The world’s only female superstar architect, Zaha Hadid, unveiled an undulating, spider-like design for a new luxury condo tower on Biscayne Boulevard — her first residential project in the United States — that boldly looks to raise the design ante for Miami’s skyline.
The developers of the proposed 1000 Museum, Gregg Covin and Louis Birdman, also hope to capitalize on the location and the big design name to break through the price ceiling for a downtown Miami condo. They are angling for a stratospheric minimum of $4 million for the cheapest units, and a Miami Beach-like $30 million and up for penthouses. That means pricing would start at about $900 per square foot, an amount that’s already roughly double the price of the typical new downtown condo.
The 61-story tower would squeeze in among the so-called Four Horsemen high-rise condos across from Biscayne Bay and the emergent Museum Park, taking over a prime spot now occupied by a gas station, which Covin and Birdman have a contract to buy. The pawn shop property behind it on Northeast Second Avenue is not, for now, part of the $300 million project.
The futuristic design by Hadid’s London-based firm features an interlacing concrete exoskeleton, a bulging midsection and a set of rib-like lower balconies that has prompted comparisons by some local bloggers to a spider, a bug and an alien spaceship.
“We love Miami, and we feel we can create a beautiful addition to the skyline that will define the skyline in a new way,’’ Zaha Hadid Architects director Patrik Schumacher said. “I think it will have a new kind of appeal.’’
The Iraqi-born, London-schooled Hadid, whose firm has also designed a swooping new Miami Beach city parking garage, is known for flowing, curvaceous buildings that sometimes appear to melt. In the past decade, she has gone from experimental-minded iconoclast to sought-after designer, achieving the kind of popular recognition usually reserved for celebrity male architects like Frank Gehry. Her well-publicized struggles to be taken seriously in the notoriously male-dominated profession also made her a kind of feminist icon.
She has a residence on South Beach and was known to have long been seeking a signature local project. Previously, her only Miami work was a sculptural installation in the atrium of a Design District building.
Hadid is the third winner of the Pritzker Prize, often called architecture’s Nobel, currently working on a Miami condo project. Sir Norman Foster of Britain is designing a tower next to the Saxony Hotel in Miami Beach, while the Swiss firm of Herzog & de Meuron, also responsible for the new downtown art museum and the instantly famed 1111 Lincoln Road parking garage on South Beach, is designing a tower in Sunny Isles Beach.
The firm of a fourth Pritzker laureate, Rem Koolhaas’s Office of Metropolitan Architecture, for whom Hadid previously worked, has designed three companion buildings for the Saxony project, including the renovation of a smaller hotel, and is on a team vying for the redevelopment of the Miami Beach Convention Center.
The fact that Hadid and other eminent architects are designing exceptional buildings in Miami reflects a growing maturity and sophistication about design from developers and civic institutions, said Wolfsonian/FIU museum director Cathy Leff.
It also means the city can finally lay aside its longstanding inferiority complex, she hinted.
“It’s a sign of confidence in our present,’’ Leff, a Hadid friend, said. “We were always the city of the future. We no longer have to define ourselves that way. We are a city of now and it should be defined by the best designers.’’
Hadid’s hiring for the 1000 Museum tower had been previously announced, but Friday provided the first public look at her firm’s design. Such is the interest among followers of design that leaked images and commentary had already been posted on local blogs.
Schumacher said putting the structural support on the tower’s exterior and varying its width not only creates a striking appearance, but also has the practical benefit of allowing roomier units in the tower, which is relatively slender because of the lot’s small footprint.
“It’s good to have the structure on the outside,’’ Schumacher said. “It’s a fusion of technical issues and technical expression, of aesthetic expression. It gives an identity ot the project, which changes character as you move from the bottom to the middle to the top. It adds variety, rather than have endless, monotonous repetition of the same from the bottom to the top.’’
That last is, of course, a reference to the typical stacked-balconies-on-a-podium design of Miami condo towers, including 1000 Museum’s four companions, all by noted Miami architects. Ten Museum, next door to the planned new tower, was also developed by Covin.
But the developers and their architects deliberately set out to shatter that mold, Schumacher said.
Although the tower does sit on a multi-level garage, retail and amenities podium, the exoskeleton’s legs reach all the way to the bottom, tying the building to the street, Schumacher said. Designed under the city’s new Miami 21 code, the tower also will avoid some of the much-cricitized pitfalls of its four companions, built under a previous code, he said. Critics have compared their rear facades on Northwest Second, dedicated entirely to service facilities, to the back of a refrigerator.
1000 Museum, by contrast, “will have a nice presence all around,’’ Schumacher promised. “It doesn’t have a back side.’’
He said the building would be “pushed forward’’ on the lot to urbanely meet Biscayne Boulevard and the planned new park across the street, where new art and science museums are under construction.
The 700-foot tower would be the tallest of the ensemble facing the park.
Like most recently announced high-rise residential projects, the 1000 Museum developers are aiming the project at the very top of the luxury market, which means principally foreign buyers with ready cash. The units would be large, between 4,500 square feet and 9,000 square feet.
Source:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/18/v-fullstory/3292714/hadid-condo-could-reshape-downtown.html
BY ANDRES VIGLUCCI
aviglucci@MiamiHerald.com
The Criscitos has been selling South Florida luxury and commercial real estate for over a decade and has sold over $1 billion dollars of property. They work as a multi-lingual team speaking english, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. They carved out a niche as a leading boutique real estate company with two distinct divisions -residential and commercial- both personally overseeing by Marcela and Anthony Criscito.
