Making it a December to Remember

Ok, here's a quick quiz for you:
What happens to the real estate market in December?

a) Most people who were thinking of selling say, "eh, wait until after the New Year"
b) A bunch of people already listed say, "holy moly, we gotta sell!"
c) A bunch of smart buyers say, "Let's go find the people in choice b) !"
d) Most Realtors lock up their offices and start holiday shopping

The answer? ALL OF THE ABOVE! That's right, depending on a personal circumstances, many conflicting things can all be happening at the same time. It's sort of like a room full of people with a bunch of different ideas on how to make the party better, some want to leave, some want to stay, and some who don't even know they're at a party at all.

Let's look at each one. a): Lots of people are on vacation and out of town, true. But lots of people from up north are out of town, and on vacation, here. It's not terribly unusual for folks--especially older ones, coming down here to visit their kids or grandkids, and either retired or getting close to it, come down, and get hip to the idea that wearing t-shirts and shorts out on the back patio in December is pretty nice. So they combine a holiday visit with a real estate search. Seen it happen.
Now, for b): These are people who had some very specific plans: put the house up for sale in the beginning of summer, because, honey, that's when all the buyers are out. Move over the Christmas break and be in the new house in time to put up the tree/menorah/whatever.  But, it didn't sell over the summer, and now, they are six months in. They've reduced the price, or they're listing just expired, and they are more or less ripe for the picking. They are more flexible on price than they were in July.

c): People who wanted to move before the holidays, looking for deals, want to find the people above, and get the deal they can brag about at happy hour.

d): The Realtors who treat every day in December up to the 25th like a regular work day are the ones who will be serving the b) and c) people (and all their clients). Those Realtors, yours truly included, will also be trying to get the attention of the a) people, to tell them all about snowbirds who are flying down here with their checkbooks in hand.
All this said, it's still a sellers' market in most residential, single family home markets. I've been working with buyers in the Hammocks and Country Walk area, and the pickings are slim indeed. It's the paralysis many people get because they don't know the market, and the Realtor they are used to talking to isn't answering the phone.
Moral of the story- make sure your Realtor isn't one of the choice d) kind.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS to everyone! :)

The Turkey Hangover- is it real?

I hope you all had a joyous Thanksgiving holiday.
It's a holiday still, on this beautiful south Florida Friday, but for real estate agents, it can be either/or. I'm showing two homes later today. I mean, you just don't want to miss the opportunities, so while the rest of the family is lounging and chilling, I have to make sure I'm available if there is a warm showing or an offer, and today I have both on the table.
Speaking of tables: there is this conventional wisdom thing going around that eating turkey makes you sleepy, because it contains tryptophan, an amino acid that triggers melatonin and seratonin production, and hence, you end up in snoozeville. So I did some quick research (regrettably I did this on Google, so I'm sure I'll be getting ads for turkey now until next Thanksgiving), and found that, an article in Time magazine from 2016, turkey contains about the same amount of tryptophan as other meats. What makes us sleepy after that big Thanksgiving meal is that we usually eat too much turkey. And mashed potatoes. And green bean casserole, and stuffing, and pecan pie. At our house, it all started with deviled eggs, mushrooms stuffed with crabmeat, and cheese and crackers. And, of course, wine, scotch, and a wide variety of libations. So, blaming the the sleepiness on turkey, is actually somewhat of a joke.
My two sons live in Washington state, so unfortunately they couldn't make it here. My stepkids were here though, and we had a bunch of friends over--sixteen of us, all told. Lots of tryptophan being ingested. Amino acids and neurotransmitters notwithstanding, we had a wonderful time, and, as usual, we have a ton of leftovers, mostly desserts. Half of a huge cheesecake, an apple pie that went untouched, a red velvet cake, and three whole pecan pies occupy a large portion of our kitchen counter.
So my real estate strategy for consulting with sellers--I'm coming to your home with a dessert of some kind. I'm serious. Here's the December 2019 end-of-year real estate special: list your home, get a pie. What a deal, right?
Enjoy the holidays!

LOCATION, LOCATION....

...Ah, you know the rest. Right: LOCATION.

This is where price points are cooked up. Realtors don't make prices, and neither do sellers. Instead, it's this magical process called supply and demand, and it's ultimately buyer behavior that determines the price of homes.

