We all have suffered from falling average home prices since 2006 but change seems right around the corner. Fiserv, a market watch company, predicts that prices for real estate will start to stabilize this summer and expect they will rise about 4% each year for the next five years.

It appears as if investors will be a driving force behind this development and at this time Florida appears to amongst those states that show the strongest signs of housing recovery.

The market appears to be rebounding; we see this everyday now with so called “low-ball” offers. Where a while ago with the number of sellers grossly larger than the number of buyers offers of 25% and lower off the asking price might have gotten accepted these times seem to reach an end.

Economists say the housing market is at a turn-around point; homebuyers who want to catch a bargain do still have time. Home prices have fallen and home affordability for average families is higher than it was in years. Overall, big changes may lie ahead for the years to come and prices are expected to bounce back by next year.

PART 2 – Real Estate Broker and Agent – what do all those titles really mean?

Investing in Real Estate is usually one of the most complex endeavors and financial events in people’s lives. The investment can be a home to live in, or it can be income-producing property e.g. rental property or land. The term Real Estate refers to all land and everything that is on it or below it e.g. a house, or the oil underneath. The complexity and importance of the transaction requires the assistance of a trained professional the customer can trust and rely on.

Typically the person to assist in those kinds of transactions is a Real Estate Broker or Agent; their training and their knowledge of the market and the business makes them professionals and an asset for their customers. A real estate professional who is familiar with the area, local tax and zoning laws, plans for possible future developments will be able to find the best fit for his clients’ needs and budget.

Brokers and Real Estate Agents in the United States, other than in most European countries, are licensed and undergo structured education and a state exam. In order to keep their licenses up certain continuing education hours are required on a regular schedule. This regulation along with numerous other requirements and qualifications e.g. trustworthiness, organizational skills, good judgment, and honesty ensures that the customer or client can rely on working with a well trained professional.  Real Estate has, in recent years, become a profession that can also be studied in a university or college setting and realtors may hold associate or bachelor degrees.

Brokers are licensed to manage their own company, agents must work for a licensed Broker; they usually provide their services on contract basis and receive a portion of the sales commission from the Broker as he is the one who assumes responsibility for the business transaction. Brokers and Agents who are members in a local association and the National Association of Realtors are held to a strict code of ethics and receive formal training.

Brokers and Agents spend a significant amount of their time promoting their services, identifying and obtaining properties to sell or properties potential buyers may be interested in. Usually after contact with a client is established and the client’s interests and needs are clear the Agent or Broker will utilize the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), a real-time computerized data-bank to find the most suitable options on the market. Their educational background enables Broker and Agent to handle negotiations and contracts to secure the best deal for their customer.

The services of Broker and Agent are free for the buyer; it is the seller who is responsible for the commission which will be split between the listing and the selling Broker, who in turn will pay the Agent’s portion of the commission after the deal has been closed.

Please see below for our future topics:

1. One Hand and one Hand only: selling – buying – property management – vacation rental services √
2. Broker, Real Estate Agent – what do all those titles really mean? √
3. Buying a house: Should we build from scratch or buy an existing home?
4. Vacation home: What does the home need to be a success?
5. Vacation home inside and out: What features do we need?
6. Property Management: Taking care of your income property
7. Money makes the World go round
8. Advertisement: How to get renters
9. Cost and Taxes
10. Be organized – stick to the plan but have one first!
11. Vacation home: Taking care of the guests
12. Legal and not so legal things in the renal business
13. Service and Advise

(c) All the articles in this blog were written by Sabrina and Stephan Sanford in German and English language and may not be used for any commercial or private purposes in full or part without our permission.

PART 1 – One Hand and one Hand only: selling – buying – property management – vacation rental services

Sanford Realty, Inc. is a licensed Florida Real Estate Brokerage and can therefore – unlike Property Management Companies – take care of all your real estate needs. We take pride in assisting our clients in all aspects from buying to renting and advertising the property for vacation rental; property management is just another one of the services we offer. Our clients benefit from our long years of experience and our well established network of services. We are by your side from the start; we help you select a home that fits your purposes, we have plenty of tips and helpful hints, and we answer all your questions. This article will be released in parts; most details and facts apply to the City of Cape Coral.

How to find a Home?

