Kristy & Megan Darragh — The Team To Call When Buying Or Selling A Home! 

(L.-r.) Jace Haitz, Megan & Kristy Darragh and Toni Osborn of Florida Executive Realty in Tampa Palms. (Photos on these pages provided by Kristy Darragh) 

If you’ve been seeing real estate headlines that make you think the sky is falling, long-time local RealtorÂź Kristy Darragh of Florida Executive Realty in Tampa Palms says to brush it off — it’s just click bait. 

“I monitor trends weekly, monthly and quarterly, as well as the long history and economics of housing,” she says, “and the local housing market lately has been a bit wobbly, but is still basically a flat line.” 

She says that plateau is a good thing (not a sign of death), meaning the local market continues to be steady and predictable for those who are looking to buy or sell. 

With almost four decades in the industry and a near obsession with crunching the numbers, Kristy has a deep understanding of the local market and promises her clients expert advice for how to sell their homes for the highest price or buy a home at the best value. 

A staple in the New Tampa and Wesley Chapel real estate market since 1994, Kristy has recently updated her brand to include her daughter Megan, so you’ll now see ads for Kristy & Megan – rather than just Kristy – not only in the Neighborhood News, but also on billboards and in direct mail. 

Megan began working with her mom in 2020, after previously serving as the office manager for the Westchase branch of Florida Executive Realty. Now, they’ve solidified their partnership with the team’s name change. 

Kristy and Megan say they are able to serve their clients with client service umatched in the local market, thanks to assistants Jace Haitz and Toni Osborn, both of whom have worked with Kristy for many years. 

“There’s no way I could provide the excellence and volume of work I do without them,” says Kristy of her support staff. “They are what makes it possible for Megan and I to offer this level of service.” 

Kristy uses all of those years of experience to translate what’s happening in the market into useful information for her clients. 

For example, she says she tells her clients to always look at the current inventory to understand the basic fundamental principle of supply and demand. Historically, she says, the 33647 zip code has had around 300 active listings in a normal market. “Right now, we’re at about 170 active listings,” Kristy says. “We came from a peak during the pandemic where we only had 18 listings in the entire zip code.” 

At the time, prices were sky high due to demand. She says that while the market has recovered to be more balanced, there’s still plenty of room for more inventory. 

“Prices on a lot of homes have come down, but they needed to, because people were pricing their homes the way they were in 2020 and 2021,” she says, “and that was when the market was unbalanced and somewhat frenetic.” 

Meanwhile, In Wesley Chapel… 

Wesley Chapel has its own trends and metrics, and Kristy explains that all of the new construction in the area means resale prices are somewhat suppressed. That means Wesley Chapel sellers need to have realistic expectations as to what they can sell their homes for, and that they should always work with an expert who can help price the home appropriately to sell quickly or meet the seller’s goals. 

“This is a normal cycle,” Kristy says. “You can’t use prices for new construction for your asking price on a resale home because builders offer incentives, such as money back toward closing costs, bonuses and interest rate buydowns.” 

She says these incentives can be valued at up to $100,000, so resale homes have to take that into account to be able to price to sell. 

“I’ve got 38 years of knowledge, including 30 years here in the New Tampa and Wesley Chapel area,” Kristy explains. “I see trends so clearly and have lived through so many real estate cycles that I can tell you the market is not falling and prices are not dropping. We are in a healthy plateau, and that is what you want so the market can normalize.” 

She says there also are annual trends that always happen, and that we’re just about ready for an influx of seasonal buyers in April, May, June and July. 

“This is when the most buyers are in the market, so prices definitely go up,” Kristy says. On the other hand, over the year-end holidays and the first quarter of each year is when resale prices are the lowest, giving buyers the best opportunity to purchase a home at a lesser cost. 

“This happens every year,” Kristy says. 

Kristy and Megan are each licensed as both a real estate agent and as a Broker. Kristy joined Florida Executive Realty in 1994 and became partners with Doug Loyd in the Tampa Palms location of Florida Executive Realty way back in 2003. Loyd owns five other offices of Florida Executive Realty located in and around the Tampa Bay area. 

Kristy and Megan have many satisfied clients, including Nancy and Mike Yetter, who recently sold their home in Ashington Estates in Tampa Palms to move to The Sanctuary (also in Tampa Palms), where Kristy and Megan helped them find the perfect smaller-sized home to fit their empty nest. But, the Yetters’ new home still provides enough room that they don’t feel cramped. 

“It was a lot of fun,” Nancy says. “We felt very lucky to work with both of them.” 

