing air leaks can lower your home's heating and cooling bills by thousands of dollars annually.

Although the highlighted projects are DIYs, you may feel more comfortable hiring a professional. Know your "handyman limits", and remain safe at all times.

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