Tony Perez

Buyer's beware of some of those so-called bargain Short Sales, currently if you buy a Short Sale you will pay higher doc stamps than you would if you would buy a regular deal or bank owned home. Though doc stamps are to be paid by the sellers they are starting to pass on some of this new cost over to the buyer.

SHORT SALES

Should doc stamp taxes levied against a short sale be based on the sale amount or on the sale amount plus money forgiven by the original lender? It's a simple question without a simple answer, and it impacts closings in Florida. FAR has had extensive discussions with state agencies, however, and hopes to have a final decision soon.

Read the full story:

http://www.floridarealtors.org/NewsAndEvents/n2-090308.cfm

HURRICANES

With most closings shut down by property insurers when a storm is "in the box," some sales may have to be scheduled between bouts of bad weather. Hurricane Gustav is departing only to see new threats from Hanna, a strengthening Ike and newcomer Josephine.

Read the full story:

http://www.floridarealtors.org/NewsAndEvents/n4-090308.cfm

PROPERTY INSURANCE

Citizens Property Insurance Corp. is doubling its hurricane mitigation discounts for condo buildings with a replacement cost of $10 million or less as policies renew on Sept. 1. But the action means that Citizens is taking on additional risk, as the state-run insurer already covers more than a third of the state's condo buildings.

Read the full story:

http://www.floridarealtors.org/NewsAndEvents/n3-090308.cfm

Market report for Naples ending August 31st 2008 shows that new listings ard down 17% from July 2008 while Pending Sales are up 13% and cash transactions are slightly above financed transactions on Closed Sales.

So based on these MLS charts as New Listings go down and Pending Sales continue to rise that will gradually keep bringing down the high inventory which will start balancing the supply & demand ratio.

REAL ESTATE ECONOMY

Is this the real estate turnaround? On the heels of an increase in Florida home sales, a spike in new home sales and an upswing in consumer confidence, traffic to Realtor.com went up significantly in July, with traffic 29 percent higher and time spent on the Web site up 26 percent compared to one month earlier.

Read the full story:
http://www.floridarealtors.org/NewsAndEvents/n1-082808.cfm

What is Median Home Price?

The median home price in a neighborhood for example is the sales price that marks the middle of the price range. Let's say that price is $310,000 that means exactly half the homes sold for more than that price, and half the homes sold for lower than that price.

For some additional statistics from NABOR - Naples Area Board of Realtors click on the following link to view reports of sales, pendings, median price range, etc.

http://www.naplesarea.com/realestate_news/July_Data.pdf

Thru July of this year, there have been 3,754 closings in Sunshine MLS, in the specified areas. So as you can see by the numbers below foreclosure are not the majority of sales taking place in Naples.

Only 163 of these were foreclosures, which is a very small number as compared to what media reports would lead one to believe. (4.3%)

45% of the foreclosures were in Golden Gate City and Golden Gate Estates, so there are only 90 closed foreclosure sales in ALL other areas.

84% of the 163 foreclosures sold at $300,000 or less, so it is primarily confined to the lower price ranges.

Obviously, there are parts of Lee County where the problem is much more severe, specifically Lehigh Acres and Cape Coral. These two areas have thousands of lots and/or homes, have traditionally been very reasonably priced, and many owners have now lost their jobs. There were also many investors that bought in those neighborhoods during the irrational period of 2004-2006, and have now simply walked away from their investment.

So there is good news out there just have to start spread it one neighbor at a time.