Confidence is the Result of Practice in Real Estate

By Justin Thorn


If there are ten hungry Tigers going after the same Antelope, only one will get the prize, and the other nine will starve. Real Estate Agents are a lot like those Tigers. Not everyone can have every listing, so the trick becomes finding ways to boost your real estate business, and gain the edge over your competition. This might be easier said than done   Unlike Tigers, the vast majority of us don’t have sharp teeth, natural camouflage or the instinctual drive to stalk and kill… (which is undoubtedly a good thing). However, we do have an extensive array of tools that we can use to gain that upper hand, and in turn, increase business. One of those tools is Confidence. Being sure of who you are, what you represent, and what you’re talking about is going to give potential clients an increased desire to take in what you have to say, and ultimately list their home with you.



I was inducted into the world of door-to-door salesmanship, for a small subsidiary of Comcast Xfinity by a close friend. The first couple weeks, the only money I made, was when my friend would shell out commissions to keep me interested. I was a TERRIBLE salesman. I had doors slammed in my face, I didn’t know what I was saying half the time, and if they said they would think about it, I would say ‘okay’ and leave. It was only when we started having mandatory training meetings in our office, and making us act out what we were going to do, did I start to make sales on my own. I gained the necessary confidence needed to be a salesman, because I already knew what I was going to do. I didn’t have to worry about what I was going to say, because it came naturally. I started to sell more and more, and I had less and less rejections. People wanted to listen to me because I was confident.



Confidence is a product of Role-Play. Role-play gives you a chance to practice everything that you would do or say to a potential client, without the harsh reality of knowing you’re bringin’ home the bacon. In my opinion, role-play is one of the greatest ways to become proficient at something. Role-play allows you two things: Firstly, you have the opportunity to practice what you would do or say to a client, until you have honed your skills and are confident in what you’re all about. Secondly, on the flip side, you have a wonderful opportunity to be the client. This gives you an altered perspective on the process of buying or selling a home, and it may cause you to change the process in which you present yourself when prospecting real estate leads.



Role-play works best if you practice with another real estate agent who you feel comfortable to mess up and experiment with different prospecting techniques. If you practice nervous, you will present nervously. This could be a spouse, a friend, but ideally another real estate agent (two birds with one stone). Practice scripts, your demeanor, how you treat your clients, and your overall ‘method’ of obtaining a listing. Leave no stone unturned, you never know what aspect of your presentation will catch a ‘prospective’ client’s eye and make you more favorable as their ‘prospective’ Agent.





Justin Thorn is a music man. He plays more than 8 instruments including: the piano, banjo, accordion, guitar, cello, violin, and viola. He is passionate about sharing his love of music with other and teaches orchestra for 11 year olds. The REDX family loves Justin for his contagious positive attitude. Our client’s love Justin because he is an awesome instructor and has a knack for teaching the REDX like no one else.

Real Estate a Safe Option to Buying Gold

New Short Sale Guidelines for Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac

Starting November 1, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are playing by new rules: a new set of guidelines to stimulate short sales by streamlining the process, opening doors to let homeowners out of underwater mortgages.




Short sales have become a popular tool of foreclosure prevention, with Fannie Mae completing over 70,000 short sales last year, and nearly 40,000 in the first half of 2012. For a homeowner experiencing negative equity—the current value of the home is less than the mortgage balance due—a short sale is often the best choice to retain as much credit as possible.

The basics of the new Fannie and Freddie short sale guidelines are as follows:



■Homeowners with certain hardships can be eligible without being in default. Those hardships include death of a borrower or co-borrower, divorce or legal separation, illness or disability or a distant employment transfer.

■Reduction in documentation required.

■Limit of $6,000 to subordinate lien-holders (this is supposed to prevent subordinate lien-holders from scuttling the deal while they try to negotiate a higher payoff).

■Eligibility for military families who get Permanent Change of Station orders.

Note, these new short sale guidelines apply to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans. To find out if your loan is owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, visit either www.fanniemae.com/loanlookup or www.freddiemac.com/corporate

Short sales soon to be more costly for sellers

The Mortgage Debt Relief Act of 2007 expires December 31. This may not sound important, but what the act does is relieve those people selling their homes for less than is owed to the bank of any tax consequences (in most cases).




There are currently 11 million homeowners more than 90 days past due on their mortgage and some of them could get a a "relatively" new start if they could sell their home instead of going through foreclosure. However, the current law will be expiring soon and the short sale process is notoriously slow.



I am not advocating short sales, I would much rather see home owners ride out the down time and that can often be done with a refinance using one of the Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, FHA or VA programs for underwater customers. However, there are home owners that need to move and a short sale is the way to get that done.



This area is starting to see a turn around in the real estate market and property values are following, although slowly. A Realtor(r) specializing in short sales is the best way to go if needing to get the process accomplished. A mortgage lender that is fast and efficient is invaluable when needing to close on a short sale after approval has been received from the owning bank. If looking to refinance under one of the above programs, contact a reputable loan officer for assistance. I would suggest looking in the region, rather than a national chain (which are often just lead generators) due to speed, accuracy and cost.



Right now is the time to get the ball rolling. Rates have been and continue to be at historic lows for those refinancing and the sooner the short sale is behind, the sooner the seller can start re-establishing their credit.


"South Florida foreclosures", "Florida foreclosure list", "Florida housing market values", "Miami Distressed Commercial investments", "South Florida real estate deals", "Miami courthouse auctions", "Miami courthouse foreclosures", "Florida spec homes"

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US Home Prices Rose for Sixth Month in a Row: Case-Shiller

U.S. single-family home prices rose for a sixth month in a row in July, though the improvement was not as strong as expected, a closely watched survey showed on Tuesday.


The S&P/Case-Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas gained 0.4 percent in July on a seasonally adjusted basis, shy of economists' forecasts for 0.9 percent, according to a Reuters poll.

On a non-adjusted basis, prices fared better, rising 1.6 percent.
National home prices increased 1.2 percent in July compared with the same month a year earlier. It was the second straight year-over-year gain after two years without one.
Six years after its collapse, economists believe the housing market has turned a corner. The home price data confirmed "recent good news'' about the sector, David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor's, said in a statement. "All in all, we are more optimistic about housing. Upbeat trends continue."

The Disappearing of the Ghost Inventory

A large private equity firm says it’s embarking on a plan to buy homes across the country and turn them into rentals.

The Tampa Bay Times reports Blackstone intends to buy $1 billion in properties in that region over the next three years. Peter Rose, a spokesman for Blackstone, said Friday the firm has started acquiring homes “in a number of cities across the U.S.” but added that the amount of money spent in any one city would be a “tiny fraction” of $1 billion.

Rose declined to identify markets that New York-based Blackstone is targeting. He said the firm is working with local real estate agents in the various communities.

t’s a fundamental belief that the housing market in certain cities is stable, the economy is improving and people need affordable places to live,” Rose said. “The combination of all that makes this an attractive opportunity.”

. David Dweck, founder of the Boca Real Estate Investment Club, said he hasn’t seen anything specific either, though he has heard rumbling

www.RWSF.com

Deadline looms for short sales

Like many South Floridians, Victoria Woolford is trying to sell her home for less than she owes -- while doing her best to brush off the nagging reminder of a ticking clock.




Unless Congress grants an extension, a law created in 2007 to help troubled homeowners expires at the end of this year. It allows them to avoid paying taxes on forgiven debt for their primary residences.



Some sellers will face daunting tax bills once the law expires. If, for example, a lender wipes away a $100,000 debt in a short sale, the typical South Florida borrower could owe more than $25,000 in taxes. The only way to avoid the hit would be to file for bankruptcy.



