Hats off to HUD

This was taken from the Florida property site:

As a result of Hurricane Katrina the U.S. Department of HUD is making all of their properties in the state of Florida available to FEMA for use as temporary housing. No properties will be listed for sale in this state until FEMA has determined which properties will be needed as temporary housing.

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- Greg Staker Watson Realty Corp. 407-304-0255

New condos in Deland

We are down to the last 15 new condos available for sale in Deland at Beresford Manor. Sales have been brisk as we are set to close 6 new units the 1st week of October immediately after their completion. The next units will be completed in January. What a great opportunity to own a brand new condo in an age restricted community. Snowbirds, come and get one. You can see all the information at my website, www.gregstaker.com


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- Greg Staker Watson Realty Corp. 407-304-0255

I wonder.....

....if all those people who call and talk to the Realtors handling floor or opportunity time about houses ever end up finding those lost relatives and friends they were "just looking for" when asked by the Realtor if they would like to schedule an appointment?

....how many people would sign up for real estate school if they knew it was a commissioned based business?

....if Donald Trump holds a real estate license?

....if there was a single listing service prior to the multiple one?

....how fast can 1 termite eat a 8' - 2X4?

....did all those real estate speakers and coaches, while still selling real estate, really practice what they preach?

....where I can buy a house for a dollar?

....if an ocean dried up, who would own the land?

I read that if you type in the word failure in google, the 1st result is a Pres. Bush site. The power of linking is the reason I hear. If I say please, will everyone reading this, link the words "Florida real estate" to www.gregstaker.com? Please? Thanks a bazillion.


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- Greg Staker Watson Realty Corp. 407-304-0255

West Volusia real estate market

Recently reported numbers for July, 2005 as reported for the West Volusia MLS look like this:

Avg. list price $208,000.
Avg. sales price $204,000.
Avg. DOM 34
July inventory was reported as 606. Compare this to 397 in April and May and now over 1000 for August further indicates a slow down. Is it because prices have reached the limit or has the buyer supply dwindled? We will see.


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- Greg Staker Watson Realty Corp. 407-304-0255

Greece and stuff

Watson Realty Corp. just announced the fall/winter sales contest award destination is Greece. You just have to love working for a company that will send you on a trip like this for just doing what you do for a living. Think about it. Where is your company sending you for doing your job well?

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From the Florida Association of Realtors:

"The frenzied pace of existing home sales in Florida eased in July, while the statewide median sales price rose 33 percent to $252,300, according to the Florida Association of Realtors® (FAR). A year ago, the statewide median price was $190,300; in July 2000, the statewide median price was $119,600, according to FAR records."

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Did I mention Watson Realty is paying our way to Greece next may? I know there is traditional Greek music that should be running through my mind but all I can hear is "Grease is the word is the word is the word......"
____________________________________________________________________


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- Greg Staker Watson Realty Corp. 407-304-0255

The market, then and now. Has anything changed from 2005-2008

This is a blog post I wrote in September 2005. It was my 5th blog post ever and if asked back then, I probably could not have stated with certainty that I would keep the blog active. But here we are nearly 3 years later. A lot has changed and nothing has changed.

Little did I know that those 12 new listings were the seeds to an excessive listing inventory that continues to rage out of control. Over 36,000 homes for sale in the 5 county Central Florida area that we service. I also had no clue how wrong I would be in guessing that we would be returning to a "normal market". What we have experienced since the middle of 2005 has been nothing close to normal. Most of us with 20-30 years of experience have never seen a market quite like this.

At least I got one prediction right. Agents have found out, the hard way, what an expired is. It is possible that more agents today instead of asking for are demanding price reductions or releasing the listing back to those sellers who will not budge.

Has it been interesting? Tiring, a little stressful, revealing, confusing for sure. Interesting? Ask me again in 3 years.

Here is my post in Sept. 2005

We had 12 new listings to caravan this morning after sales meeting. After
going week after week after week with few homes making it past a day or two on
the market to now seeing 12 listings must be an indication of something, right?
It may just be the time of the year. Perhaps everyone is just catching their
figurative breath. If we are starting to see the end of the "putting a sign in
the yard and the home sells in a day" market, that is not a bad thing either. No
reason to fear bursting bubbles, with over 76 million baby boomers nearing or
retiring over the next several years. The Florida real estate market should
maintain a healthy glow. Add to that the fact that the West Volusia County
market has always been lower than other surrounding counties in regards to
pricing , I would expect a normal real estate market to continue and last for
the next several years to come. Of course this could mean that Realtors who have
joined our ranks within the last couple of years, may now have an opportunity to
learn what an expired listing is or how to ask for the price adjustment or how
to do a true market analysis.

Should be interesting.

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- Greg Staker Watson Realty Corp. 407-304-0255

Assistant Manager - Watson Realty Corp.

