The Saunders Blog

Back to School

New College of Florida - Sarasota

Stopped behind a school bus recently gave us an appropriate moment to reflect on how very fortunate we are to live in a region that takes education very seriously at all levels.

Families with school-age children can look forward to enrolling them in one of Florida’s highest-rated public school systems. The Sarasota County school district has been designated an “A” district by the Florida Department of Education, with 95 percent of its elementary schools and 84 percent of its high schools receiving “A” or “B” grades in 2009. Its graduation rate is at an all-time high of 86 percent; and even though we are rarely thought of in the same breath as Florida’s better-known college towns, our college-bound seniors have no less than 15 institutions of higher learning to choose from within Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte Counties.

Many of our public and private schools, colleges and universities are routinely ranked among the nation’s best. U.S. News & World Report, for example, consistently ranks Pine View School for the Gifted among the nation’s very best public high schools. The school also ranks 1st in the State of Florida both for mean SAT scores and mean ACT scores.

Just last Tuesday, U.S. News’ 2011 edition of America’s Best Colleges hit the newsstands. It ranks Sarasota’s New College of Florida among the top five of all public liberal arts colleges in the U.S. For the sixth consecutive year! Offering apologies to Harvard, Yale and Princeton, Parade Magazine—in its August 22nd edition— ranks New College among the top 7 colleges where you can get an Ivy League education at a public university price.

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Right Place, Right Time

Michaelsaunders.com - "Best Opportunity," Luxury waterfront listing.

Few have survived the recessionary effects of the past few years with their financial psyches in tact.  Thus, today’s luxury home buyers are much different from the “boom-and-bling” buyers of the past decade.  In a case of reshuffled priorities, they have become relatively frugal; which includes a change in behavior when it comes to buying luxury properties.   For even if their wealth has rebounded to some extent with the stock market, the sting of lost value to their portfolios—even if only on paper—still smarts.

In embracing these new attitudes, luxury buyers haven’t gone totally thrifty.  High net worth individuals still regard luxury properties as solid long term investments; and still demand noticeable “bling” in the ones they end up buying.  Just less bling overall, but more focused on where it will ultimately help boost the home’s re-sale value in future markets; while fully accommodating their own lifestyle.   Nevertheless, in this new age of more disciplined spending—amid the most advantageous buyers’ market in recent memory—whatever “extras” a property has to offer had better be part and parcel of an unquestionably great deal.

Grounded in a new sense of financial realism, many of today’s buyers now eschew such once-desirable extras as upstairs laundry rooms and home theaters; preferring instead more practical and cost-effective uses of space.  For many, the next primary home they buy will be smaller and more flexible version of their current one.   So even if there is a home theater or media room it may have to do double duty as a den, office or spare bedroom.

Trading-down in size is one thing; but trading-down in quality and prestige is quite another matter.  Buyers accustomed to luxury are willing to scale back on the absolute number of extras or amenities, but rarely will they skimp on the quality of the ones they are most determined to have.

“Location, location, location” remains amenity number one for the high net worth buyer.  In the 2010 Private Wealth Report conducted by Citi Private Bank the “reputation of an area” is singled-out as the most important factor when considering where to buy a primary residence. Security, design and size come in second, third and fourth respectively.   Clearly, it’s perfectly acceptable to buy the smallest house on any given block; so long as the property exudes quality and the block is situated in a highly prestigious neighborhood.

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Happy Re-Birth Day

Yesterday michaelsaunders.com was re-born after more than 14 months of intense labor.   Needless-to-say, re-developing the site was a labor of love involving not only our technology, marketing and management teams, but also the most nationally prominent interactive communications and web design agency in the real estate industry.  More importantly, it involved significant input from our clients, customers, and agents.

For the fifth time since it debuted 15 years ago michaelsaunders.com has been completely made over to provide users with an online real estate experience more befitting of today’s vastly improved web technology.  Combining up-to-the-minute market conditions by city with a simpler, more advanced property search function, the site has been extensively tested by many of the industry’s leading experts—with additional improvements the direct result of their participation.

In the end, however, it was the input of home buyers and sellers—along with our own agents—that mattered most.  These will be the site’s most frequent end-users—and its toughest critics.  So far, we’ve received raves about its wealth of relevant content and user-friendly design.

Specifically, here are the three major features that users find most relevant:

- A simple, straightforward search function that includes property information delivered directly from the MLS—including big bold photography.

- Up-to-the-minute market reports—compiled by Altos Research—a company that pulls statistical data from a variety of sources, including city property records, to deliver local market conditions for incorporated cities.  While traditional data sources still rely on months-old or incomplete data, we now provide visitors to michaelsaunders.com with a clear, concise view of current market conditions.

- Neighborhood pages filled with content to help facilitate important real estate decisions.  These pages combine real estate listings with High Definition community video tours, local business reviews, a library of area photos; and much more.