Because lenders often take several weeks or months to approve short sales, homeowners who don't start the process soon are likely to miss the deadline, real estate agents and lawyers say.



"We don't want to scare anybody, but they can do the math," said Joe Kohn, a Fort Lauderdale real estate lawyer.



Woolford paid $320,000 for a four-bedroom house near West Palm Beach in 2010 but says it's worth only about $250,000 now. Because of a pay cut, she applied for a short sale this spring, but she said the buyer walked away as the deal dragged on without a resolution.



The aviation consultant said a second buyer is getting antsy, and there's still no word from the lender, Wells Fargo.



After what she's been through already, she can't fathom the possibility of a big tax bill to boot.



"If you can't afford the mortgage, how can you afford the taxes?" said Woolford, 39.



The Great Recession combined with plummeting home values have left millions of Americans in a financial crisis over the past six years.



More than 412,000 South Florida homeowners are "underwater," owing more than their properties are worth, according to real estate website Zillow.com. It could be a decade or more before values return to a level that allows these homeowners to break even in a sale.



In many cases, a short sale is the best option for escaping a burdensome mortgage. The seller avoids foreclosure and often can negotiate with the bank to reduce or eliminate the deficiency – the difference between what's owed and what the house sells for.



Since 2007, more than 53,000 homeowners in Palm Beach and Broward counties have completed short sales, according to the RealtyTrac listing firm. Over the same period, lenders have repossessed nearly 85,000 homes in the two counties, RealtyTrac said.



To apply for a short sale, a homeowner must have a financial hardship, such as a job loss or large medical expenses. New government guidelines that take effect in November allow for a short sale if the homeowner must relocate more than 50 miles away for a job transfer or new position.



After finding a buyer, the seller submits to the lender the written contract, along with pay stubs, bank statements and tax returns. Then the waiting begins.



Even though the short sale process has improved in the past year, with banks responding to offers more quickly, delays are still common, agents and sellers say.



Given the depth of the housing bust, the law should be extended for at least another year to give borrowers relief and to help clear the glut of distressed mortgages, said Guy Cecala, publisher of the Inside Mortgage Finance newsletter.



While there appears to be bipartisan support for keeping the law, some analysts say an extension may not come until after the presidential election in November.



Others say the law may well expire, but Congress could grant an extension early next year and apply it retroactively.



Because of the uncertainty, homeowners should assume no extension is coming, said Jim Heidisch, broker with Campbell and Rosemurgy in Pompano Beach. He said many of his clients are stunned to learn of the looming expiration.



As the end of the year draws closer, short sale applications are likely to increase, and the backlog could result in frantic homeowners struggling to close, real estate professionals say.



"I'm not making any plans for Dec. 31," said Gary Singer, a real estate lawyer in Sunrise. "I expect to be in the office very late."



Powers@tribune.com, 561-243-6529 or Twitter @paulowers





Copyright © 2012, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

6 low-cost marketing ideas to get noticed

 You don’t need to break the bank to expand your marketing efforts and build connections, marketing expert Julie Ryan, with Strategic Thinking in Australia, told a crowd at the Marketing Without Money session during the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) 2011 Realtors® Conference & Expo in Anaheim, Calif. “If you have a tight budget, you tend to be more focused on making sure every single dollar works harder,” Ryan said.

Regardless of how large or small your budget is, make your marketing message stick by focusing on three core areas: Impact (offering a message of value to clients), frequency (making contact a minimum of at least three times in three weeks to get people to remember you), and building relationships to form lasting connections.

Ryan suggested some of the following low-cost marketing ideas at the session:

1. Offer congratulations: Scan the local newspaper in search of good-news stories, such as people in the community earning an award or a job promotion, and then send a note congratulating them on the feat. That pat-on-the-back recognition makes you memorable and helps you build connections with people in your market, Ryan said.

2. Provide a special touch: To give your message more impact, print out an invitation to an open house for your listing and roll it up and tie it with a ribbon. Then, place it in door hangers on neighbors’ doors, mail the rolled-up invitation in a cylinder or even hand-deliver it.

3. Show time: Create videos showing off your listings and post them on sites like YouTube to expand your reach. Also, consider creating videos of your community that explain what it’s like to live and work there, or that answer common real estate questions, Ryan suggested.

4. Try location-based social media: Sites like Foursquare aren’t just for checking-in to local areas, but you can use them to leave tips and relevant, helpful information at every single location your customers are likely to frequent – such as local restaurants or where to find the best views in the city.

5. Be a valuable resource: Once you’ve identified something your customers are interested in, set up a Google Alert to monitor that topic so you’ll get a notification when something matching those keyword terms surfaces on the Internet. You can then pass the message along through an e-mail or quick phone call to let your client know about something they may not know about yet. It’ll help you build stronger connections with consumers, Ryan said.

6. Reach out to the community: Instead of just writing a donation check to schools or charitable groups, try offering up an award that you can present or hosting a special event with community involvement. For example, present a book award at a middle or elementary school to a student for a job well done, or hire the local elementary school band to play at your upcoming auction or as part of a special event at your office.

Home-appraisal complaints rise in volatile resale market

Leesburg resident Russ Sloan knew something was wrong when an appraiser valued his home at $113,500.

Sure, the housing market had crashed since he and his wife paid almost twice that amount for their three-bedroom home five years earlier. But Sloan suspected the appraisal had compared his house to some distressed properties

"Three of the six comps were short sales or foreclosures, and two of them were houses on the market without sales prices," said Sloan, who filed a complaint with the state. "There was no adjustment for the distressed ones he used."

Complaints about appraisers in Florida have edged up this year for several reasons: More people are getting appraisals so they can refinance their mortgages; prices have increased so much this year that sales comparisons are quickly outdated; few properties are listed for sale, making comparisons difficult; and distressed sales still dominate the market, dragging down the value of "regular" homes with paid-up mortgages or no mortgage at all.

"We are transitioning so fast that most people can't keep up with it," said Joyce Potts, president of Southern Appraisal Group Inc. in Altamonte Springs. "In a transition market, either up or down, you have to acknowledge the lack of inventory and adjust accordingly."

Resale prices in the core Orlando housing market have increased 16 percent just since the beginning of the year, hitting a midpoint price of $125,750 in July, according to the Orlando Regional Realtor Association. In addition to contending with such fast-moving prices, appraisers in the core market must assess current market conditions with only a 3.4-month supply of homes listed for sale — about half the inventory considered healthy for a balanced market.

And if appraisers are deciding the value of a regular house, the odds are good that they will have to compare it to some foreclosures and short sales because, even now, slightly more than half the homes for sale in the Orlando area are such distressed properties.

Potts said appraisers are forced to weigh whether they should include foreclosures when determining the value of a regular home. In cases where a clear majority of the sales in a given neighborhood arediscounted, distressed transactions, she said, they will tend to define the value of all homes in that particular area.

The home-appraisal business changed significantly in 2009, after the nationwide housing bubble burst, when Freddie Mac agreed to follow new rules outlined in the Home Valuation Code of Conduct. The code was part of a legal settlement between the giant federal mortgage backer and the New York State Attorney General's Office, which investigated charges that lenders had pressured appraisers to set homevalues high enough that sales would close without complications.

Under the new rules, appraisers are supposed to keep their distance from lenders; often they do this by working through appraisal-management companies that have come to control the industry since the reforms took effect.

Under new rules or old, appraising real estate is a challenging task, said Orlando Re/Max agent David Welch. He said he meets with appraisers at homes under contract and explains how why the sales price makes sense based on everything from school districts to transportation. Welch said he also details why certain other sales should not be considered comparable to the one being discussed.

"It's a daily event that you hear about folks having issues with appraisals," Welch said. "Appraising is a very difficult job. You're always looking behind you, and the market is different today than a few months ago."

