Point2 Technologies has released the findings of its 2008 Point2 Photo Effectiveness Study. The results of this study should be especially useful for both real estate agents and home sellers.

Over 100,000 real estate listings were sampled!

The graph clearly shows that more real estate photos generate more interest. But look what happens when the photo count goes from 15 to 16. Amazingly, there is a 20% jump in Views, Interest, and Leads.

The purpose of this study, according to Point2 Technologies, was to examine the impact of photos in driving real estate transactions. 

Below is a quote from the Point2 Technologies article about the study:

“Results strongly suggest that adding more photos generates better response to real estate listings, reconfirming trends observed in a 2007 study also by Point2.

The Study tracked three trends, namely consumer Views, Interest and Leads. All increased significantly as the number of still photos related to the listings increased.

Listings that did not include any photos performed very poorly, generating little consumer response and business. Specifically, the Study showed that listings with zero photos attract, on average, a mere 0.02 percent of the detailed listing views that listings with 21 to 36 photos enjoy. Listings that featured a single photo fared significantly better.” 

Here is a definition of the terms used in the study:

Views: how many times a real estate listing was viewed online

Interest: how many unique visitors interacted with a real estate listing, i.e. going beyond the initial set of photos to see a virtual tour, do a mortgage calculation or access more home details

Leads: the number of unique visitors who contacted the real estate broker or agent 

What does this mean for real estate agents and home sellers? 

Very simply, ensure that the real estate listing has 16 or more photos for maximum effectiveness.

I did my own little study using homes listed for sale on the Pensacola real estate market. I did not sample 100,000 homes. I sampled 100 homes. All were between $150,000 and $250,000 and were in various areas of Pensacola, Milton, and Gulf Breeze.

To sample, I did a search for homes in the aformentioned price range and areas. I then picked every 5th home in the list. That seems random enough to me. There were a lot more than 100 homes available to sample in the list, but by the time I got to 100, I was sick of sampling.

The first column shows the number of pictures that were included with the real estate listing in the Pensacola MLS.

The second column shows the percentage of my sample that met the picture criteria. In other words, 10% of the homes sampled had only 1 picture. 20% had over 20 pictures. 

Overall, this tells me that most Pensacola real estate agents are doing a very good job of including pictures. Around 68% included over 10 pictures.

However, with 16 being the magic number, 63% of the agents are missing a golden opportunity by including 15 or fewer pictures, according to the referenced study.

Is it always good to include pictures with your real estate listing?

Well agents, if your pictures are bad enough to end up on Athol’s Bad MLS Photo site, maybe you should just focus on working with buyers.    

Related Articles On Pensacola Real Estate News:

How Important Are Pictures For Your Listing?  

Tags: listing+photos

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The numbers in the table show the Pensacola real estate sales on the beaches for the first 6 months of 2008. 

As of the writing of this report there are 11 Perdido Key Condo sales Pending and 6 Pensacola Beach Condo sales Pending. The total number of homes and condos for sale on the beach has not increased since January, so we are holding steady on inventory in the mid 700s.

The table above just gives a snapshot of the market at this time, which does not really tell a story. The table below is much more interesting.

Pensacola Market Data For Beach Homes and Condos
On Pensacola Beach And Perdido Key
For the First 6 Months Of Each Year

Be aware that the numbers showin in the table are only for the 1st 6 months of each of the years listed. This was the only way to make a good comparison to 2008. At the end of 2008 I can give you a full years worth of data on the beach real estate report.

What we can see in this table is the way the real estate markets on the beaches have moved since 2000. Here are some observations:

• If you purchased beach real estate from 2000 to 2004, you are doing well as far as the value of your investment

• 2002-2004 were the hottest years as far as beach real estate sales volume. During this period, the beach homes and condos were much more affordable and we saw sales from 180 to almost 300 units. 

• 2005-2007 saw decreasing sales and increasing days on market as prices rose sharply.

Now in 2008 we see sales up just a little above the 2007 levels and prices holding steady. Many Pensacola real estate agents believe that prices on the beaches have pretty much bottomed out. I will provide future reports on the beaches and we’ll see if that is indeed true.

- The table shows real estate market data for Pensacola condos and residential homes on the beaches.
- Vacant land or lots are not included.
- The numbers above are created using data from the Pensacola MLS and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed

Click on Pensacola Real Estate News for a list of articles indexed by category.

Tags: pensacola+beaches, pensacola+condos, real+estate+market+data

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Here is another weekly Pensacola real estate market report. This one covers the week of July 6 - 12. 