While most people wouldn’t call the stressful sale or purchase of a home “fun,” Nancy says Kristy and Megan made the process stress-free and actually enjoyable. 

Nancy also says that she and her husband first met Kristy when she was the seller’s real estate agent when they bought their Ashington Estates home in 2018, after experiencing what Nancy described as a “horrific” experience selling the home they were moving from on Anna Maria Island. 

“We were so impressed with her back then,” Nancy says. “We said if we ever moved, we wanted to ask her to be our agent.” 

Because the couple travels often, they trusted Kristy and Megan to handle the entire process, including showings and repairs that needed to be made to the home. 

“To have absolutely no hiccups was great,” says Nancy. “We were able to close on both homes the same day. It was perfect the way [Kristy] organized that.” 

Nancy says that both Kristy and Megan understood their needs and didn’t waste their time showing them homes that weren’t what they wanted. 

“I’ve recommended Kristy and her team to three people already,” Nancy says. “She’s very professional, she’ll work for the best deal possible, and she doesn’t let anything fall through the cracks. She knows the market and that’s so important.” 

The Tampa Palms office of Florida Executive Realty is located at 15802 Amberly Dr. For more information about Kristy and Megan Darragh, visit RealEstateNewTampa.com or call (813) 931-6700.

Housing Market Continues To Move Fast

Glenn and Gretchen Schmidt started building in Wesley Chapel’s Estancia community last July, before things got crazy in the housing market. When their new house was ready, they were able to sell the home they owned in New Tampa pictured above, in just two days. (Photos: Charmaine George)

When it came time to sell their home in West Meadows to move into their new home in Estancia, Glenn Schmidt and his wife Gretchen knew they were entering a pretty good local housing market for sellers.

So, when the Schmidts finally listed their home with long-time New Tampa Realtor Kristy Darragh of Florida Executive Realty, they were hoping there was enough interest that they’d at least get their asking price.

On a Friday, the Schmidt’s four-bedroom, three-bath house was officially put up for sale. On Saturday, they had 33 people show up for a showing.

On Sunday morning, there were 22 more scheduled showings by 2 p.m.

“I had to stop setting appointments,” Glenn says. “My phone would not stop blowing up.”

By the end of the weekend, the Schmidts had 15 offers, including two buyers offering to pay in cash, and they eventually accepted a bid well over their asking price.

“We significantly more than doubled what we originally paid for the house,” he says. “It’s one thing to hear that you’re going to do very well when you sell, but then to see (this)? It was ridiculous.”

The Schmidts’ story would have been highly unusual just a year ago. But nowadays, it’s normal.

“This market, it’s a phenomenon,” says Darragh. “It’s mind boggling.”

*****

In Wesley Chapel and elsewhere, the sky seems to be the limit, as soaring prices and sinking inventory make the market a real dogfight.

In our coverage area in Wesley Chapel, which includes zip codes 33543, 33544 and 33545, there were only 60 single family homes listed for sale as of June 24. The median home was a 4BR/3BA, with 2,573 square feet of living space and a listing price of $507,498.  

Of those 60 homes, only eight were new construction, and the median price on those was $650,000, or a staggering $246 per square foot.

The 52 resales, with a median size of 4BR/3BA and 2,654 square feet, had a median price of $498,000, or $198 per square foot.

(Florida Realtors)

Countywide, the numbers are staggering as well.

According to the Florida Realtors, the median sale price of all 1,083 houses sold in Pasco County in May was $300,380, a 20.2% increase over the $250,000 median price in May 2020.

Meanwhile, the average price soared to $343,070, a 27% increase from the previous year.

The median time to contract on the homes sold this May was five days, while last year it was 27 days.

Inventory is down to 637 homes, compared with 1,746 last year.

Although Wesley Chapel is a growing housing market with thousands of homes coming along the S.R. 56 extension and in large communities like Epperson, Avalon Park West and the Connected City corridor, builders can’t keep up, hence the lack of inventory.

Realtor Chris Henry says that the current craziness in the local real estate market isn’t likely to suffer another “housing bubble” anytime soon.

Combine all of that with historically low interest rates (around 3%) and a massive influx of new residents running away from coronavirus-ravaged states to Florida, which also has friendlier tax policies and “you have a perfect storm,” says local Realtor Chris Henry.

He says that there are 20 or more buyers for almost every house being sold, and anything under $350,000 sells almost instantly, usually for more than the asking price — and often with cash. In fact, 27.1% of sales in May were paid in cash, a number that has increased every month since November 2020, when it was 17.6 percent.

