Sellers and buyers of real estate often fixate on what the price of a property is and in doing so, lose sight of the more important factor, cost.  Price is what you get for the property if you are a seller and what you pay for it if you are a buyer.  However, what affects […]

The 2010 real estate market has started out all over the place, both nationally and locally.  On a national level, the lousy weather has had a negative effect on the new home segment, with construction on new homes and apartments falling 4% overall in December (construction rose in the South by over 3%).  Applications for […]

The good news is that sales on existing homes, both single family and condos, continue to increase and inventories are decreasing in Miami-Dade county. The bad news is in the foreclosure numbers for 2009.  The numbers include all properties that are in some stage of the foreclosure process. Palm Beach County – 30,870 Broward County […]

I came across a great article that explains the effect of interest rates on your purchasing power so well, that I have to blog about it.  Now that inventories are decreasing and we are running into an April 30, 2010 deadline for tax credits, you have to read it if you have been on the […]

In an attempt to work through the more than 110,000 open foreclosures and the 7,000 new ones that are filed each month, Miami-Dade County has put them on-line.   Registration is free and allows you access to the county’s foreclosures.  If you want to bid, you will be required to put down a refundable 5% deposit.

According to CNNMoney.com the national vacancy rate for rental apartments rose to 8% at the end of 2009 up from 6.7% a year ago.  High vacancy rates translate into lower rents, so if you are getting ready to go into a lease or renew your existing one, negotiate the price.  Keep in mind that many […]

Below is a quick snap shot of what the real estate market for single family homes looked like for the fourth quarter of 2009.  These numbers are derived from the Multiple Listing Service and though they do not include For Sale By Owners and anything not listed on the MLS, they are indicative of what […]

Now that the residential real estate market appears to have stabilized, investors are starting to look at U.S properties as potential investments.  According to Kevin Brass of the Wall Street Journal, groups of investors from Mainland China are still touring properties in the U.S. With the decrease in real estate prices and the drop in […]

Miami ranked third in the nation in the number of distressed commercial properties.  Miami has $7.6 billion worth of properties that can be considered distressed, according to Real Capital Analytics, a real estate research firm.  Las Vegas was the worst off  with $17.7 billion and Manhattan was third with $12.3 billion.  Since the total nationwide […]

According to the National Association of Realtors third quarter report, sales are up throughout most of the country.  The biggest increase in sales was in Florida at 36.8%.  This is no surprise considering that we are also the state with the highest number (9 out of the top 15) of metro area price decreases in […]