Showing posts with label condominiums. Show all posts
Showing posts with label condominiums. Show all posts
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Prices for Miami Beach luxury condos soar to records
Ultra-luxury condominiums on South Beach are fetching nosebleed prices.
On Tuesday, a penthouse at the Setai Resort at 2001 Collins Avenue closed for $27 million — the highest price ever for a South Florida condominium, according to real estate agents.
“We’re definitely seeing the market turning upward,” said Jeff Miller, of Zilbert International Realty in Miami, who represented the buyer in the sale of the palatial 7,100-square-foot condominium. “We’re seeing buyers come in from all over the globe.”
Just a few weeks ago, Ohio coal mining businessman Wayne Boich Jr. completed the sale of his Icon South Beach penthouse at 450 Alton Road in the uber-trendy South of Fifth neighborhood for just under $21 million.
The 6-bedroom, 7 1/2-bath Icon condo sparked a bidding war that drove the sale $2 million above the listing price — a level that is three times the $7 million Boich paid in July 2007 in the depths of the bust. It was a record price for a Miami Beach bayside condo.
“The luxury market is on fire in South Beach — especially the South of Fifth neighborhood,” said Dora Puig, principal of PuigWerner Real Estate Services, who was the listing broker for the Icon unit. “It’s moving Miami to totally different pricing points.”
The Setai’s record may not reign for long.
Penthouse 2 in the decade-old Continuum South tower at 100 South Pointe Drive in the South of Fifth neighborhood is on the market for $39 million.
That is a record listing price for a Miami-Dade condominium, according to Puig, who also snagged that listing.
Amid the market sizzle, Puig bumped up the asking price late last summer from $35 million.
The penthouse, which has 11,000 square feet of interior space, belongs to Manhattan real estate developer Ian Bruce Eichner, who built the Continuum project at the tip of South Beach and kept the trophy for himself.
The Continuum penthouse, which has 6,000 square feet of deck and a rooftop heated pool, boasts sweeping 13 1/2-foot ceilings that give the feel of a single-family home. The floor-to-ceiling glass walls offer a 360-degree view of the Atlantic Ocean, Biscayne Bay, downtown Miami and Miami Beach from 40 stories up.
“It looks down on Fisher Island, way down,” Puig said with a smile.
The unit has a private interior elevator, of course, and stretches over two indoor levels and two largely exterior levels.
One big plus: It has a gated entrance and sits on an expansive enclave of rolling lawns and gardens adjacent to a city park at the tip of the island.
The unit comes with an additional 874-square-foot guest quarters that would delight most mortals. “The guest unit is intended for professional quarters: the maid, the nanny, the chef, the pilot,” Puig explained.
Also included is a snazzy cabana on the beach.
Eichner has used it as a vacation home and once rented it to Tom Cruise for a couple of months while he was in Miami to film Rock of Ages.
On Thursday, Puig hosted Miami’s power brokers for a look at the Continuum penthouse over champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Next week, she plans to spend three days in New York touting the property to high-end brokers.
Such palatial properties typically are paid for in cash. But what would a monthly payment be?
With a 20 percent down payment of $7.8 million, the buyer would have to finance $31.2 million.
“I don’t know that I’d be able to find anybody willing to go that high on one unit,” warned Steve Schneider, a mortgage broker who is owner and president of Abacus Lending Group in South Miami.
If a buyer could line up a 15-year fixed rate mortgage at 3.5 percent, the monthly payment for principal and interest would be $223,043.35.
“I’d hate to see the tax bill,” said Schneider.
According to Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser records, the 2012 property tax bill on the Continuum penthouse was $264,896.17. That was based on an assessed value of just $9.5 million, less than half what the Property Appraiser listed as the market value of $19.3 million. The tax break came as a result of the state law that caps increases in assessed values on non-homesteaded property at 10 percent a year.
The condo maintenance fee for Eichner’s unit runs $7,624 a month. “I think that’s low for what you get,” said Puig.
Source
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/17/3187969/prices-for-miami-beach-luxury.html
By Martha Brannigan
mbrannigan@MiamiHerald.com
Friday, April 15, 2011
Sellers still reducing their asking price for homes
With the homebuying market still struggling, real estate agencies are trying to lure potential homeowners into moving to their area by slashing home prices.
In a soon to be released report from the real estate website Trulia.com, home sellers have cut more than $24 billion in potential home equity over the past year and trimmed the cost of properties approximately 79 days after posting the initial asking price. What's more, according to the website, 35 percent of sellers will cut their prices again.
Trulia.com reports that the average home seller dropped their asking price by an average of 8 percent, but that rate is even higher in certain parts of the country, such as Detroit and Cleveland, where the average first-time price cut is 19 percent and 11 percent, respectively.
In a statement obtained by the Miami Herald, Tara-Nicholle Nelson of Trulia.com said home sellers often need to make a second cut to lure buyers, and this usually happens to people who underestimate how deeply they should cut their asking price the first time around.
In a soon to be released report from the real estate website Trulia.com, home sellers have cut more than $24 billion in potential home equity over the past year and trimmed the cost of properties approximately 79 days after posting the initial asking price. What's more, according to the website, 35 percent of sellers will cut their prices again.
Trulia.com reports that the average home seller dropped their asking price by an average of 8 percent, but that rate is even higher in certain parts of the country, such as Detroit and Cleveland, where the average first-time price cut is 19 percent and 11 percent, respectively.
