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May 18

Coastal Living Says Naples is one of America’s Happiest Seaside Towns!

I opened up my new issue of Coastal Living this morning, excited to read the cover story, “Happiest Seaside Towns!” and wouldn’t you know it: Naples ranks #2!

“With rich cultural offerings (including resident orchestral and theater groups), this town of just fewer than 20,000 people offers big-city payoffs minutes from beaches with some of the finest snowy white sand in the region. A strong arts community has kept the downtown scene as beautiful as the shoreline.

…the town has undergone a recent culinary boom. And with so much within reach of its neighborhoods, it’s one of the most walkable cities on our list.”

For the entire June 2012 article, click here.

May 16

Fewer People Owe Collier County Property Tax

In another sign that the local economy is improving, more owners paid their property taxes in Collier County last year.

The county’s tax collector is advertising that tax certificates will be sold on 9,300 properties this year, down from a little over 12,000 a year ago.

“It has been trending down for the last three years,” said Larry Ray, the county’s tax collector.

For the entire Naples News article, dated May 15, 2012, click here.

May 7

Zillow Says South FL Housing Market Has Hit Bottom

After six years of historic price declines, South Florida’s housing market has hit bottom.

So says Zillow.com, a Seattle-based real estate website that reports home values aren’t just stable but rising in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Prices in South Florida reached their low point at the end of 2011, according to Zillow.

The optimism extends beyond Zillow. The Sun Sentinel interviewed a dozen builders, buyers, analysts, real estate agents and other local housing observers, and 10 agreed that the region has reached a housing floor, despite concern that another wave of bank-owned homes will hit the market.

The median value for all homes in the three counties is $141,300, up 1 percent from a year ago, Zillow says. While values still may dip in some areas from month to month, the website says overall prices are expected to climb about 6 percent in the next year, making it one of the nation’s best-performing housing markets.

 

For the entire Sun Sentinel article, dated May 7, 2012, click here.

May 2

Top 10 Markets for Rising List Prices (Pay attention to Florida!)

…Florida showed especially strong in median list-price growth in the last year, with five of the top 10 metros located in the Sunshine State. In addition to Miami, Punta Gorda made the list at No. 4 (17.5 percent), along with Daytona Beach (No. 8 at 15.47 percent), West Palm Beach-Boca Raton (No. 9 at 15.38 percent) and Naples (No. 10 at 15.38 percent).

Although they didn’t make the top 10 list, strong growth in median list prices in other Realtor.com-tracked Florida and Arizona metros like Fort Myers-Cape Coral (up 15.31 percent), the West-Ariz. rural statistical area (up 13.64 percent) and Fort Lauderdale (up 8.39 percent) suggest a bottom has formed in these hard-hit housing markets.

For the entire Inman News article, dated May 2, 2012, click here.

May 2

Mortgage Rates Close to Record Lows

Mortgage rates eased slightly this week, staying near record lows amid uncertainty about the strength of the economic recovery.

The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee said Wednesday that it expects to maintain “a highly accommodative stance for monetary policy” to support a stronger economic recovery, but announced no changes to existing policies.

For the entire Inman News article, dated May 2, 2012, click here.

Apr 27

5 Signs It’s a Good Time to Sell!

Interest rates are currently at historic lows and are expected to stay low for the rest of the year. Even with low rates, buyers have had difficulty qualifying due to rigid mortgage approval underwriting.

Capital Economics, an analytics firm, expects the housing crisis to end this year partially due to lenders loosening credit. According to Capital Economics, one indicator of loosening is that banks are now lending 82 percent of loan-to-value (LTV), compared with a low of 74 percent LTV reached in mid-2010. This means qualified buyers need less cash to buy, which should lead to more sales this year, although higher home prices are not expected.

These positive indicators combined with a drop in homes for sale at the end of 2011 and a decrease in unemployment may provide an opportunity for sellers in spring 2012, provided their homes are priced right for the market. A major surprise on the economic front could change the picture.

For the entire Inman News article, dated April 27, 2012, click here.

Feb 6

Looks Like Coldwell Banker Websites are the Place to Be!

According to Nielsen and comScore Media Metrix, the two global leaders in digital measurement, Coldwell Banker branded websites had the highest number of unique visitors among all national real estate franchise brands for full-year 2011.  This marks the second consecutive year that the Coldwell Banker brand ranked No. 1 in Web traffic among all real estate franchisors.  

“The Coldwell Banker brand is clearly top of mind when consumers go online and search for a home,” said Michael Fischer, chief marketing officer, Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC.  “Consumers know our great brand and have shown a desire to utilize the suite of online tools seen throughout the Coldwell Banker network at the national and local levels.”

 

For the entire press release, dated January 28, 2012, click here.

Jan 20

Modest Housing Rebound for 2012

The housing market will begin to rebound in 2012, as part of a broader economic recovery, the financial and business analytics firm CoreLogic is predicting.

The company says it is “bullish” on prospects for a modest improvement in the housing market and the overall economy in 2012, based on a number of positive trends in 2011. While acknowledging there is still a lot of uncertainty, it notes that the U.S. economy successfully weathered several blows in 2011 and expects it will likely continue to be able to avoid stagnation in 2012. 

Among the positive trends, it notes that households are paying off debt and having an easier time obtaining credit. In a particularly surprising development, Home Equity Lines of Credit increased for the first time since the financial crisis began, doing so during the third quarter of the year.

Other encouraging developments in the housing market include rising construction starts and building permits for single-family homes, which increased at an annualized rate of 15 percent during the second half of the year, and a rising trend in existing home sales, which were 12 percent higher in November than at the beginning of 2011.

 

For the entire NASDAQ article, dated January 19, 2012, click here.

Dec 5

Florida is One of the Top Seven Online RE Markets

America’s hard-hit Sunbelt cities are commanding the most attention from potential home buyers searching online, most probably due to the bargain basement prices available right now, reports Forbes.

The most popular area that home buyers are currently searching for online was in Florida, while metro areas in California, South Carolina and Texas also ranked highly in newly released data from Trulia.com, who analyzed more than 100 million property searches on its portal over the third quarter, from July 1st till Sept. 30th.

Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist and head of analytics, explained that the high numbers of home buyers searching for homes in the south is probably down to the number of retirees looking to move there: “Part of the long term trend is Baby Boomers moving toward retirement, and some of those that put off their searches while home prices were skyrocketing in the Sun Belt, are now looking again because prices have fallen so much.”

For the entire Realty Biz News article, dated December 4, 2011, click here.

 

Nov 14

International RE Sales in South Florida on the Rise

The property market in south Florida is expected to see international sales rise in 2012, supporting its already buoyant real estate sector. This is the opinion of experts who attended the Miami International Real Estate Congress, the Miami Herald reported.

Speaking to the delegates, Moe Veissi, president-elect of the National Association of Realtors (NAR), asserted that the state has the “best global real estate market we’ve ever seen in this country”.

According to the news provider, Mr Veissi predicted a strong performance from the property sector in the region during 2012, noting that Florida now accounts for almost one-third of all real estate purchases by foreign investors in America.

For the entire IPIN article, dated November 10, 2011, click here.

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