So how does the public differentiate between cheap talk and a results oriented Anna Maria Island Real Estate company?  The first step is to recognize quantitative versus qualitative results.  Qualitative results are warm and fuzzy.  A great qualitative example, ” Our office uses the highest degree of ethics when selling your Anna Maria Island

Anna Maria Island Real Estate

property.”  So what does this really mean?  Does this statement confuse action with results?   You bet it does.

So now that you know what to look for lets talk quantitative results and lets talk action that creates results…

Island Real Estate is the only Real Estate office on Anna Maria Island that is open both Saturday and Sundays.  Do you think our office being open 28% more than the rest creates results?

Island Real Estate averages 30,000+ visitors per month on our website.  Depending on the month more than 25% of those visitors are from Europe.  Do you think Island Real Estate has a better chance of selling your home compared to most real estate companies that have 5000 visitors in a good month?

Island Real Estate displays between a half page and full page of our listings every week in a local newspaper.  Island Real Estate consistently takes out the largest ads in our local newspapers.  Do you think displaying your real estate listing consistently in local newspapers creates more opportunity to sell your home?

Do you think an office that sells twice as much as its closest competition has a better chance of selling your property?

Quantitative results NOT qualitative!

Island Real Estate’s closest competition on a bad month has half the transactions we see.

Hopefully I have helped create some quantitative statements that help you work through the “bull” of everyone claiming they have the best real estate service on Anna Maria Island.  If you have any doubts who supplies the best service focus on quantitative results and when all else fails, Call Me and we can discuss specifics.  Better yet, just try to call your top pick offices at about 4 PM on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday.   When no one answers give Island Real Estate a call (941) 778-6066.

I look forward to helping you sell or purchase your “peace” of paradise on Anna Maria Island.

Larry Chatt (941) 345-1288 or Email me.

Great Deal on Holmes Beach Duplex

I decided that a listing we have had needs a little more visibility  because potential investors are not aware of the potential. I had the good fortune of showing this property to a potential buyer and upon the showing he asked…”How long has this been on the market? Am I missing something? “There is no question that the curb appeal could be much better. It is a duplex ONE HOME to the beach with a GULF VIEW that should never be lost. Sure the Gulf Front home in front of this property could raise the roof to a second floor and 1/3 of the Gulf view would be lost but 2/3 of the view down 34th will remain! The duplex is a two bedroom one bath on each side and with some interior work, tropical landscaping, roof top terrace and a pool, this duplex would generate some serious income. They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I have attached a picture below that shows the proximity to the Gulf of Mexico. The value in this duplex is the proximity to the beach AND two units in the building.  The property is a SHORT sale and currently listed at $679,000. Please call me for more details and I would love the opportunity to help. The property is listed with Alan Galletto at Island Real Estate of Anna Maria Island, Inc. 6101 Marina Drive, Holmes Beach, FL. Email me for additional information.

Sorry – Currently this duplex is PENDING.  Email or call for more information.  (941) 345-1288

Potential Condo Development

estate comeback. It is well documented that resort areas are the first to return to healthy property appreciation. We are starting to see the mainland real estate pick up in transactions and a recent large transaction produces good news. As reported by the Herald Tribune in Bradenton, Florida :”Perico Project picked up by Canadian Firm.” St. Joes began a 352 acre project on Perico Island. Perico island is just across the draw bridge from Anna Maria Island.  It’s a couple orange throws from Anna Maria Island. The Perico Island project will have a positive impact on Anna Maria Island. Originally the project was stopped mid-2007 by St. Joe’s due to the adverse Real Estate conditions nationwide and in the Bradenton, Florida area. Minto, a family owned company with operations in Ottowa and Toronto has built more than 65,000 homes in its 54 year history and looks like they will build a few more on Perico Island. For more information on the purchase visit the Herald Tribune web article.

For more information on Anna Maria Island Real Estate visit my website.

Questions?

Professional Real Estate sales agents boast that they provide the best service. So how can all REALTORS^® claim to provide superior service but provide dramatically different results? The thought that continues to come to mind is passion. The 80 – 20 rule applies to any service industry you research. Doctors, Sales Professionals, Medical Professionals, Plumbers, etc. It really does not matter which industry you are researching. Typically anyone can find the person that is within the upper 20% by asking intelligent and educated questions. Thankfully, finding a top 20% REALTOR^® is fairly easy with the right knowledge.

Let me provide a road map to your journey to find the sales person that will educate and aid you in what could be the largest sale of your life time. Below is a list of questions to ask when researching a listing real estate sales person for the sale of your single family home, condominium or duplex. In a later post I will be sure to publish a top ten list of questions for finding an outstanding buyers real estate agent.

Here it goes…

#10) What separates your real estate services from the rest? (The answer to this question should provide very specific examples of what unique services the real estate professional provides. This general question should also provide more information about their REALTOR^® services.)