I get questions like this all the time:
1) How's the market? (the most common)
2) How much is the average 3/2 single family home?

Here's how I answer them:
1) It depends on where you are talking about
2) It depends on where are looking - how much are you pre-approved for?

I could answer those questions in other ways too: Ah, the market is great! Ah, the market is a bit slow. Or, an average 3/2 costs you $700,000. WHHAT?? Are you crazy?
No, I'm not crazy. An average 3/2 in Coral Gables, near one of the golf courses, will run you at least that much. Now, you want an average 3/2 in Homestead? I can probably find you one in the high 200s. So--WHERE do you want to be, and WHAT is your budget?

I love it when people say, "Oh, those houses are so overpriced. They're not worth that much."
News flash, real estate fans: if buyers are paying that much for them, that is exactly what they are worth.
It's kind of like NFL players. "They're overpaid." Are they? Not really, because the public, with our hunger for professional football, and all the purchasing we do of Bud Lite, and Corona and all the other sponsors, pay for them. We provide enough support to pay for the players, the coaches, the owners, the stadiums, and the league commissioner. The day we stop paying for it, those "overpaid" players will be paid less. Stephen A. Smith, the passionate, insightful NFL commentator, said it well. "You are worth  what you bring in value." If you are attracting fans to the stadium, and motivating them to buy because of your performance, you are worth more. People don't come to games to watch the punter. They come to watch the guy who scores touchdowns. That's why punters don't make tens of millions of dollars a year, but quarterbacks and great receivers who catch touchdown passes, do.

Consumers drive the market. If suddenly, a huge theme park on the scale of Disney was built near Homestead, what do you think would happen? Would other businesses, like restaurants and hotels, spring up around it? What would happen to home prices then? I guarantee you this, you wouldn't find a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home in the area for $275,000 any more. You might be paying closer to Coral Gables prices.


What you want for your house, and what the market will give you for your house, are often two very different things. I want to pay $25 to go see an NFL game at the stadium, not $100. But the market, driven by all my fellow consumers, including me, won't allow that to happen.

In sports, it's about your performance: what you do.
In real estate, it's all about the where. 

Stuff that MATTERS

"Show me a person's friends, and I'll tell you what kind of person they are"

You've heard this before, right?
In this day and age, I think you could say "show me a person's social media posts..." and achieve pretty close to the same conclusion. I don't spend a lot of time on social media, but because today's business world requires some presence online, at least, I make it part of my schedule to post things of interest to people. In the process, I see other people's posts, tweets, articles, and pictures, and I find it fascinating. It gives you a window into what people care about, what actually matters to them.

It's amazing to me how many people spend so much time on themselves. The amount of selfies, posts about how people believe, and who they think they are, is overwhelming. There seems to be so much focus on "look at me, I am ______ (fill in the blank)" - and that blank space could be anything from an emotion, to a sexual identity, what that person wants, materially. So many people seem to be screaming for acceptance; and hey, I get it, there are people who legitimately have been discriminated against, and are angry/empty/frustrated about it. Been there. I've been discriminated against too.
But it doesn't define me. In fact, how I look, or where I came from, or who my parents were, or who I'm attracted to, what has happened to me, or what I feel I "identify as" doesn't define me, either. It might be part of a tapestry (thank you, Carole King) that makes up my personal history, but that's not what people end up valuing in me as a friend, family member, or professional.
What defines me, in the eyes of others, is what I DO. In other words, my actions, my deeds, my capacity to care and serve other people, is what defines me, and not by design, either. I believe that, whether we like it or not, what we do and how we serve others creates this thing called our character, and that is what defines us. I see a lot of people angry, and depressed, about a wide variety of things.

Want to get happier? Forget yourself for a while. Start doing things for others, and caring about them. See if you can provide a solution, or even just an ear to listen to their pain. Get over yourself, as the saying goes.
Be proud of who you are, sure. Feel good about how you identify, and what culture you came from. All well and good. But when I meet you, I really and truly could not care less about any of those things. Show me how you treat people--show me you are a person that is reliable, honest, committed to doing what you say you will do--show me that your character is its own universe of love, care, and selflessness, and only then will I be interested in all the cool details. Only then will I want to to serve you--only then can I love you.

Thanks for listening :)

Fall? What's falling?

Middle school essay question:
What does FALL mean to you?

