Real Estate Information

I am pleased to announce that I am continuing to expand our services in a market where most agents are leaving.   I have added a personal website for each individual listing priced over $250,000.   This will allow all potential buyers to see the video tour, Virtual Tour, floorplan, any relevant documents, all pictures, and all property information.

To view a sample one visit www.TheEdgeCondoUnit912.com.   This will be finished in the next 60 days and the owner needs to unload the unit due toi distress and will give it away.   Units like this last sold for over 500,000 and it has a direct water view.  This can be yours for only 5% deposit.

I am back from an information packed real estate conference in Arizona.  The annual STARPOWER (www.GoStarpower.com) conference features 200 of the world's top agents each selling between 50 and 600 homes per year gathering with 2000+ agents from around the country to discuss and share strategies for tackling the real estate market in today's fluctuating environment.

It appears that all over the US, market conditions are similar to South Florida.  Homes are sitting longer, some neighborhoods are declining, some are flat, and some are still appreciating.  In our local market, I just sold a unit at the Trump Palace in Sunny Isles Beach with list price of $1,275,000.  There were a few priced less in the last 5 months and now they are no longer available and the inventory available has shrunk and prices are still going up.  Icon Brickell has reported a strong spring having sold 70 units in the last few months.   The Point Orlando where I purchased has also been selling units in the 500k range in tower 3, where the first two towers were in the high 300s to low 400s and are nearing completion.   However, some buildings like Ocean Palms in Hollywood Beach and Jade in Miami are seeing many foreclosures and tumbling prices for prices that cannot be sustained.

Listen to my podcast interview for the month of July coming up in the next 24 hours and dont forget to check out our special deals not available in the MLS at www.DealsNotInMLS.com .

Are you seeing any neighborhoods where prices are either falling or appreciating?  Let me know so I can reseach and post.

The Florida Association of Realtors(R) just reported that the Legislature has adjourned Sine Die at 6:28 pm today bringing the 2007 Special Session on Property Tax Reform to a close.  Both the House and Senate passed all three bills making up the property tax reform package.  The package includes a statutory rollback and cap of property tax rates, a proposed constitutional amendment creating a "super homestead exemption" and a bill designating the upcoming January 29, 2008 presidential preference primary as the date for Floridians to vote on the "super homestead exemption" amendment.  

 

 

Eight days ahead of schedule, lawmakers ended the special session at 6:26 p.m. shortly after the House, by a party-line 74-43 vote, passed the proposed constitutional amendment for the tax exemptions.

 

The outcome of the two-step plan was largely a foregone conclusion Thursday morning, with only one real question remaining: Would Senate Democrats agree to put amendment on the Jan. 29 ballot?

 

They did, despite the urging of Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller. He wanted the proposed constitutional amendment on the November 2008 general election ballot, figuring more independent voters and Democrats are likely to show then and vote against it.

 

To make the amendment more palatable to voters, Republicans changed it so it wouldn't force homeowners into the new tax system and lose their Save Our Homes tax cap.

 

That would reduce the five-year anticipated tax savings to about $9 billion, down from $16 billion.

 

Regardless, Republicans said the point was made, and the cuts are real.

 

''We're putting up a stop sign for local government,'' said Rep. Frank Attkisson, a Kissimmee Republican.

 

Democrats in both chambers bashed the constitutional amendment, saying it primarily helps homeowners -- rather than owners of other types of real estate -- and cuts too much from schools: $7.2 billion over four years.

 

Nevertheless, House Democrats joined the vote for the Jan. 29 election date, cast a party-line vote for the amendment itself and a near-unanimous vote for the rollback-and-cap plan. Rep. Jim Waldman, a Coconut Creek Democrat, cast the lone dissent in the 117-1 vote.

 

Voting no is ''the right thing to do. What they're proposing is to devastate local government,'' the freshman lawmaker said, calling the Legislature ''hypocritical'' for raising school property-taxes in next year's budget while cutting those taxes for local government.

 

Said Senate President Ken Pruitt: ``If [local governments] allowed it to get to that point, that a $15 billion hit -- or even a $30 billion hit -- is going to bankrupt your community and projects are going to stop and this is the end of the good life as we know it, then you've got some real explaining to do to your local constituents.''

 

Sen. Mike Haridopolos, a Melbourne Republican, acknowledged the proposal isn't ``perfect. You'll never get one of those out of Tallahassee.''

 

But he pointed out the plan gives deep tax relief, helps solve the portability issue and ultimately leaves voters in charge of approving the constitutional amendment.

 

Republicans also changed the plan to allow people to keep their existing protection under the Save Our Homes provision.