In a statement obtained by the Miami Herald, Tara-Nicholle Nelson of Trulia.com said home sellers often need to make a second cut to lure buyers, and this usually happens to people who underestimate how deeply they should cut their asking price the first time around.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Pending home sales up in Miami-Dade, Broward
Pending home sales in Miami-Dade and Broward counties rose in February, according to the Miami Association of Realtors.
Miami-Dade saw the biggest boost, with total pending sales – including single-family homes and condominiums – rising 22 percent, year-over-year, in February – to 11,182 from 9,164.
An increase in pending sales is an indication of future market conditions. A sale is listed as pending when a contract is signed, but the transaction has not closed.
Pending condo deals in Miami-Dade County saw the biggest year-over-year gains in February, increasing 26.9 percent to 6,497 from 5,122.
Sales of single-family homes in Miami-Dade rose 16 percent, to 4,685 from 4,042.
In Broward County, total pending sales increased 7.7 percent in February, to 8,391 from 7,791 contracts signed.
The county’s pending condo sales outperformed single-family home selling, rising 12.3 percent, year-over-year, to 4,878 from 4,343 contracts.
Pending sales of single-family homes increased 2 percent, to 3,513 from 3,448.
“Current statistics for pending sales reflect the positive performance of the South Florida real estate market over the last few months,” said Jack H. Levine, chairman of the Miami Association of Realtors. “We have seen year-over-year increase for pending sales for nearly one year. Pending sales have also increased month-over-month 10 out of the last 13 months.”
Nationwide, pending home sales decreased in January for the second straight month, according to the National Association of Realtors. The Pending Home Sales Index, a national forward-looking indicator, declined 2.8 percent from December to January, and is down 1.5 percent from its January 2010 level.
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2011/02/28/pending-home-sales-up-in-miami-dade.html
Miami-Dade saw the biggest boost, with total pending sales – including single-family homes and condominiums – rising 22 percent, year-over-year, in February – to 11,182 from 9,164.
An increase in pending sales is an indication of future market conditions. A sale is listed as pending when a contract is signed, but the transaction has not closed.
Pending condo deals in Miami-Dade County saw the biggest year-over-year gains in February, increasing 26.9 percent to 6,497 from 5,122.
Sales of single-family homes in Miami-Dade rose 16 percent, to 4,685 from 4,042.
In Broward County, total pending sales increased 7.7 percent in February, to 8,391 from 7,791 contracts signed.
The county’s pending condo sales outperformed single-family home selling, rising 12.3 percent, year-over-year, to 4,878 from 4,343 contracts.
Pending sales of single-family homes increased 2 percent, to 3,513 from 3,448.
“Current statistics for pending sales reflect the positive performance of the South Florida real estate market over the last few months,” said Jack H. Levine, chairman of the Miami Association of Realtors. “We have seen year-over-year increase for pending sales for nearly one year. Pending sales have also increased month-over-month 10 out of the last 13 months.”
Nationwide, pending home sales decreased in January for the second straight month, according to the National Association of Realtors. The Pending Home Sales Index, a national forward-looking indicator, declined 2.8 percent from December to January, and is down 1.5 percent from its January 2010 level.
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2011/02/28/pending-home-sales-up-in-miami-dade.html
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Cash is King as New Wave of Home Buyers Shuns Loans and Pays Small Bucks for Bargains
It's a new beginning in America's home-buying market. More and more buyers are saying no to expensive and convoluted bank loans and paying cash instead for bargain properties.
The Wall Street Journal reports scores of bargain-basement deals being closed by cash-bidding buyers who feel the bottom has been reached in the market.
Where are they getting the cash from? They are selling other investments like paintings, cars and jewelry.
For example, In Atlanta, 62-year-old piano teacher Virginia Hall-Busch paid cash for a 93-year-old three-bedroom, one-bath bungalow in scenic Stone Mountain, GA.
The property initially listed for $159,000, then dropped to $129,000 and then to $79,900. The piano teacher didn't think her bid of $52,500 would be taken seriously. It was. She is the new owner.
In Miami Beach, Richard Stoker, a 73-year-old retired sales executive, paid cash for two condominiums and soon plans to close on a third. He is paying $1.8 million, $1.2 million and $1 million for properties that were initially listed for double those amounts.
The Stokers have a home in Potomac, Md., but spend most of the year in Florida. Stoker doesn't plan to rent out any of his new properties. He tells the WSJ he and his wife will live in one with two dogs, his son might live in another and the third will house an older dog and guests.
Cash buyers represented more than half of all transactions in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area last year, according to an analysis from real-estate portal Zillow.com.
In the fourth quarter of 2006, they represented just 13% of deals. Meanwhile, downtown Miami prices rose 15% in 2010 from a year earlier, according to the Miami Downtown Development Authority.
The percentage of buyers in Phoenix paying cash hit 42% in 2010--more than triple the rate in 2008, according to Raymond James's equity research division.
Nationally, 28% of sales were all-cash transactions last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. The rate was 14% in October 2008, when the trade group began tracking the measure.
The Federal Reserve reports that Americans increased their use of credit cards in December 2010 for the first time since August 2008.
Henry Schlangen
"Some of the cash purchases reflect a tight lending environment, where even people with good credit and ample down payments are sometimes turned away for conventional borrowing," reports the WSJ.