That's easy...here's what it doesn't mean: it doesn't mean falling leaves, and it doesn't  mean falling prices. Oh god, you just knew there would be a real estate segue in here somewhere, didn't you?

I'm looking at the MLS this morning (see below) and there have been over one thousand new listings over the weekend. Almost 900 of the existing unsold properties reduced their prices...holy moly...so maybe somethings are falling. We are 51 days from the end of 2019, and I think what we are seeing is a lot of people who have been on the market for a while, whose goal was to sell before the end of the year, are getting more than a little antsy.

Before it was, "Whenever we sell is fine..."  and "We're not in a rush..." -- now it's become, "Ohhh boy we need to get this thing sold and get out of here."

What happens when you're not selling? A lot. Look at a situation where the sellers have already bought their new place and have moved. The faded "for sale by owner sign" has to be re-inked, and,

- the grass has to be cut

- the A/C has to stay on, or mold will start growing -so there's still an electric bill

- the mortgage still has to be paid (um, that's TWO mortgages now, isn't it?)
- the taxes have to paid

- the insurance has to be paid, and the the insurance has gone UP because the property is empty

- the house has to be shown, and that means leaving work, driving from the new house, or...

Maybe, just maybe..it's time to talk to a professional. 

Sooner than later, before the price has to be the only thing falling, this fall. 

*******
It's a beautiful Monday! The humidity backed off, the Dolphins won yesterday, and we are one day closer to my trip to Seattle, to see my new grandson for the first time.  What's fun and exciting in your life? Share it with me here, I'd love to know.
See you on the next post...Wednesday, probably? Yeah, probably Wednesday.

Halloween....season?

It's all starting to run together. No, I'm not talking about your memory of past events. I'm talking about the reality of current events--holidays, anyways.
Do you remember when Halloween was one day? When candy went on sale maybe 2-3 weeks before October 31st, and you didn't see much about it until a week or two before? Now, Halloween decorations, costumes, and candy is in stores by October 1st. They have successfully created a Halloween season. How about when Halloween was just for kids, remember that? Well, maybe you're not old enough to remember those days, but before the retail industry hijacked Halloween (and Thanksgiving, a discussion we'll have for another day) adults bought candy, and a pumpkin maybe a week before the big night. You carved the pumpkin with Mom and/or Dad's help, which was part of  all the fun, and you put it out on your front porch a night or two before Halloween, maybe not even until Halloween evening. Now, adults are expected to dress up. Your workplace isn't cool unless they have a costume day, or even a costume party. Look I'm all about having fun, but this used to be a kids' thing.
(Here I go, on my rocking chair), We kids went out, in groups much of the time, and walked the neighborhood, trick or treating. Many houses really got into the "scare" part of Halloween--the homeowners might decorate with scary stuff, or even playing the role of a vampire, or a witch, or ghoul or something. I remember some of these adults having some pretty damned scary stuff going on.
One guy, a few blocks from my house in South Miami, wore a black trench coat and hat, and wrapped up his face in Ace bandage, and wore a pair of mirrored sunglasses. He would stand in his driveway, perfectly still, and we would carefully creep up to his porch and get our candy, at which point he would lunge at us, and we would all run away, shrieking. Great fun!
Another woman we knew had a spooky looking yard with big trees, and low-hanging oak branches. She dressed up as a witch and had a big black cauldron in the side yard, with dry ice inside, so there was this mist coming out of it. She would stir it with a big stick and cackle was we walked up to her porch. This was spooky stuff for little kids!
I suppose people think that the streets are too dangerous these days, and traffic-wise, they're right. But kids are actually safer, in my opinion, today. There is less of a chance of them getting kidnapped or attacked. No one had cell phones back in the day. No one had cameras on their houses, or even their businesses, either. I really believe that a group of 3 or 4 kids trick or treating together are way safer than they were in the 60's or 70's.
Not one kid came to our house last Thursday night. They were all at the community's Trick or Treat event. A couple of thousand people came to Pinecrest's "Track or Treat" at Greer Park. And so it goes, throughout the county, and, I presume, throughout our country.
On Tuesday, which was October 29th, I went to a CVS, and all over the front of the store were Christmas decorations: Nutcracker soldiers, wreaths, Santas.... Christmas! Are you kidding me?
I'm sure kids have fun during the holidays, but I think the ones who really have a great time are the merchants, when they see their profit and loss statements.