In Sloan's case, the Leesburg resident was so unhappy with the appraisal done on his house in October that he complained to the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation. He's not alone: Through the first seven months of this year, 373 Florida property owners have complained to the department about appraisals; during the same period last year, 327 complaints were filed.

The state did not side with Sloan. He said he was disappointed because the appraiser had used erroneous information about one of the comparable properties.

Yet his complaint was validated in another manner: Two months ago, another appraiser pegged his home's value at $144,500 — more than $30,000 higher than the judgment of the October appraisal.

mshanklin@tribune.com or 407-420-5538

Realtors accuse Current Administration of secret bulk sales

According to the California Association of Realtors (CAR), the Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA) is moving ahead with its REO bulk sales pilot program, and it’s doing so in a secretive manner “despite vehement opposition from California congressional members, the negative economic impact to the state’s housing market, and cost to taxpayers.”




CAR’s complaint applies only to California, but FHFA has also offered bulk homes for sale in Florida. In July, for example, it announced that 775 homes – 190 in Central and Northwest Florida, 418 in Southeast Florida and 167 on the West Coast – had winning bids from buyers, and it expected to close within a few weeks.



Florida Realtors has expressed concerns to The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) about the issue and is requesting member feedback on how the FHFA bulk sales issue affects the Florida market.



The REO bulk sales pilot program covers a number of U.S. cities, but CAR’s complaint specifically looks at 500 Fannie Mae-owned foreclosed homes in the Los Angeles and Inland Empire areas sold to undisclosed institutional investors.



“We are disappointed that Fannie Mae and the FHFA fail to understand that this initiative will harm the communities in which it will be implemented and are going forward with this ill-conceived plan,” says CAR President LeFrancis Arnold. “Moreover, not only are Fannie Mae and FHFA moving forward with the plan, they are refusing to disclose any details, such as property locations, final property count, sales price, or names of winning bidders.”



C.A.R. says it’s filing a request for details through the Freedom of Information Act.



The FHFA, Fannie Mae’s conservator, announced earlier this summer that winning bidders in the foreclosure auction had been chosen, with transactions expected to close in the third quarter. In July, Fannie Mae created an LLC in California, called SFR 2012-1 US West LLC, to transfer the foreclosed properties from Fannie Mae to the LLC. It’s unclear whether the winning bidders will purchase the full LLC or only a share, thus splitting the ownership between Fannie Mae and the winning bidders.



“We are also greatly concerned that the FHFA used extremely outdated market data, perhaps as old as 2011, to determine property valuations,” adds Arnold. “Because the transactions are only now in the process of closing, these dated valuations will drag down the Inland Empire’s home prices, which have shown strong signs of stabilization. Additionally, because of this price discrepancy and the very nature of bulk sales, we believe Fannie Mae is assured to not receive fair market value for the properties, thereby saddling taxpayers with their loss.”



Arnold says that Wall Street investors don’t need government incentives to purchase properties by offering REOs at a discount. “Savvy individuals recognize that the California real estate market represents an unprecedented investing opportunity and are already acting on it in droves,” he says.



NAR voiced concerns to the Federal Reserve Board in March about REO sales to investors. NAR recommended that any REO bulk sales program be limited to small geographic areas that need alternatives to individual investors; and it should rely on the expertise of local businesses, nonprofit organizations and local government for implementation.



According to C.A.R., the California properties are in markets that have had stabilized over the last three years. The Inland Empire currently has a severe shortage of available housing, demand is strong, and REO listings sell in less than 30 days. The long-run average for unsold inventory in the Inland Empire is a 5- to 6-month supply, but it currently stands at 3.1 months in Riverside County and 3.8 months in San Bernardino.



© 2012 Florida Realtors®

While progress may be slow, all indicators point to a gradually recovering real estate market. Several markets are even reporting a shortage of available housing inventory, sparking price increases and bidding wars for the first time in many years. As the market reaches this critical turning point, brokers are presented with a ripe opportunity to gain ground and build revenue. With 2013 poised to be a break-out year for real estate, savvy brokers are positioning themselves to take back their markets and start growing business again. At RISMedia’s upcoming Real Estate CEO Exchange – taking place this September 5 and 6 at the Yale Club in New York City – leading brokers will discuss insider strategies for increasing business during these early stages of real estate recovery. See the full agenda and speaker line-up here. While progress may be slow, all indicators point to a gradually recovering real estate market. Several markets are even reporting a shortage of available housing inventory, sparking price increases and bidding wars for the first time in many years. As the market reaches this critical turning point, brokers are presented with a ripe opportunity to gain ground and build revenue. With 2013 poised to be a break-out year for real estate, savvy brokers are positioning themselves to take back their markets and start growing business again. At RISMedia’s upcoming Real Estate CEO Exchange – taking place this September 5 and 6 at the Yale Club in New York City – leading brokers will discuss insider strategies for increasing business during these early stages of real estate recovery. See the full agenda and speaker line-up here. This event will kick off with an Opening Keynote Address by HomeServices of America Chairman & CEO, Ron Peltier: “A State of the Industry Address: Taking Back the Real Estate Market.” During this keynote address beginning at 2 p.m., Peltier will offer an in-depth analysis of where real estate has been in the past five years, why we can begin to put the downturn behind us, and how savvy real estate professionals can break-out and start prospering in the industry’s “new normal.” Immediately following Peltier’s presentation, leading brokers from key regions across the country will provide their individual take on the state of the real estate recovery in their respective markets, and discuss how they’re turning the tables in their favor. During “Making Money in Your Market: Has Your Business Reached a Turning Point?”, brokers will drill down from the national perspective to discuss the specific challenges they are confronted with, and provide hands-on strategies for overcoming these challenges in order to run a profitable business in a recovering environment. This high-level discussion will be moderated by RISMedia President & CEO John Featherston and Chairman of the Board for Better Homes and Gardens, Mason-McDuffie Real Estate, Ed Krafchow. Market-leading brokers on the panel will be: Rei Mesa, president and CEO, Prudential Florida Realty and Florida Real Estate Services; Dan Forsman, president and CEO, Prudential Georgia Realty; Rich Rector, owner and president, Realty Executives; and Joseph Rand, managing partner, Better Homes and Gardens, Rand Realty. Designed specifically for a select group of broker/owners, brand executives and real estate leaders, RISMedia’s Real Estate CEO Exchange is by exclusive invite only. The event will welcome more than 100 of the most powerful and successful real estate brokerage leaders who hail from franchise brands and independent real estate firms located across the nation. These leaders will come together for this day-and-a-half-long event to exchange ideas and strategies to better meet the needs of today’s sophisticated consumer. At press time, these executives collectively employ 75,000-plus sales associates and are responsible for more than 400,000 transactions in 2011, representing approximately $175 billion in closed business.

FHFA Says Fannie, Freddie Will Not Reduce Mortgage Balances

 FHFA Says Fannie, Freddie Will Not Reduce Mortgage Balances Daily Real Estate News | Wednesday, August 01, 2012 The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced Tuesday that after several months of mounting pressure from the Obama administrator and lawmakers that the mortgage giants it regulates, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, will not lower the mortgage principal of underwater home owners. Its decision quickly drew criticism. The FHFA insists that through its own analysis it has concluded that reducing the mortgage principal of struggling home owners will not help prevent foreclosures nor save taxpayers money in bailout money to the GSEs. The Obama administration says it disagrees with the FHFA’s decision. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was quick to argue that a reduction of struggling borrowers’ loan balances by the FHFA could save taxpayers up to $1 billion. "I do not believe it is the best decision for the country," Geithner wrote to the FHFA shortly after it announced its decision. "You have the power to help more struggling home owners and help heal the remaining damage from the housing crisis." The government had committed to helping to cover some of the costs to implementing such a program if the FHFA would permit mortgage principal reductions to move forward. Yet, Edward DeMarco, the FHFA’s acting director, says that the FHFA has concluded after months of consideration that “the anticipated benefits do not outweigh the costs and risks” with mortgage principal reductions, and that the agency stands by its original decision to not permit it. DeMarco says that only about 74,000 to 248,000 home owners would be eligible for the principal reductions, but developing and implementing such a program would prove costly. Plus, about 11 million Americans are underwater on their mortgages so the program would only be able to help a small share. DeMarco also said he was concerned reducing the mortgage principal on some home owners’ mortgages would prompt other borrowers to fall behind on their payments so that they could receive similar treatment.

