Moving to Sarasota (maybe..) (Fort Lauderdale, Siesta Key: sales, house, neighborhood)

[bbronston]

Sounds like you have the right idea. I'm a bit shocked about the referral thing, to be honest, but she might be right. If she is, I'd be reluctant to continue working with that company. It doesn't speak well for the organization.

[bbronston]

Originally Posted by markgca

i grew up in michigan, got tired of the snow, moved to northern california in 1980. the weather is the best of anywhere ive been, but that isnt everything....

i have to get out of california. it was kinda liberal when i moved here, but now its just insane. we give illegals in state tuition while citizens have to pay out of state, we are now voting to make this a sanctuary state, and have to raise taxes to pay for it all. i dont want to pay for all the non workers any more.

why florida? im familiar with the area due to the time ive spent there, and florida without the state tax looks attractive to me.
also i have been a scuba instructor for about 30 years, and a cave diver for about the same, so florida seems like a good fit. the east coast is out since my inlaws live there (and too many new yorkers), the keys might be better in that regard but my wife wont consider that, and sarasota area looks pretty good for everything else. St. pete used to be nice to, havent been there in quite a while though. ill check that out when i get there next month

so not sure if this is going to work out; we still get there for a week or two a year, but those trips are in the winter so dont really count. a week or so in the august sun should give me some indication.

I used to be an avid diver here but never did any cave diving. Too chicken....err....smart for that!

There are many dive stores and dive operations here (nothing like the keys, though) but we are not all that close to the springs and caves. Those are more like north of Tampa and then north to and thru the Gainesville area of the state. That's not to say that there aren't people here who do that but I would guess the epicenter of that sort of thing would be up north.

[Sunshine Rules]

Originally Posted by bbronston

Sounds like you have the right idea. I'm a bit shocked about the referral thing, to be honest, but she might be right. If she is, I'd be reluctant to continue working with that company. It doesn't speak well for the organization.

Would have to disagree with you on this Bob. You've been an agent in Sarasota for awhile, so you are probably aware that most of the top selling agents in our area work as teams, and the buyers agents come and go, are often new or newer agents willing to give a cut of the commission check to that top agent in order to be fed leads, as they have difficulty finding work as an independent agent. If a buyer is just starting their home search, or is uncertain as to whether they want to buy in our area, the top producer will generally hand off the customer to one of the buyers agents for the initial showings. It is what it is.

Someone who's looking to buy on Lido or Bird Key is probably going to spend a million or more on their purchase. That's a sizable commission check and while many agents have integrity, there are those that would put the goal of the fat commission check ahead of the buyer's wants and needs, if it came down to a choice. Working with another agent here or there does not always give you an insight as to how that agent would act if you handed off a buyer who was looking to spend 7 figures for a property.

So I would give a thumbs up to the integrity of an agent that would rather pass up a 25% or 30% referral fee on a large commission check than turn over a buyer to another agent if they don't feel comfortable about the potential end result.

[bbronston]

Originally Posted by Sunshine Rules

Would have to disagree with you on this Bob. You've been an agent in Sarasota for awhile, so you are probably aware that most of the top selling agents in our area work as teams, and the buyers agents come and go, are often new or newer agents willing to give a cut of the commission check to that top agent in order to be fed leads, as they have difficulty finding work as an independent agent. If a buyer is just starting their home search, or is uncertain as to whether they want to buy in our area, the top producer will generally hand off the customer to one of the buyers agents for the initial showings. It is what it is.

Someone who's looking to buy on Lido or Bird Key is probably going to spend a million or more on their purchase. That's a sizable commission check and while many agents have integrity, there are those that would put the goal of the fat commission check ahead of the buyer's wants and needs, if it came down to a choice. Working with another agent here or there does not always give you an insight as to how that agent would act if you handed off a buyer who was looking to spend 7 figures for a property.

So I would give a thumbs up to the integrity of an agent that would rather pass up a 25% or 30% referral fee on a large commission check than turn over a buyer to another agent if they don't feel comfortable about the potential end result.

I think we are actually saying the same thing but in a different way. It could be that some agencies have no comraderie like I've experienced in my time doing this but I've never worked in an office where there weren't other agents I knew I could trust to be as concerned about service and professionalism as I am. Maybe it's a team thing....you may be right about that context.

[Sunshine Rules]

Bob, most offices today are set up differently than when I first started almost 20 years ago. You no longer have desk space at the office where agents meet up on a routine basis. Rather, agents work from home offices and only go to to the main office to meet up with clients or print documents, etc. So less opportunity to get to know other agents well, unless you've worked directly with them on at least a couple of transactions.