#9) How specifically will other real estate professionals access your property? (This is more of an insider SECRET that most REALTORS^® won’t tell you. Full time real estate professionals prefer the use of electronic lock boxes. While the cost is substantially higher than traditional manual lock boxes, an electronic lock box allows the listing agent to retrieve a log of exact times and a list of REALTORS^® that have accessed the lock box. If a manual lock box is being used there is a fair chance that your real estate professional is part-time or not the real estate sales person you are

E-Lock Box

looking for! Electronic lock boxes also make for the EASIEST access to your property. Many real estate sales professionals are LAZY and they force agents to come to their office to pick up a key. Remember, 20% of the sales professionals sell 80% of the inventory and they are very busy. Sometimes due to a 30 minute round trip drive to pick up a key they may have to skip your property in the initial meeting with their buyer. They just don’t have time to run and pick up a key. An electronic lock box allows the buyers agent to show up at the home with their client, they use a special hand held device to type in their PIN and whala, two seconds later they have a key in their hand. That is a pretty big difference as compared to driving 20-30 minutes to come pick up a key. Not to mention IF the office is OPEN to get a KEY!)

#8) Will you be placing my home on the local Multiple Listing service (MLS)? (If the answer is maybe, perhaps or no, then run, run, run. Your local multiple listing service allows for other real estate sales professionals to view your home and easily present your home to buyers. MLS is what all other REALTORS^® use to perform searches

Realtor MLS

for their buyers. If the sales agent does not use MLS they ARE NOT a real estate professional. It is like carpenter using a rock instead of a hammer. Seriously, that bad.)

#7) Do you as a REALTOR^® have your own professional website? (A real estate professionals website is a very important tool for a REALTOR^®. It is similar to an engineer without a calculator. If the sales person does not have their own website they most likely are not the real estate sales professional you are looking for. Ask more questions but this is NOT a good flag.)

#6) How do you keep recent with the latest real estate best practices and technology enhancements? Do you have any

ePRO Designation

real estate education designations? (Your potential listing agent should be able to site several conferences, trainings, as well as real estate societies or communities that they utilize to stay in tune with the latest opportunities for listing properties for sale as well as buyer information. If they cannot site examples for you, it most likely means they are not passionate about the real estate industry. One last very important note, be sure your REALTOR^® is part of the National Association of REALTORS^®. NAR)

#5) Does your office offer incentives for selling listings internally? How do the rest of the agents in the office learn of new listings? (The listing real estate office should have sales meetings where they review new listings. A professional sales office will assist in the sale of your property and typically your professional sales agents office will sell 1/3 – 1/2 of their own listings internally because they intimately know the properties for sale. See more below about the REALTORS^® sales office.)

#4) How many sales professionals does your office have? Is the office always staffed by a real estate professional and what are your office’s hours. Are all your agents full time? (This returns to the fact that the office that your REALTOR^® has joined SHOULD review your property for sale in their sales meeting. The important point to this question is instead of having one person selling your property their entire office team will be selling it. In addition, full time sales

Island Real Estate

professionals attract similar like-minded professionals and expect the same from their office. The listing agent’s office should be open 7 days per week with real estate service personnel on staff 100% of the time. This is also CRITICAL because you never know when a buyer contacts a sales professional to review houses. Buyers usuall work Monday through Saturday and only have Sunday available to review houses. A good buyers agent will learn a great deal from their first caravan of reviewing properties with the buyer. Very often expectations of a home are tweaked and during the caravan the buyers are pointing to properties with for sale signs in the front yard. “What about that one?” If your real estate office is OPEN Saturday’s and Sunday’s the sales professional will be able to contact the office for showing instructions AND if there is an electronic lock box on the property buyer caravan will STOP AND GO SLIP YOUR PROPERTY INTO THEIR SHOWINGS. IF, there is no electronic lock box and IF the office is closed on Saturday’s and Sunday’s you are missing out on a high opportunity for interested BUYERS to review your property!)

#3) How many sales transactions do you perform per year and how do you rank among your peers in the community or county. (This is the toughest of all the questions but it needs to be asked. The top 20% that you are searching for will know this information. If the person struggles to answer this question and you get this far in the line of questions there is a fair chance they are in the early stage of their career. In addition, don’t discount a mature sales professional that is winding down. Was the mature REALTOR^® at the top of their game 5 years ago and now they are just starting to settle down? If the answer sounds convoluted or does not make sense you should probably move on to the next REALTOR^®. Does the “newer” sales agent team up with a more experienced sales professional to overcome a lack of experience as compared to a sales professional that has successfully completed hundreds of transactions?)

