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Good luck, what a beautiful home, that would cost over a million is many areas. I don't ever recall seeing a home with a 4 car garage, that's a selling point right there.
The thing that's bad about your pics is too many angles of the same room and you don't have pictures of all the bedrooms and all the bathrooms and of the basement and sauna.
We didn't want to overwhelm with pics and our basement isn't finished so it doesn't look too exciting. It does have a fireplace and we have work out equipment in it but most folks know what an unfinished one looks like. We do have all the bedrooms in the pics...3 bedrooms and one being used as our office. The sauna we didn't take a pic of because we didn't know if buyers would think of it as a nice thing to have or odd. Steam saunas are just finally becoming more trendy but maybe not as desired as a hot tub or pool?
Orlando area but closer to Lake Mary. We noticed houses are hot down there so we will rent till the market cools a bit but even the hot houses seem like a deal with 2500 a year taxes.
I don't think your tax estimate is accurate for houses in the $300-350k range. You have to remember that we have the Save Our Homes amendment in Florida. So property assessments are capped for existing owners (maximum of CPI or 3%/year - whichever is lower). If you're looking at $2500 in taxes - the odds are the owner has had the benefit of this law for years - if not decades. When a property is sold - it is reassessed at full market value.
In any event - there are various tax estimators floating around where you can get a sense of what you'd pay in taxes based on what you think you'll pay for a house. Note that your final bill can vary a lot from your base property taxes - even within a county - because there are all kinds of local "add-ons". Might be a local hospital district - a mosquito control district - a fire district - or any one of dozens of other districts. The taxable value of our house (which has been capped since we built it 20 years ago) - after a $50k homestead exemption - is $324k. And our taxes are a little over $5k (in a county where taxes are similar to those in Seminole County - where Lake Mary is located). I really don't know what we could sell our house for today. Probably between $500k and $600k. So a new owner would pay a lot more than $5k in property taxes.
You also have to remember that many houses here have HOA fees. CDD fees aren't uncommon. You'll need flood insurance in most areas. And people from up north complain that our homeowners' and auto insurance rates are high (we moved from south Florida - where those things are a lot more expensive than they are here in north Florida).
Overall - most people do tend to save some money moving here from up north. But often not as much as they thought they would. Also - a lot of people seem to save money by selling houses in very high priced spread parts of the country and buying less expensive houses here. You will probably be making a lateral move - and not saving much if anything when it comes to this.
One reason I suspect Lake Mary is "hot" today is because of the county school district (IIRC - Seminole County is very good). That is what is going on where I live now (we have the #1 school district in the state). People are paying IMO stupid high prices for not very distinguished mass market houses - prices that were unheard of even 5 years ago. I am not sure what will make this part of the market cool off (although see my last paragraph). Because many of the buyers are - like you - fleeing the north and its nosebleed tax levels. At the same time - they're looking for good schools for their kids. And those aren't easy to come by in Florida. FWIW - when we moved here 20 years ago - the place where we live was small and sleepy and attracted a lot of early retirees like us - who were looking for a nice golf community. It has changed a lot in the last 20 years.
I do 100% recommend renting first wherever you wind up. Because our metro real estate areas tend to be large and fairly complicated in terms of all the "ins and outs" and differences between here and there. One big issue here if you have school kids is what will happen as a result of the new state-wide school "open attendance law" - which might affect the premiums on houses in counties with better schools. Impossible to predict.
Isn't that crazy.....the agent told me to depersonalize and take away all the clutter. Even the kids room are less decorated than when the pics were taken. She's also the one who had us arrange the family room that way so it looked bigger. I've sold or given away a lot of furniture and knock knacks. I can't find a happy medium from stripped down to decorated.
I know there is much debate about show empty or show w belongings.
I agree with your Realtor. Your house doesn't need more "decor." It's not a good idea to show an empty house. But stagers don't stuff a house with furniture. Just the big pieces so people can get an idea what size the room is. You would never believe the number of people who can't tell what size bed will fit in a bedroom unless they see a bed in it.