Henry says he recently listed a client’s home for $25,000 more than he normally would have because of the market, and it led to 74 showings over the next two days, resulting in 33 written offers. The house sold for an additional $30,000 over that already-inflated asking price.

“You know, it’s clichĂ© to say, but this is really unprecedented,” Henry says.

Another of Henry’s clients, Noemi Delgado, sold the Riverview townhome she had only lived in for eight months for a $40,000 profit, and turned around and used that money to put down on a new home. “With money to spare,” she says.

Delgado initially planned to live in her townhome for two years before selling but with some prodding from Henry, took a more aggressive approach.

In this market, it might be the only way to succeed.

*****

While traditionally 3-4 months worth of inventory is considered good, the latest numbers say there isn’t even a month’s worth of homes for sale right now. The number currently is 0.6 months supply, meaning that if nothing new came on the market over the next 2-3 weeks, there would be zero houses for sale.

“We are accustomed to low inventory, but I think we are all surprised to see the influx of buyers from out of state coming to the Tampa Bay area,” says Florida Executive Realty Realtor Judi Beck. “To have less than one month of inventory is really uncharted waters.”

The inventory in the Greater Tampa area in April 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic was right around 10,700 homes for sale, with an average selling price of $271,000.

Just 12 months later, inventory was down to just 2,500 homes, but the average sale price had rocketed to $358,000.

In New Tampa, there were only 34 single-family homes listed for sale as of June 11, and 14 of those were asking for more than $500,000 — pricing a lot of first-time buyers out of the market. 

Only five homes were listed under $300,000.

For a 3BR/2BA, the prices ranged from a low of $324,900 to $408,000; for a 4BR/3BA, the range was from as little as $307,000 to $1.25 million.

“I think personally, the local people aren’t moving out in as big numbers as the people coming in,” says 17-year real estate veteran Molly Nye, of Century 21 Bill Nye Realty. “There is a supply problem. We’re six months out from this being exciting and frustrating.”

Nye says she is seeing home seekers bidding on empty lots, “which is unheard of.”  

It’s a seller’s market, so buyers may need to be more aggressive than usual. The fewer contingencies a buyer has, the more attractive the offer is to the seller, and they typically have many offers to choose from. The seller just needs a place to go once he or she sells. Nye says she has a friend who sold her home to cash out, and is now living with another friend because she can’t find a place to buy. 

“She told me that she didn’t think that would happen to her,” Nye says. “I’m seeing a lot more of that.”

*****

In the early- to mid-2000s, a similar boom was instigated by poor lending practices and rampant investor speculation. That led to the average list price in New Tampa, for example, rising from $272,000 in 2003 to $443,000 in 2006. 

Then, the real estate “bubble” of 2007-08 popped..

By 2011, the median home in New Tampa was down to $236,000.

Economists and Realtors alike will tell you that this boom is related primarily to the migration of people to Florida, from places like New York, California and all points in between. The ability to work remotely here has been another driving factor. Henry says that four of his last six sales have been to New Yorkers. Because of Covid-19 and the economy, thousands of people each day are leaving states that are not as “open” as Florida, or as tax-friendly, selling their homes and showing up on the doorsteps of local Realtors flush with cash.

Do we risk another real estate bubble/crash reminiscent of 2007-08? 

“There is no bubble,” Henry says.

*****

According to Darragh, the New Tampa market is healthy and finally realizing the growth in appreciation it has long deserved.

“The New Tampa market has been undervalued for more than eight years, with a slow growth in appreciation, due to the amount of new construction available,” she says. ”Now that the new construction inventory in Wesley Chapel has come to an abrupt halt, the re-sale market pricing in the New Tampa area has jumped overnight.”

Kristy Darragh.

Over the past six months, home prices across the country have risen by 17 percent. Nationally, the typical home asking price in May was $380,000, up 15% from last year.

“Absorption rate is a term used in the real estate industry to describe how fast homes are selling,” Darragh says. “A normal absorption rate for Tampa for the first quarter of this year should have been 40-50% per month. That means that each month, when new listings come on the market, the number of buyers will buy up 40-50% of those new listings. This year, that number is a staggering 179%-200%!”

That means this aggressive absorption rate is sucking up everything that is being built, every new listing that comes on the market, plus the existing inventory of homes. And, as Nye says, even empty lots.

Realtors agree that supply and demand are dangerously out of balance, and question whether this is economically sustainable. The only thing that can slow it down, they say, would be more inventory. However, there’s no indication of an inventory build-up anytime soon.

