Treat your taste buds to latin food and beverages at Pinecrest Gardens’ Latin Spice Festival. It includes food, music, dancing, and shopping. Stay for Grammy Award wining Chino Nunez.
The Artist Village at Deering Estate hostS the opening of their Winter Exhibit from 7-9pm on December 7.
Christie’s New York will be opening their Rockefeller Center gallery to the public from December 3-12 to exhibit the Elizabeth Taylor Collection prior to the auction, which will take place on 13-16.
Tomorrow is Small Business Saturday, American Express’ push to highlight the importance of small business to our individual, local communities as well as our national economy.
American Express is offering incentives and lists participating businesses by zip code.
So avoid the Black Friday madness at the Big Box stores and relax today and support your small local stores tomorrow,
According to the National Association of Realtors, 56% of Americans prefer smart growth neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are defined by having retail,restaurant,and businesses within walking distance of home. During the building boom, all of these were added in the downtown Miami area, which is a large reason why the area has seen a 9% increase in population in 2011, as reported in today’s Miami Herald.
Although many may argue that people moved to downtown Miami because of the low rents, if the area hadn’t added a lot of the social infrastructure at the same time that condos were being built, people would not have moved to the area as quickly as they did.
Well disappointingly, but not suprisingly, the Congressional “Super Committee” failed to come up with a plan to reduce the Federal deficit.
The fact that the deficit needs to be reduced and there were no new proposals on the table of how to go about doing so, got me to thinking about some of the original recommendations from the Simpson-Bowles plan. One of their recommendations was to eliminate certain mortgage interest rate deductions, namely on second homes, equity lines of credit, and mortgages over $500,000.
Costco addressed the phasing out the mortgage interest deduction completely in their November edition of The Costco Connection.
If it were phased out completely would that change your plans to buy? Would it speed up your plans to sell? What if only the Simpson-Bowles recommendation were implemented? Would that change your plans to buy or sell?
I attended the Realtors Commercial Alliance’s Super Conference today and wanted to share some of the things I heard that may help you decide whether or not now is the time to invest in real estate.
Dr. Randy Anderson, the Howard Phillips Eminent Scholar Chair at the University of Central Florida:
- pointed out that no other asset class did better on growth of a $10,000 investment between 1996-2010 than direct real estate;
- retail sales are higher than before we entered the recession despite low consumer confidence, mostly due to pent up demand. He believes retail sales will start to level off and stabilize.
- Most buyers underestimate the cost of owning an office space because they base their projections on a 5-10% vacancy when nationally it is closer to 12-14%
- Big institutional investors have been purchasing Miami real estate for the last year.
- Each 1% decline in homeownership is equal to 1.2 million rental households
Dr. Pascal Goldschmidt, Senior V.P. Medical Affairs and Dean of UM Miller School of Medicine:
- stated that every great city has a great educational hospital
- projects that when UM’s Life Sciences Center is built out over the next 7 years, there will be 10,000-15,000 new jobs with an average salary of $65,000-$75,000.
- Miami Dade College is working to train people who live in the area, which is next to Jackson Hospital, to work in various aspects of the medical/health field.
- Envisions a live work area around Life Science Park.
Jeffrey Bercow, attorney with Bercow Radell & Fernandez, P.A.
- believes that Miami-Dade County is under-retailed when compared with Broward and West Palm Beach
If owning the physical real estate does not interest you, consider investing in a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) such as Duke Realty or Healthcare Realty.
EWM’s Coral Gables office had our office meeting a couple of hours ago. Last week our office alone had over $9,000,000 in sales.
We had 13 residential sales and 9 new residential listings. Out of the 13 sales, 4 went over the asking price and 2 sold at list price, and two sold within $4,000 of list price. The market is still moving and if your property is priced right it will sell fairly quickly and close to asking.
If you are a buyer, learn the market where you are purchasing and get information on relevant sales in the neighborhood where you want to purchase. That way you can make an informed offer when you find the property you want. Unless a property is overpriced for the area, chances are you will not get the property if you low ball your offer.
Tomorrow night is the first of Orchestra Miami’s free concert series. It will take place at 6:30 p.m. At the Coral Gables Branch Library.
The second concert will be at 11:00 a.m. Saturday, November 19 at the Banyan Bowl at Pinecrest Gardens. There is a $3.00 admission fee to the Gardens.
The final concert will be Saturday at 2:00 p.m. at the North Dade Regional Library.