Properties, Houses and Condos for Sale in St Petersburg Treasure Island Florida

 Treasure Island Tampabay Newsletter.

September 18, 2009
THE FINE PRINT: Published online since 2005 by the City of Treasure Island Public Information Office for exactly 1262 mostly calm and reasonable online subscribers. For more sublime reading pleasure, back issues available here.
We're(everybody in Treasure Island) a big fan of fans but it's that time of year, when air conditioning is second nature to switching on the light, where we'd thrill to giving our fans a vacation from their non-stop whirling since, oh, about May. There are signs autumn is approaching, though - moist rooms of budget workshop deliberations are history; the TI Art Guild shows are back at city hall; Dockmaster Les at the yacht club is looking for Holiday Boat Parade sponsors; and, yes, Canadian Thanksgiving is just about three weeks away ... virtually a nippy cold front of Treasure island's autumnal events are upon us. And fall? Conveniently scheduled to begin next Tuesday at 5:18pm. And our fans? No vacation for them, not for a few weeks yet ...

That glorious honking sound on Treasure Island
Is it a flock of Canadian geese sensing fall? (5:18pm Tuesday, you know). Perhaps someone learning Morse Code in their car? No, most likely it's happy drivers on Isle of Capri and Palms honking their horns in extreme pleasure as the long-awaited road repaving project comes to their street. Smooth, triple-blade Gillette razor quality roads should be finished by the end of September. Click the clicky above for a list of streets that will be made as black as midnight on a moonless night.

Garbage verbiage
Using a complex formula made up of deleted health care reform pages, old phonebooks and sunspot cycles, we've come up with a nifty, new, one-size-fits-all residentialholiday trash collection schedule. Simply put - after a holiday, we collect one day later. Yep, that even means Saturday collections for Friday holidays (the exception is when Christmas or New Year's is on a Saturday - and we'll deal with that later). The backstory on devising the schedule is here but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day ... probably around the same time this newsletter shows up ... so you might want to read it then.
 
 
 
Beach Graffiti   
UNCORKING A BOTTLE (OR TWO) OF FUN: Another sure sign summer is almost over - the Isle of Capri Civic Association is back to their delicious wine and cheese habit again on Friday, October 16th at the TI Community Center. Tickets are $10 with proceeds donated to our TI Parks & Rec Department Halloween Spooktacular. Party down at 6:30pm with cheeses you never knew existed (Venezuelian Beaver Cheese?), fruits, wines and snacks. Info & tix at 727-367-1474 ... NOW ONLINE: By clicking on the TIPD box on our homepage, you'll be whisked away to a veritable walk-in closet of Treasure Island crime and traffic data. Want to know the number of DUI stops for any given month, all the way back to 2004? You'll find it here. Need the number of "glass on the beach" violations for August 2009? Again, it's right here on the updated TIPD web pages. Plus, every Monday we post a fresh new week of police calls in the Treasure Island Police Blotter ... WE'LL CROSS THAT BRIDGE WHEN WE COME TO IT: And the time is now, as Treasure Island applies for a TIGER (Transportation Improvement Generating Economic Recovery) grant to the tune of about $3.9-million for replacement of the Isle of Palms and Capri bridges . The catch? We'd have to complete the bridges by February 2012. We hear honking already ... Next e*ti: October 1st.
- Jeff Jensen, Editor
webmaster@mytreasureisland.org

Treasure Island Tampabay Newsletter.  

Right now (to me) the most fascinating thing in Real Estate here in St. Petersburg is CASH BUYERS. All these years in Real Estate I would see a  "cash buyer" once in a very blue moon.   Just this April nearly 48% of all deals closed in Pinellas county were cash deals !!!  No, I am sorry, I do not have an explanation for it, if you have one PLEASE let me know.