Daily Real Estate News

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Broward County Pending Home Sales Rise Again in March

Miami, FL –The total number of listings – including single-family homes and condominiums - that pended during the month of March in Broward County increased 7.3 percent, up from 4,121 to 4,421 compared to a year earlier, according to the Broward Council of the 27,000-member MIAMI Association of REALTORS and the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) systems. In further detail, single-family home and condominium sales that pended during the month increased 17.3 and 3.0 percent respectively.

“We continue to see historically strong home sales activity that is driving price appreciation in Broward Country,” said Rick Burch, president of the Broward Council of the MIAMI Association of REALTORS. “Rising pending sales point to further strength and stability in the Broward County residential real estate market.”

Cumulative Pending Sales
Total March cumulative pending home sales – including single-family homes and condominiums - in Broward County were 8.3 percent above March 2011, up from 8,628 to 9,443, and down 1.0 percent month-over-month from 10,619.

Cumulative pending single-family home sales rose 11 percent from 3,624 a year earlier but declined 21percent compared to the previous month. Cumulative pending condominium sales in Broward County increased 8.3 percent, up from 4,821 a year earlier and declined 1.0 percent compared to the previous month.

“Broward County has much to offer in terms of lifestyle, weather, location, and amenities for all types of buyers,” said Ernesto Vega, president-elect of the Broward Council of the MIAMI Association of REALTORS. “The local market’s appeal continues to attract both domestic and international buyers and investors who are generating demand and boosting market performance.”

Nationally, the Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, declined ?? percent to ?? in March from ?? in February, according to the National Association of Realtors. The index is ?? percent higher than the ?? index reported in March 2011.

Increased pending sales are an indication of increased future sales. A sale is listed as pending when a contract is signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing.

*“Pended sales” are defined as only the sales that pended during a particular month
**“Total cumulative pending sales” refer to all sales cumulatively pending at the end of a particular month.

Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale offer greatest returns for Real estate investors

Real estate investors seeking to rent out single-family homes would be wise to head to South Florida, a new MarketPulse report released today by CoreLogic shows.

Capitalization Rates for single-family homes that are rented out averaged 12.4 percent in West Palm Beach, signifying the greatest returns among all the markets tracked by the analytics firm. Single-family homes rented out in Fort Lauderdale posted the third-best returns, offering investors a 12 percent cap rate, CoreLogic said.
The national average cap rate for single-family homes was 8.6 in January 2012, down from 8.8 percent a year before but up from 5 percent in 2006. Many of the other investor-friendly markets were in the Midwest, such as Cleveland (12.3 percent cap rate) and Chicago (11.6 percent).

Miami, on the other hand, actually posted a relatively meager cap rate of 7.7 percent, offering the worst returns among the nation’s largest markets.

The high cap rates are a result of strong demand among Americans for rental properties, even as housing affordability sits at its highest level in more than 20 years, according to the report.

Rental closings increased 11.5 percent year-over-year in 2011 and comprised 29 percent of all single-family closings. By comparison, rental closings represented just 11.3 percent of all closings in early 2006. Meanwhile, sales closings declined 9.8 percent between 2011 and 2010. In fact, rental demand is so strong that supply is now at its lowest level in the last five years even has the volme of rental increased 2.6 percent over the last year

Paint ads on the side of your house?

Paint ads on the side of your house? To be mortgage free, sure
TAMPA, Fla. – April 3, 2012 – A California marketing company wants to pay your mortgage for up to a year. But there’s a very big catch: You have to let it paint your house, and in not-so-subtle colors.

Think eye-popping neon and bold letters.

The company behind this outlandish campaign launched its first so-called billboard house last month in Buena Park, Calif. One section of the front wall is green, the other orange. The company, Brainiacs From Mars, slapped its own logo right above the garage. There also are logos for Facebook and Twitter and a photo of an alien.

Now, Brainiacs is looking for more homes. And where better to find people desperate for mortgage money than the Bay area?

“We knew Florida would be good for this,” said David Le, spokesman for the company. “People are hurting everywhere, but there are so many people in Florida who need help.”

Brainiacs started the project last spring, largely to promote itself and its pledge to customers to bring “out-of-this-world attention to your business.” The project has made headlines across the world, rated a mention in a Jay Leno monologue, and boosted traffic exponentially on the company website, according to a “Case Study” posted there.

Brainiacs plans to paint at least 100 homes by the end of this year and as many as 1,000 total.

Here’s how it works: Homeowners in California are getting their nearly $2,000 monthly mortgage paid for by Brainiacs until the paint comes down. That could be a month or a year, depending on how long the company wants to leave the ads up. The house will be painted back to normal colors when the project is over.

Brainiacs has received 40,000 applications through its website, dominated by the states hit hardest by the housing crisis: Florida, California and Nevada. About 215 of those are from Tampa, Le said.

Anne Cribb and her husband, Chad, have applied to make a billboard out of their home at 611 N. MacDill Ave. in Tampa. They’re keeping up with mortgage payments now, but it’s a struggle, Anne Cribb said, and she’s motivated by the chance to get ahead.

She doesn’t care what the painting scheme looks like, as long as it’s tasteful.

“It would need to be something G-rated, of course,” she said. “Beyond that, I don’t think my neighbors would care too much. It’s not permanent.”

Even if the Cribbs’ neighbors don’t mind, though, homeowners on other streets might, and the city of Tampa most certainly doesn’t welcome billboard homes, said Thom Snelling, in the zoning department.

“The property owner and the sign company would be knowingly violating city ordinances,” Snelling said.

Painting a sign on your house would not fall under Tampa’s definition of a billboard, he said, but it is what the city considers an “off-site” sign, and there’s an ordinance against that.

“For example, I can’t advertise doughnuts on the side of a building, if I can’t buy doughnuts there,” Snelling said.

Le said he’s aware there will likely be zoning issues in some areas, but he thinks the company can work something out.

“Once people hear that we’re helping people pay their mortgage, they like the idea better,” he said.

So what happens if homeowners choose to go ahead and break zoning laws?

There’s a potential civil penalty, such as a lien on the home, preventing a sale until it’s paid off. But it could take months to work through the process of issuing a zoning violation, and as long as the homeowners remove the paint, there’s no penalty at all.

“Well, this company will paint the house back when they’re done,” Cribb said. “It doesn’t have to stay up long. Any time would help.”

Le said the plan right now is to paint homes with his company’s logo only, but other companies already are calling wanting their logos on houses.

Could a Coca-Cola or Viagra house appear soon in a neighborhood near you?

“We just don’t know that yet,” Le said.

Tampa City Councilwoman Lisa Montelione said she doesn’t mind if homeowners paint their homes bright colors, but she would have concerns over the content of the signs.

Also, she said, homeowners in deed-restricted communities – such as New Tampa, which she represents – would not be eligible.

“If you have deed restrictions, there are certain pre-approved colors you have to choose from, and neon green is not one of them.”