Henry is convinced that higher interest rates will eventually cause some paralysis. He says it happened in 2018 for a brief period, stopping home owners from selling out of their low mortgage rates and also slowing demand. But, he believes that situation could be at least a year or two away.

“I feel very strongly that in the end, we’ll come in for a soft landing,” Henry says, “but it’s going to take, unfortunately, interest rates increasing and making it impossible for people to buy at 4 or 5 percent. They will be unwilling, and in many cases, unable.”

Darragh has spent hours poring over the data to figure out the current market. Her desk is covered in pie charts and bar graphs, while her computer constantly refreshes to update her on the local housing market in real-time.

With her 30 years of experience selling in the New Tampa area and, with more than  $1 billion in sales over that time, she is fascinated looking through her pages of housing statistics. While conventional wisdom says a good seller’s market is bad for buyers, that’s not the case if you are a believer, like she is, that this will continue for another year or two
or longer.

“This market is a once-in-a-generation kind of market, because of what stimulated it (a pandemic),” Darragh says. “It’s a very good market for both buyers and sellers — and people don’t think about it that way — but looking at the charts and listening to real estate experts and economists, they don’t think this is going to end anytime soon. This could be the beginning of something that, in theory, goes on for years.”

The pricing surge has been eye-opening, especially in places like Seminole Heights and South Tampa, but while the urge to cash out may be strong, buyers waiting for a slowdown may be waiting a while.

That’s because, she says, New Tampa is only just now catching back up from the crash of 2007-08.

Based on a Florida Executive Realty “Pent Up Equity” chart, New Tampa’s median home price was $236,000 in 2011, well below the $289,000 it should have been, according to a normal rate of appreciation of 3.5 percent per year.

New Tampa’s median home price is currently up to $380,000, but the normal rate of appreciation says it should be $407,570.

“We haven’t even gotten back to normal yet,” says Darragh. “There’s still plenty of room to run before you even see a bubble.”

That means “deals” can still be found. 

In other areas of Tampa, the average “Sold” price far exceeds the price in a market with a normal rate of appreciation. In South Tampa, for example, it’s $175,000 over normal market value; in Carrollwood, it’s $125,000 over; in Seminole Heights, it’s plus-$120,000; and, in Wesley Chapel, it’s almost $100,000 over.

It’s a befuddling market and, while there are plenty of online options to do your home shopping, selecting the right Realtor might be the most important decision you ever make. It is a sentiment strongly echoed by Henry, Beck and Nye, because the market is more complicated and moving faster than ever. 

“If you ever needed a local expert, it’s now,” Darragh says.

DON’T PANIC!

Kristy Darragh

Scrolling through Kelsey Darragh’s popular YouTube channel, one thing is for certain — she has no filter.

Some of the titles and topics of her videos may make you blush (don’t ask), while others you will irresistibly click (we said don’t ask!), but Kelsey is both sassy and serious, and most often both at the same time.

However, you don’t have to dig deep into  her YouTube channel to find Darragh — a 2008 Freedom High graduate now living in a Los Angeles apartment with a view of the famous Hollywood sign — tackling more serious issues dealing with gay, lesbian and trans issues, being in an abusive relationship, battling chronic pain, getting sober and even living with mental illness.

Darragh, who proudly says she is a three-time college dropout — Auburn University, the New York Film Academy and Los Angeles City College — used her edgy sense of humor to burst onto the YouTube scene in 2010, and started working for Buzzfeed in 2015. One of her favorite videos was about being chained to her mother Kristy Darragh, well-known local realtor, for 24 hours. And, while mom may blush at some of the titles on her daughter’s YouTube page, Kristy has appeared in a few of Kelsey’s videos herself.

Kristy knew that Kelsey had struggled her entire life with anxiety, panic and depression. But, while she was at Buzzfeed, Kelsey bravely revealed it to the whole world, in video form of course. 

The reaction transformed her life, and her mission.

“My parents will tell you that I’m the most dramatic child that ever existed,” Kelsey says. “It’s no surprise that I’m using my voice for (both) entertainment and mental health activism. It was just kind of written in the stars for me.”

Kelsey Darragh’s first book is now available for presale and will be out for the holidays. Coming forward with her own mental health struggles has led to a career of helping others. We recently caught up with her to chat about making her life, well, an open book. 

NN: You’re an author! How surprised will the people you went to school with in New Tampa be when they see your first book?

