Canadian buyers are very active in the real estate market here in Southwest Florida. At this time, approximately 7% of our website traffic originates in Canada and over 10% of our transaction in the last year have been with Canadian buyers.
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Long popular on the West Coast, creating a zen area in a home or yard is catching on in Southwest Florida. The Zen movement has Buddhist roots emanating from China and utilizes meditation to attain enlightenment. ABC-7 reports that a German shepherd named Snoop is being trained to identify Chinese drywall. The Realtor Association of Fort Myers and the Beach released November 2009 home sales numbers which highlight significantly increased levels of activity in our market. These figures reinforce the sentiment of our team which has been extremely busy with second home buyers looking to take advantage of our reduced home prices. Highlights from the November 2009 [...]
The Bradenton Herald reports that Chinese drywall saga is entering a crucial phase: Within the next few weeks, officials expect to determine how much of a fire hazard, if any, the contaminated product poses. They’ll also have a better idea of how much the drywall contaminates the air inside affected homes. A federal judge [...] The Sarasota Herald Tribune reports on short sale flipping fraud that is becoming more prevalent here in Southwest Florida. In a nutshell, real estate professionals and investors are teaming up to by undervalued distressed properties from banks and then immediately flipping the property to a new buyer at a hefty increase. The short sale flippers often [...] The NY Times has an informative article about seller expectations and the consequences of listing a home for sale at an unrealistic price point. In our market, distressed properties are the baseline which are setting the pricing bar across most communities and sectors. If you are selling in a community that has short sale or foreclosures, [...] With the Loonie at parity with the US Dollar and across the board price reductions, many Canadians are now considering an investment in Southwest Florida real estate. The Canadian Press reports that the currency equality is very enticing but shouldn’t be the key driver in your decision to buy real estate in Florida. Some of [...] The Naples News reports that single-family home re-sales in the Fort Myers area are up 120% for the first nine months of 2009 vs. the same period last year. In the January thru September period this year, 12,526 single-family homes were sold, up from 5,727 in the same period of 2008. This dramatic increase in sales [...] Over the past few years, I have been rather critical of the Save Our Homes Amendment as I have historically believed that it placed an unfair burden on the lifeline of Southwest Florida……..second home owners. It has always seemed very unfair to me that second homeowners, who were down here on a seasonal basis and not [...] NBC-2 reports that 25% of all homes sold in Collier County are to foreigners. Attracting new buyers with exchange-rate goosed dollars to the market is truly the best way for us to pull this housing market up and out of the downturn. Over the past year, the top foreign countries for visitors to [...] Here is the latest news regarding Chinese Drywall which has been found in hundreds of homes and condos in Southwest Florida. It is good to see the publicly traded builders stepping up and taking responsibility for this problem. Publicly traded builders are being grilled by analysts about their liability in using defective Chinese drywall. Miami-based Lennar Corp. [...] The Star provides a how to guide for Canadians interested in buying distressed Florida real estate. The Fort Myers area is popular with Canadian buyers. Right now, Fort Myers foreclosures and Cape Coral foreclosures are selling at highly discounted prices. With the strong Canadian Dollar, the opportunity to invest in Florida real estate has never been [...] The NY Times details the current state the Florida real estate market. The highlight of the piece for me was comparing the Florida real estate market with Mickey Rouke’s character in the movie The Wrestler. Change was often discussed during the 2008 election and after the financial meltdown, but Florida these days often resembles the character [...] According to a recent USA Today article, only 23% of short sale deals actually ever close. This figure came from a February 2009 survey by Campbell Communications of 1,300 Realtors. More than 90% of the agents cited slow responses from the lender as the reason that short sales were lost. These figures certainly jive [...] The economic downturn has left some slips empty at the Cape Coral Yacht Club. If you are looking for a slip in Southwest Florida, now is a good time to jump on these openings. For those looking for a dock directly behind their home, there are a wide varitey of Cape Coral gulf access homes [...] The Chinese drywall problems plaguing SW Florida were highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal article. Anyone looking at purchasing a SW Florida homes built in the 2002-2006 timeframe should absolutely have a housing inspection performed by a building inspector with experience with Chinese drywall detection. Lee County home sales soared to 1,705 in June 2009, up from 1,417 in May 2009. Additionally, sales are up 137% from the 719 homes sold in June 2008. The median price of these June sales was $87,900, a slight drop from the May median of $88,500. Distressed properties that were either foreclosures or [...] Maybe they should start using Becky in front of the $1m Gulf Harbour homes that aren’t moving! For those of you considering dipping your toe in the Florida real estate market, Jim Cramer believes that we are at the bottom. The supporting logic behind this proclamation is that builders stopped new construction in Florida two years ago and inventory is being absorbed by our continued low interest rates. Cramer suggests [...] Now that we are a few years removed from a major hurricane, the News-Press reports that insurance carriers are taking a renewed interest insuring homes in Southwest Florida. These reductions [...] Time Magazine covers the topic of property tax expectations for those who have recently purchased foreclosed property in Florida. In Florida, taxable valuation is based upon average values of homes in a given neighborhood, and not based on individual transaction values. What this means is that although you may have found a screaming [...] The Chicago Tribune reports that experts are predicting a surge in the number of foreclosures due the expiring of government programs instituted by the Obama administration. Lenders have delayed foreclosure actions to get as many borrows as possible into federally sponsored programs including the Home Affordable Modification Program. The Lee County Court System created a “Rocket Docket” to expeditiously work through the 30,000 pending foreclosure cases. To date, the court has worked through approximately 6,000 cases and the backlog of foreclosures is now under 24,000 cases. If you are looking for a deal on a Southwest Florida foreclosure home, here are resources that [...] With the Watermen-Pinnacle site on Daniels Parkway moving forward for the location of the new Red Sox spring training facility, Red Sox fans might be curious to learn more about the area. Many are already familiar with Daniels Parkway in Fort Myers as it is one of the primary access roads from the airport to much [...] There has recently been a great deal of euphoria regarding the real estate market here in Southwest Florida. A recent News-Press article titled Southwest Florida sees light at the end of housing tunnel cites recent home sales figures to suggest the worst is behind us. While I agree that the clearing out of inventory [...] One of Florida’s major title insurance companies, Attorneys Title Insurance, announced that they will no longer insure transactions involving a short sale option contract. A short sale option contract is a technique being used by opportunists to buy a short sale from a bank at below market value and then flip to a true buyer at [...] According to figures recently released by Realty Trac, the Cape Coral – Fort Myers area experienced a drop in the number of foreclosure filings in May 2009. There were 1,803 filings in the region in May 2009, down from 1,902 filings in April 2009. With this drop the Lee County area fell from first to [...] The most expensive home to sell in Lee County Florida during May 2009 was a Captiva gulf-front single family home located at 953 S Seas Plantation Rd, Captiva. This South Seas Resort home is 4,530 SF and features 5 BR and 5 BA on a .93-acre beachfront lot. The selling price was $4.912M [...] According to Preliminary reports by the Lee County Property Appraiser, property values in Lee County have on average dropped by 25% over the last year. The key driver is that over 80% of our arms length transactions have been distressed sales. |
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