Zoila Perez-Chanquet - Miami Real Estate

Yesterday I showed my new listing,"a good sale", to several buyers and "what a pleasant day it was"! After running around for months placing offers on foreclosures this was a welcomed change of pace. Don't get me wrong, foreclosures are great if your offer is the lucky one to get accepted.

In my area, Miami, a foreclosed home comes on the market, you rush to show it, place the offer and then you hear that you are competing with 20 other offers. Your buyer feels fustrated because his offers are no longer below asking price, he has bumped up his strategy by offering $10k above asking price with a hefty 20% down payment and it's still not enough! What else can you do? As I thought about this market this morning, I realized that the buyers that were left out when the boom because they were not able to afford a property are still in the same predicament. Everyone is rushing to purchase a deal, yes they are out there but if you are looking to purchase a property in good condition, so is everyone else.

I don't mean to discourage those out there looking for such deals, but the reality is that it's not as easy as it sounds. If you are in the market to purchase and are fully qualified your best bet is to look for good sales, unfortunately, there are not many out there but if you come across one in your price range grab it! I feel confident that my "good listing" will sell soon as buyers are tired of running around. I am anxiously waiting for the day the market turns around and business will be conducted in a normal manner. Hooray for Good Sales, bring them on!!!!

http://www.zmiamirealestate.com

It seems that the property tax issues in Miami-Dade County is never ending. Final property rolls released on July 3rd showed a dip of 9.5 percent countywide. Across Miami-Dade, the downturn erased $23 billion in real-estate value, pushing the county's overall value down to $222 billion, according to the county property appraisers office. So now what? Well, according to Channel 10 news, the Mayor proposed raising property taxes to residents but many opposed. The next budget proposal, 5% pay cut to all 30-40,000 Miami-Dade County employees accross the board including police and fire. The Police Union head, Mr. John Rivera from the Police Benevolent Association, stated in his interview that if we look at county commissions meetings we would realize how much money they spend "as if they are printing money themselves" were his words and I believe it!

Now, what happened to all the money they collected during the real estate peak? Why didn't they budget properly for a rainy day? Remember that the residents of Miami-Dade which have investment properties their property taxes sore through the roof due to their properties not being protected by the Save Our Homes Act. Now what, as usual we all have to suffer the consequences. If this proposal goes through which will be discussed on Wednesday, July 15th, it will affect all of us in Miami-Dade not only the employees. I am sure that this will be an ongoing issue, next step cutting personnel. This is just my two cents, I am sure many of us feel the same....

The more I use my GPS the more I notice how I loose perception of where I am and how I got there. All I am focused on is what "Esther" (this is the name we gave my female companion, my GPS) is saying, turn left, turn right, and of course the famous words "re-calculating". This came to mind the other day when I visited a property which I had been to before. I had visited this property a week prior and as I drove to the address being assertive and listening to "Esther", I looked around and realized I had no clue how to get there. Mind you, I was a few blocks away, if I was left there without my iphone or my GPS I would not know what direction to take. This is a scary thing, we depend so much on our gadgets that we don't even take the time to look at a map and actually know where we are going, instead we enter the address and take off and hopefully it will lead us to our final destination.

I remember when my husband was a real estate appraiser working in both, Miami Dade County and Broward, and did not have a GPS, we would look at mapquest and map out his route. Funny, I was the one to tell him "why use a GPS you can do it all online", now I feel bad. As soon as I became a Realtor, this is the first gadget I purchased. Even when we travel to the mountains, this takes us exactly to our destination.

A GPS is a wonderful tool as many other tools out there, but I think we should put on our thinking caps and use our brain a little more. Don't get me wrong, I know we use our brain for many other things but sometimes I just feel clueless because I have gotten so use to these gadgets, it's just a wake up call!

"Esther", my companion!

The foreclosures in Miami as well as in many other parts of the United States are so high that recently companies that are dealing directly with lenders have started asking area Realtors to assist their Home Retention departments, as Home Retention Consultants. Realtors are asked to try to make contact with homeowners who have not been paying their loans and find out what their intentions are. They may be asked to fill out the homeowners financials so that the lender knows if the homeowner is able to pay back the loan, if modified, or if the property needs to be sold as a short sale. In Miami many homeowners are in default, the lenders need to make contact with them and find out what is going on. There are occasions that the homeowner has sent in a modification package and it's not showing under their loan number. Many homeowners are frustrated with the process and the lenders.

In Miami many of these properties are tenant occupied and many tenants are paying their rents and the homeowners are not paying their mortgage. Many question what the homeowners are doing with their payments. I have heard several different cases from friends and acquaintances that they have been served with the foreclosure forms and have been told that they need to vacate the property within an amount of time. These frustrated tenants are in a frenzy, looking for another place to live without enough time to look. The first thing I get asked by Realtors regarding my rental listings is if the owner is in default, because the person they are working with just had a very bad experience. This is outrageous, I pay my rent but get kicked out and you are doing who knows what with the money. I think that these homeowners should be in someway penalized by these actions. I know the state of Florida is not only looking into the mortgage fraud but also many new scams out there. Homeowners should be aware of the risks that they are taking, just because someone else is doing it they should not take the attitude of "I will do it also".

Since property tax season is in place and many of us have received our tax bills, I thought it would be the perfect time to educate buyers on the specifics, especially in the market that we are faced with. Many buyers have the idea that their property tax bill is according to what they paid for their property, wrong! Your property tax bill is according to the market value in the area, which all of us (realtors) know. The property appraisers office is not taking into consideration many of the foreclosures unless that is all that is selling in the area. Some buyers are astounded when they receive their tax bill on a property they paid $180k for and the market value is at $300k. Of course, this is a great thing looking at it as a property owner, because this means that your property value is up and there is equity in your home. But, on the other hand, since we are all pinching our pennies not too many new property owners like this idea. It's time to get educated and learn all the ins and outs of this market.