Inventory is flying off the shelf in St. Pete right now. I am serious. It feels like someone has pulled a switch or rang a bell. Buyers are very active. Realtors all over Pinellas County are writing offers and a ton of condos and house are under contract and will close soon.  I have attached a chart of all regular pending sales and distressed pending sales. Open it, it will tell the story much better than I can.  Real Estate Prices are not going up just yet, but the really good deals are disappearing very fast. Also, if you scroll all the way down in this Newsletter you will see some statistics from the President of the Pinellas Realtor Organization for the month of April.

Finally our new website is up and running. If you have a moment please check it out and let us know what you think, would really appreciate your input.

Here is my "tip of the day" Ctrl +F    on your keyboard let's you search a document for a specific word or phrase. I could not live without this short cut, it saves a lot of time.

What are you doing on Saturday morning the 20^th of June?  Want to come out to Treasure Island and help planting some Sea oats? (12,000 of them)   http://southbeaches.activerain.com/post/1103060/treasure-island-beach-needs-you-

Nothing to do on Monday nights?  Look at this, I think it is a cool idea.  http://southbeaches.activerain.com/post/1102837/this-is-so-cool-downtown-saint-petersburg-now-has-something-to-do-on-monday-nights-i-love-the-idea-of-an-old-movie-on-the-rooftop-under-the-starz-

Pirates will be out soon, put it in your Calendar. http://southbeaches.activerain.com/post/1100053/madeira-beach-john-levique-pirate-festival

If you like Andy Warhol's work, this one is a MUST   http://southbeaches.activerain.com/post/1076697/andy-warhol-in-st-petersburg-do-not-miss-this-one

Want to save lots of time and energy and dish soap and water and electricity? Freeze you Spaghetti.  I am not kidding you, I do it all the time (and yes my friends laugh about it) If you are a family of four, stop reading right now. This is a household tip for all the single people out there. Instead of cooking one serving of Spaghetti, cook ten, portion them in zip lock bags and throw in the Freezer. 2 minutes in the microwave and you have perfect Spaghetti whenever you want. No messy pots, no waiting for the water to boil.

This is from -Ann Guiberson, President/CEO of the Pinellas REALTOR® Organization

It is important to get on top of the distressed segment of the market as it accounts for 20% of all active listings, 58% of the pending contracts, and over 37% of the sold properties at the latest count in April.

In looking at the other numbers for this month, there is mostly good news. Absorption rate is up for both single family and condos. With single family at 8.5%, it was well over the best we've seen in two years. The same is true for condos at 5.3%.

Single family listings continue to drop. They're down 18.6% from April 2008 and they are down 14.7% for the year so far. Unit sales are up 14.6% from a year ago. For the first four months of the year, unit sales improved by 15.6% over the same period in 2008.

Bargain hunters continued to dominate with 35.9% of sales going for $100,000 to $200,000. Homes selling for under $100,000 accounted for 28.8% of sales. For the first time, there were a significant number of sales under $30,000-5.8% of all single family sales. At the other end of the spectrum, sales at the upper end are still very slow. Only 10.5% of sales were at $400,000 or more, and there were no sales at $1 million or more.

In the condo market, we are also seeing a significant drop in listings. They were down 16% year to year in April and down 16.5 percent year to date compared to the same four-month period in 2008. Sales are slowly improving. April showed a 6.6% improvement over last year. Year to date, condo unit sales are nearly even with the first four months of 2008.

Median price fell dramatically in a year over year comparison. Condo median price in April was $115,000 down 38.7% from April 2008.

Nearly 20% of the condo market sales were priced in the $60,000 to $90,000 range and just over 41% of all condo sales were under $100,000 in April. Added to the lower end, an additional 22.3% of condos sold between $100,000 and $160,000. At the upper end, only 7.7% of the condo inventory sold for more than $400,000.

Other good news, year to date almost 30% of residential properties are selling within 30 days. Month by month that number has been steadily going up. All cash closings have reached 47.72% of all closings year to date with conventional financing at 34.49%. FHA loans make up 13.26%.