"The rates are great but the underwriting is brutal," said Henry Schlangen, an agent with real-estate firm Pacific Union International who buys and sells for clients, mainly in Napa Valley, CA.
Schlangen tells the WSJ, "They (lenders) hang these people upside down and shake them till they see what falls out of their pockets. So people are buying with cash and maybe they'll 'Refi' later."
Schlangen, who deals in higher-end properties such as vineyard estates, estimated that 95% of his deals last year were all-cash, up from about half in previous years.
"The deals that are consummating, these are buyers who feel they got a great deal," he said. He notes the number of buyers from China are increasing.
Mohammed Siddiq
Cash buyers can often command 5% to 10% more off the asking price than a potential buyer using a mortgage, Mohammed Siddiq, a real-estate professional in Fort Lauderdale, FL, tells the WSJ.
Sellers prefer cash deals since they close more quickly and avoid risks such as a buyer's job loss or a bank's changing its mind, he says.
Nationally, it isn't clear whether prices have bottomed.
The Case-Shiller index of housing prices in 20 cities showed a steep decline in prices until 2009, when they appeared to bottom and began to trend upward.
But in the second half of last year, prices began falling again. A Zillow index, meanwhile, never noted the uptick, reports the WSJ.
Source: http://www.realestatechannel.com/us-markets/residential-real-estate-1/raymond-james-zillowcom-national-association-of-realtors-henry-schlangen-pacific-union-international-mohammed-siddiq-stone-mountain-ga-miami-beach-skyline-3915.php
Posted by Alex Finkelstein
The Wall Street Journal reports scores of bargain-basement deals being closed by cash-bidding buyers who feel the bottom has been reached in the market.
Where are they getting the cash from? They are selling other investments like paintings, cars and jewelry.
For example, In Atlanta, 62-year-old piano teacher Virginia Hall-Busch paid cash for a 93-year-old three-bedroom, one-bath bungalow in scenic Stone Mountain, GA.
The property initially listed for $159,000, then dropped to $129,000 and then to $79,900. The piano teacher didn't think her bid of $52,500 would be taken seriously. It was. She is the new owner.
In Miami Beach, Richard Stoker, a 73-year-old retired sales executive, paid cash for two condominiums and soon plans to close on a third. He is paying $1.8 million, $1.2 million and $1 million for properties that were initially listed for double those amounts.
The Stokers have a home in Potomac, Md., but spend most of the year in Florida. Stoker doesn't plan to rent out any of his new properties. He tells the WSJ he and his wife will live in one with two dogs, his son might live in another and the third will house an older dog and guests.
Cash buyers represented more than half of all transactions in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area last year, according to an analysis from real-estate portal Zillow.com.
In the fourth quarter of 2006, they represented just 13% of deals. Meanwhile, downtown Miami prices rose 15% in 2010 from a year earlier, according to the Miami Downtown Development Authority.
The percentage of buyers in Phoenix paying cash hit 42% in 2010--more than triple the rate in 2008, according to Raymond James's equity research division.
Nationally, 28% of sales were all-cash transactions last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. The rate was 14% in October 2008, when the trade group began tracking the measure.
The Federal Reserve reports that Americans increased their use of credit cards in December 2010 for the first time since August 2008.
Henry Schlangen
"Some of the cash purchases reflect a tight lending environment, where even people with good credit and ample down payments are sometimes turned away for conventional borrowing," reports the WSJ.
"The rates are great but the underwriting is brutal," said Henry Schlangen, an agent with real-estate firm Pacific Union International who buys and sells for clients, mainly in Napa Valley, CA.
Schlangen tells the WSJ, "They (lenders) hang these people upside down and shake them till they see what falls out of their pockets. So people are buying with cash and maybe they'll 'Refi' later."
Schlangen, who deals in higher-end properties such as vineyard estates, estimated that 95% of his deals last year were all-cash, up from about half in previous years.
"The deals that are consummating, these are buyers who feel they got a great deal," he said. He notes the number of buyers from China are increasing.
Mohammed Siddiq
Cash buyers can often command 5% to 10% more off the asking price than a potential buyer using a mortgage, Mohammed Siddiq, a real-estate professional in Fort Lauderdale, FL, tells the WSJ.
Sellers prefer cash deals since they close more quickly and avoid risks such as a buyer's job loss or a bank's changing its mind, he says.
Nationally, it isn't clear whether prices have bottomed.
The Case-Shiller index of housing prices in 20 cities showed a steep decline in prices until 2009, when they appeared to bottom and began to trend upward.
But in the second half of last year, prices began falling again. A Zillow index, meanwhile, never noted the uptick, reports the WSJ.
Source: http://www.realestatechannel.com/us-markets/residential-real-estate-1/raymond-james-zillowcom-national-association-of-realtors-henry-schlangen-pacific-union-international-mohammed-siddiq-stone-mountain-ga-miami-beach-skyline-3915.php
Posted by Alex Finkelstein
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Brazilians making an economic mark
President Barack Obama will visit Brazil during his first South American trip in March and Brazil is Florida’s top trading partner. But Brazilians are also snapping up beachfront luxury properties and downtown Miami condos, investing in everything from real estate to Burger King, and shopping voraciously.
It’s as if a “swarm of grasshoppers” has descended on South Florida, chomping through bargains from Dadeland to Sawgrass Mills, one tour operator says.