Especially for Europeans, who don’t know their ways around Florida’s southwest too well; it can be difficult to pick a home destined to be a vacation home from the wide selection of houses on the market. It’s here where it pays to work with a Real Estate expert; a Real Estate professional will not only assist you with offers and contracts but also be your adviser in the early stages.

Location, Location, Location is the old but still true slogan in Real Estate; it’s even truer when the home is supposed to be rented out to paying guests. Many vacationers, boaters or not, prefer a waterfront home. Even waterfront has more than once choice: Fresh water canals, salt water canals which usually have access to the Gulf of Mexico, on a lake, or maybe even directly on the beach. There are many things to consider; if you buy a home on a salt water canal it may be fun to cruise through the canals for 2 hours to get out to the Gulf once or twice, but if you have to do it every time you want to take the boat out it may get a bit nerve-wrecking; this is why it’s important to not only consider a house because it’s Gulf Access, it’s also important in which part of the city it’s located. However, the closer to the Gulf the higher the cost, not only the initial sales price but also taxes and maintenance. Other guests don’t consider being on the water too important and are happy in a house off water with a nice tropical back yard especially if they wish more privacy.

A Real Estate Professional – most Europeans prefer to have someone who speaks their language – will start by collecting as much information about the clients dream home as possible. It’s important to know what the client is looking for in regards to location, desired size and age of the home, features, and price. With this important data stock at hand the Realtor will than start to search the Multiple Listing System for a match. Many potential buyers learn at this point that some of the prices and information distributed in some “do it yourself” Internet sources are not necessarily to be trusted. The MLS displays all real estate offered by a licensed Broker on the market in real time; the MLS is always up to date.  The potential buyer will then be presented with a list of homes that match the buyer’s requests enabling him or her to look at the house from the outside to see if the first impression is the right one. Depending on the criteria neighborhood, location, and “love at first sight” the potential buyers can work themselves through the list of possible fits. The favorites that remain on the list after the first “drive by” will then be look at more closely in what is called a “showing”. The showing will be scheduled by the Realtor who will be present for the walk though. One very important fact about buying a home is: don’t get hung up on color or landscaping; many things that hurt the eye in the first place are easy to fix. A new coat of paint is easy to apply but you can never change the location of the home!

To be continued soon …

Part 2 – Broker, Real Estate Agent – what do all those titles really mean?

Sometimes it’s not easy to find a house that prospective buyers really like; with a multitude of objects on the market people have become picky and expect additional features and the extra mile as standard. However, the first impression is the most important one; if a house looks unkempt from the outside chances are that the prospective buyer will turn around and continues looking for something more appealing.

This is called curb appeal and was covered in one of our previous blog postings. Just as a reminder: a seller should make sure the house appears well taken care of from the outside. How about paint? Does the driveway have oil stains? How is the lawn kept? Are the flowerbeds overgrown? Just look at your home with the eyes of a prospective buyer and think: what do I really see?

Is has not yet made its way to Florida yet, but there are already professional stagers in California and Colorado; a stagers job is to make your home presentable to buyers. For US$50.00 to 150.00 an hour a professional stager, most likely somebody with experience in interior architecture, will stage your house for the perfect presentation. However, if you want to safe the money here are some tips on what you can do staging your home?

First of all: pack up about 90% of your things; if the house is clustered with personal belongings and pictures of the family a prospective buyer won’t be able to picture the house as theirs. You want to present the home as if it were a model, depersonalized. The buyer might feel uncomfortable to see the previous owner’s book or CD collection; everything pointing towards the personality of the current owner should go into boxes or drawer out of the sight of a potential buyer. Religious item should be removed, too.

A simple but effective strategy is to simple pack away all things that indicate daily activities. Things like calendars or notebooks on the kitchen counter, toothpaste on the bathroom counter. Remember, the house should appear as if it were a model, get all personal items out of plain sight.

There is some planning involved: how about renting a storage unit for all the things that cluster up the house? How about new interior paint? If walls appear dull and are stained new neutral paint can work wonders and make a buyers decision easier. Does the house need serious clean up action? If yes, how about a professional cleaning service? Don’t forget the windows, a female buyer will have her eye on the windows and if those aren’t impeccable she might disregard the entire house as probably not clean enough.

Many potential buyers turn around right away if an unpleasant smell or odor hits their nose. You should therefore refrain from cooking cabbage dishes before a showing. It should be self-explanatory to either put kitty’s litter box in the garage for the time being or at least clean it and make sure there is no odor. A nice trick to make the house smell good is to bake cookies, cook cinnamon sticks in water, or just put candles or diffusers up.

