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As with pretty much anything in life, real estate is all about timing.  The best example that directly comes to mind is the television game show "Deal or No Deal."  When do you take the money and run?  When should you hold on for one more turn?  Who wins:  Greed or Discretion?  (Understand, greed can be a good thing - as long as it doesn't interfere with common sense or cloud your judgement.

I'll give you a great example.  In 2005, I approached a property owner to find out if their property was for sale.  It was a property that could be subdivided into 9 seperate lots; however, no work had been done at that point towards getting the property entitlement work done at the county level for development.  His response was "If the price is right, sure" (sorry about another game show reference.)  When I asked him what the right price was, he said $2,200,000.

 TIMING IS EVERYTHING!!

The first real estate salesperson that I spoke to less than an hour later, actually had a prospective buyer for the property and we presented a full price offer within 24 hours.  The seller at this point only had about $1.2 million into the property.  As I watched the seller digest all the information that we gave him while presenting the offer, I noticed that he appeared to be overwhelmed at the timliness in which we were able to put an offer together and could tell that the seller was thinking that he surely must not be asking enough.  Sure enough, he rejected the offer even though it was a full price offer set to close within 45 days.

The asking price and the offer were not too low.  It was priced correctly; that was why a prospective seller made such an aggressive offer, but there was no one on the earth that could convince the seller of that.  So the deal fell through. 

There were several timing issues involving this property:

1.  The traffic counts for the area were close to capacity and in the future, once the capacity was met, any further developments would have to undergo scrutiny and would certainly cost additional money.

2.  As we look back, we now know that the market was just about at the crest of activity and has free-fallen since then.  The seller is now trying to sell the property at $1.3 million ($900,000 less) and he has paid for all the due diligence to be done to prepare the property for development at the county level (another $250,000.)

I feel badly about the whole situation for several reasons.  First of all, I didn't get to collect a commission for what was laid out to be a pretty easy slam dunk deal.  Secondly, after all this time, the seller and I have gotten to be closer and I count him as a friend, not only a client, and it pains me to see the stress and aggravation that this whole ordeal has brought to him and his family.  I've sold two other properties for him since that time.

The most important things to remember from this whole ordeal are:

1.  Price your property correctly.  People ask me all the time what their property is worth and my answer is always the same:  It's worth what someone is willing to pay for it and not a penny more.

2.  TIMING IS EVERYTHING. 

3.  Don't get greedy.  (The bad greed.....some greed is a good thing.)  Don't get emotional; this is business (to quote Don Corleon in The Godfather.

4.  Don't get caught up in the moment.  Take a step back and see the situation for what it is and let common sense prevail.  (I can't tell you how many times I've yelled at the contestant on the television during Deal or No Deal to TAKE THE DANG DEALonly to see them reject a $165,000 offer and end up going home with $300.) 

South Walton Statistics Comparison 2005 – 2007 *

(* These statistics include all properties from the Okaloosa County Line up to, but not including Port Washington.)

After months of constantly asking "When's the market gonna pick up?" and "How much longer should I wait to buy real estate in the Destin, Fl to ensure that I get the best deal possible?", it seems that the answers have finally arrived in the first few months of 2007.

The time is now !!!

For the month of January, 2007, our office, Coldwell Banker JME Realty - Destin, closed transactions totalling $24,000,000 and wrote another $20,000,000 in pending sales.  Just as there was no bell that sounded that marked the beginning of the market correction over the past year and a half to two years, there was certainly no bell to mark the beginning of the return.

The Destin real estate market is certainly not back to where it was two to three years ago, but it's not where it was last year either (thank goodness.)

The inventory levels are still too high (60 months worth of inventory in certain situations); however, many of the sellers are finally being more realistic in their expectations when setting the sales price (hence, the increased activity over the first three months of 2007.)

Now is the time to make a killing in the Destin Real Estate market.