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®