Obviously the best way to find out about michaelsaunders.com is not by reading about it; but by visiting the site yourself and sampling its features. As always, we welcome your comments, criticism and suggestions for improvement.  It took a lot of hard work to re-birth this “baby” and we want to make sure its just right.

Email us your comments at editor@michaelsaunders.com.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gallows

It seems like eons ago since the Internet first began to seriously revolutionize the real estate industry. In fact, it was only about 10 years ago that web usage among home buyers really began to soar noticeably; igniting in its wake a mild wave of angst among many in the business who misinterpreted this new wave of e-commerce as its death knell.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the gallows. The real estate business not only survived, but thrived; as the Internet served to elevate everyone’s game. Buyers got smarter, agents got better and relationships between the two took on a whole new level of trust, respect and understanding. Nowadays, when buyers eventually get around to working with an agent, they typically arrive on the scene extremely well informed; knowing much more about the process and its expected outcome than ever before. On the flip side, the Internet helps real estate companies affect cost savings that can be passed along toward improving other important facets of customer service.

With so many properties on the market, buyers simply don’t have the time to visit hundreds of homes. That’s where the Internet makes life so much easier for everyone. Freed from sifting through scores of potential properties by buyers who have already done so at their leisure, today’s agent is better able to concentrate on the heavy lifting—like helping their customers understand the complexities of the local market and the subtle nuances between its communities, neighborhoods—and very often—one side of a street versus the other. Agents for sellers are likewise empowered to offer their clients an entirely new and vital service: a solid internet marketing strategy designed to reach the most buyers in the least amount of time.

In the years since Internet usage first exploded onto the real estate scene, the richness of content has likewise grown; as have the number of dedicated web sites that cater to nothing else but the informational needs of real estate buyers and sellers. Ironically, buyers and sellers often need the human touch to help interpret what all the information means and whether the methods for reporting it are statistically accurate. Sites such as Trulia and Zillow provide a wealth of property information to buyers in search of homes across the nation; but they also report on local pricing and property value trends that are often at tremendous odds with the real facts on the ground. Needless-to-say, information from these sites are, at best, directional; and should never form the basis of major purchasing decisions until they have been thoroughly verified.

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Life on Your Own Terms

The reasons to purchase a home in our market are as compelling as the most value-obsessed buyers could hope for. Prices across the board have fallen dramatically from their artificially-induced highs of five years ago; while the cost of financing a home has seldom been lower. Federal tax incentives—now expired—were another good reason to buy; but their one-time benefit has long since been eclipsed by historically low interest rates that save you money over the entire 30-year life of the loan. Long after tax incentives are forgotten, buyers will still be raving about mortgage interest rates—obtained in the year 2010—that are still saving them big bucks each month in the year 2035.

Meanwhile, the reasons for selling a home in today’s market can be just as compelling, if not quite as obvious. As Southwest Florida’s residential property market moves closer to some semblance of balance—with buyers driving sales up and inventories down to their lowest levels since October, 2005—we took note of what national real estate expert, Steve Harney, had to say recently about there being very good reasons to sell your home in today’s market.

Harney, of course, isn’t oblivious to the fact that recovering markets like ours still favor buyers over sellers; and that many sellers are forced to sell because of tough economic times and the burden of mortgages they can no longer afford. But he clearly doesn’t believe that the other 80% of homeowners—sitting atop positive equity in their homes—should deny themselves the opportunity to sell just because they won’t net the same level of proceeds their neighbors fetched during the boom. There’s both a practical need and a strong emotional component involved in the decision to sell a home; and Harney believes these needs shouldn’t automatically take a back seat to the absolute bottom line of a real estate transaction.

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Focusing on the Small Picture

At Michael Saunders & Company, one of our chief responsibilities is to keep clients and customers completely abreast of important trends affecting real estate in our local market areas.  Lately, we’ve noticed a nagging trend that challenges our ability to do this.  That trend is how utterly confusing contradictory media coverage of the housing market must be to buyers and sellers trying to make sense of it all.

Admittedly, local markets in recovery are notorious for sending out mixed signals as they re-establish their stability.  But in real estate one thing is for sure.  One size doesn’t fit all. There really isn’t one national real estate market to speak of.  So before moving ahead with the purchase or sale of a property, buyers and sellers must truly grasp the concept that every real estate market is wholly local and unique unto itself, extremely complex in nature and perhaps even subject to many markets within a market. The media would do well to constantly remind their audiences of this important, game-changing fact.

In relatively short order over just the past six weeks, headlines pertaining to the state of our local real estate market have featured such conflicting statements as:

• “Home Building in Southwest Florida on the Mend” – July 12

….vs… “Home Construction Sinks to Lowest Level Since October” – July 20

• “New Home Sales Drop Sharply” – July 21

…vs… “Strong Showing in Area Home Market” – July 23

• “Housing Market Slows as Buyers Get Picky” – June 17

…vs… “Is a Housing Shortage Looming?” – June 20

Toss in a mixture of starkly contradictory national reports—some even released on the same day—and today’s market seems that much more baffling. Case in point:  Last week CoreLogic reported that May’s home prices increased for the fourth straight month, while the International Monetary Fund warned of a possible double-dip recession for housing. Got that?

