FEBRUARY 2021 | ISSUE 134
Here's the Latest

For those of you who closely follow the local real estate market, we just wanted to keep you up to date on the real estate market for Gulf Front, Gulf View, and other foreclosures in our area that you can always find on our website. Click the links below to view our updated list of foreclosures. Not looking for a foreclosure? Feel free to create a customized search, or browse our site to view all properties that are currently on the market.



2020: The Year of the Searing Hot Market
The year 2020 was a most remarkable seller’s market, and this year is predicted to continue that trend. Buyers were grabbing homes as soon as they hit the market. Bidding wars were not uncommon! To close out 2020, sales were up 22.2% over 2019 and marked a 14 year high.

“Home sales rose in December, and, for 2020 as a whole, we saw sales perform at their highest levels since 2006, despite the pandemic,” says Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “What’s even better is that this momentum is likely to carry into the new year, with more buyers expected to enter the market.”

The average interest rate for 2020 was 3.11%. â€śAlthough mortgage rates are projected to increase, they will continue to hover near record lows at around 3%,” Yun predicts.

Real estate is driven by supply and demand. When the demand is high and the inventory is low, such as now, prices will increase commensurately.  Housing inventory at the end of December dropped 23% over the previous year. Unsold inventory was under a two months’ supply.

Median home prices for existing homes sales increased year-to-year at double-digit rates in all of the four major regions NAR uses for its study:

• Northeast increased 27.4% increase from a year ago. 

• Midwest was up 26.2% from a year ago.

• South increased 20.7% from the same time one year ago. 

• West rose 17.9% year-to-year. 

The local real estate market is sizzling hot! 

Interested in knowing more about it? Let us know. Our motto, our promise: Making Real Estate Your Best Investment

Source: National Association of Realtors (NAR)
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Did You Know?
Why 'tock-tick' does not sound right to your ears

Ever wondered why we say tick-tock, not tock-tick, or ding-dong, not dong ding; King Kong, not Kong King? Turns out it is one of the unwritten rules of English that native speakers know without knowing.

The rule, explains a BBC article, is: “If there are three words then the order has to go I, A, O. If there are two words then the first is I and the second is either A or O. Mish-mash, chit-chat, dilly-dally, shilly-shally, tip-top, hip-hop, flip-flop, tic-tac, sing-song, ding-dong, King Kong, ping-pong.“

There's another unwritten rule at work in the name Little Red Riding Hood, says the article. “Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose- noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you'll sound like a maniac.“

That explains why we say “little green men“ not “green little men,“ but “Big Bad Wolf “ sounds like a gross violation of the “opinion (bad)-size (big) noun (wolf)“ order. It won't, though, if you recall the first rule about the I-A-O order.

That rule seems inviolable: “All four of a horse's feet make exactly the same sound. But we always, always say clip-clop, never clop-clip.“

This rule even has a technical name, if you care to know it – the rule of ablaut reduplication – but then life is simpler knowing that we know the rule without knowing it!