“The trend now is everybody comes to shop, shop, shop,’’ said Claudia Menezes, of Pegasus Transportation, which operates a fleet of buses for conventional tours as well as the shopping excursions that are so popular with Brazilians. “They’re buying up everything from $10 creams at Victoria’s Secret to Luis Vuitton and Prada.’’
Testimony to Brazilian consumerism: When Pegasus buses return Brazilians to the airport for their flights home, Menezes says, they have to put on extra trailers behind to haul the loot.
To keep the Brazilian visitors coming, American Airlines now offers 52 flights a week to Brazil from Miami International Airport.
“Brazil is breaking all sorts of records,’’ said Rolando Aedo, senior vice president of marketing for the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. “It has been our rock-star market.’’
When all the numbers are tallied for 2010, Miami-Dade expects to have rolled out the welcome mat for more than 500,000 Brazilian visitors who spent more than $1 billion.
That would move Brazil into the top spot for international visitors, dethroning Canada, the perennial leader.
During the oil boom years, Venezuelans were legendary for their dame-dos (give me two) ways and Latin Americans have long loved South Florida shopping. But what sets the Brazilians apart is there are so many more of them and they’re really big spenders.
To cater to the Brazilian crowd, the tourism bureau has published shopping guides, maps and other materials in Portuguese.
Even though Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport has no direct Brazilian flights, the number of Brazilian visitors to Broward County has increased by 50 percent to 300,000 annually in the past year. Brazil now ranks as Broward’s second most important foreign market after Canada.
“They may enter though Miami, but they go to Sawgrass Mills,’’ said Francine Mason, a spokeswoman for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.
And they also visit their relatives. Broward County, especially the Pompano Beach/Lighthouse Point area, is home to the largest contingent of resident Brazilians in the state.
The Brazilian Consulate in Miami estimates that there are 250,000 to 300,000 Brazilians living in Florida with the largest populations in Broward and Miami-Dade counties and Orlando.
What’s spurring the Brazilian stampede?
Brazil’s economy is booming and expected to become the world’s fifth largest by 2016. Unemployment is at record lows. And perhaps most important, Brazil’s currency — the real — is extremely strong against the dollar, making Florida trips and shopping sprees affordable for Brazilians.
Coming to South Florida for a week is often cheaper for a Sao Paulo resident than a vacation in Northeast Brazil.
“Real estate is extremely high in Brazil right now — untouchable for many people,’’ said Claudia Bacelar, a Brazilian who works as a Realtor at the Esslinger-Wooten office in Coral Gables.
Edgardo Defortuna, president and chief executive of Fortune International, says, for example, that an apartment equivalent to a three-bedroom unit at Jade Ocean in Sunny Isles Beach that goes for $1.6 million might cost $2.5 million in Belo Horizonte, a state capital in southeastern Brazil.
And there’s another reason so many Brazilians are visiting: They just like it here.
“Florida has always been a favorite – the warm tropical weather and the beaches with the benefit of the shopping and now, of course, it’s so much more affordable,’’ Bacelar said. “When Brazilians come here and I see how they shop, I’m in shock.’’
At Dolphin Mall near Miami International Airport, for example, Brazilians are the top international tourists, urging past Venezuelans for the first time last year, said Madelyn Bello Calvar, director of sponsorship and marketing.
And they typically spend about three times what local customers do, she said.
At Sawgrass Mills, Marcos Freire, the assistant general manager, has watched with satisfaction as shoppers speaking Portuguese flood the mall and buses full of Brazilian tourists in matching T-shirts pull in.
Mall surveys show that Brazilians are the most numerous international shoppers, followed by Colombians and Canadians. But Freire says, “The Brazilians are way ahead.’’
As shoppers, he says, they are extremely brand-conscious, loading down their carts with Nike, Adidas and Tommy Hilfiger plus high fashion, televisions, video games, and the latest technology.
They know their way around American retail, said Freire, who is originally from Rio de Janeiro. “They’ve done their homework and they know where they’re going.’’
Menezes, whose company often runs shopping tours that stop at Sawgrass, said the trend used to be that Brazilian groups would ask for some time at the beach, Orlando or the Everglades and maybe a day of shopping.
“Now we have some groups that are coming four or five days just to shop,’’ she said. “This year for the first time we even had shopping tours for Black Friday.’’
It’s not just hotels and stores that are benefiting from Brazilians planting their green and yellow flag around South Florida.
• Real Estate — Real estate sales to Brazilians also are booming.
“Today, they’re the most important foreign sector of the South Florida market,’’ Defortuna said. “During the past 12 months, they have come in very strongly.’’
So strongly that late last year, Fortune International opened an office in Sao Paulo to market its own luxury developments such as Jade Ocean as well as other projects it handles such as Icon Brickell and Trump Hollywood .
“I have never seen anything like this — such demand. I get calls and e-mails every single day with a new Brazilian contact or lead,’’ said Fabiana Pimenta, a top Brazilian Realtor at Fortune.
About a quarter of all new Fortune sales are now to Brazilians, Defortuna said.
They basically fall into two categories, he says: high-end buyers who are buying for themselves — although it may be their second, third or fourth home — and investors who tend to gravitate toward properties in the Brickell and downtown Miami areas.
If they’re buying for themselves, they like beachfront properties in Miami Beach and the Sunny Isles Beach area, real estate agents say.
The apartment-buying spree also is having a positive impact on other businesses.
Five years ago, Ornare, a high-end Brazilian kitchen, bath and closet store, opened its first U.S. branch in Miami’s Design District. And while the local housing market has slumped, Ornare’s business hasn’t.