After a very good end-of-June showing in the local real estate market, we have had a major slow down this week. That is fairly typical for the beginning of the month. I’m just hoping for something fun to write about, but there is really nothing new to report this week, so I’ll go with the same short sale blurb that I used the previous week. It still applies, and apparently will for quite some time.

I have done quite a bit of home searching for clients this few weeks and it seems like every other home I came across is a short sale.

Check out my article on Pensacola Real Estate Short Sales - Is It Worth It   for more information on why short sales are so frustrating for both the real estate agent and the buyer.  

Look for more posts coming soon about the number of short sales on the market and the problems with buying bank owned foreclosure properties. 

Look also for an upcoming 6 Month beach report where I will show the active real estate listings and sales on Pensacola Beach and Perdido Key for the first 6 months of 2008.

If you are interested in sales of homes in different areas of Pensacola, check out my Pensacola Real Estate Market Report By Area post which breaks out the sales by different areas Northwest Florida.

- The table shows the weekly market data for Pensacola residential property.
- These numbers include only residential homes and condominiums in Escambia County and Santa Rosa County that are listed in the Pensacola MLS.
- They do not include vacant land or lots, mobile homes or manufactured homes or Pensacola FSBOs.
- The numbers above are created using data from the Pensacola MLS and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed

Click on Pensacola Real Estate News for a list of articles indexed by category.

Tags: pensacola+real+estate

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They’ll be asked some initial questions about their situation to ensure accurate placement, and then be sent to a free attorney.

The attorney will then negotiate with the lender on behalf of the client to keep the home from being foreclosed.
 

Here is the toll free number:  (866) 607-2187

Hours to call are Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM.

More than 10,000 Florida attorneys have volunteered their services in the program, according to Florida Legal Services Inc. Remember that next time you feel the need to tell a bad lawyer joke. 
 

Related Articles On Pensacola Real Estate News:

Real Estate Short Sales - Is It Worth It?   

Did Speculators Accelerate The Florida Housing Downturn?

Click on Pensacola Real Estate News for a list of articles indexed by category.

Tags: foreclosures, legal+advice

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Apparently before the Blue Angels performed at Casino Beach, a very special event was taking place down on the east end of Pensacola Beach.

Check out the pictures taken by the Barrier Island Girl on her blog; Manatee Pictures

 I don’t think I would have had the patience to take pictures. I would have been running for the water just to see how close I could get.

Click on Pensacola Real Estate News for a list of articles indexed by category.

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If you are interested in seeing any homes in the Scenic Heights  subdivision, or any other homes for sale in Pensacola Florida, please feel free to  Contact Me for assistance.

All of the homes pictured on this page were for sale at the time this article was published.  

To see all current Pensacola Homes for Sale in Scenic Heights, click on Search for Homes. 

On the Property Search screen, click on the “More Search Options” button. 

Then type Scenic Heights into the “Subdivision” category and click the “Search Now” button at the bottom of the screen.

Scenic Heights is located in NorthEast Pensacola.  It is within the City Of Pensacola  limits.

Scenic Heights  is accessible from Langley Avenue or Creighton Road. 

Scenic Heights is convenient to Cordova Mall, Pensacola Junior College, and the Pensacola airport.  Many other popular Pensacola destinations are around 30 minutes from Scenic Heights.

Information on travel times provided below will depend on traffic and time of day.

Approximate travel times to popular Pensacola destinations: 

Downtown Pensacola: 20 Minutes
Cordova Mall / Pensacola Airport / Pensacola Junior College: 5-10 minutes
Interstate 10: 5-10 Minutes
Pensacola Beach : 30-35 minutes
Perdido Key Florida: 40-45 minutes
University of West Florida: 20 minutes
Pensacola NAS (Home of the Blue Angels): 30-35 minutes
Saufley Field Naval Base:  25 minutes
Corry Field Naval Base: 25 minutes

Escambia County School Districts for Scenic Heights Subdivision:
Elementary: Scenic Heights
Middle:  Ferry Pass or Workman
High:  Washington

To determine what school district corresponds to a given address, go to the Escambia County School District web site, click on “Find Your School”, and type in your address.  