Copyright © 2012 the Tampa Tribune (Tampa, Fla.), Shannon Behnken. Distributed by MCT Information Services

Bill could help short sale sellers in 2013

WASHINGTON – April 2, 2012 – Under U.S. law, a homeowner with an underwater mortgage who goes through a short sale has part of his or her debt forgiven by a bank. The amount forgiven is legally considered income, as if the lender gave the owner a monetary gift by saying, “You no longer have to pay this.”

As a gift, that money is income and taxable by the IRS when the homeowner fills out his yearly income taxes. However, a temporary law effective through Dec. 31, 2012, nixes that amount as homeowner income, making the debt forgiveness tax-free. A short sale in 2012, then, allows a homeowner to walk away free of debt.

As it stands now, that rule expires next year, and underwater homeowners who go through a short sale could be taxed on the amount forgiven.

However, a bipartisan bill introduced late last week by U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Dean Heller (R-NV) – the Mortgage Relief Act – would extend that rule past Dec. 31 if approved by both the House and Senate and signed by President Obama. Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) cosponsored the legislation.

“It is bad enough that so many families are faced with mortgages that now exceed the value of their home,” says Stabenow. “But to add insult to injury, without this bill, the IRS would once again require these families to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars in additional income tax when they sell or refinance their home. That’s just wrong.”

Stabenow championed the original Mortgage Relief Act of 2007 designed to fix the problem that now expires at the end of 2012. Stabenow and Heller’s new bill will extend this tax protection for underwater homeowners through 2015.

Approximately, 20 to 25 percent of American homeowners are currently underwater on their mortgages.

© 2012 Florida Realtors®

Broward County's unemployment fell

Broward County's unemployment fell to 7.9 percent, the lowest rate in South Florida, the state reported Friday.


Statewide, unemployment dropped to 9.4 percent, a three-year low, and the third consecutive month below 10 percent, the state said. January's rate was 9.6 percent.

Job creation also picked up steam, after jobs were lost in January, with 10,100 jobs gained in February, according to Florida's Department of Economic Opportunity.

Florida's still lagging the nation in adding jobs, said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Economy.com. But in two or three years, as housing and construction turns around, "Florida will take its traditional position as a growth leader," he said.

Job gains for the month in Broward were in education and health services, leisure and hospitality, and business and professional services.

Since February of last year, Florida has added 72,300 jobs, ranking 4th among states with significant employment changes, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.

Palm Beach County's rate dropped to 9.2 percent from 9.6 percent in January.

Florida had a broad-based gain in jobs, with the largest numbers in trade, transportation and utilities; education and health services; professional and business services; and leisure and hospitality.

From December to January, Florida lost 38,600 jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. Previously, Florida has been gaining jobs, adding 7,300 in December and 8,500 in November.

The 9.4 percent unemployment rate represents 859,000 residents out of work.

U.S. rate on 30-year mortgage back below 4%

The average U.S. rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage fell back below 4 percent this week, staying near historic lows.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the rate on the 30-year loan dropped to 3.99 percent from 4.08 percent last week. Last month, the rate touched 3.87 percent, the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s.

The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage also fell, to 3.23 percent. That’s down from 3.30 percent last week and above the record low of 3.13 percent hit earlier this month.

The low rates have made homebuying and refinancing more affordable at a time when the housing market is flashing small signs of improvement. Still, most economists say it will take years for the market to fully recover from the housing bust.

January and February made up the best winter for re-sales in five years, when the housing crisis began. And builders are more confident about the market. In February, they requested the most permits to build single-family homes and apartments since October 2008.

An improved job market may also be helping home sales. Employers have added an average 245,000 net jobs per month from December through February. That has helped reduce the unemployment rate to 8.3 percent, the lowest level in nearly three years.

Rates rose a bit earlier this month after positive economic news pushed up yields on U.S. Treasury bonds. Mortgage rates then to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note.

An improving economic outlook can lead investors to shift money from Treasury bonds to stocks. That pushes up Treasury yields.

Even with signs of improvement in housing, home prices continue to fall. Millions of foreclosures and short sales - when a lender accepts less than what is owed on a mortgage - remain on the market. And the housing crisis and recession have also persuaded many Americans to rent instead of buy, which has led to a drop in homeownership.

To calculate the average rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country on Monday through Wednesday of each week.

The average rates don’t include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fee for the 30-year fixed loan was 0.7. For the 15-year fixed loan, the average was 0.8.

For the five-year adjustable loan, the average rate fell to 2.90 percent from 2.96 percent, and the average fee was unchanged at 0.8.

The average on the one-year adjustable loan dropped to 2.78 percent from 2.84 percent, and the average fee was unchanged at 0.6.


Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press, Christopher S. Rugaber, AP economics writer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Home Prices Ready to Rebound

After falling 34% over the past six years, U.S. home prices will soon bottom. They could turn back up by spring 2013.
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It hit with the ferocity of an Old Testament plague, wiping out large populations of homeowners in the U.S. Five million of the country's 76 million mortgage holders have lost their homes to foreclosure or lender-ordered short sales since 2006, and an estimated 14 million more owe more on their homes than their properties are currently worth. In all, some $7.4 trillion in homeowners' equity has been destroyed, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, and more than two million jobs in the home-building industry disappeared.

At year end 2011, the S&P/Case-Shiller National U.S. Home Price Index fell to a record low, 33.8% below the boom peak level, recorded in 2006's second quarter. The descent has been all the more hideous in such once-manic markets as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Miami, which, according to the Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Index, have fallen 61%, 55% and 51%, respectively, from their high-water marks.

Everyone has shared the pain. The negative wealth effect from the price decline both contributed to the virulence of the Great Recession and crimped the subsequent recovery.

Yet as grim as these year-end readings appear to be, there are signs that the long nightmare for American homeowners is in its terminal stage, and that, maybe, just maybe, home prices will bottom and begin to turn by the spring of 2013—if not before. Certainly, the economy is doing better these days—the sine qua non for improved demand for housing. Jobs numbers have been up sharply three months in a row, leading to a jump in consumer confidence of late.

The near-record low in mortgage rates and concomitant slide in home prices has made houses and condos stunningly affordable (although stiff underwriting standards have made getting home loans more difficult). This is captured in the National Association of Realtors Housing Affordability Index, which measures how much purchasing power a median-income family needs in order to buy a median-priced home, using conventional mortgage financing.

This measure stood at 206 in January, which meant that the typical family has more than double the income needed to purchase an average home. That reading is more than twice the 102.7 at the peak of the bubble in July 2006.

MUCH OF THE HOME-PRICE DECLINE in the past six years has been fueled by the distress sales of foreclosed properties, which typically sell at discounts of 30% or more to dwellings in the conventional sales market. Distressed sales, along with vacant houses and condos awaiting a sale, trash property values for all the other homes in the immediate area.

These forced sales have weighed heavily on overall market prices that are typically reported on a metropolitan-area basis that includes cities, surrounding communities and exurbs, which are a good distance from downtown. Within many metropolitan statistical areas, a bifurcated market has developed in which a pricing recovery already is under way in communities and neighborhoods far from the areas still reeling from past excesses of subprime mortgages and predatory lending.

This phenomenon is showing up in the statistical service CoreLogic's Home Price Index, which nicely separates distressed from nondistressed sales. Indeed, for all of 2011, prices fell 4.7% nationally from the previous year's level. Excluding distressed sales, however, home prices dropped just 0.9%.

Of greater moment, perhaps, CoreLogic data show that nondistressed-sales prices rose 0.2% month over month in December 2011 and 0.7% in January 2012. Could this be an augur of better times to come?

Absolutely, in the opinion of Karl Case, professor emeritus at Wellesley College and one of the progenitors of the Case-Shiller indexes, launched in 2002. "If you drill down in the numbers by zip code in the Boston area, as I have done, you find that more desirable, affluent neighborhoods like Back Bay and Beacon Hill are doing just fine now—while, say, Fall River is still in the dumps and dragging down the entire Boston Metro area," he asserts.

