Highlands County Talk

I don't think I ever posted an off-topic, so here it goes:

With Thanksgiving behind us and Christmas still to go, there is lots of good food around during "the season". I'm not big on meat but I love a good meatloaf (my husband makes the best east of the Mississippi). Meatloaf, real mac'n'cheese (not from the package), green beans smothered in onions and bacon drippings, maybe a blueberry muffin for dessert (along with a strong cup of coffee), let's me drift off to cloud nine.

How about a yellow cake make with real butter and 4 eggs? I substituted eggnogg for the milk in the batter.

Since we're talking about food, I have a great recipe for fake double baked potatoes:
Use up leftover boiled potatoes from the day before, mash them up, add milk and some instant tater flakes. Add shredded cheese, sour cream and bacon bits. Fill in ramekins, broil until the top starts getting crispy and brown. Sprinkle with cheese. Return to oven and let melt.
You get a lot more food this way than serving the potatoes in their skin.

So, what floats your boat? Tender ribs? Pot roast? Juicy burgers? Lobster?

I decided to change the format of my monthly Market Trends to make it easier for sellers as well as buyers to understand my numbers. I've played around with excell tables, neat up and down arrows in red and green only to realize that it's still not user friendly. So, here it goes:

List prices as well as sale prices for residential homes (this includes condos, townhomes/villas and mobile homes on owned land) have dropped by ca. $20,000 from October 2008:

Average List Price Oct 2008: $158,157
Average List Price Nov 2008: $135,406 = down by $22,752 or 14.39% - and a whopping 19.30% from November last year.

Average Sale Price Oct 2008: $147,044
Average Sale Price Nov 2008: $125,464 = down by $21,580 or 14.68% - and a whopping 19.77% from November last year.

If there are still any buyers out there wondering when is the best time to buy..........IT'S RIGHT NOW!!!

On average it took 159 days to sell a home in Highlands County in November 2008. That is, if the home was priced right. Overpriced homes are still sitting on the market without showings and potential buyers. The majority of homes sold were cash transactions.

The most popular price range for buyers is $150,000 and under. The most popular zip code is 33872, which includes Sun'n'Lakes, Sebring Hills, Sebring Country Estates, Golf Hammock, Sebring Falls, Clearview Terrace and Grand Prix Heights.

Highlands County has experienced the lowest number of sales since 2004, namely 59.

Just in case you would like to see my numbers, they are available to download as pdf file.