Homes in Scenic Heights generally fall into the following ranges: 
 

Age of Homes: Built between 1950’s and mid 1970s.
Construction: Varied - mostly brick ranch style
Square Footage:  1000 - 2500
Bedrooms: 3 - 4 
Bathrooms:  2-3
Garages:  Mixed, from driveway only to 2-car garages
Lot Sizes: .20 - .30 acres
Waterfront? None
Swimming Pools: Of the Scenic Heights homes currently listed for sale in the Pensacola MLS, 1 had a swimming pool.
Foreclosures: Of the homes currently listed for sale in the Pensacola MLS, 1 is listed as a foreclosure property.  
Home Owners Association. No

Average Days On Market of homes sold in the past year was 85 days.  This is considerably lower than the average DOM for the Pensacola area. If you check out my Pensacola Real Estate Market Report By Area you will see that Northeast Pensacola overall has the lowest average DOM of all the areas in Pensacola.

Rentals: The Pensacola MLS shows 12 homes were rented in Scenic Heights in the past year. Rental rates were between $825 and $950. There are currently 3 homes available for rent. The rent is between $780 and $950. 
 

The following table shows Pensacola real estate market data for Scenic Heights. The numbers in the table are created using data from the Pensacola MLS and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed. These numbers do not include sales by Pensacola FSBOs.

As of July 12, 2008, the following homes are for sale in the Scenic Heights subdivision:

The overall percentage difference between list and sales price was 4.5%. This indicates that many sellers in Scenic Heights were willing to be more negotiable on their list price in the past year.

I hope this market report on Scenic Heights subdivision was helpful. This market report is a reflection of the Pensacola real estate market as of July 12, 2008.

These numbers will change as the Pensacola real estate market changes. If this report is not current at the time you are reading it (6 months or more after 07/12/08) and you are interested in buying or selling a home in Scenic Heights I recommend that you Contact Me for updated market information on this subdivision.

Related Pensacola Real Estate Articles on other Northeast Pensacola Subdivisions:

  Coming soon.

Click on Pensacola Real Estate News for a list of articles indexed by category. 

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Welcome to the weekly Pensacola real estate market report. This one covers the week of June 29-July 5. 

We saw a big jump in sales at the end of May.  The jump in home sales at the end of June actually surpassed that of May, which is great news. The table doesn’t show it because the table is on a Sunday-Saturday week. However, from June 24-June 30 the total home sales reached 178. 

Days On Market (DOM) is up a little, but that is attributed to several high end homes selling that had been on the market for 500 to 900 days. If we take out these oddball sales, average DOM for Pensacola homes sold during that week comes to 155 days.   

I have done quite a bit of home searching for clients this past few weeks and it seems like every other home I came across is a short sale.

If you want to know more about short sales, check out my article on Pensacola Real Estate Short Sales - Is It Worth It   for more information on why short sales are so frustrating for both the real estate agent and the buyer.  

Look for more posts coming soon about the number of short sales on the market and the problems with buying bank owned foreclosure properties. 

Look also for an upcoming 6 Month beach report where I will show the active real estate listings and sales on Pensacola Beach and Perdido Key for the first 6 months of 2008.

If you are interested in sales of homes in different areas of Pensacola, check out my Pensacola Real Estate Market Report By Area post which breaks out the sales by different areas Northwest Florida.

- The table shows the weekly market data for Pensacola residential property.
- These numbers include only residential homes and condominiums in Escambia County and Santa Rosa County that are listed in the Pensacola MLS.
- They do not include vacant land or lots, mobile homes or manufactured homes or Pensacola FSBOs.
- The numbers above are created using data from the Pensacola MLS and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed

Click on Pensacola Real Estate News for a list of articles indexed by category.

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Why would this table be useful to you as a real estate buyer or seller?

I can think of several reasons.

Sellers:

The number of active listings gives you a number to gauge the competition in your area. Use this in conjunction with the “Listed To Sold Ratio” number. The lower the percentage, the harder it will be to sell your home in the given area.

The Days On Market (DOM) will give home sellers an idea of the average time it takes in their area to sell a home. If you price your home to sell, you can come in way under that average.

Buyers:

The number of active listings gives you an idea of the inventory of homes on the real estate market in that area. A higher number of homes for sale will mean you have more to choose from.

The average price and average price per square foot gives a good indication of the prices of homes in the given area.

Refer to the map image below to get a rough idea of the area delineations:

Now lets look at the winners and losers in our market survey, based on homes sold vs homes on the market.

WINNERS:

Milton Florida scores a big #1 for the most the most homes sold in the first half of 2008. Coming in at a close second is Southwest Pensacola. This is no big surprise as these are 2 areas closest to our largest military bases, Whiting Field and Pensacola NAS. 