 

Originally, the proposed constitutional amendment sought to phase out Save Our Homes and force homeowners from enjoying its protections if they benefited from the new system. The new system would supersize homestead exemptions, giving homeowners a 75 percent write-off on their first $200,000 in market-based ''just value'' and an additional 15 percent write-off on the next $300,000.

 

Earlier in this week's special session on property taxes, Democrats made much of the fact that Save Our Homes would disappear for some, but that their tax-assessment increases could be greater in future years.

 

But Democrats opposed the fix when it was brought up Thursday morning.

 

Sen. Ted Deutch, a Boca Raton Democrat, said the new proposal exemplified all that was wrong with the tax bill's secretive, last-minute changes sprung on the public. Deutch pointed out that no one knew what the cost of the fix would be.

 

But Republican Sen. Don Gaetz of Fort Walton Beach marveled at the ''role reversal,'' with Democrats fighting something they once appeared to support. Earlier in the day, he said Democrats just opposed tax reform regardless of what was proposed.

 

With the exception of Waldman, Gaetz was wrong. Democrats voted for the $15.6 billion in tax cuts from the rollbacks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is an article I just got from our daily news feed from Planet realtor.

ORLANDO, Fla. – May 31, 2007 – A top Florida economist has declared the housing slump a done deal. “It will take another 18 months or so before closing volumes reach more normal levels, but the worst is behind us,” says Hank Fishkind.

Fishkind says the turn-around is important to everyone, attributing housing troubles to the recent 75 percent drop in GDP (gross domestic product). The current 1.3 percent rate is down from the historic 4 percent pace, but Fishkind says that dropoff would go away completely when housing simply returns to normal levels.

 “With (the number of home) starts below (the number of) closings, the inventory of new but unsold homes is slowly being absorbed,” says Fishkind. “Sales of existing homes are the best leading indicator for national housing markets. April sales were off sharply, falling below 6 million at an annual rate. At these levels it will take 8.4 months to sell all the homes that are for sale. However, prices remain stable. And the sales levels, while down this month, were up sharply earlier in the year.

“What all of this means, is that we have seen the worst for housing markets,” Fishkind says.

Nearly 150,000 hightech jobs were added in the US in 2006 with California and Florida leading the way. Florida added 10,900 tech jobs.  This was a 4% increase which was ahead of California.   

Florida did experience losses in jobs in the housing sector, but according to the Mortgage Bankers Association report on Housing Related Employment, if housing even recovers slightly, then the net job growth related to housing should be neutral or slightly positive in 2008.

The commerce department showed that in April, sales on new homes jumped 16.2 percent from the previous month.  The estimates were only 0.2 precent by economists.   This started a rally on Wall Street and the Dow Jones surged by .55% to 13,604.80.  

Our in house pending sales numbers for April should be ready next week.  We are hoping for a fourth straight month of increased activity in the resale market.

 

Just a quick update on the property tax issue.  Looks like we will have to wait until June 12-22 for the next special session   Another idea that is being proposed is the first $300,000 of a homestead's assessed value would have an 80% exemption, the next $700,000 would have 70%, and over $1million would have a 30% exemption.

As we are all experiencing, the current Homestead Exemption is only good if you have lived in the property for a while.  Once you move, you pay the full taxable value.  This is one of the reasons why the houses around $500,000 are suffering because there are no move up buyers who can afford to pay the tax increase.

The Pavlik Group is proud to announce that after months of work, we have launched a brand new state of the art real estate website: www.LuxuryLifestyleMiami.com. 

What makes this different to all the other websites out there?   There are many reasons:

1) Condo Search:  If you are only interested in a particular condo, then you can search by city and the actual condo and see only listings in that particular condo building.  You can even save your search and be alerted every time a new property matches your criteria so you can beat out other buyers to hot new listings.

2) Map Search:   Do you only like a certain area?  The map search allows you to look at a map, select your criteria, and like magic the condos pop up directly on the map.  You can zoom in and zoom out to see the location, the neighborhood, and much more.

3) Easy access to our Seller Services.   Want to know exactly what we will do to sell your home?  Click on our Marketing Plan Section and it will itemize all our services.

4) Want to know what is going on in the real estate market?  Our direct news feeds from various news sources pipes in to the home page daily!

5) Mortgage Info:  Stay on top of all the interest rates, stock information and more, updated daily!

6) Want to buy that luxury home at a huge discount?  Visit our Foreclosure section and automatically download today's list of all Bank Owned Property.

These are just some of the featured items with much more coming soon!!!!  Stay tuned.