I think you are missing the main emphasis of my other post here today. Handing off a buyer wanting to relocate here and spend that kind of money is not something that should be done without a considerable amount of thought, there are many potential negative outcomes of doing so without knowing that other agent (and, if applicable, their team members) well.

[markgca]

Originally Posted by bbronston

I used to be an avid diver here but never did any cave diving. Too chicken....err....smart for that!

There are many dive stores and dive operations here (nothing like the keys, though) but we are not all that close to the springs and caves. Those are more like north of Tampa and then north to and thru the Gainesville area of the state. That's not to say that there aren't people here who do that but I would guess the epicenter of that sort of thing would be up north.

you are close to several cave systems, you just dont know where they are...

gainesville/high springs is the epicenter for the easy stuff, and the rest isnt advertised since it is too dangerous. i was a regional safety officer for the NACD for about 20 years so have been to several...

[markgca]

Originally Posted by bbronston

Sounds like you have the right idea. I'm a bit shocked about the referral thing, to be honest, but she might be right. If she is, I'd be reluctant to continue working with that company. It doesn't speak well for the organization.

makes sense

she had given me her personal web site. when i viewed that it had a realtor group on it, so i looked them up and she was there. but everyone on that list had gmail or some other email address, so it appears as if they might be independent contractors if that is possible, so a referral wouldnt be to 'her' group.

who knows, dont matter at this point, i need a new one.

[markgca]

Another question for the realtors on here:

im seeing massive differences between california and florida real estate sales. out here people tend to list their houses 5-10% under market then have people bid it up over asking price, normally getting more than the original estimate.

• on the houses im looking at (houses with water etc in the 1-2.7M range) i see many people buy a house, then immediately list for 1M over buy price (most without any or minor remodel), then drop price every month by 100k; is that just Florida? How do you deal with these people?
• What is real estate doing these days; seems like a ton of inventory, especially in the higher priced homes. but i see the same homes every week, with very few sales, so perhaps just speculation? that would make sense since there is a limit on the waterfront homes, but with the insurance and property tax they cant just keep doing that forever...
• Does it make sense to make a lowball offer for these types of homes? Or wait until they get reasonable? Or is this just people waiting to retire and don’t care if they sell? the retirees wouldnt seem to have the same tax issues since homesteading would have kept the price down, so perhaps they are a different category.
• any way i can get a list of all homes that sold in the last 2 years vs original asking price for a particular area (like lido/st. armands/bird)? that way i think i can get some insight into what they are thinking vs what is reality.

any guidance is appreciated. every day i learn something new that results in 10 new questions!

[bbronston]

Originally Posted by Sunshine Rules

Bob, most offices today are set up differently than when I first started almost 20 years ago. You no longer have desk space at the office where agents meet up on a routine basis. Rather, agents work from home offices and only go to to the main office to meet up with clients or print documents, etc. So less opportunity to get to know other agents well, unless you've worked directly with them on at least a couple of transactions.

I think you are missing the main emphasis of my other post here today. Handing off a buyer wanting to relocate here and spend that kind of money is not something that should be done without a considerable amount of thought, there are many potential negative outcomes of doing so without knowing that other agent (and, if applicable, their team members) well.

I'll just say this because I don't want to derail this thread...I don't disagree with what you've said but my experience has been (and continues to be) one where we support each other and know each other well. We've added many new people so there are some I know better than others but we still work as colleagues. If you think I am advocating for passing an out-of-town buyer off to someone with little knowledge or experience just to keep a referral fee, you have missed my point. My point is just the opposite and I was only saying that if an agent works from an office where s/he cannot feel comfortable handing off a customer to a very competent agent, it doesn't speak well of the office or the broker, IMO.

[markgca]

thought i would do an update....

went to sarasota mid august. it was pretty much like i remembered; damn hot! and humid!
but nothing worse than michigan, and out along the water there was a nice breeze that cooled it down a bit. very livable.

so now we are going back! figured we would go over christmas/high season to check out the traffic etc to see how bad THAT is going to be lol. but i figure if i live 5 minute walk from the beach, 7 minutes to st armands, and on the canal, who cares about season traffic.

the problem i am still having is how to evaluate the prices. discussions with a few realtors tell me they dont know at all; to be fair, there are so few houses sold (average of only 6 per year over the last 3 years) that perhaps they are all what my california realtor would call 'specialty properties' which meant not everyone can appreciate the price.