Watson Realty Corp. appointed a new Assistant Manager this week in the Deland office. I am proud to announce that position was filled by me. I am looking forward to being back on the management side of real estate. While I will still be listing and selling, I will also be expected to assist with the development the agents, especially the new agents in our office. When I first started in real estate at Carpenter Better Homes and Gardens in Indianapolis, I had an assistant manager who took the time to answer all my questions, never seemed put off by my constant running to her office with questions and gave me good sound advice on the ins and outs of being a successful Realtor. She is the reason I stayed in the business in the early going. I hope I can provide the same kind of assistance and help to the agents in this office.

Where do I go from here? Watson Realty Corp. is a strong growing company. Should an opportunity open up to manage a Watson office I would not hesitate to take on the responsibility. I'm anxious to see how my new found internet marketing skills coupled with my existing management/motivation skills would impact the bottom line of our agents and Watson Corp.

Next week will be busy with a management class in Jacksonville scheduled for Thursday and Friday and my youngest daughter flying in for 5 days on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to both.

Over 20,000 links pointing to http://www.gregstaker.com/ now. I am referring out several leads to some of the new agents. This new type of "floor duty" "opportunity time" is great.


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2006 will bring change

- Greg Staker Watson Realty Corp. 407-304-0255

Week in rewind

It's been another busy week here in Central Florida. Most of my time this week has been preparing a market report for an individual who wants to do a condo conversion. I have researched some very interesting facts and figures. While other markets around the country have already ran through a strong cycle of conversions over the last few years, we could certainly use an influx of affordable, immediate housing that this proposed conversion would bring.

www.floridarealestategold.com is up and running! We put it live Saturday. I have been submitting it to all the directories I can find. I'm going to try something a little different on the optimization part as far as linking goes. It is a great looking site! Linda did a fantastic job with the layout, colors and overall appearance.

Speaking of optimization, www.gregstaker.com is showing as 2nd page on google for "Florida Realtor" and 1st page on MSN for "Florida real estate"!!! The great thing is those phrases are not the keywords I concentrated on. The keywords that I have worked the hardest on all reside at or near the top of most every search engine! The end result has been more unique visitors to my site daily and more email inquiries about property in the Central Florida market.

I have a house listed right now that has termite damage. You would be amazed at what termites can accomplish given a chance to dine on your home. The good news is there are no live active termites, I think they ate themselves to death. Kidding of course....I think.

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redirects and malware and keyword drop oh my!


- Greg Staker Watson Realty Corp. 407-304-0255

New website, security and google

We are just a few days away from bringing online our 2nd website. The name of the site will be Florida Real Estate Gold. I hope to provide a venue for individuals to visit and see the latest listings of homes that are $300K and up. We will keep the site updated with golf course homes, water front homes, new construction, condos and other higher end properties. The site will start with Lake, Volusia, Orange and Seminole Counties information and hopefully branch off from there. I'll keep you posted on how it is doing.

The MLS is beefing up security. Today I registered for a key that creates a new password number every 60 seconds. When accessing the MLS I will have to enter this number along with my id. You can keep this new straight out of a sci fi movie security key on your key ring. Now I have more reason to stress over misplaced keys. Stay tuned.


Google is updating page ranks. That is what several search engine forums are saying. I have the google toolbar and have remained a 3 from the beginning. I think a few of my other pages gained a page rank, but I do not follow it that closely. I did notice that my google link popularity went from 62 to 68. I do not know for sure the importance of the page rank bar but I do know every time I go to a new site while surfing, my eyes look at the bar first.

The market here in West Volusia is still going strong. I had an amazing open house this weekend with a terrific turnout. Plenty of buyers out there, who is looking to sell?


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- Greg Staker Watson Realty Corp. 407-304-0255

First time blogger, long time Realtor

Hello from Central Florida.

This is my first "real" blog post. I have one other that shows up on Google. That was my "I'm not really sure what I am doing, lets make a blog" accident blog. I had forgotten all about it 'til Google indexed it.

The whole internet marketing venue is exciting to me. I have spent several months working and reworking and updating my site at http://www.gregstaker.com/ in order to provide all my current, former and new customers the best possible online marketing and information source. It took me over 2 years to understand that a website of any real value needs to be more than pretty colors and a cute "catch phrase". Since December 2004 I have been linking, adding content, adding keywords, changing keywords, changing design, cursing, laughing and learning what it takes to have a presence online.

Change is good, bad, misunderstood, ignored and appreciated depending on who you ask. I remember when MLS books were in their dying last days. No way in God's green world of "location, location, location" could a fancy dancy computer thingie provide the real estate customer with reliable information and at the same speed as the good old book could, or so thought the Realtors so against giving up their MLS books. And here we are. Change was indeed good.

Now that I have moved a step deeper into the world of online communication by creating this blog, hopefully in the days, months and years to come I will be able to post here some of the insight, facts, myths and figures of being a Realtor in Florida and the Florida real estate market. I hope it is entertaining and useful to all that visit.


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Let me take you back, way back, back into time.

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Kissimmee agents enter the blog world


- Greg Staker Watson Realty Corp. 407-304-0255