In summary: a few simple things can accelerate the sale of your home and you, the seller, can make a lot of difference. A house that can show its true face by being free of clutter and personal belongings, that smells nice, and is clean from the inside and out enables the potential buyer to envision it as “his” house. A potential buyer, who has taken possession of the house in his mind, will soon be the proud owner.

The National Association of REALTORS® recently reported that foreign buyers spent $12.7 billion on Florida residential real estate last year. Within that buyer pool, 39 percent were Canadians, 8 percent were Brazilians, and 7 percent each were Britons and Venezuelans, with Germany, France,  Argentina, Colombia, Australia, Mexico and Spain driving the balance of  buyers.

Breaking News – Breaking News – Breaking News

2 U.S. senators, Schumer (N.Y.) and Lee (Utah) came up with an idea that could be of highest interest for our European investors. They proposed to implement a new resident visa category for retirees who invest $500,000 in U.S. Real Estate.

This proposal has many supporters who hope that an initiative like this would bring relieve to the still overloaded Real Estate market; especially Arizona and South Florida are expected to greatly benefit from a move that could get some of the excess inventory off the plate.

Even without a resident visa on the horizon foreign investors have the pot of gold at their doorstep: prices for residential Real Estate are at a very low point and for those who profit from the Euro vs Dollar gap the promises are even higher and fulfill every investor’s dream.

The Wallstreet Journal (10/20/11) states that international buyers are responsible for 5.5% of home sales in the Miami area while by end of March 2011 the amount of money international buyers spent on U.S. Real Estate was $82 billion for the last 12 months. This is a tremendous increase compared to $66 billon the year before.

I am sure you know what a stigmatized home is when you watched Amityville Horror. However, haunted houses are kind of rare in South Florida but seem be a little more common the closer you get to Maine and Stephen Kings lair.

Still joke aside, stigmatized properties are something that realtors and prospective buyers may encounter even here in Southwest Florida. Not in the form of a haunted house but in the form of a house that was the scene of e.g. a drug related arrest or a suicide. The home may not have any physical damage but would be considered stigmatized due to the psychological impact of what happened inside. Surprisingly enough even the home or premises where a famous person once lived may be called stigmatized.

Laws in regards to the sale of a so-called stigmatized property are clear. Chapter 689.25(1) Florida Statute states that it must not be disclosed in the real estate transaction that the home in question was the scene of a homicide or death since this is not a material fact. Failure to disclose this information will therefore not result in civil action since there is no basis for a lawsuit.

However, to avoid trouble and possible litigation despite those laws a real estate professional would be well advised to suggest to sellers to disclose such facts. I would also be wise to advise buyers to do their homework and consult sources of information like local libraries or the internet to find out more about the history of a certain property.

Laws differ from state to state; in California a real estate professional must disclose if the home was the site of a homicide or suicide within 3 years or the property being put on the market for sale or rent.

As we take time to reflect on the 10th Anniversary of a day none of us will ever forget, let us come together to grieve, to remember, to express our gratitude to those who demonstrated what it is to be a hero, and to pledge ourselves to live in honor of their bravery.

According to the National Association of Realtors pending home sales have increased in June; activity has increased in the West and South of the Nation while declining in the Northeast and Midwest. The Pending home sales index is based on contract signings and rose 2.4% in June. The average time frame between pending contract and actual closing was 2 months.

Yun, NAR chief economist says that tight credit and economic uncertainty are constricting the market. Experts expect existing home sales to total 5 million this year. They also report that Foreclosure activity is down in most U.S. metro areas. Some metropolitan areas even see a sharp drop as banks no longer move all that hard against home owners who are behind on their payments.

In 178 of the country’s 211 largest metropolitan areas Foreclosure activity dropped during the first 6 months of 2011. Some 1.7 million potential Foreclosures are being held at this time say statistics. Florida is amongst the areas that saw big declines in Foreclosure activity.

Experts report that house prices rose 0.8% in April. That’s not much but it’s a start and it’s a trend. It was the first month-to-month increase since May 2010.

For the 12 months between April 2010 and April 2011 U.S. home prices fell 5.7%, the index being 19.7% below it’s April 2007 peak.