Real Estate Education

#2) Where does the sales person live? Do you currently have a listing in this location or which of the REALTOR^® current listings is closest to this area? (Does the sales person live and work in the area you are selling your home? This is not a critical item but if you have made it to question two and have two strong candidates to choose from then I would always suggest choosing the REALTOR^® that lives and works in their farm area -farm area is where you are selling your home. They will be able to more readily sell the positives of your neighborhood first hand as well positives of the community and the services that can be found. The second piece of the question is important later on and be sure to write down the address, City AND the price of the listing the REALTOR^® provides you. You will see why in a few minutes.)

#1) Ask yourself. Do I feel comfortable working with this sales person to sell my property? Do our personalities mesh? Does the sales professional listen to my expectations? (It is not necessary to be the best of friends but your conversations should be comfortable. At times you may be faced with offers that create adverse situations and an open line of communication with your listing real estate professional is critical to ensure your large fiscal transaction meets the success you deserve. Open and honest conversations are critical to your successful sale. If your conversation is strained during “small talk” you should move on to the next best sales professional that passes the questions listed above)

0) Sorry, just when you thought we were done, not yet. Now comes a very quick visit to the Internet to verify what you have heard. After the REALTOR^® has left and they have accepted, “I will call in two days with my decision.” Type in the sales professional that has best passed all our questions above and type their name into Google. Their website should

Realtor Logo

readily come up at the very least and hopefully you find several more results that provide some history of how well the person will be marketing your home. Do you see any newspaper ads where the sales professional has been quoted or used as an expert in their field? Now it is time to see the strength of the REALTORS^® marketing campaign. Go to www.Realtor.com and first go to your area and spend about 20 minutes looking at properties for sale and be sure to make notes of which REALTORS^® you see consistently on the website. Hopefully ONE of the real estate professionals that you consistently see has several listings you have come across. Take your list of two or three and make sure you look at a couple of the listings they have. Do they have a Virtual tour or video of the property for sale? Do they have a great description of the property or just a one line description? Are there plenty of pictures on their listings so that it makes it easy for buyers to retrieve more information about the property for sale? It is a known fact that buyers perform hours of research on the Internet prior to walking through any properties. Properties with a good description, plenty of pictures, and a virtual tour are 70%+ more likely to be viewed physically by potential buyers.

If the Real Estate professional of your first choice has plenty of listings. All their listings consistently show great descriptions, plenty of pictures and virtual tours, YOU HAVE FOUND YOUR Listing Real Estate professional. If you did not cross any of the REALTOR’S’^® listings then perform a more specific search with the listing you wrote down from your interview process. IF you have NOT found good descriptions ask your first choice REALTOR^®, why? There may be a great reason but it is doubtful.

If your first search of a REALTOR^® came up short use your list of sales professionals you wrote down while researching Realtor.com and start the process all over again. After going through the process once you will be a pro and for sure the second go around will produce the best Real Estate Sales professional for you.

I want to help!

Of course if you are looking for help to purchase or selling your property in Northwest Bradenton, LongBoat Key or Anna Maria Island, Florida, I would love the opportunity to help. If you have further questions about my services please call or visit my website. (941) 345-1288

Pool Holiday Rental

We continue to see signs of the housing turn around. It appears as though the first time home buyers credit of up to $8000 is beginning to take hold. Construction starts in United States for the month of June jumped 11% as compared to the month of May. The last four out of six months, housing starts have been up. It doesn’t hurt that home builders are in a rush to finish homes by November for their buyers to take advantage of the first time home buyer tax credit.

Our little Anna Maria island there are not many folks taking advantage of the first time home buyers incentive. Most feel as though Real Estate resort areas LEAD the market. I would hope everyone agrees that Anna Maria Island is a resort area. So, if the rest of the United States Market is moving out of the housing slump then it is investors are too late for Anna Maria Island’s low. I believe our little Anna Maria Island is a resort area and is a LEADING indicator for home sales information.

Absorption rates of real estate is a very important indicator. Nationwide our absorption rate moved down from 10.2 months of real estate inventory for sale to 8.8 months. (Source CNBC) Investors are entering the market due to low interest rates and fantastic real estate buys.

Below you will find Quarter 2, 2009 Anna Maria Island Real Estate inventory absorption chart. This shows the past number of years of inventory we have had on Anna Maria Island. The most important aspect of the chart below is the blue line which shows the amount of inventory on the island by quarter. It is an absorption figure which shows number of months of Anna Maria Island property for sale. It is a simple calculation. If there are 500 properties for sale and for the past quarter we averaged 50 properties sold per month then our inventory absorption is 10 months or there is an equivalent of 10 months of inventory on hand. The most important part of the chart below is our absorption level relative to previous periods of time.

This chart is property of Island Real Estate of Anna Maria Island and Alan Galletto and should not be duplicated.