The Real Deal about South Florida Real Estate

Recently, the Real Deal magazine, which covers significant real estate happenings and trends nationwide, held a forum focusing on real estate investment in South Florida. It's a 38-minute video, and here is what I got out of it, and found to be of greatest value, hopefully for you:

- Long-term investors don't worry about up or down markets. Translated, they don't even worry about price. Investor Michael Shvo says it well, "If you build something special in the right location, you're not competing with something in Brickell or in Wynwood. I don't lose sleep at night over undersupply or oversupply."

- We are one of the most attractive places in the country for real estate investors. We have lower taxes, no state income tax. Our real estate growth is ahead of the rest of the nation. 
- Lissette Calderon stresses that you have to know your market and who you are going to be serving. She also gave us some words of wisdom on financing, which was echoed by the rest of the panel. "We are taking a conservative approach. We come in with a lot more equity, to minimize the amount of money being financed."

- Florida continues to be one of the fastest-growing states in America. Not everyone will be able to buy, and so owning rental properties is a sound strategy.

- Florida is unique in that development projects can be funded with buyer deposits. Other states do not have this luxury. Increased equity helps protect the investors against risk. 

I've attached the entire video here in case you want to hear everyone's comments. They provide a lot of insight into the way investing works--it doesn't matter whether you have millions of dollars or not. The principles are pretty much the same.

Watch: The Real Deal- The next wave of South Florida Development

Stay tuned to this blog for more real estate news and information you can use! What would like to see more of?


-

All Manners of Ghouls and Goblins

Not talking about Halloween here. I'm talking about the wide variety of shysters, fraudsters, and other pond-water denizens that wiggle, ooze, and scurry about the streets of South Florida, trying to separate you from your hard-earned money.
There's this thing called "wholesaling" in real estate, and it goes like this. A regular unlicensed person can sign a contract with a seller to buy their house, and put in the contract the contract is "assignable." In fact, the standard As-Is real estate contracts have a checkbox for it. What that means is, Buyer A can sign with Seller A, and then assign the contract to Buyer B, who might want the house. So Buyer A will typically "buy" seller A's house for, say, $200,000. Then he sells the contract to Buyer B, for a fee--that can be $6000, $8000, whatever it is. This is sometimes done with a "double-closing" : Buyer A buys the place for $200,000, sells it the same day of closing to Buyer B for $208,000. Get it?
And it's all legal, IF, and only IF Buyer A had the property under contract.

What the sleazebag wholesalers are doing is identifying a distressed property (typicall) advertising it on Craigslist without ever having met the seller, and then when an interested party comes along, he approaches the seller and says, "Hey want to sell your property to me? I'm interested!" They sign the contract with the assignment clause, and then he takes an assignment fee from the interested party and washes his hands of the whole thing.
There is one big problem with that process-- it's a FELONY. What the sleazebag wholesaler has done is practice real estate with a license, by marketing a property and taking a fee for selling it. So what? Well, I along with thousands of other real estate agents had to pass a test, pay a fee, pay a broker to work with them, and a bunch of other hoops to represent ourselves with professionalism to the public. SO, Sleazebag Wholesaler, so do you.
Why don't I, as a licensed person, wholesale on the side to make a few extra bucks? I cannot. The law requires that I get paid for real estate activities exclusively from my broker.
I happily report these thugs to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. I hope that before you sign ANYTHING from anyone with regards to real estate, you call a lawyer, and me--preferably both.
Thanks for reading! Your comments are always welcome!

MAIDEN VOYAGE! Welcome aboard!

I'm excited to launch this blog today, so we--that's you and I--can discuss real estate in South Florida. This is something near and dear to me, as I've been working with sellers, buyers, and investors here in the greater #Miami (and Broward) area since 2005 to help them achieve their dreams.
I hope you enjoy the market updates; let me know what you'd like to see more or less of, please. I love the feedback!

In the video I posted on LinkedIn this morning, I shared some #mortgage data that's important to all of us, especially if you are buying. The mortgage rate is "on the move" according to an article in #HousingWire this morning.

Remember, I encourage and love the feedback.
I love even more to meet with people, hear their challenges, and see if I can help, whether that results in business for me or not. I am in this industry because I enjoy helping people succeed.