This bifurcated market is seen all across the country. While the Nob Hill neighborhood in San Francisco never saw values drop drastically and is now recovering nicely, Stockton, Calif., remains in the dumps. It's a tale of two cities elsewhere, too. The Santa Monica real-estate market is doing fine, while the desert towns to the east are still suffering. And, in the Miami environs, South Beach is strengthening; Hialeah, Fla., isn't.

Then there are areas that have been so depressed that the only direction now seems to be up.

In fact, woebegone Detroit was the only place in the latest Case-Shiller National Index to show an annual increase for December. True, the price increase was a skimpy 0.5%, but that was lots better than the 12.8% slide notched by the Atlanta area for 2011. And the only two metro areas that showed month-over-month gains in December were Miami, up 0.2%, and Phoenix, up 0.8%.

TO BE SURE, PLENTY OF headwinds remain for home sales. Unlike the stock market, home prices display much long-term momentum and inertia. Prices, all other factors being equal, tend to move in their past direction, and lenders, chastened by recent experience, remain tight with mortgage credit. Going through the home-loan application process these days is like undergoing a financial colonoscopy. In contrast, during the salad years of the housing boom, banks were shoving money at borrowers, with few questions asked.

The biggest impediment to a turn in the home market remains the so-called shadow inventory of some 3.671 million homes, according to estimates by Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics: those that remain somewhere in the foreclosure pipeline. Payments on some are 90-plus days delinquent; others are already lender-owned properties, known as REOs (real estate owned), that haven't yet been listed for sale.


This inventory sits atop a market for existing-home sales that this January reached an annual pace of 4.5 million units. Moody's Zandi, for one, finds particularly worrisome the recent $26 billion settlement of charges, alleging malpractice in home foreclosures, reached by 49 state attorneys general and the five largest lenders and mortgage servicers in the U.S. If nothing else, as a result of this, the shadow inventory will hit the home market far faster than it would have otherwise.

"While I feel better about U.S. home prices than I have in six years, I do think that a pickup in foreclosure and short sales could push U.S. home prices down another 5% this year, before the market bottoms next spring," says Zandi. (In a short sale, the lender and homeowner agree to sell the home at a loss with the proceeds going to the lender in lieu of an actual foreclosure.)

Others are more sanguine.

Eleven forecasters surveyed this year by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia predicted, on average, that the Case-Shiller National Index would fall by just 0.2% this year—and that it would rise 1.2% in 2013. Even if the decline were to reach Zandi's 5% level in 2012, it would be off such a low price base as to be almost imperceptible.

If the market bottoms out early next year, as Barron's expects, any recovery is liable to be somewhat tepid for a while. Buyer psychology has been shredded by the housing bust: The notion of housing as investment, rather than shelter and a wasting capital good, has been destroyed. Meanwhile, lots of sellers, anxious to downsize or liquidate, remain in the wings, ready to pile into the market at the first sign of a rebound.

A pricing model recently developed by Goldman Sachs predicts a rise in nominal prices of a cumulative 30% over the next 10 years, for a real return of 1% annually, after adjusting for inflation. But if tax changes like the elimination of deductibility of mortgage interest materialize, long-term appreciation in home prices could hew more closely to inflation, with little in the way of real returns.

NONETHELESS, THE POSITIVES these days outweigh the negatives.

Take the daunting 3.7 million homes that Moody's estimates is in the shadow inventory. Zandi points out that this foreclosure pipeline has been steadily shrinking since its peak of 4.53 million homes in the first quarter of 2010. The decline is primarily a result of a precipitous drop in loans entering the foreclosure channel.

The 30- and 60-day early-stage delinquency rate has been dropping like a stone for several years because of tightened mortgage-underwriting standards.

Likewise, Zandi expects that the shadow inventory could be reduced by at least 700,000, thanks to recent changes in Uncle Sam's Home Affordable Modification Program to encourage lenders to reduce the principal on loans in early-stage default.

He also expects investment demand from all-cash buyers for homes in hard-hit areas like Nevada, Arizona, California and Florida to take lots of properties out of the shadow inventory. Rising rent rates make the strategy appealing to buyers seeking attractive cash returns while they await a turn in the market.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is also encouraging them to make bulk sales to investors of their large portfolios of foreclosed properties.

CoreLogic's chief economist, Mark Fleming, thinks that the size of the true shadow inventory—the number of homes that will reach the market as distressed sales—totals only about 1.6 million. Such transactions, which accounted for 28% of all existing home sales in December, won't return to the record 33% they hit in February 2011, he adds.

The demand for housing could pick up markedly in the years ahead, just from population growth, or, in census lingo, household formation.

The Great Recession of 2008-09 sparked a collapse in household formation, as adult children postponed striking out on their own or moved back to their parents' homes after losing, or failing to find, jobs.

The household-formation rate plummeted to 300,000 during 2008, from more than 1.7 million in 2005. But the Canadian economic research outfit BCA sees the U.S. rate surging to its historic annual average of around 1.3 million in the years ahead, boosting the demand for rental apartments first and then spilling into the housing market. BCA reckons that five million new households will have to be formed simply to return the ratio of households to population to normal levels.

Perhaps no one knows more about residential real-estate price trends then Yale economist Robert Shiller, the co-creator of the Case-Shiller indexes. He has studied prices going back many years, including those in one neighborhood in Amsterdam that has been around for literally centuries.

While he's reluctant to predict definitively when the U.S. housing bust will end, he points to one leading confidence indicator that appears to be signaling a market turn—the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index.

This monthly survey seeks to capture shifts in builders' perceptions of current and future market conditions and buyer traffic. The index has been on a tear of late, rising five months in a row and to its highest level since 2007. Home-builder stocks likewise have blasted off since the October 2011 stock-market low, with Beazer Homes (ticker: BZH) up some 167%, Toll Brothers (TOL), 81%, and the SPDR S&P Homebuilders exchange-traded fund (XHB) up 74%.

This confidence index, Shiller notes, topped out almost seven years ago, in the very month that he boldly predicted in a Barron's article that the U.S. home market was on the verge of a monumental collapse that would see prices fall an inflation-adjusted 50% ("The Bubble's New Home," June 20, 2005).

"It's amazing how on target that prediction was, since nationally the market is already down 40% in real terms," Shiller said in a recent telephone interview.

The Yale economist isn't sure why the builder-confidence reading has been such a good leading indicator. After all, the market for new homes even in strong years never accounts for more than 20% or so of all sales; existing houses and condos account for much more. And lately, the figure has sunk to around 6%. Perhaps home builders have a deeper insight into potential buyers' psychology—although if their grasp of market conditions were that good, many of them wouldn't have gone belly-up during the bust.

The Obama administration certainly hopes that housing is on the verge of a turn. So do the host of homeowners anxious to unload their properties. One very positive sign: The inventory of new and used homes is around a six-month supply, a decline from the peak in 2008 of more than 10 months


Barron's Cover | SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012 Ready to Rebound
By JONATHAN R. LAING |

Two tips for short sale listing agents

How to Avoid the Short Sale Storm
When a short sale prospect calls me about a potential short sale, I need to identify whether it’s a go or a no and I do that by investigating a number of items even before attending the listing appointment.

Title Report. Before going out to any appointment, I review either a property profile or a copy of the preliminary title report. I seek to understand how many liens there are against the property (and for how much) as well as whether the lien holders have begun any foreclosure activity.

