Life is good these days for greater Naples Real Estate and it’s getting better!

Last week was a good week…the FED stood still with the interest rates and basically held the line for the 3^rd straight meeting and undoubtedly that had to do with inflation now sitting at 2.3% above the FED’s desired range of 1% to 2%. That untimately may lead to a hike in the rate in the near future. But still…it was good.

More and more the experts are sending signal that they believe the housing market has bottomed or has neared the bottom and they are expecting it to bounce back soon. Personal incomes are high, the interest rates are still very attractibve and the housing prices remain low.

Naples was also named one of the top ten places in the country to retire and live. There also was a great article in USA Today about Naples titled Life On Vacation: Your Slice Of Paradise Coast.

All is good in paradise and getting a lot better!

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Boy…You just have to love living in Florida! The other day while walking my dog in the neighborhood, she started really pulling hard on her leash and headed directly to a nearby oak tree. She sat down and stared straight up looking at the branches which were movong about in an erractic fashion. I could hear a chirping sound like a small bird, but I couldn’t see anything. As I started to try to pull her away to get going again, low and behold out on a branch swings this cute little Squirril Monkey. Roxy just sat and watched as the little guy swung from branch to branch. I ran right home and got my camera, because I knew no one would believe me when I said thatI had seen a monkey in our neighborhood. 

Now I have seen monkeys before at the Naples Zoo, as well as in the wild at the Collier Athlectic Club where we are members. There thy have had monkeys in the adjoining trees for years and years. Originally a large troop of about 35 dwindled down to about 5 after it was discovered that a trapper had been catching them to sell to the experiment labs. (Monkeys can bring many thousands of dollars on the marketand thank goodness he was caught, but not before decimating the troop.) Outside of those two places, the zoo and the club, I had never before seen any in the wild, so I was truly amazed when we discovered the neighborhood monkey.

As it turns out, there are three of them here in the hood, although oddly, they stay to themselves and don’t often travel together. I have to tell you, it’s a blast having them around. They have become rather tame now and you can even hand feed them tasty mangos and other fruit. They just love it.

Like I say, you have to love living in Naples, Florida!

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If you are contemplating selling your home in today’s strong seller’s market, you must price it correctly or it just will not sell period. In determing an asking price, it is important that the listing price be exact.

Recent studies have shown that people are willing to pay more if that listing price is exact. For example rather than trying to sell your home for $450,000, you might list it at $449,475. The studies have shown that there is a psycological benefit when dealing with presise numbers. Oddly enough people tend to think that numbers that end in digits are actually smaller than those that end in zeros.

Also an interesting factor is that when people do property searches on the internet, properties ending in digits will pop up more often then properties ending in zeros.  There is also the philosophy of ending numbers in nines. Often you will see prices advertised ending in 99 like $24.99. Again this is a psycological ploy to entice the customer who they believe does not pay attention to the digits in the cents column. When you think of how you shop, it seems to make sense. 

The bottom line is you might want to consider this research when pricing your home because it is all about psycological pricing!  

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