New Port Richey, Florida Real Estate Blog: Florida: New Port Richey: Gulf Harbors

wow over $1 million to less than $40,000 in the same Gulf Access Waterfront Community

This is the premier waterfront Subdivision in New Port Richey of West Pasco County.

Prices drop dramatically the farther one is from Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater.  

I am shocked that one can buy into this subdivision for under $100,000 Gulf Harbors 110310

It is time to save during Florida's back-to-school sales tax holiday 

thats right folks, we have not had this since 2007 but Governor Crist, I imagine in an effort to garner support for his senatorial campaign, has pushed for the return of the Back To School Sales Tax Holiday.  

It kicks off at 12:01 Friday August 13th and runs through midnight on Sunday.  If you have kids it is a great time to save.  If you do not, you may want to avoid popular back to school stores, or perhaps you would be inclined to take advantage of this sale and buy items needed by those less fortunate or perhaps you would like to help out teachers.

Student Needs
Backpacks – Girls, Boys, Teens - (no Trapper Keepers or wheeled backpacks, please)
Loose leaf wide ruled notebook paper
Loose leaf college ruled notebook paper
1-Subject spiral notebooks (wide ruled & College Ruled)
Two-pocket folders with clasps
5” blunt Fiskars scissors
No. 2 yellow pencils (made in USA)
Crayons, Markers, Colored Pencils
Expo Dry Erase markers (not fine tip)
Plastic pencil box
One Mesh/Nylon zipper pencil pouch
Glue sticks
Yellow highlighters
12 inch shatter-resistant plastic ruler standard/met

On the Wish Lists of Local Schools:
Boxes of tissues
Sandwich-sized and gallon-sized Ziploc bags
Baby wipes
Waterless hand sanitizer
Brown and/or while paper lunch bags
Paper towel rolls
6” and 9” paper plates
Headphones with adapters
Post it Notes (approx. 1 3/8 x 1 7/8 in. in size)
*wish list items go directly to the teacher to use in their classrooms as needed.

It is time to save during Florida's back-to-school sales tax holiday 

Take advantage because is needed, or do it out of your desire to make a better community.  A rising tide raises all ships.  And in this tough economic times, more than ever, schools and the less fortunate need our help.

Gulf Harbors, New Port Richey, Florida Waterfront subdivision Homes for sale & Market Report June 2010

Gulf Harbors is considered by many to be Pasco Counties premier waterfront gulf access community.  Touting a private gulf front beach certainly does not hurt that image.  And during the boom after the turn of the century it became a knockdown community.  What is a knockdown community you ask?  

In a knockdown community the value is in the land, not the house.  So people with deep pockets who want gulf front property or gulf views (we have spectacular sunsets) buy homes on or near the Gulf.  The 1970's ranch home is knocked down and a 2 or 3 story modern stilt home is built in its place.  Doubling or tripling the value since its purchase.

Not to many people are doing knockdowns anymore for the all obvious economic reasons, but I was pleased to see that houses are selling in Gulf Harbors.  And solds have almost doubled since February 2010's market report  As a result inventory levels have dropped to 10 months.  Hopefully this catches on.

Below in the Distressed Market graph you will see a much greater disparity between Distressed properties and no distressed.  Unlike the rest of Pasco County which usually averages 1/3rd vs 2/3rd's in the breakdown.

 Homes for sale in Gulf Harbors are 6:1 non-distressed

homes under contract in Gulf Harbors are 3:13 non-distressed 

And the sales are 6:1 non-distressed.

For a community that you could not get into for less than $300,000 in most cases, just a few years ago, I am surprised to see:

3 homes offered for sale under $100,000

24 homes are being offered between $100,000-250,000

31 homes are for sale between 1/4 to 1/2 Million dollars

6 homes are offered between 1/2 to 3/4 million dollars

And 9 homes are for sale for more than $750,000

View Gulf Harbors, New Port Richey, Florida in a larger map 

Lowry Park Zoo:  What is there to do in the Greater Tampa area of Florida

Well as you can see in the first file (click to make fullscreen) Lowry Park Zoo offers a lot of family fun.  If that is not good enough, you can scroll down to the second graphic where you will find a coupon for 1 free child.  1 child per coupon, but it requires a purchase of an adult ticket per free child.

Still a savings of $15.95

There is a coupon code which may be used to generate a coupon off the Lowry Park Zoo website, or you can try printing what I have scanned, but I can not guarantee it will be accepted.  Promotion may be widespread, but this particular coupon is for Fantastic Sam's.

LowryParkZooMapSM10

Lowry Park Zoo Coupon 2010

How do I know if I am buying a house near a Sexual Predator?.

Well there are a few sites you can use for that.  Since I last checked it, The FBI site appears to have become a portal to the states sites.  

I like Florida Department of Law Enforcements site for searching my area.  

But since this question is not locally orientated I included The FBI site as well.

There are also 2 other sites you can search.  The National Alert Registry & The U.S. Department of Justice may be sites you prefer to use.  Due to liability concerns I do not provide the search results to my customers, but encourage all buyers to put at least One of these sites in your Favorites/Bookmarks

Did you know that the National Association of Realtors found that ~80% of home buyers begin their home search online.  Well as a result of that I have leveraged my online exposure alot.  Obviously I have a Blog, which you are currently reading.

And than there is this little known website callled Point2Agent or the consumer face of it Point2Homes.  Now it is not so much the site I like, but what it does.  It is called syndication & virtual tours.  For just $20/month  every listing I add to this site gets syndicated to many other sites.  How many other sites you may ask?

on top of all that added exposure they automatically generate a virtual tour, both branded and unbranded that I can use here, on my websites, in the MLS.....

Great little site for only $20/month.  Some agents are wasting $50 per virtual tour.  So here it is

Here is a recent Market Report for Gulf Harbors

Gulf Harbors, New Port Richey, Florida Waterfront subdivision Market Report Feb 2010

Only 4 sales in the Gulf Harbors Gulf Access Waterfront Community in February 2010.  While not a stellar showing, considering current market conditions, and how some waterfront communities had ZERO sales in February, things are not so bad in Gulf Harbors.  The community with its own private beach may have 20+ months inventory, but at least some of the properties are moving.

This was another community you could not realistically get into for under $300,000 before the market collapse.  Looking below, you can see Active's range from $95,000 to $1,390,000.  However the price range on properties under Contract is only $149,900 to $289,000.    Whereas The price range for sold properties is $80,000 all the way up to $465,000  You will notice though that we have gone from an average of ~90 Days on the Market for the rest of West Pasco County,  in Gulf Harbors it is now averaging 186 Days on Market.

Lastly we have a look at the Gulf Harbors Distressed Market Report.  And you will see the usual bar graph, just slightly different numbers.   The majority of homes for sale are NOT distressed.  However the majority of homes under contract ARE distressed.  Unfortunately for these buyers, at least in February, closings only happened for NON-Distressed homes

January 2010 Real Estate Market Update - Gulf Harbors, New Port Richey, FLorida 

Market numbers for the month of January could be interpreted as a pretty poor snapshot of Gulf Harbors, but I would suggest we keep in mind that this is usually a slow time of year.  

Also, while the home values have been steadily dropping in New Port Richey, Florida it is also true that inventory levels have shot up in the last few weeks.

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