Its closets with leather doors, sculpted bath fixtures and sleek, sophisticated kitchens have found a ready market here. Increasingly, it’s Brazilians who are doing the buying.
Sales are up nearly 40 percent since last year and now Ornare is planning showrooms in five other U.S. cities, says Claudio Faria, director of Ornare Miami, which imports nearly everything in its showroom from Sao Paulo.
In 2009, Brazilians accounted for just 5 percent of Ornare’s local sales. Now, it’s about 25 percent, Faria said.
Brazilian interior designer Mirtha Arriaran, who has run a Miami interior design business since 1995, says that one of her jet-setting clients recently purchased a Miami apartment as a 12th residence.
“These Brazilians are very, very rich,’’ she said. “They are not looking for bargains. They are the type of people who will pick out an apartment they like and then ask the price.’’
About 85 percent of Arriaran’s clients are Brazilians, and these days with all their new condo purchases, she’s so busy that her firm, MAS Interior Design, is not taking on new business.
But not all the Brazilian real estate buyers fall into the ultra-rich category.
“Now Brickell is very affordable for the middle class,’’ says Bacelar. She recently sold several smaller apartments there for just under $200,000 — with low maintenance fees, too.
• Airlines — Two years ago, American Airlines served just two Brazilian cities – Rio and Sao Paulo – from Miami. Now it’s added four more: Brasilia, Belo Horizonte and Salvador with continuing service to Recife.
“This is huge for us — to be in six cities in one country,’’ said Martha Pantin, an American spokeswoman. “American Airlines is very bullish on Brazil.’’
TAM , a Brazilian airline, also recently added direct service several times a week from MIA to Brasilia and Belo Horizonte to complement its daily flights to Sao Paulo, Rio and Manaus.
But the best may be yet to come. With the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, American is now negotiating to add extra flights to Brazil before and after the World Cup.
American believes Miami will be a transit point for many people from around the world as they head to the sporting events, says Pantin. “The World Cup,’’ she said, “also will introduce Americans to new destinations in Brazil.’’
• The Florida/Brazil trade and business connection — Brazil ranks as South Florida’s top trading partner as well as the Sunshine State’s top trading partner. Florida’s merchandise trade with Brazil during the first 11 months of 2010, the most recent statistics available, topped $14.4 billion, a 27 percent increase over 2009 figures.
Enterprise Florida recently reopened an office in Brazil. Its purpose is to not only promote Florida products and services but also to attract Brazilian investors to Florida.
Brazilian companies Embraer, an aircraft manufacturer, and Odebrecht, a construction firm, already have extensive operations in South Florida, and last fall 3G Capital, a private investment firm with Brazilian backing, acquired Burger King in a $4 billion deal.
“We think with the emergence of Brazil as a world economic power, it will become very fertile ground to recruit companies to Florida,’’ said Manny Mencia., vice president of international development for Enterprise Florida. “There’s no market going forward that offers Florida the opportunities that Brazil does.’’
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/13/v-fullstory/2065059/the-brazilian-stampede.html
By MIMI WHITEFIELD
mwhitefield@MiamiHerald.com
It’s as if a “swarm of grasshoppers” has descended on South Florida, chomping through bargains from Dadeland to Sawgrass Mills, one tour operator says.
“The trend now is everybody comes to shop, shop, shop,’’ said Claudia Menezes, of Pegasus Transportation, which operates a fleet of buses for conventional tours as well as the shopping excursions that are so popular with Brazilians. “They’re buying up everything from $10 creams at Victoria’s Secret to Luis Vuitton and Prada.’’
Testimony to Brazilian consumerism: When Pegasus buses return Brazilians to the airport for their flights home, Menezes says, they have to put on extra trailers behind to haul the loot.
To keep the Brazilian visitors coming, American Airlines now offers 52 flights a week to Brazil from Miami International Airport.
“Brazil is breaking all sorts of records,’’ said Rolando Aedo, senior vice president of marketing for the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. “It has been our rock-star market.’’
When all the numbers are tallied for 2010, Miami-Dade expects to have rolled out the welcome mat for more than 500,000 Brazilian visitors who spent more than $1 billion.
That would move Brazil into the top spot for international visitors, dethroning Canada, the perennial leader.
During the oil boom years, Venezuelans were legendary for their dame-dos (give me two) ways and Latin Americans have long loved South Florida shopping. But what sets the Brazilians apart is there are so many more of them and they’re really big spenders.
To cater to the Brazilian crowd, the tourism bureau has published shopping guides, maps and other materials in Portuguese.
Even though Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport has no direct Brazilian flights, the number of Brazilian visitors to Broward County has increased by 50 percent to 300,000 annually in the past year. Brazil now ranks as Broward’s second most important foreign market after Canada.
“They may enter though Miami, but they go to Sawgrass Mills,’’ said Francine Mason, a spokeswoman for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.
And they also visit their relatives. Broward County, especially the Pompano Beach/Lighthouse Point area, is home to the largest contingent of resident Brazilians in the state.
The Brazilian Consulate in Miami estimates that there are 250,000 to 300,000 Brazilians living in Florida with the largest populations in Broward and Miami-Dade counties and Orlando.
What’s spurring the Brazilian stampede?
Brazil’s economy is booming and expected to become the world’s fifth largest by 2016. Unemployment is at record lows. And perhaps most important, Brazil’s currency — the real — is extremely strong against the dollar, making Florida trips and shopping sprees affordable for Brazilians.
