South Florida Rentals And Home Sales

Here is an example of what is happening in the South Florida real estate market. On Friday, I closed on a home for my clients. The house sold for $300,000 with 3% back. The VA appraisal came back at $375,000. One of the adjustments on the appraisal was a 5% deduction from the comps, because of declining home values. If not for this, the home would have appraised for $400,000.
We picked up the home for $75,000 under the appraised value. It is basically the same price that you would pay for a
3-2 here with 1800 Sq Ft. This home was a 4-3 with 2800 sq ft, under air with a pool.
Prices are still dropping. Too much inventory and not enough buyers. The buyers are at the low end. I do see a pick-up, but I think it will be awhile, before we see a stabilization. The South Florida homes market will pick up a bit this summer, when people move with school out.

I have been working with a few buyers whom have been looking for lower priced South Florida Homes. There is a lot of interest in this area. When there is a price change or a new listing at a realistic valuation, it immediately gets snapped up. What sits on the market are the homes where the sellers have not adjusted to the current market conditions.

  These sellers must come to the realization that they over payed and now the market has adjusted. Until they do, their property will sit. Hopefully they realize where the market is, what their home is worth and adjust their price accordingly.

I was calling Agents to set up appointments to show my client homes. Since we were going to be there after 7:00, I specifically asked if the house was vacant, since I did not want to disturb the tenants or owners. I met my client and headed out to view 6 residences.
Everything was going very smoothly until we got to the last residence. When we arrived at the last appointment, there was no lockbox. Actually, we really didn’t need one, since the door was wide open. Due to the lack of the lockbox, I did not enter the home.
A few minutes later a gentleman pulled up and asked what we were doing. I explained that we were there to show the house. He invited us in and we looked around. We left the home and I was talking to my clients in the driveway. Another car pulled up and a young lady pulled up and said “Get your cars out of my driveway” She then rudely asked “How long were you in my house?”
I explained the situation that the gentleman let us in and we did not enter until before that. She had no other comments and shut her window. We left the home and pulled up the street to talk. What I find funny about this is that the lady is trying to sell her home before it is fore-closed on and should be making very effort to accommodate Realtors trying to show the property. What she did was alienate my buyers and myself. They liked the house but after what occurred, they would not make an offer.

One factor that is very important when choosing a Realtor is if they are accessible. Today, I tried to set up appointments for one of my clients. We are going to go out tonight at 7:00 and look at some homes. I called seven Realtors at 12:00 to set up showings. It is now almost 6:00 and two of them still have not called me back. Their agencies do not have the showing info.
What this means is that their clients properties will not be shown. If an agent is going to take a listing, they should be available to provide showing instructions. Realtors should set the highest standards of service and they are not providing service if they are not available to have the properties shown.
Since I provide the highest level of service to my clients and I feel that they should see these properties, I will try to reschedule appointments. But how many other potential buyers miss seeing the property due to the listing agents lack of response.
In conclusion, I feel that your agent should always be available to you and to anyone interested in your property.

    I had written a previous post that most of the leads that I received on my other sites when people had to register to use the MLS search were of not much value.
     On this site, people are not required to register to search the MLS. Instead, There is a registration form on each page. Since the people register because they want to, the leads have proven to be much more valuable. I contact them by phone the next day and have goten much better results and interest.  

Timing the Real Estate market is as difficult as timing the Stock market. Both are influenced by outside factors which we have no control over.
The South Florida real estate rental and sales market are influenced by many factors.
  Interest rates
  Supply
  Demand
  Employment
  Weather
  Taxes
 Insurance
 World Events
some of these factors can be semi-controlled, others cannot. We must do our best to manipulate the factors that we can control to keep the market stable.