Casa Ott Realty

🏡 Thinking about selling your home? Before choosing a listing agent, ask these 3 questions:

1. “What if my home doesn’t sell?”
A weak agent lowers the price. A strong agent figures out why it isn’t selling and changes the strategy.

2. “What will you do beyond the MLS?”
Listing a home is easy. Creating demand takes a plan.

3. “How will you find my buyer?”
Some agents wait for buyers. Great agents go looking for them.

💡 Selling a home isn’t about putting it online and hoping the right buyer shows up. It’s about positioning, marketing, follow-up, and knowing when to adjust.

🎯 The agent’s answers to these three questions can tell you a lot about how they’ll handle your sale when things don’t go exactly as planned.

🏠 That proactive approach is something we take seriously at Casa Ott Realty, a local brokerage built around reputation, strategy, and relationships.

🏡 Florida home sales slowed in August…but home prices went UP.

That might sound contradictory, but the latest numbers tell an interesting story.

📈 Florida’s median single-family home price reached $415,000 — up 1.2% from last August. Condos and townhomes climbed 2.8% to $298,000.

Meanwhile, closed sales dipped slightly: 1.4% for single-family homes and 1.8% for condos and townhomes.

So why are prices holding up?

🌴 Inventory is tightening. Florida had 13% fewer single-family homes on the market than a year ago, while condo/townhome inventory dropped 11.5%.
Florida Realtors Chief Economist Dr. Brad O’Connor summed it up well: “Sales remain relatively stable, inventory continues to tighten, and home prices are holding up well.”

That’s an important reminder for anyone waiting for Florida home prices to suddenly fall simply because mortgage rates remain elevated.

🔑 The statewide market appears to be settling into a steadier pace—not racing upward, but not showing a dramatic change in direction either.

And, as we regularly see at Casa Ott Realty, statewide headlines only tell part of the story. What’s happening in your specific South Florida neighborhood can look very different.

🌴 Sellers: Your backyard may be worth more than you think.

When preparing a home for sale, everyone talks about kitchens, bathrooms and fresh paint. But today’s buyers are also paying attention to what happens outside the four walls.

🏡 Zillow’s 2026 research found homes mentioning an outdoor kitchen sold for 4.4% more than expected, while outdoor fireplaces were associated with a 2.8% premium.

Why?

Buyers aren’t simply shopping for bedrooms and bathrooms anymore. They’re imagining how they’ll live there—dinner outside, friends around the pool, morning coffee on the patio and evenings by the fire.

☀️ In South Florida, that can make outdoor space especially interesting. A covered patio, pool area, outdoor kitchen or even a beautifully staged backyard can help buyers see usable living space instead of just “the yard.”

And sellers don’t necessarily need a massive renovation. Sometimes cleaning up the landscaping, defining a seating area, pressure washing the patio and staging the space properly can completely change how a buyer experiences it.

🌿 At Casa Ott Realty, we think the backyard deserves just as much attention as the living room when presenting a South Florida home.

Sellers: Before spending another dollar updating the inside, take another look outside.

🏡 LEASED | Boca Tierra, Boca Raton

Why this neighborhood? Location, location… and about 10 other reasons.

Boca Tierra sits right in the St. Andrews corridor, where restaurants, A-rated public and private schools, shopping, transportation and places of worship are all within roughly 1–4 minutes. And the beach? About 10 minutes away. 🌴

But the story behind this lease is even better.

My tenants are high-school friends relocating from Canada, and they weren’t physically here for much of the search. We didn’t just start sending them houses—we started by educating them on locations.

Weston, Parkland or Boca?

Then Central Boca vs. West Boca.

Then Central Boca.

Then a select few neighborhoods along the St. Andrews corridor.

🎯 Eventually, we found what looked like a great home nearby. During my walkthrough on their behalf, though, I noticed signs of water intrusion. Further investigation confirmed mold.

Could we have tried to make that house work? Sure.
But that’s not the point.

We pivoted—and quickly found this home in Boca Tierra. And it turned out to be an absolutely perfect fit.

🤝 That’s the philosophy at Casa Ott Realty. The goal isn’t to rush someone into a property just to finish a transaction. It’s to understand what they actually need, identify problems when something isn’t right, and be willing to walk away.

Relationships and reputation will always mean more to us than a commission.

And when my clients told me I’m invited over on a Sunday for sauce? 🍝

That’s all I needed to hear.