Words from Our Broker | Brokers Corner with Tanya Chappell

Hi, Are you feeling a little wet and soggy lately? If you live in our neck of the woods, (and probably most of Florida) you might be feeling like your going to grow webs between your toes to better navigate through the return of a long lost time of afternoon monsoon-like showers.

I’m not sure I can really remember a day when it hasn’t rained lately. A completely dry day is very few and far between anymore. It appears we have returned to tropical-like showers in the afternoon/evenings. The return of sheet-like rain Is definitely a welcomed change. We’ve suffered a lot of drought over the last few years but I have a feeling this year is going to bring some balance back to nature.

It turns out that it was a good thing for our properties, we had to do our 4-month property inspections in the pouring down rain these last few weeks. It allowed us to spot exterior problem areas with gutters, soil, roofs, drainage etc. Checking in on how your soil is wearing from drainage around your home’s foundation is essential to making sure you don’t end up spending a lot of money on settlement issues when you could’ve just adjusted your downspout (or other minor changes). We inspected about 25 houses so far this month and are working on getting those reports out to our owners and tenants and creating work orders or estimate requests on any work we found that was needed.

Marjesca, our new maintenance coordinator is learning at rapid speed. I often liken it to drinking from a firehose. Being she’s also a newly licensed realtor and wants to learn the entire real estate market just not Maintenance or Sales, or the rental market.  There is no end to the things we can teacher. The wonderful thing is that she is eager to learn and taking it all in while handling this massive learning process with the grace that she exudes in all the other aspects of her life. It’s truly a joy to work with her. She has quickly become my partner in crime. Or in this case “Real Estate”. The picture below is from this mornings General Membership meeting where she was inducted (or as I like to refer to it “abducted”) into the Gainesville / Alachua County Association of realtors.  I’m very proud of her. It was quite funny when other realtors asked if there was a height requirement to work for my company and I confessed there must be! But as silly as it sounds it’s great to have another tall gal around and to be able to wear heels without feeling like I’m towering over everyone.

The real estate market continues to be very strong with low interest rates, low supply of affordable and Median sales priced homes. This is also driving the demand up for rental properties for those price ranges. It makes sense that If there’s a shortage of affordable and median priced homes for sale then the supply out there won’t sit on the market long before being bought up. This leaves little reason for people to hold onto the property and rent it. The average time on the market right now is 3.5 months. Keep in mind the vast majority of landlords don’t come to it on purpose. They typically can’t sell their home for one reason or another but mostly because of owing more than it’s worth. When they find that situation then renting the home until the values increase makes perfect sense.

Being a company that handles both rentals and sales it allows us to really see the big picture and  better advise our clients on what might work best for their situation. Should I Sale it or rent it? Thankfully with us you can try both and go with whichever comes first. Whether you have a Realtor representing you or you need us to represent you for both rent and sale, we can do that. We often work with our fellow Realtors in other offices putting their seller/clients property up for rent while they market it for sale allowing the seller to go with whichever comes first.  I love  being able to be involved and help an owner all the way through the many cycles a property can go through. Let us know if you need help evaluating your homes best potential for today’s market.

Living on the Suwannee River has allowed me to be in nature (where I’m most at peace) a lot more often. In the days or hours that I set aside for office Work,  I and often Marjesca, generally do that kind of office work right on my front deck perched high over the river. I’m usually out there first am with coffee as the birds and the rest of nature starts coming alive. It’s a very special time of day.  A few Saturdays ago I was able to do what I’d been wanting to do since moving in. I jumped on the jet ski with my big coffee mug and set out at a 3 mile an hour putt, putt  up the River. I started out following a momma and two baby Otters when they left my dock heading up the River. They dumped me a little ways up after turning into the Sante Fe and being annoyed by my following them.

I ended up spending my entire day at this slow putt all the way up as far as I could go on the Sante Fe’. Stopped for lunch at Ellie Rays then proceeded into the Suwanne at my mostly slow putt almost all the way to Mayo stopping at all the springs I passed. It was an absolutely beautiful and relaxing day. With the low water level a lot more springs were easily visible. One in particular was flowing right out of the bank. I took several videos of this one.  Another area that was particularly pretty and exciting was past O’Brien right before Mayo where the Suwannee gets really shallow and has and Island in the middle and a deeper washed out area to the south bank where the water was rushing through. After a slow putt up this canal to make sure it was deep enough I had a great time going back and forth a few times through the rushing waters. I took about  20 min of video clips by the time the day was over and I put together my favorites in the link below. Unfortunately trailing the Otters didn’t come out because of the sun glare. It’s the third time I’ve thought I’ve gotten good video of them playing on my dock or passing by to find it didn’t work out. Next time for sure!! I hope your enjoying your summer. And of course if you’d like to be my River neighbor I’d be happy to help you find a place! I’m becoming very familiar with all three; Suwannee, Itchknetucknee and Sante Fe