South Florida Rentals And Home Sales

Here is some information I received

Dear LARRY,

The economic stimulus package recently passed by Congress provides Americans with extra cash in the form of tax rebates. In Washington, I fought to include seniors in this package so that they too would be eligible for some financial relief.

I am writing you to help you determine whether you are eligible to receive a rebate and if so, how to obtain one. Tax-paying Americans, as well as seniors who earn at least $3,000 through Social Security and other forms of government benefits, may be eligible for a tax rebate.

Under the stimulus package, individuals who file a 1040 tax form and have an adjusted gross income between $3,000 and $75,000 a year will will be eligible for $300-$600. Married couples may be eligible for up to $1200, with additional money for each child. This email’s yellow chart provides more detailed information.

It is important to know that seniors and disabled individuals who do not owe taxes can qualify for rebates if their adjusted gross income is at least $3,000. Please feel free to help spread the word to your elderly relatives and friends that if they have received at least $3,000 and file a 1040 tax return form this year, they will be eligible for a rebate.

As Americans struggle with home foreclosures, skyrocketing health care and prescription drug costs, and rising energy prices, I am committed to helping constituents determine their rebate eligibility, file their returns, and receive their money. Please feel free to contact my office nearest to you for assistance.

With warm regards,

Congressman Robert Wexler

Here is an example of what is happening in the South Florida real estate market. On Friday, I closed on a home for my clients. The house sold for $300,000 with 3% back. The VA appraisal came back at $375,000. One of the adjustments on the appraisal was a 5% deduction from the comps, because of declining home values. If not for this, the home would have appraised for $400,000.
We picked up the home for $75,000 under the appraised value. It is basically the same price that you would pay for a
3-2 here with 1800 Sq Ft. This home was a 4-3 with 2800 sq ft, under air with a pool.
Prices are still dropping. Too much inventory and not enough buyers. The buyers are at the low end. I do see a pick-up, but I think it will be awhile, before we see a stabilization. The South Florida homes market will pick up a bit this summer, when people move with school out.

I have been working with a few buyers whom have been looking for lower priced South Florida Homes. There is a lot of interest in this area. When there is a price change or a new listing at a realistic valuation, it immediately gets snapped up. What sits on the market are the homes where the sellers have not adjusted to the current market conditions.

  These sellers must come to the realization that they over payed and now the market has adjusted. Until they do, their property will sit. Hopefully they realize where the market is, what their home is worth and adjust their price accordingly.

Over the next few months, existing-home sales are expected to hold fairly steady as indicated by pending sales activity, then rise later in the year and continue to improve in 2009, according to the latest forecast by the National Association of Realtors®.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said there is a pull and tug exerting itself on the market. “On the one hand, we have a pent-up demand from the four million jobs added to our economy over the past two years of sales decline,” he said. “On the other, consumers continue to wait for additional signs of market stabilization. There are more people with financial capacity now than in 2005, but many are trying to market-time their purchase. As a result, the exact timing and the strength of a home sales recovery is a bit uncertain. A meaningful recovery in existing-home sales could occur as early as this spring, or it may be further delayed toward late 2008.”

The Pending Home Sales Index,* a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in November, fell 2.6 percent to a reading of 87.6 from a strong upward revision of 89.9 in October, but remains above the August and September readings and indicates a broad stabilization. The index was 19.2 percent below the November 2006 level of 108.4. “Although there could be some minor slippage in the first quarter, existing-home sales should hold in a narrow range before trending up,” Yun said.

The PHSI in the South rose 2.3 percent in November to 100.7 but is 19.8 percent below a year ago. In the West, the index slipped 2.1 percent to 86.6 but is 18.5 percent lower than November 2006. The index in the Midwest fell 4.1 percent in November to 82.1 and is 18.6 percent below a year ago. In the Northeast, the index dropped 13.0 percent in November to 70.1 from a spike in October, and is 19.1 percent below November 2006.

Existing-home sales for 2007 will probably total 5.66 million, the fifth highest on record, then edge up to 5.70 million this year and 5.91 million in 2009, compared with 6.48 million in 2006. Existing-home prices for 2007 are likely to be down 1.9 percent to a median of $217,600, hold even this year and then rise 3.1 percent in 2009 to $224,400.