Northeast Pensacola also comes in a big winner with the lowest number of Days On Market (DOM), followed closely by Southeast Pensacola.  In addition, Northeast Pensacola comes in 6th place as the area with lowest average home price and has a homes listed to sold ratio of 43%. So if you want to get a lot of home for your money, and hope for the quickest sale of your home, consider Northeast Pensacola to be a good bet.

Last Place WINNERS
(I hate the word losers, and how can you call the beaches losers. They are some of the most beautiful beachs in the world.)

Perdido Key is taking the worst beating, followed closely by Pensacola Beach. (Note that I am ignoring Jay and Molino/Century for the most part, as there is minimal interest in these areas.) When looking at the beaches, you can see that they have the lowest ratio of homes/condos sold to the homes/condos on the market, and they come in priced higher than any other areas in Escambia and Santa Rosa county. No big surprise there either. The beach is a great place to live  if the weather cooperates, and you will pay a premium to live there.

Notes and Disclaimers:

Data in the table was taken from the Pensacola MLS and is deemed reliable, but not guaranteed. 

The Active Listings Column shows homes on the market as of the end of June 2008. These numbers are for Residential homes and Condos in Escambia County and Santa Rosa County. They do not include vacant land, mobile homes or manufactured homes.

The Homes Sold and Average Prices are based on homes sold in the given area from January to June of 2008.

In the near future, if my motivation holds up, I will be posting detailed information on each of these Pensacola MLS areas. I hope to make this a great overall Pensacola real estate reference that will be useful to buyers and sellers in the Pensacola real estate market.

Click on Pensacola Real Estate News for a list of articles indexed by category.

Tags: pensacola+real+estate, market+data

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The table shows the Pensacola real estate market data for the month of June 2008, as compared to previous months.  Pensacola home sales have not quite reached the level they did in May, but they may get there yet as slower agents put their sold listings into the MLS.  

It is hard to write much of an exciting report given the numbers in the table. Not much has really changed overall. We remain in a somewhat stagnant real estate market in the Pensacola Florida area. But many real estate agents have reported increased activity.

If you look back to September of 2007,  the big change you will see is that we have over 500 fewer homes on the market now than we did back then. In my opinion this isn’t the result of more homes being sold. It simply comes from sellers who overpriced their homes taking them off the market.

 Keep checking back for my weekly and monthly updates to keep abreast of what is going on in this market.

And remember buyers, if you are waiting for the market to bottom out, it is likely the real estate market will be moving back up by the time you buy.  Go find the good deals now.   

- The table shows the monthly market data for Pensacola residential property.
- These numbers include only residential homes and condominiums in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties that are listed in the Pensacola MLS.
- The numbers do not include vacant land or lots, mobile homes or manufactured homes.
- The numbers are generated using data from the Pensacola MLS and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed

Click on Pensacola Real Estate News for a list of articles indexed by category.

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Welcome to the weekly Pensacola real estate market report. This report covers the week of June 22-28. 

We saw a big jump in sales at the end of May. The jump in home sales at the end of June was actually a little higher.

If you look at the full last week in June, which is June 24-30, total sales were 159+. More sold properties will be added as slowpoke real estate agents put in their closed listings.  

I have noted, as have many real estate agents that I have spoken to, that things are picking up. 

I have done quite a bit of home searching for clients this past week and it seems like every other home I came across was a short sale.

Read my article on Pensacola Real Estate Short Sales - Is It Worth It   for more information on why short sales are so frustrating for both the real estate agent and the buyer.

Currently, the Pensacola MLS doesn’t have a specific field for Short Sales. This makes it hard to determine just how many short sales are listed in the Pensacola market.

However, next week the MLS will be updated to include a new searchable field that will include a Short Sale category. This will help us determine just what our percentages of short sales on the market are. 

I have asked over the past several weeks why all these bargain priced homes are just sitting on the market and not being purchased by saavy buyers? Now I wonder if buyers are trying to purchase them but the banks are just too overwhelmed with foreclosures to deal with the offers coming in.   

If you can buy now, it is a good time, in my opinion.  

See my article: Buy Now Or Pay Later - Pensacola Real Estate Mortgage Rates Are Rising

Look for an upcoming 6 Month beach report where I will show the active real estate listings and sales on Pensacola Beach and Perdido Key for the first 6 months of 2008.

- The table shows the weekly market data for Pensacola residential property.
- These numbers include only residential homes and condominiums in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties that are listed in the Pensacola MLS.
- They do not include vacant land or lots, mobile homes or manufactured homes or Pensacola FSBOs.
- The numbers above are created using data from the Pensacola MLS and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed

Click on Pensacola Real Estate News for a list of articles indexed by category.

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