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Out-Booming the Boom

“Can you believe they’re at it again?” muttered the Starbucks customer, eyes wide, mouth agape as she looked up from her newspaper. “So many homes for sale and they’re building new ones?” she muttered again, sounding even more incredulous as she peered over her glasses at no one in particular. Having read the same article only minutes earlier, we didn’t have to guess what she was referring to.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune was reporting for the second time in as many weeks that new home building in Southwest Florida is ramping-up again. Mind you, not the big homes with all the bells and whistles that sprouted up like so many mushrooms during the boom; but smaller, more affordable homes designed to appeal to families, first time buyers, retirees and vacation home purchasers. In other words, genuine buyers with genuine needs; rather than rampant speculators out for the quick flip.

What the lady apparently didn’t realize is this. Not since November 2005—amid the glory days of the boom—have there been so few homes available to those who would gladly buy them. No doubt this has plenty to do with prices not seen since before the turn of the century—with historically-low interest rates as an added bonus. This perfect storm of major savings has fueled such steady new demand for housing that building from scratch suddenly makes perfect sense again; which is great news for buyers who want new construction and even better news for the region’s beleaguered job market. You can bet that builders who survived the crash are savvy enough not to build again until plenty of new demand is demonstrably in place.

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No Stone Unturned

This month Michael Saunders & Company proudly launched its 35^th year of serving the comprehensive real estate needs of the Southwest Florida community; along with happily reaffirming our chief specialty—perfected carefully over these many years—of listing and selling the region’s finest high-value properties.

It’s no coincidence that substantially more of today’s luxury home buyers—by far—purchase properties using agents from Michael Saunders & Company than from any other real estate company in Southwest Florida.  In the years dating back to when the company was originally founded on the pledge of delivering impeccable service to buyers and sellers of the region’s finest properties, we’ve made it a practice to attract and retain the most accomplished agents in the luxury field.   Then, no stone goes unturned in equipping them with the resources they need to make good on that pledge.  In the past year alone—amid one of the most challenging markets ever experienced by sellers of high-value properties—agents from Michael Saunders & Company brought buyers to sales involving $1 million-plus properties nearly three times more often than our next closest competitor. (Source:  Trendgraphix).

Today’s high net worth buyer is as likely to come from outside the U.S. as from within.  This fact no doubt aligns closely with our region’s ballooning reputation as an important center for the visual and performing arts; an advantage that assumes its rightful place alongside our more traditional reputation as a world-class resort destination in a tax-friendly state.  Over the years—using the powerful global platform afforded by our exclusive worldwide brokerage affiliations—we have systematically made buyers aware of these enviable lifestyle attributes; which not infrequently tips their decision to buy in favor of our region.

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Core Services and Values

This month Michael Saunders & Company celebrates its 34^th birthday—an age which Goldilocks would consider not too young, not too old; but “just right.”

With nearly three and a half decades of experience behind us, we’re old enough to have experienced several real estate cycles, wise enough to predict developing trends and changing market conditions; and nimble enough to reshape our customer service model as quickly as new challenges and opportunities mandate.  Meanwhile the “youngster” in us consistently earns high marks throughout the industry for always being among the first real estate companies to import the benefits of the latest information and technologies to our clients and customers.  Michaelsaunders.com, already widely regarded as one of the best web sites in real estate, is presently undergoing a dramatic transformation to further enhance its user capabilities.

As every business blessed with longevity knows, success typically comes from correctly identifying an underserved market, serving it as never before; and never becoming too comfortable with the status quo.  Combining success with the growth needed to sustain it requires a willingness to continually offer the same brand of exemplary service to new segments of the market.

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Freedom to Disagree

“His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.”

With these words from Article I of the Paris Peace Treaty of 1783, the sequence of liberating events that began with the issuance of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 came full circle; as Britain’s King George III issued his Proclamation of Cessation of Hostilities, culminating in the new treaty.  Among other conditions, the king formally renounced all claims to the country newly dubbed The United States of America.  Signed in Paris on September 3, 1783, the agreement — also known as the Paris Peace Treaty — formally ended the American War for Independence.  Representing the United States were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, each of whom affixed their signature to the treaty.

Today, as we do every year on July 4^th, we celebrate our independence as brashly as we declared it some 234 years ago; with pomp and parade, fireworks, bells, cannon fire, bonfires and such. Unfortunately, as with many holidays involving fun, food and friends, it’s easy to lose sight of exactly what it is—and why—we’re celebrating.

America’s independence is significant to people around the world because it’s the defining characteristic of our country and its citizens. Most other countries came together because of a common language, religion or ethnicity. The United States of America, on the other hand, was born of a series of principles, beliefs and ideals shared by its founders. Having escaped political and religious persecution in Europe, the first Americans naturally became staunch defenders of exactly that which had been denied them in their native countries—freedom from oppression and the opportunity to prosper.

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