Home Buyer Activity Increases in Miami

March 7th, 2008 Categories: South Florida Living, market Trends

I have to apologize to my 7 (he he) loyal readers for not writing in ten days. This blog truly is kept up by me and not a ghost writer. Yes, believe it or not there are real estate bloggers out there who aren’t really writing their own stuff. Gasp!

Anyway, I am not here to trash those agents who would go against the nature of blogging and hire their writing out. Nor am I here to claim that blog purists insist “you’re not a blogger unless you’re doing your own blogging.” Whatever.

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Say NO To Urban Development Boundary Expansion!

February 20th, 2008 Categories: Community News

Sorry for the short notice on this. If you have no plans tonight, please consider stopping at this “greet and eat.”

Are you a Miami-Dade resident concerned about the increasingly bad traffic, our already-taxed civil servants, the quality (and quantity!) of our drinking water and a slew of other citizen concerns? Please consider joining the Hold The Line Campaign at their Hold The Line party this Wednesday at the historic Doc Thomas House.

The Hold The Line campaign seeks to stop expansion of the Urban Development Boundary (UDB). Although there is land within the UDB that can still be developed, developers and big businesses apply for UDB changes anyway.

Come out on Wednesday, 2/20 at 6:00pm at the Doc Thomas House, 5530 Sunset Drive.

Learn what’s been going on with the UDB, meet other concerned citizens and empower yourself to make a difference!

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Amendment 1 - The Voters Have Spoken

January 30th, 2008 Categories: Community News

I extend sincere condolences to the homeowners in Florida (myself included).

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Chasing Down The Market Never Works

January 17th, 2008 Categories: For Sellers, Priced To Sell

OK. You want to sell your Miami home. You want to get the most money for it. You have some flexibility with your time and don’t mind waiting a few months for the right buyer to come along. As a matter of fact, you’re convinced that’s all it will take. Time.

Time can be your worst enemy when selling a house.

You call a real estate agent. She tells you your home is worth about $310,000 but you really, really want to get more money so you insist on listing it for $335,000. After all, your home is in impeccable condition and who wouldn’t see that? Nothing needs to be done to your house. Anyone buying it can just move in and start enjoying the gorgeous pool area.

The real estate agent does not think it is a good idea to list the home at $25,000 above what she thinks it’s worth. She knows that the most interest on a new listing is generated when it shows up on the MLS for the first time. The first 30 days are crucial. But you somehow manage to convince her to “just give it a try.” You really do believe your home is worth $335,000. Well, at the very least, you know you want to sell it for that much.

The home gets listed on the MLS at $335,000. It is now the most expensive house listed in your neighborhood. Similar homes are listed at $305,000. Similar homes without a pool are listed at $295,000. Yours is listed at the highest price and you’re proud of it.

Two days later a real estate agent with a buyer calls your REALTOR® and schedules a showing. That same day they tour the home. They agree with you on the condition of the house. It’s impeccable.

That evening an offer gets faxed over to your agent.

She calls to tell you they placed an offer of $305,000 and want to close in 30 days. The agent tells you this is a fabulous offer.

You’re insulted.

You’re so insulted you don’t even want to counter-offer. You forget that your agent told you she thought the house was worth $310,000. You’re convinced it’s worth more. You just need to wait a bit for the right buyer to come along. It’s only been on the market for 2 days, after all. Let’s wait and see who else is out there looking at homes.

During the next 30 days, the home gets shown 6 more times. No one else makes an offer on it. Another month passes and it gets shown 3 more times. Another offer comes in at $280,000. Well! That is not exactly what you had been waiting for so you ask the agent to tell them, thanks but no thanks.

But now you’re wondering if maybe your agent was right about the $335,000 being too high. Begrudgingly you agree to drop the price. Where do you drop it to? $320,000. Still higher than the amount the agent had said it was worth and guess what? Two months have passed since that value was calculated and home prices have dropped. So now your home is worth about $305,000. Not only was your reduction not great enough, the drop in home values is making it harder to close the gap between what your home is worth and what it is listed at.

This method of dropping your listing price is called chasing the market. You are chasing it, but you are never going to catch it. You will always be above what the home is worth and you will be wasting valuable time as you wait for the right buyer to show up.

The scenario in this article is not fictitious. It really happened. In the course of a year, this home seller dropped the price bit by bit until it finally reached $300,000. But in that same year, the values of homes had dropped as well and the home was now worth $290,000. This home seller commented on more than one occassion to the real estate agent that she wished she had listened. She wished she had accepted the first offer. Mind you, the real estate agent was confident that the first offer could have been brought up to $310,000 with a counter offer.

The home is now rented to a tenant as the sellers had been under contract for a new home elsewhere and could not afford two mortgages. While this isn’t what the sellers wanted in the beginning, it is a solution to their problem. But now they’ve added the responsibility of long-distance property management to their repertoire.

Don’t chase the market. It’s faster than you are.

Find a competent real estate professional and listen to what they have to tell you. Sit down. Crunch your numbers. Think it through. Mull it over and then price your home where it should be or don’t put it up for sale at all if you don’t really have to.

 

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Short Sales In Miami Dade

January 13th, 2008 Categories: For Buyers, For Sellers, Short Sales

It occurred to me that 80% of the home buyers I am working with in Miami are looking specifically at short sales yet I do not have any short sale articles posted on my blog. Hmmm! It’s really because I am busy working the short sales and have not had time to write about them.

I promise to return and dedicate more blog space to short sales but at the very least I’d like to explain what a short sale is.

So… what exactly is a short sale? Very simply put, it’s when a property is being sold for less than the amount owed to the bank(s) on it.

The short sale process is more involved than the traditional home buying process. There are things to look out for whether you are the seller or the buyer in a short sale.

If you need more information on short sales before I have the opportunity to write more posts, feel free to contact me.

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Adverse Possession Sickens Me

January 9th, 2008 Categories: Real Estate Chatter

I just read a very disturbing article posted on the Florida Realtors’ site. It is about an act known as adverse possession. Here is the mighty wiki’s definition of adverse possession. I call it stealing….albeit legally.

Basically a person can lose their land if someone else has prolonged, uncontested use of it.

I won’t explain how adverse possession can happen. The article above explains it fully. It uses a sit-up-and-take-notice case out of Colorado. The fact that the people who “adversely possessed” (legally stole) the land are two professional, educated adults is what sickens me. The fact that our laws allow this to happen completely throws me over the edge.

Here were property owners who paid their taxes and association dues on the land they purchased just 200 yards from their home while their neighbors walked their dogs on their land and later used this fact to lay a claim to the land…and win! What is wrong with this picture?

In Florida 7 years of uncontested use must take place before a person can lay claim to someone else’s land by means of adverse possession. How can you protect your property? I am no attorney and you should certainly consult one if you need specifics, but this is what seems to be appropriate:

• Fence the property to prevent others from being able to use it.
• Post No Trespassing signs on the property.
• If you don’t want to incur the expense of fencing or just want to be neighborly, you can provide written permission to someone to use the land (they can’t claim adverse possession if you’re allowing them to use it).

There you have it. Use it or lose it.

I “borrowed” the illustration from LandGrabber.org It expresses the point so succinctly. Please visit them for more information on this case.

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Balmy New Year

January 1st, 2008 Categories: Random Thoughts

Here’s wishing everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2008.

If there was something you wanted to accomplish in 2007 but didn’t, you have a fresh start, so to speak. I know you can claim a fresh start any day of the year, or week for that matter, but why buckle tradition? Set your sights on what you want and go for it.

My best to you and yours.

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