Keep taking away the knick-knacks. You still have a lot.
Good luck. 90 days really isn't that long. You should have been trying to sell a house six years ago.
I don't think your tax estimate is accurate for houses in the $300-350k range. You have to remember that we have the Save Our Homes amendment in Florida. So property assessments are capped for existing owners (maximum of CPI or 3%/year - whichever is lower). If you're looking at $2500 in taxes - the odds are the owner has had the benefit of this law for years - if not decades. When a property is sold - it is reassessed at full market value.
In any event - there are various tax estimators floating around where you can get a sense of what you'd pay in taxes based on what you think you'll pay for a house. Note that your final bill can vary a lot from your base property taxes - even within a county - because there are all kinds of local "add-ons". Might be a local hospital district - a mosquito control district - a fire district - or any one of dozens of other districts. The taxable value of our house (which has been capped since we built it 20 years ago) - after a $50k homestead exemption - is $324k. And our taxes are a little over $5k (in a county where taxes are similar to those in Seminole County - where Lake Mary is located). I really don't know what we could sell our house for today. Probably between $500k and $600k. So a new owner would pay a lot more than $5k in property taxes.
You also have to remember that many houses here have HOA fees. CDD fees aren't uncommon. You'll need flood insurance in most areas. And people from up north complain that our homeowners' and auto insurance rates are high (we moved from south Florida - where those things are a lot more expensive than they are here in north Florida).
Overall - most people do tend to save some money moving here from up north. But often not as much as they thought they would. Also - a lot of people seem to save money by selling houses in very high priced spread parts of the country and buying less expensive houses here. You will probably be making a lateral move - and not saving much if anything when it comes to this.
One reason I suspect Lake Mary is "hot" today is because of the county school district (IIRC - Seminole County is very good). That is what is going on where I live now (we have the #1 school district in the state). People are paying IMO stupid high prices for not very distinguished mass market houses - prices that were unheard of even 5 years ago. I am not sure what will make this part of the market cool off (although see my last paragraph). Because many of the buyers are - like you - fleeing the north and its nosebleed tax levels. At the same time - they're looking for good schools for their kids. And those aren't easy to come by in Florida. FWIW - when we moved here 20 years ago - the place where we live was small and sleepy and attracted a lot of early retirees like us - who were looking for a nice golf community. It has changed a lot in the last 20 years.
I do 100% recommend renting first wherever you wind up. Because our metro real estate areas tend to be large and fairly complicated in terms of all the "ins and outs" and differences between here and there. One big issue here if you have school kids is what will happen as a result of the new state-wide school "open attendance law" - which might affect the premiums on houses in counties with better schools. Impossible to predict.
Those taxes are considerably more than double what my parents pay in taxes for their house, which is valued almost double your house. That means your tax rate is around 4x what our tax rate here is. That's insane to me. You pay more in taxes than I pay for my total mortgage in a year. So the taxes are a HUGE issue, but I assume that is the case for everyone in the area.
And I have had a pool in a northern climate. Would never want another. I'd eliminate a house in Northern Illinois from my possible list if it had a pool. So not having one is a huge plus in my book.
As someone before me mentioned, a 4 car garage is a big plus. We have a few of those around here and they always sell quickly. And it's on almost an acre. Price is the only reason you haven't sold. If you need to sell faster, you need to drop the price and stop chasing all your neighbors down.
I have friends who live in Spring Grove. Beautiful area, but they say it takes about 2 years to sell in that town. They are in the process of cleaning out to downsize. You have no easy way to the interstate and it is off the beaten path. And you are competing with WI prices right over the border. Good luck.
So a house priced almost 200,000 more than me with more square footage is paying 2000 less than me in property taxes. There is no rhyme or reason. It just doesn't make sense how they figure taxes in this bloody state.
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