KD: Never in a million years would anyone think I would write a book, especially a workbook about mental health. But I love books. I was obsessed with the language arts programs at Tampa Palms Elementary. I was always in that library. I can see it right now in my head, I knew every corner of that library. Definitely a book lover, but never in a milion years did I think I had anything important to say or any stories to write about that anyone would give a sh-t about until this book. I still can’t believe it.

NN: What spurred your interest in mental health?

KD: At Buzzfeed, we were going to post videos every day that pertain to mental health education (during mental health month) and make them entertaining so people didn’t roll their eyes at the science-y nature of what we were posting. In the brainstorm, I had the idea to tell my mental health journey through a video using stop motion effects and all of the props used in the video were replicas of all the pills I had been prescribed over the years.

So, I would make the pills into different stop motion art and words and figures and told my story over voiceover through the very short film. When I posted it through Buzzfeed’s platform, it went completely viral. Hundreds of thousands of comments, millions of views, I was getting messages by the 1000s every day. People struggling with the same thing. Two people even got quotes from the video as tatoos on their bodies… just opening that door for conversation caused the floodgates to open. 

NN: Which led to a second life as an activist?

KD:  I always say I kind of became an accidental activist. Once I realized oh (crap) people really want more of this content, I needed to be a voice for people to have access to information. It’s so so funny to think of it as a passion, because for so many years it was the bane of my existence.

NN: And now, you are putting it in book form. 

KD: I had been doing videos, more mental health content, public speaking, interviews
.I realized it’s very hard to cover the entirety of it in one article or one video. I wanted to share the information in a way that was understandable and relatable because every book out there that I could find about mental health was so boring. 

NN: It’s not a traditional mental health book written by a doctor. In fact, that’s what you think will appeal to those who might benefit from its contents?

KD: It was important to create a workbook, and not a traditional read-it-and-toss-it book. All the pages have exercises or games or different methods of managing mental health. I want people to carry it in their pocket like a little mental health Bible (laughs).

(L.-r.) Kristy, Mike, Megan & Kelsey Darragh

NN: There’re probably no greater thrill than seeing your book for the first time.

KD: The first thing I did when we confirmed the cover, I printed it out at the exact size and the dimensions and taped it on top of another book I have, and set it on my desk. I wanted to see how it looked amongst my other books. And, I studied the way Barnes & Noble marketed and laid out books in their stores. That’s why the book is bright neon yellow with giant bold letters that say ‘Don’t F*cking Panic.’ I want people to see this book.

NN: So, you scheduled a book about anxiety that is coming out in a year that has been plagued by coronavirus, lockdowns, job losses and the most nerve-wracking election season ever. Are you just lucky, or an evil marketing genius?

KD: Launching my first book in the middle of a pandemic and before an election season was not anything I imagined happening, but in a weird way something beautiful that has come of this pandemic is people are paying attention to their mental health now more than ever. They are foreced to come to terms with their struggles. I think the collective response has just been this book is so needed right now. the deep ernd into cold water. We have floaties and hot life guards here.

NN: Your mom (well-known local Realtor Kristy Darragh of Florida Executive Realty) and occasional video co-star must be thrilled.

KD: She is such a successful staple in New Tampa and I always saw her as a very strong, independent woman in a mentor position. To have something as incredible and crazy as a book coming out with my name on it, I know she is so proud for me to be breaking stigmas and talking about things people don’t talk about. Maybe this wasn’t the plan that they had for their daughter, to have their book debut with a giant ‘F bomb’ in the middle of it, but they have been nothing but supportive. My mom ordered like 10 books. Maybe she’s leaving it on the coffee table in the houses she’s selling. (laughs).

KRISTY DARRAGH

* Longtime New Tampa resident now living in Los Angeles.

* Can be seen on E!’s “Dating: No Filter.”

* First went viral on YouTube ten years ago with her video “Sh-t Girlfriends Say.” She began to attract more followers and started a web series on her channel, which has more than 116,000 subscribers. With an average viewership of 14+ million, Darragh tackles topics like sex, beauty, and mental health. 

* Began making digital content for Buzzfeed like “Ladies’ Room” and “Adult Sh-t.”

* Created a top-tier show for Comcast’s “Watchable” called “Am I Doing This Right?”

* In 2019, was selected as a Sundance New Voice writer for her dark comedy series “Where We Are.”

 * Is also a passionate member and supporter of the LGBTQ community as she says she identifies as queer and bisexual.

* Currently directing a documentary on Saraya Rees, a 14-year-old in Oregon battling mental illness, who was sentenced to 11 years in juvenile prison.