The Home Blog

Signs of Reaching the Bottom in Florida

Do you want the good news or the bad news first? The good news is that sales of existing homes are up. The bad news is the reason sales are up is that prices have fallen so far. I guess it depends on if you're a buyer or a seller in this market whether the skies are partly cloudy or just ominous.

Sun Sentinel: “Sales of existing homes rose 47 percent in Broward County in March, to 680 from 463 a year ago, the Florida Association of Realtors said Thursday. The median price plunged 30 percent, to $219,500 from $311,400 last year. In Palm Beach County, sales rose 20 percent, to 685 from 572 a year ago. The median price plunged 29 percent, to $228,100 from $320,200 last year.”

News Chief: “Sales of existing homes in Polk County were up again in March, making it six months out of the past seven that gains have been shown in year-to-year comparisons, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. ‘These sales (in Polk County) are a lot of first-time home buyers and a lot of FHA (Federal Housing Administration) loans that had gone away for a while, as in not popular, but now they are,’ said Sarah Armstrong of ERA Merline Parker Realty of Winter Haven. ‘It is because it is less money down - only 3.5 percent down on an FHA loan than on a conventional bank loan. They are not as strict as they used to be.’”

Orlando Sentinel:“University of Central Florida economics professor Sean Snaith said he didn’t expect values to snap back quickly because many homeowners will try to sell once the prices begin to revive. ‘You need to see these price declines start to level off before you could see a return of that market,’ Snaith said. ‘Right now, we’re clearing some of the casualties from the battlefield. . . . That’s why we’re seeing some of these pretty gaudy prices.’”

Herald Tribune: “‘I don’t think this is the time to start stomping around going, ‘Ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead,’ and the foreclosure problem is over,’ said Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Competitiveness. ‘Until I see prices level out, I’m not going to look at inventory levels to say we’re on the other side of the crisis.’”

Rental Market not as good as thought

Many thought that if there would be one beneficiary of the housing market crash it would be apartment owners. Turns out, no so much:

When the foreclosure crisis hit Las Vegas, many expected apartment-complex owners to be the beneficiaries because those out-on-the-street homeowners needed to live somewhere.

But the reality is that the shadow rental market of homes and condominiums continues to put pressure on apartment-complex owners, whose vacancies are increasing. They must offer incentives and cut rents to lure tenants.

All the foreclosures on homes and condos have flooded the rental market with properties and that won't end until the housing market recovers.

(via)

Signs of Hope in Florida

This weekend I heard an interesting story on NPR. It's now up on their website and worth a read. Part of the story talks about how some in Florida are seeing a little rebound in the housing market.

Emerging Signs Of Hope

But those who follow the real estate market here are starting to see some signs of hope. Brett Ellis, a real estate agent with RE/MAX, sums it up: "Sales are picking up and the inventory is going down."

The increase in sales has been especially notable in Cape Coral. The Florida Association of Realtors reported a 43 percent increase in January over last year's sales in Lee County.

In his office, Ellis says the increase has been more than 70 percent, and half of those sales are taking place in Cape Coral. It's an upward trend that's been taking shape over the past year. After a devastating 2007, prices began dropping in 2008 and the market responded.

"Buyers got their confidence up, their moxie up in 2008," Ellis says. "They recognized good value; they jumped on it. The banks responded, everyone responded, the market moved and the transactions started flowing again — even the short sales and the foreclosures."

I was down in that area this last weekend and can report that signs of a recovery are present. The stores and malls I drove by were mostly open and many busy. The beach was crowded with tourists. Sure many are probably locals out for their 'staycation' but business appeared to be hopping.

Checking in on Las Vegas' Housing Market

It's now been four plus years since I moved from the Las Vegas area to Orlando. Turns out that was a good choice, if only marginally. I thought I'd take a look back at how things are going in that Desert Paradise. A recent article in the Las Vegas Journal Review takes a hard look at the current trends in Real Estate in Las Vegas. It's not pretty.

Dennis Smith of Home Builders Research and Larry Murphy of SalesTraq both reported 284 new-home sales in January, the lowest monthly total on record and a fraction of the number sold during the market's boom in 2005 when nearly 40,000 new homes closed escrow.

Homebuilders are not going to start new projects unless they can make a profit, which is difficult if not next to impossible in today's business environment, Smith said. They have to compete not only with foreclosures, but with other builders selling homes for less than $100 a square foot.

Although some analysts have said the Las Vegas housing market is near the bottom, the data suggest it could sink further, Murphy said. The job picture is cloudy and there's no way to reasonably forecast the market with any degree of certainty, he said.

He thinks new-home sales could drop to 6,500 for the year, while existing-home sales pick up to 32,000. Banks are still taking back more homes than they're selling, so foreclosure inventory has yet to peak, Murphy said.

No. Not much good news. Perhaps there is some light at the end of the tunnel. At a certain point, there won't be any homes left to foreclose on or banks to hold the mortgage notes.

Solar Panel Roof Efficiency Calculation

We've been looking at adding Solar Panels to our house, as soon as the HOA changes the rules that prevent them. Florida has a loan assistance program and your state may as well. But how to you know if your roof is a good candidate for Solar Panels.

First you'll want to make sure you live in a region that get direct sun for a majority of the year. Here's a handy map for that (see parent page for more maps).

Then you can estimate the cost, power return, and time to payback on Roof Ray. Using Google Maps to show your house's roof and its southern exposure, Roof Ray makes that calculation simple as pie.

I'll let you know what our HOA says. They've been looking at loosening the regulations for what sort of solar panels you can have. Currently it's only solar water heaters.