“Rising home prices in the affordable midsection of the country are likely to offset declines in some of the previously hot markets,” Yun said.

There are wide variations in housing market conditions around the country, with nearly two-thirds of the metropolitan areas showing price gains. Healthy increases in metro prices are occurring in places such as Pittsburgh; Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas; San Jose, Calif.; and Bismarck, N.D.

“Our consumer survey shows buyers today are in it for the long-haul, planning to stay in their home for a median of 10 years. This is a wise approach to housing because the data shows the longer you own, the better your investment,” Yun said.

New-home sales are projected at 773,000 for 2007, and declining to 669,000 this year before rising to 730,000 in 2009, but well below the 1.05 million 2006. With an appropriate slowdown in production, housing starts, including multifamily units, are forecast at 1.36 million for 2007 and 1.09 million this year before edging up to 1.10 million in 2009; starts totaled 1.80 million in 2006. The median new-home price should drop 2.1 percent to $241,400 for 2007, and then rise 0.4 percent to $242,200 this year and gain another 5.9 percent in 2009.

“Some policy changes, such as raising the loan limit on conventional mortgages, would provide a significant boost to home sales, increase liquidity, strengthen home prices and lessen foreclosures, but it is unclear as to if and when the measure will be implemented,” Yun said. NAR strongly supports raising the Government-Sponsored Enterprise loan limit to at least $625,000 from the current $417,000 so that more consumers will have access to lower interest rates on safe conforming mortgages. “NAR estimates that raising the GSE loan limit will result in interest rates savings for an additional 330,000 homeowners,” he said.

NAR also encourages the Fed to make a single lump-sum cut in the Fed funds rate to 3.5 percent at the January Federal Open Market Committee meeting, rather than a series of modest cuts throughout the year. “Consumers are also looking to market-time interest rates, and the expectations of further rate cuts are pushing some home buyers to delay. Monetary policy will be much more effective with a one-time large cut, rather than a series of small cuts,” Yun added.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is expected to rise slowly to the 6.3 percent range by the end of this year, but an additional cut in the Fed funds rate would lower short-term interest rates.

Growth in the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is seen at 2.1 percent in 2007, below the 2.9 percent growth rate in 2006; GDP growth will probably be 2.0 percent this year.

After averaging 4.6 percent for both 2006 and 2007, the unemployment rate is estimated to rise to 5.3 percent in the second half of 2008. Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, is projected at 2.9 percent for 2007 and 3.1 percent this year; it was 3.2 percent in 2006. Inflation-adjusted disposable personal income is forecast to grow 3.1 percent for 2007, the same as in 2006, and then grow 1.6 percent this year.

I was calling Agents to set up appointments to show my client homes. Since we were going to be there after 7:00, I specifically asked if the house was vacant, since I did not want to disturb the tenants or owners. I met my client and headed out to view 6 residences.
Everything was going very smoothly until we got to the last residence. When we arrived at the last appointment, there was no lockbox. Actually, we really didn’t need one, since the door was wide open. Due to the lack of the lockbox, I did not enter the home.
A few minutes later a gentleman pulled up and asked what we were doing. I explained that we were there to show the house. He invited us in and we looked around. We left the home and I was talking to my clients in the driveway. Another car pulled up and a young lady pulled up and said “Get your cars out of my driveway” She then rudely asked “How long were you in my house?”
I explained the situation that the gentleman let us in and we did not enter until before that. She had no other comments and shut her window. We left the home and pulled up the street to talk. What I find funny about this is that the lady is trying to sell her home before it is fore-closed on and should be making very effort to accommodate Realtors trying to show the property. What she did was alienate my buyers and myself. They liked the house but after what occurred, they would not make an offer.

One factor that is very important when choosing a Realtor is if they are accessible. Today, I tried to set up appointments for one of my clients. We are going to go out tonight at 7:00 and look at some homes. I called seven Realtors at 12:00 to set up showings. It is now almost 6:00 and two of them still have not called me back. Their agencies do not have the showing info.
What this means is that their clients properties will not be shown. If an agent is going to take a listing, they should be available to provide showing instructions. Realtors should set the highest standards of service and they are not providing service if they are not available to have the properties shown.
Since I provide the highest level of service to my clients and I feel that they should see these properties, I will try to reschedule appointments. But how many other potential buyers miss seeing the property due to the listing agents lack of response.
In conclusion, I feel that your agent should always be available to you and to anyone interested in your property.