Anna Maria Island Inventory

See the story below thanks to the Associated Press on the seven month high for housing starts… For more information on Anna Maria Island Real Estate for sale visit Island Real Estate’s website.

updated 1:49 p.m. ET, Fri., July 17, 2009

WASHINGTON – Construction of new U.S. homes rose in June to the highest level in seven months as builders rushed to pour foundations for homes that must be completed by the end of November for first-time buyers to take advantage of a special tax break.

The Commerce Department said Friday that construction of new homes and apartments jumped 3.6 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 582,000 units, from an upwardly revised rate of 562,000 in May.

It was better than the 530,000-unit pace economists expected, and was the second straight monthly increase after April’s record low of 479,000 units.

Condo for Sale

Sept/Oct.

Single Family Sales information

FPL Power Station

Here are some tips from the FPL Summer newsletter on how to reduce your use of electricity. Electronics continue to use energy even when shut off. If your Anna Maria vacation rental sits dormant for more than a few weeks you may consider putting electronics on power strips or on an outlet controlled by a light switch so you can shut the power off to electronics while it is not being used.

The trend in vacationing is large televisions. The larger the better. Unfortunately, many of these televisions use MORE electricity than your refrigerators. When purchasing a new television or any large appliance for that matter, be sure to look for the ENERGY STAR seal. The trademark ENERGY STAR means the product will use up to 30% less energy than a non rated appliance or electronic device.

If you supply a computer monitor in your beach rental home be sure to apply sleep modes from the settings menu.

Power Meter

You can shave up to $5 per month per computer by using the power management function on your monitor. This of course would apply to your hard drive and other processors in your computers.

One great idea for larger vacation beach rentals is an energy saving device that turns off the Air conditioning if any of your doors are open. All too often guests leave doors open and the air conditioning cranked down. There are literally dollars evaporating into thin air. This device ensures your rental villa is not leaking valuable cool air into the atmosphere because doors are left open. For more information email Larry@IslandReal.com

Be sure to have your air conditioning filters changed out monthly in your high heat seasons and be sure your cleaning crews clean out the lint trap after EVERY dryer load. FPL has lots of other saving techniques for your personal homes and there are a few more that can apply to your vacation rentals. Happy saving and more importantly your energy saving techniques will help us all to have a cleaner planet.

For more information on owner tips or Anna Maria Island activities visit www.Blog.IslandReal.com . If you are interested in Anna Maria accommodations or property for sale visit www.IslandReal.com

Private Heated Pool

picture to the right for a photo of the new pool.  After 6 months we have more than $35k booked for the property during the toughest six months of the season.  Appears as though all my figures below were conservative.  If you have questions about an investment property on Anna Maria Island give me a call or email.  See my blog created July 1st, 2008 below.

Anna Maria single family real estate even after our little correction appreciates at 10% per year on average. See below for an investment that is estimated to pay for itself through vacation rental income.

On Anna Maria island vacation rentals are very popular. Anna Maria Island is located on the Gulf Coast of Florida just North of Sarasota and South of Tampa. There are no chain hotels on Anna Maria which lends itself to an excellent vacation rental market. We have 7 miles of Gulf Coast and about 1.75 miles of the Tampa Bay Coast and at it is about 10 blocks wide.

Currently there is a 4 bedroom on the market for $425k. It’s about two blocks to the Gulf of Mexico so it would be very popular for rentals. There is currently no pool at the property but a NICE pool would cost $40k and furniture, fix up

Wealth thru Real Estate

would be another $50k….so up front capital of $80k down, and $90k for pool etc. That would leave approximately a $325k mortgage should be about $2k per month, property taxes $6k/yr, insurances $5k/yr, operating costs are estimated at $500/month. So, carry the one, hmm, six, uhmm… ok, if I did my math correctly $3400 expenses per month including DEBT expenses.

The gross income on similar properties would be at least $55k with an UPSIDE of $65k minus a commission of 20% for management. Lets be conservative, income AFTER commission = $44k. Income per month ——-$3666 per month. Ta Da!!!

Expenses per month INCLUDING DEBT service = $3400

NET Income per month = $3666

ok, you are right I don’t have repairs or new linens, etc in the calculation but we have a little extra each month. See above.

In summary, for $170k in capital you too can create ~10% deferred savings account of $1,100,000 that you can cash out in 10 years. That’s almost 6.5 X your original investment of $170k! Who doesn’t love Real Estate!!!

For more information on Anna Maria Island Real Estate visit http://www.islandreal.com/ or our sales website. For more information regarding the specific property listed in my blog visit 407 80th..if the link is broken the home has already sold but give me a call or visit our web site for more bargains. (Sorry – SOLD) I did include a picture below and if the link is broken the property has sold…see our web site for more or give me a call…(941) 345-1288

Of course there are always risks to investing. Hurricanes, red tide, oil spills, travel crunches and all figures above are estimates however call or comment. The analysis is NOT perfect but gives you an idea of the property investment opportunities on Anna Maria. In no way is this a commitment of rental income or property appreciation.