Re/Max First In Real Estate Realtors Are New Tampa Resale Experts!

By Gary Nager

I’ve been living and publishing the community news magazines in the New Tampa/Wesley Chapel area the last 20 years, but even so, I’m no expert when it comes to the local real estate market.

Fortunately, there are four local Realtors who have been keeping up with what’s happening with home sales and values in our area for more than 50 years combined. So, whether you’re buying or selling a home, my friends Amani Warden, Linda Thrasher-Donalson, Eleanor Oliver and Kay Lehmer of Re/Max First In Real Estate (located between the new Ciccio’s Cali and Koizi Endless Hibachi Grill in the Shoppes at The Pointe in Tampa Palms plaza) can help you navigate and understand the intricacies of the housing market in our local distribution areas — all while making sure you either find the home of your dreams or get the best price possible in current market conditions when you choose to list your home for sale.

Although I recently met both Amani (the driving marketing force for this quartet of local real estate dynamos) and Linda for the first time, I’ve known Eleanor and especially Kay for nearly as long as I’ve been living and working in the New Tampa area — and I’m actually celebrating my 20th year in this market and this job as of this month. I first met Kay — who was working in the financial department for the custom builder (Kennedy Homes) which built the home I used to own in Hunter’s Green back in 1995.

Kay, Eleanor and Amani are all long-time Hunter’s Green residents who have been Realtors in the New Tampa area, all working at the same office together, for more than a dozen years. Linda, a long-time Tampa Palms resident, also worked at the original First In Real Estate office in the old Hunter’s Green Model & Visitor Center, and the group (which has never officially formed as a “team”) moved together when First was located (for two years) on the second floor of the current MidFlorida Credit Union building on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd.

Now, the quartet is together at yet another new location, at Re/Max First in Real Estate in the Shoppes at The Pointe. Re/Max actually purchased First in Real Estate in 2008.

“It doesn’t really matter where we’re located or who the Broker of the office is,” Amani said during my recent hour-long meeting/local real estate rap session with these four dynamic women. “We’re all independent contractors. We really only ‘team up’ to market ourselves together and we’ve had great results advertising together, especially in the New Tampa Neighborhood News.”

Linda added that although most real estate agents today believe that online is now the most effective form of advertising, “some people still like to be able to see the ads in print, especially in a quality publication like the Neighborhood News. It really works for us.”

Amani recently learned that she had earned a 2013 Re/Max Platinum Club award (see page 53), which honors the top producing agents (in terms of sales volume) in all of Re/Max’s hundreds of offices across the U.S. and in 85 other countries. This year, Warden earned the Platinum Club honors by being in the top four percent of the thousands of Re/Max agents worldwide.

“You can only work with Re/Max if you’re experienced,” Kay said. “There’s not as much training or hand-holding with Re/Max as there is at other real estate companies, so you have to know what you’re doing…and obviously, we all do.”

“And we especially know this market,” added Eleanor of the New Tampa/Wesley Chapel area. “Even if you look at statistics for New Tampa’s zip code (33647), you have to know the differences between the home values in different communities and how the economy has affected those values (from month to month, year to year and community to community).”

For example, Eleanor said that another agent who perhaps didn’t understand the different sub-markets in New Tampa might not have been able to help one of her recent clients with securing a new appraisal of their home.

“Their house was in a gated community, but the appraisal pulled numbers from communities that weren’t gated,” Eleanor said. “I was able to recognize that from the appraisal.”

The fabulous foursome’s most recent ad in this publication (again, see page 53) offers impressive statistics about total 2013 home sales in most of the major New Tampa and Wesley Chapel communities. The stats include the number of homes sold (all of the areas of Meadow Pointe combined to lead the way with 224; Tampa Palms led in New Tampa with 185); the number of short sales and foreclosures in each market (an area-leading 82 in Meadow Pointe; followed by 29 of 110 total sales in Seven Oaks, 28 of 161 in Live Oak and 28 of 86 in Cross Creek); the average price range and average price per square foot (from $125 per sq. ft. in Tampa Palms to $86 per sq. ft. in Heritage Isles) of the homes sold in each community; and the average number of days on the market of each home sold (from a low of only 45 days on the market in Cross Creek to 125 days in Bassett Creek at K-Bar Ranch).

“New Tampa never really had as many distressed homes as some areas,” Kay said. “And again, without breaking everything down by community, new construction sales vs. resales, etc., it’s hard to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s really happening in this market.”

The group also stays up on new home sales in our area, from the newest areas of Meadow Pointe and K-Bar Ranch to new communities like Union Park in Wesley Chapel.

The RE Investor Factor

Amani said that another recent trend in the New Tampa and Wesley Chapel markets was, “a little bit of an uptick in home values when real estate investors (people who were buying homes they didn’t intend to live in) jumped back into the market about a year ago. Builders started building new homes again, which created a lot more inventory, but the available buyers started drying up when the investors began pulling out of the market.”

But, all four agree that the climate is better today for the local markets, thanks to banks again lending money and the slow growth of the local economy. “A lot of the people who have been renting, instead of buying, homes were short sellers three or four years ago,” Linda said. “Now, those folks are getting ready to buy houses again.”

And, they all also agree that inventories of available homes are still low, the builders are back in full swing and that prices started ticking back upward again last summer. “We all felt this area has been recovering all along,” Amani said. “We never believed we would hit rock bottom and now, it feels like we’ve weathered the worst of this storm.”

She adds that while Re/Max doesn’t offer relocation services, “We do have a great worldwide referral network, so we can still find you an agent wherever you plan to move.”

To buy or sell your next home, call Amani (731-7673), Linda (310-5120), Kay (416-3099) or Eleanor (416-0618) or visit Re/Max First In Real Estate (17010 Palm Pointe Dr.) and please tell them we sent you!