As I look at the Hotsheets for Monday i am a little dismayed. The number of new listings and price changes are very high. If you look at the number of sales and compare them to the back on market properties, it is disappointing. They are close meaning alot of pending or contigent sales or rentals are falling through. The market does not seem to be getting any better. <br>
 Today’s Hotsheet
 Days Back: 0 1 2
 New Listings 1765
Price Change Listings 720
Contingent Listings 90
Pending Listings 296
Sold Listings 166
Expired Listings 704
Temp Off Market Listings 116
Cancelled Listings 423
Rented Listings 312
Withdrawn Listings 10
Back On Market Listings 10

According to WebProNews link exchanges are not the only factor to raise your rankings. The search engines are shifting their focus on determining rankings. They stated “recently Google seems to have placed more weight on buzzy, timely resources, which comes from news sites, social bookmarking, and often social networks and blogs. Google definitely weights Wikipedia, Digg and YouTube pretty heavily.

So what we have here, in a controversial example, is a lesson in buzz creation and SEO. This campaign was highly targeted and highly specific. From the SEO standpoint we can confirm:

Links are crazy important for higher rankings
Anchor text matters
Content matters
Keyword density matters
Link authority matters
Timeliness matters
Generating buzz via social media matters”

Since I stated incorporating these principles I have seen my rankings soar.

    I had written a previous post that most of the leads that I received on my other sites when people had to register to use the MLS search were of not much value.
     On this site, people are not required to register to search the MLS. Instead, There is a registration form on each page. Since the people register because they want to, the leads have proven to be much more valuable. I contact them by phone the next day and have goten much better results and interest.  

As a Realtor in Florida, I realize that there are many factors contributing to the decrease in the number of South Florida home sales. They consist of high home prices, high property taxes and high taxes. One factor that is contributing to the collapse of the sale market that many people do not seem to consider is the influence of the South Florida rentals market. At this time, this factor is probably having the strongest effect.
    Home ownership was the American dream. Since the South Florida real estate boom the lower and middle class have been driven out of the real estate market, because of the high costs associated with home ownership. Because of the uncertainty of the direction of home prices, consumers are not stepping back into the market. Prices are still unrealistic and continue to drop.
     Adding to the current situation, are the people who invested at the height of the market. As I look through the MLS, the number of short sales, pre-foreclosures, new listings, and expired listings and back on the market listings are increasing at alarming rate. This is adding to the existing inventory. It has been a buyers market. The problem is that there are no buyers.
     For example, today in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County the following are the figures for the activity by category from the MLS:

  
     To go into my explanation of the influence of the massive effect that the South Florida rentals market is having on the sales market, you have to take into account the fact that apartment complexes do not list on the MLS. Also, the number of rentals done by private owners is not included.
     The most important factor is the economics of renting versus buying. Rental prices have been dropping, as inventory has been building. Consumers can rent a home at a price that they could never afford to buy. To attest to this, I would like to point out two examples. In my first one, a consumer rented a home that had been purchased for $950,000 for $2500 a month. If he had bought the home, his taxes alone would have been $20,000 a year. In the second case, a home purchased for $550,000 was rented for $2000 a month. The rental payments totaled $24000 a year. If you figure mortgage, taxes, insurance and homeowners fees, the landlord is paying approximately $50,000 a year. By renting, the renter could put $26,000 a year in the bank and would get a much better rate of return on his money, then the landlord who is losing money, since his property is depreciating and he is paying $26000 out of pocket to maintain his investment.
       Appraisers are taking 1.5% a month off the value of South Florida homes every month. This is lowering comps and causing a further decline in home prices. Builders are lowering prices, causing pre-construction buyers to either walk away from the closing table or buy a home and incur an immediate loss. Landlords are renting property and incurring monthly loses. Until this downward spiral ends, the answer is to rent. As the available rental supply tightens up and prices rise and rental prices and mortgage rates come to a point where it makes sense to purchase to get the benefits of home ownership the crises will not end.