Is now a Good Time to Sell

So, you know, you make money when you sell, as long as you sell for more than you paid for it. And so it was now a great time to sell. So we’ve over the last couple of years, I’ve seen, I’m going to call it, historic increases in real estate values here in this market. And this market is the Naturecoast area, west-central Florida area, and probably most of the country has seen that. But here in Florida specifically, we’ve done very well in real estate values, especially in residential. The commercial has also gone up, but residential because of people wanting to move to Florida. Those prices have shot up dramatically. So there’s not a great time to sell. Well, it can be. If you bought your property, right now is a great time to sell. And please make sure you’ve held the property for more than a year so you qualify for long-term capital gain treatment. Or if it’s your primary residence, you hold it for more than two years. And as long as you’re married, your gains under and your gain is under 500,000.

There’s no tax to pay. Or, if you’re single, your gain has to be under a quarter million dollars. So now it can be a great time to sell a lot of property appreciation. But one of the things you’re probably going to contend with is, okay, great. I sold my house. I made a bunch of money. Where am I going to go? Because you have to go out and buy a house now at today’s high prices. So you’re taking the profits you sold, that you made from one house you just sold, and having to pay a much higher price for the property you want to buy compared to what it was two years ago. So all those things. And then again, do you if you’re downsizing to a much smaller house, then that’s now may be a great time to sell because you are going to get a good value for the home you’re selling and moving to a much less expensive house in terms of the cost because it’s a smaller house, generally speaking. But you know, here again, now is a great time to sell. We are. Unfortunately, we see a bit of a slowdown, with interest rates spiking as they have. The summertime also slows real estate sales down, generally speaking, know so we have seen quite a bit of inventory coming onto the market. There has been talking of recession, I guess, you know, two negative quarters of GDP is has been the long-term definition of a recession.

They’re trying to redefine what a recession is to some degree, to maybe take in a lot more data to make that call if we’re in a recession. But we have had two-quarters of negative, negative, negative GDP this year. The first and second quarters came in negative. So I guess from that definition, we’re technically in a recession. But then we were the war in Ukraine, inflation, and all these things have affected people’s psyche about the continued upward price climb. And so we have seen a pretty good increase in mills inventory over the summertime here. So if you were looking if you knew somebody that sold their house, let’s say the first quarter of the year, and they were getting offers of ten, 15, 20, 50,000 over asking price and getting a half a dozen offers in that range. You know, I’m not saying that can’t still happen, you know, but it’s gone way down. And if your property is priced right, you’ll get offers. But you’re not going to get the volume of the significantly over-asking price offers you’ve gotten before. So it’s still a great time to sell. You know, for me, I get spec homes on the market that are for sale. I did not get traffic last month as expected, but I’m looking at the fact that interest rates have spiked. I’m looking at the fact that we’re only going to go back to school so that everybody gets out and some are coming to an end.

So I will keep my prices on my spec home steady until probably mid-September, monitoring traffic and model centers around the area and the number of calls I have on my back home to see if the volume is increasing. So I’m not going to get too anxious until mid-September about reducing the prices on my spec. So my point is, you know, take a look at many different factors when you’re selling your home and don’t just get spooked by the fact that I haven’t had any traffic in a week or two. Well, here again, we’ve been summertime back to school. All those things have historically impacted traffic this time of year. So, you know, if you can hold steady on your price for another couple of weeks at least, and I think you’re going to see, barring any unusual circumstances that happen in the environment around us, the political environment, all that kind of stuff, barring any unusual things that happened, you’re going to see a significant, I think, increase in traffic, and you should get a nice contract on the property trying to sell you. Any other questions? Please give us a call here at Suncoast CPA Group three five. 352-596-2883. Or you reach us on the web down below. Click on that appointment link. Please make an appointment to see us as well. Thank you once again for listening.