Florida Home Buyers and Investors Blog

WOW, has it been this long since I posted to this blog.  Time seems to fly when you are busy.  We have has an incredible past few months, with developers liquidating assets and investors with cash ready to negotiate.  I'm actually kind of bummed out that the FEDs are bailing out the banks and financial institutions.  My bread and butter over the past 2 years has been in distressed properties.  As in all market changes, I'll adapt to the time about mid-09 when the bleeding stops and homes start actually rising in value.

Here in Florida, we have mountains and troughs that are much greater highs and lows than some markets, but we are also the first to start seeing recovery.   What I predict is Florida and Nevada properties starting to stabilize and the North East (NYC) markets take read dive as people flock back to the warm climates to get the deals before it's too late.

Nobody will know what the bailout will bring over the next few months, and we still have to factor in the presidential election and how that will impact the economy, but I assure you, people will continue to seek out bargains and deals will be done.

As a Realtor, I constantly have to adapt to the changes in market conditions, and have been very fortunate to not only survive the slow down, but thrive in it. 

All I hear at conferences and Realtor meetings are complaining agents about how bad things are.  When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  If not, go find something else to do.

State of the current market?  Well prices are way down.  Good for buyers, bad for sellers.  Financing is tight, except for Bank of America that will finance a corpse on life support.  Even Wachovia is out there pumping the money into mortgages.  That is a good sign, but some other lenders on the brink of disaster are more restrictive in their underwriting practices.

We recently had a pretty good bidding war on a bank owned (REO) house, listed at $239,000.  The home actually sold in 2 days at $249,000 with several unhappy bidders.  It was a great house and I knew it would go quick. 

As we get more information on the bailout package and how it effects the Real Estate market here in Florida, I'll try to be more proactive on my posts.