Coming to South Florida for a week is often cheaper for a Sao Paulo resident than a vacation in Northeast Brazil.
“Real estate is extremely high in Brazil right now — untouchable for many people,’’ said Claudia Bacelar, a Brazilian who works as a Realtor at the Esslinger-Wooten office in Coral Gables.
Edgardo Defortuna, president and chief executive of Fortune International, says, for example, that an apartment equivalent to a three-bedroom unit at Jade Ocean in Sunny Isles Beach that goes for $1.6 million might cost $2.5 million in Belo Horizonte, a state capital in southeastern Brazil.
And there’s another reason so many Brazilians are visiting: They just like it here.
“Florida has always been a favorite – the warm tropical weather and the beaches with the benefit of the shopping and now, of course, it’s so much more affordable,’’ Bacelar said. “When Brazilians come here and I see how they shop, I’m in shock.’’
At Dolphin Mall near Miami International Airport, for example, Brazilians are the top international tourists, urging past Venezuelans for the first time last year, said Madelyn Bello Calvar, director of sponsorship and marketing.
And they typically spend about three times what local customers do, she said.
At Sawgrass Mills, Marcos Freire, the assistant general manager, has watched with satisfaction as shoppers speaking Portuguese flood the mall and buses full of Brazilian tourists in matching T-shirts pull in.
Mall surveys show that Brazilians are the most numerous international shoppers, followed by Colombians and Canadians. But Freire says, “The Brazilians are way ahead.’’
As shoppers, he says, they are extremely brand-conscious, loading down their carts with Nike, Adidas and Tommy Hilfiger plus high fashion, televisions, video games, and the latest technology.
They know their way around American retail, said Freire, who is originally from Rio de Janeiro. “They’ve done their homework and they know where they’re going.’’
Menezes, whose company often runs shopping tours that stop at Sawgrass, said the trend used to be that Brazilian groups would ask for some time at the beach, Orlando or the Everglades and maybe a day of shopping.
“Now we have some groups that are coming four or five days just to shop,’’ she said. “This year for the first time we even had shopping tours for Black Friday.’’
It’s not just hotels and stores that are benefiting from Brazilians planting their green and yellow flag around South Florida.
• Real Estate — Real estate sales to Brazilians also are booming.
“Today, they’re the most important foreign sector of the South Florida market,’’ Defortuna said. “During the past 12 months, they have come in very strongly.’’
So strongly that late last year, Fortune International opened an office in Sao Paulo to market its own luxury developments such as Jade Ocean as well as other projects it handles such as Icon Brickell and Trump Hollywood .
“I have never seen anything like this — such demand. I get calls and e-mails every single day with a new Brazilian contact or lead,’’ said Fabiana Pimenta, a top Brazilian Realtor at Fortune.
About a quarter of all new Fortune sales are now to Brazilians, Defortuna said.
They basically fall into two categories, he says: high-end buyers who are buying for themselves — although it may be their second, third or fourth home — and investors who tend to gravitate toward properties in the Brickell and downtown Miami areas.
If they’re buying for themselves, they like beachfront properties in Miami Beach and the Sunny Isles Beach area, real estate agents say.
The apartment-buying spree also is having a positive impact on other businesses.
Five years ago, Ornare, a high-end Brazilian kitchen, bath and closet store, opened its first U.S. branch in Miami’s Design District. And while the local housing market has slumped, Ornare’s business hasn’t.
Its closets with leather doors, sculpted bath fixtures and sleek, sophisticated kitchens have found a ready market here. Increasingly, it’s Brazilians who are doing the buying.
Sales are up nearly 40 percent since last year and now Ornare is planning showrooms in five other U.S. cities, says Claudio Faria, director of Ornare Miami, which imports nearly everything in its showroom from Sao Paulo.
In 2009, Brazilians accounted for just 5 percent of Ornare’s local sales. Now, it’s about 25 percent, Faria said.
Brazilian interior designer Mirtha Arriaran, who has run a Miami interior design business since 1995, says that one of her jet-setting clients recently purchased a Miami apartment as a 12th residence.
“These Brazilians are very, very rich,’’ she said. “They are not looking for bargains. They are the type of people who will pick out an apartment they like and then ask the price.’’
About 85 percent of Arriaran’s clients are Brazilians, and these days with all their new condo purchases, she’s so busy that her firm, MAS Interior Design, is not taking on new business.
But not all the Brazilian real estate buyers fall into the ultra-rich category.
“Now Brickell is very affordable for the middle class,’’ says Bacelar. She recently sold several smaller apartments there for just under $200,000 — with low maintenance fees, too.
• Airlines — Two years ago, American Airlines served just two Brazilian cities – Rio and Sao Paulo – from Miami. Now it’s added four more: Brasilia, Belo Horizonte and Salvador with continuing service to Recife.
“This is huge for us — to be in six cities in one country,’’ said Martha Pantin, an American spokeswoman. “American Airlines is very bullish on Brazil.’’
TAM , a Brazilian airline, also recently added direct service several times a week from MIA to Brasilia and Belo Horizonte to complement its daily flights to Sao Paulo, Rio and Manaus.
But the best may be yet to come. With the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, American is now negotiating to add extra flights to Brazil before and after the World Cup.
American believes Miami will be a transit point for many people from around the world as they head to the sporting events, says Pantin. “The World Cup,’’ she said, “also will introduce Americans to new destinations in Brazil.’’