Liens on the Property. If there is more than one lien against the property, I then go on to identify whether or not the first will be paid in full or whether the transaction will only be a short sale to the junior lien holder. It is not so uncommon for a first lien holder to be paid in full and for the short sale to only be negotiated for the second lien holder.* In order to determine this, you may need to request mortgage statements from the seller.

Foreclosure Activity. Another thing to look at is whether the property is in active foreclosure. Is the seller just five days from foreclosure auction and calling you as a last stitch effort to stay in his/her home for a little while longer? Or, is there going to be plenty of time to list, advertise, and sell the subject property to a ready, willing, and able buyer? When a property is already in active foreclosure, it’s a race to the finish. Which will arrive first—the short sale closing or the auction date?

Maybe it’s just me, but the bottom line is that if I am going to dedicate hours and hours to a cause, I want to know what I am in for. Not only do I want to see if I can close the deal successfully, but I don’t want to provide the borrower with false hope about what may lie ahead.

Short sales are never total smooth sailing. Personally, I prefer a few rough patches to a full-blown hurricane. What say you?

Rent vs. buy

Rent vs. buy: Decision comes down to job, finances



South Florida renters constantly hear jeers that they're paying somebody else's mortgage.

They feel pressure to escape rent increases and take advantage of low home prices last seen a decade ago.

But a home still may be a stretch financially. And prices may decline further, embittering new owners who see their prized asset lose value.

For most, the decision boils down to whether their jobs are stable, how much savings they'd have after buying and how long they intend to stay in the area.

"No one thinks of housing as a risk-free investment anymore," said Jed Kalko, chief economist for real estate website Trulia.com. "If you're going to buy, you need to be in a financial position where you're able to deal with the risks of prices going down."

Housing industry experts weigh in on the rent vs. buy debate in three hypothetical South Florida case studies.

Scenario One: A police officer making $60,000 a year, newly married, currently renting a two-bedroom apartment for $1,500, never owned a home before.

Jim Flood, regional manager for Supreme Lending in Boca Raton, said he'd work with the officer to determine his cash position.

A new homeowner still should have at least two to four months' of cash in savings after buying, Flood said. Assuming he has the appropriate savings and his job is safe, the officer is a good candidate to own, Flood said.

If he put down 3.5 percent on a $150,000 home and had an interest rate of about 4 percent, his total monthly payment (principal, interest, taxes and insurance) would be roughly $1,100 — a savings of $400 from what he pays in rent.

Bottom line: Easy call. Buy.

Scenario Two: Recent college graduate, living with her parents, monthly payments of $300 for a car and $400 for student loans, has minimal savings and a $40,000-a-year job, but is willing to relocate for another.

The car and student loan debts are the biggest obstacles to buying, Flood said. She'd have to buy a small home or condominium, but she's likely better off staying a renter.

"If it was my daughter, I'd tell her to pay off the car or student loans and save more money for a rainy day," Flood said.

Randy Bianchi, co-owner of Paradise Properties of Florida in West Palm Beach, agrees, adding that the uncertainty over how long she'll be in the area is another concern. Plan to live in a home you buy for at least five years, experts say.

"Homes are cheap right now, but owning will tie you down," Bianchi said.

Kalko offers another consideration: If she's still living with her parents, she'd be a first-time homeowner with little or no experience in maintaining a house by herself. She'd have to cut the grass and deal with the occasional broken dishwasher. "That's a lot of firsts all at once," Kalko said.

Bottom line: Stay with parents or rent cheaply

Scenario Three: Retired couple in their mid-60s, small pension, just sold their house for a $15,000 profit, looking to stay in the area and downsize.

The major factor here is the modest profit on the home sale. It's not enough to buy another home or condo outright or to significantly pay down a mortgage on a new place, said Michael Citron, a real estate agent in Broward County.

The couple likely would spend $1,200 to $1,500 a month on a mortgage and association dues, but probably only about half that amount if they moved into a 55-and-over rental community, Citron said.

"That's much more manageable for them," he said. "The lawn is taken care of and they can call maintenance if anything needs to be fixed. They just don't have enough money to buy a home."

Bottom line: Rent

By Paul Owers, Sun Sentinel


powers@tribune.com, 561-243-6529 or Twitter @paulowers


Copyright © 2012, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Fort Lauderdale leads South Florida in absorption of new condos

Fort Lauderdale bested downtown Miami and Miami Beach in the rate at which condominiums built during the boom were absorbed, according to a wide-ranging market report released today by development firm the Related Group. Just 142 of the 5,135 new units built between 2005 and 2009 remained as of January, compared to 1,020 of the 10,001 units built during that time in the Miami beaches and 2,497 of the 17,502 units built in downtown Miami and Brickell. Related Group’s report also desmonstrated how much lower condo prices are in Miami compared to Latin America and Canada, whose citizens have been responsible for much of the absorption. The average price per square foot of downtown Miami conodminiums developed in the last five years is just $400. By comparison, prices per square foot in Toronto and Rio De Janeiro average $1,000, and in San Paulo, Bogota and Buenos Aires it is $900, $700 and $550, according to the report.

The stronger condo sales market has also catapulted the area’s rental market in downtown Miami and Brickell. The report said the rental vacancy rate for those new condo units was just 7 percent in 2011, and the average rent increased to $2,347 per month by December 2011, from $1,728 per month two years prior. — Adam Fusfeld

6 marketing secrets to grow your real estate business

Personal connections more powerful than quantity of Facebook friends


What does it take to successfully market your real estate business online? Matthew Shadbolt, director of interactive product and marketing at The Corcoran Group, shared six great tips that have made his company Manhattan's leading real estate agency. These same tips can help your business, too.

1. Share the story, not just the features
Shadbolt, who is also a featured contributor at InmanNext, an agent-focused website, made an astute observation when he said, "Story is the most shareable type of content." Most agents market their listings by listing the features -- i.e., bedroom and bath count, views, décor, and other amenities.

Unfortunately, features don't sell properties: emotions do. An easy way to tap into the buyer's emotions is through storytelling.

To illustrate this point, I saw a video where a man was selling the ranch that had been in his family for more than 100 years. As he described growing up on the ranch, and later, how he raised his family there, a tear came to his eye. This compelling video generated a lot more buyer leads than a laundry list of property features.

2. Tips around town
An important component of Corcoran's success is its "Tips Around Town." This consists of short videos about fun things to do or other interesting facts about specific neighborhoods.

To implement this approach in your business, you could interview the owner of the bakery that is voted the people's choice for the best pizza in town, show some of the unique art at a local street fair, or just about anything else that illustrates what it's like to live in a given neighborhood.

As Shadbolt advised, "You are rewarded for sharing ... It's important to own slices of the online conversations, especially when it comes to any of the neighborhoods where you work."

3. Content lives and breathes on mobile
Almost 50 percent of all real estate searches today occur on mobile devices. Whether it's your website, blog or video, it's important to see how it will appear on mobile devices. Since close to 50 percent of all real estate searches today are conducted on mobile devices, Shadbolt recommends that you design your marketing for mobile first rather than for larger-screen devices.

4. Video married to "life streams"
Video is still in its infancy in terms of Internet marketing, although it has already started to appear in search-engine results. When you conduct a Google search in most areas, the top two or three videos for that search will appear on the first page of the results.

Other important shifts are in the pipeline. YouTube is developing a product to be viewed on your big-screen TV. This will require a huge shift in terms of the quality that will be required to market your listings in this new format.

Even though the latest mobile phones have high-definition cameras, in the very near future you will have to consider exactly how your video will appear on a big-screen television as well as on mobile devices.

In addition to these trends, "social TV" will become much more prevalent. This includes an increasing number of people using online video chat services such as Skype or Google's Hangout feature. Currently, the ISPs (Internet service providers) are scrambling to expand the bandwidth to meet the oncoming onslaught.

5. The analytics of the everyday
Using Pinterest, check-in sites such as Foursquare, and Facebook's new timeline tool allows people to share what Shadbolt calls a "linear searchable presentation of the minutia of life." These applications allow you to create a visually compelling storyline for your life.

6. How to combat digital overload
A major challenge everyone faces today is digital overload. We are constantly bombarded with more information than we can possibly ever process. So how do we sort through it? Shadbolt provided some simple guidelines.

First, keep in mind that "people are greater than platforms." In other words, it's more important to build real connections with people than it is to accumulate hundreds of friends and followers.

Second, identify the people with whom you really enjoy communicating and build relationships with them. Conversations over time create the relationships that turn into leads.

Third, divide your contacts into groups and/or lists depending upon the platform that you are using. Google Plus already has you do this when you add anyone as a friend. The system asks you to drag and drop (or check off on a drop-down menu) the circles where you would like your new friend to belong.

To sum this all up, use video whenever possible to get a serious jump on your competition. What really matters, however, is connection. Build your connections through storytelling, by sharing what is great about the lifestyle where you live, and by connecting with others based upon the mutual interests that you share



Bernice Ross
Inman News®

HELLO Stop blaming 'the other agent'

We owe our colleagues the benefit of the doubt

Teresa Boardman
Inman News®


There are incompetent real estate agents of all stripes and, yes, we need to "raise the bar."

But we also need to stop assuming that other agents are incompetent as soon as there is the slightest problem with a real estate transaction.

We need to stop telling the world that real estate agents are incompetent because we are making it hard for competent agents to do their jobs.

Our clients have no contact with "the other agent." That makes it easy for us to blame "the other agent" if there is a problem -- and I cannot recall ever having a real estate transaction in which there wasn't some problem or unexpected issue.

We don't listen to each other or give each other the benefit of the doubt. We just assume that the other agent is an idiot, or doesn't care, or is inexperienced or incompetent.

"The bar needs to be raised," we say. For some that means additional education and training requirements for new agents. Others would also like to see tougher licensing requirements. We go on and on. Agents spend hours complaining about other agents.

If an agent does not pick up the phone, it isn't because he is at the dentist having a root canal performed. It is because he is lazy and probably out playing golf.

If we get a lowball offer on one of our listings, we may think the other agent is clueless, when the reality is the other agent has a buyer that is clueless and the agent is just doing his job, which is to advise and represent.

I wish I had a nickel for every time another agent has treated me like an incompetent idiot. We are an independent bunch and most of us have strong ideas about how to do our jobs, and we believe that we do our jobs better than any other agent.

For some of us there is a reason why we are self-employed. We are used to taking charge and we want to be in control. We forget that our way isn't always the only way.

When we treat others as though they are incompetent buffoons, they tend to rise to the occasion. When we blame the other agent for any little problem in front of our clients, we create more problems for ourselves and make the relationship between buyers and sellers adversarial.

There are more negative things written about real estate agents than there are positive, but I refuse to believe that most agents are bad or stupid.

Our industry experts tell us that we need to do a better job. They paint a picture of real estate agents being a bunch of technologically impaired unprofessional morons, and we believe it. We continue to see "the other agent" as a person who got to be an agent because of the low bar.

We need to spend more time listening to each other and working together. We need to give other agents the benefit of the doubt by assuming they do things a little differently, instead of assuming that they are incompetent.

We need to occasionally stick up for each other, and we need to recognize and thank the agents that do a really great job even if they are our competitors.

I am proud of what I do and who I am, and I work hard to do the very best that I can, and I am not convinced that I am unusual.

Many of the people who like to tell me how I should do my job could not do my job. I am not technologically backward, and I am not clueless about what consumers want or about how to serve them.

I am not incompetent -- I am highly educated, skilled and experienced, as are many of my peers. As a group we are treated with much less respect than we deserve by the general public and by our own industry.

We can always improve our own performance and that is where we need to stay focused, and we need to stop assuming that our peers are all clueless and incompetent and listen to them and work with them.

Teresa Boardman is a broker in St. Paul, Minn., and founder of the St. Paul Real Estate blog.

http://www.inman.com/buyers-sellers/columnists/teresaboardman/stop-blaming-other-agent



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2011 Sales set record in Miami

Year-end figures show that homes and condos sold at a pace that eclipsed the volume of deals at the height of the boom.
By Ina Paiva Cordle
icordle@MiamiHerald.com
International buyers spurred Miami-area home sales to a new record in 2011, even exceeding sales volume during the height of the real estate boom in 2005, according to figures released Friday.
Broward County results were mixed, although inventory across both counties showed widespread depletions.
A total of 24,929 condominiums and homes were sold in Miami-Dade County, up 46 percent from 2010 and up 4 percent compared to 2005, according to the Miami Association of Realtors and the Southeast Florida Multiple Listing Service. Condominiums sales surged 54 percent, to 15,009 in 2011, and home sales rose 36 percent to 9,920.
“We’re on the verge of a real estate boom,” said Miami Association of Realtors Residential President Patricia Delinois, citing an array of properties from the Design District and Brickell to Miami Beach.
International investors, with wads of cash, are behind the surge.
“Miami is a top market for international buyers,” Delinois said. “We are attracting people from Latin America, South America, Europe, all over the world. What could they not like in Miami?”
In December, sales of existing single-family homes in the Miami area jumped 16 percent, compared to December 2010. Sales of condominiums rose 22 percent. Those percentage increases beat the change in sales statewide, which dropped 2 percent for both condominiums and single-family homes.
Nationally, sales of existing single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums, and co-ops rose 3.6 percent from December 2010, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Overall, the inventory of residential listings in Miami-Dade dropped 39 percent from 24,278 to 14,087 over the last year, and 8 percent from November 2011 alone, figures show.
Bank-owned properties and short sales, comprising “distressed sales,” drove the rapid absorption, Realtors said. In December, 54 percent of all closed residential sales in Miami-Dade were distressed, compared to 59 percent in December 2010. Unlike a year ago, there are now more short sales closing than bank-owned properties, Realtors said.
“There is a waiting list of investors, with dual and triple offers on REO properties,” said Delinois, who is president and CEO of Century 21 Premier Elite Realty. “We have more of a demand for bank-owned properties than we have a supply.”
Cash sales continue to dominate in Miami-Dade, at 63 percent of total closed sales in December. Cash sales accounted for 42 percent of single-family and 77 percent of condominium closings. Nearly 90 percent of international buyers in Florida purchase properties all cash, Realtors said, compared to 29 percent nationally, reflecting the stronger presence of international buyers in the Miami real estate market.
In the Miami area, the median sales price of condominiums in December spiked 31 percent to $129,900 from a year earlier. The median price of single-family homes jumped 16 percent to $182,300. Statewide median prices in December increased 4 percent to $91,900 for condominiums and 1 percent to $134,300 for single-family homes. The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $164,500 in December, a 2.5 percent drop from December 2010.
In Broward, single-family home sales increased 9 percent in December to 1,082, and condominium sales dropped 8 percent, compared to December 2010.
For the year, total single-family home sales in Broward fell 9 percent to 12,817 in 2011. Condominium sales rose 11 percent, to 16,714 in 2011.
Overall inventory in Broward dropped 35 percent for the year, to 12,997, the figures show.
In December, 46 percent of all closed residential sales in Broward were distressed, and there were more short sales than bank-owned properties.
Cash sales accounted for 38 percent of single-family and 81 percent of condominium closings in Broward.
In December, the median price of single-family homes in the Fort Lauderdale area was $189,600, up 7 percent compared to December 2010. The median price for condominiums dropped 3 percent to $78,200.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/20/2599938_greater-miami-housing-sales-set.html#storylink=addthis#storylink=cpy