• The Florida/Brazil trade and business connection — Brazil ranks as South Florida’s top trading partner as well as the Sunshine State’s top trading partner. Florida’s merchandise trade with Brazil during the first 11 months of 2010, the most recent statistics available, topped $14.4 billion, a 27 percent increase over 2009 figures.
Enterprise Florida recently reopened an office in Brazil. Its purpose is to not only promote Florida products and services but also to attract Brazilian investors to Florida.
Brazilian companies Embraer, an aircraft manufacturer, and Odebrecht, a construction firm, already have extensive operations in South Florida, and last fall 3G Capital, a private investment firm with Brazilian backing, acquired Burger King in a $4 billion deal.
“We think with the emergence of Brazil as a world economic power, it will become very fertile ground to recruit companies to Florida,’’ said Manny Mencia., vice president of international development for Enterprise Florida. “There’s no market going forward that offers Florida the opportunities that Brazil does.’’
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/13/v-fullstory/2065059/the-brazilian-stampede.html
By MIMI WHITEFIELD
mwhitefield@MiamiHerald.com
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Metro-Miami's Pending Home Sales Rise 28% Year-over-year
(MIAMI, FL ) -- According to the Miami Association of Realtors and the Southeast Florida Multiple Listing Service (SEFMLS), total cumulative pending home sales - including single-family homes and condominiums - in Miami-Dade County increased 28 percent in January compared to a year earlier, from 8,388 to 10,698, and 2.5 percent, from 10,437, compared to the previous month.
"Over the last few months, we have seen pending and closed sales gain momentum while inventory levels continue to drop, said Jack H. Levine, 2010 chairman of the board of the Miami Association of Realtors. "This trend in rising sales, particularly for condominiums, coupled with significant reductions in housing inventory, is a very positive sign for the local market. We expect this trend to continue as the job market, economy, and consumer confidence improve."
Pending Condominium Contract Activity on the Rise
Pending sales of condominiums in Miami-Dade County continue to outperform that of single-family homes. In January, condominium pending sales increased a significant 37.2 percent compared to a year ago, from 4,647 to 6,376 and increased 3.3 percent from 6,173 the previous month. Pending sales of single-family homes in January increased 15.531 percent from the previous year, from 3,741 to 4,322, and 1.4 percent from the previous month, when pending single-family home sales totaled 4,264.
Significant Reduction in Housing Inventory
The Miami-Dade real estate market continues to experience drops in housing inventory. Inventory for all housing types has dropped 47 percent since mid-2008 and eight percent compared to a year ago. Just over the last month, inventory in the county dropped six percent, pointing to increased demand for local properties.
"Local buyers are taking advantage of the many opportunities the local market offers, including high affordability that continues to boost contract activity," said 2011 Miami Association of Realtors Residential President Ralph E. De Martino. "International buyers continue to continue to have a significant impact in rising sales and declining inventory in the local market."
Increased pending sales are an indication of increased future sales. A sale is listed as pending when a contract is signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing.
Source: http://www.realestatechannel.com/us-markets/residential-real-estate-1/miami-pending-home-sales-dade-county-home-sales-miami-association-of-realtors-southeast-florida-multiple-listing-service-sefmls-miami-condo-foreclosures-3826.php
Posted by Michael Gerrity
"Over the last few months, we have seen pending and closed sales gain momentum while inventory levels continue to drop, said Jack H. Levine, 2010 chairman of the board of the Miami Association of Realtors. "This trend in rising sales, particularly for condominiums, coupled with significant reductions in housing inventory, is a very positive sign for the local market. We expect this trend to continue as the job market, economy, and consumer confidence improve."
Pending Condominium Contract Activity on the Rise
Pending sales of condominiums in Miami-Dade County continue to outperform that of single-family homes. In January, condominium pending sales increased a significant 37.2 percent compared to a year ago, from 4,647 to 6,376 and increased 3.3 percent from 6,173 the previous month. Pending sales of single-family homes in January increased 15.531 percent from the previous year, from 3,741 to 4,322, and 1.4 percent from the previous month, when pending single-family home sales totaled 4,264.
Significant Reduction in Housing Inventory
The Miami-Dade real estate market continues to experience drops in housing inventory. Inventory for all housing types has dropped 47 percent since mid-2008 and eight percent compared to a year ago. Just over the last month, inventory in the county dropped six percent, pointing to increased demand for local properties.
"Local buyers are taking advantage of the many opportunities the local market offers, including high affordability that continues to boost contract activity," said 2011 Miami Association of Realtors Residential President Ralph E. De Martino. "International buyers continue to continue to have a significant impact in rising sales and declining inventory in the local market."
Increased pending sales are an indication of increased future sales. A sale is listed as pending when a contract is signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing.
Source: http://www.realestatechannel.com/us-markets/residential-real-estate-1/miami-pending-home-sales-dade-county-home-sales-miami-association-of-realtors-southeast-florida-multiple-listing-service-sefmls-miami-condo-foreclosures-3826.php
Posted by Michael Gerrity
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Trulia: It’s cheaper to buy than rent in Miami
Miami tops the list of places in the country where it’s cheaper to own than rent a home, according to Trulia.com’s latest Rent vs. Buy Index.
The San Francisco-based real estate website noted that the foreclosure crisis has pushed many homeowners to become renters, thus jacking up the cost of rentals.
“Following the principles of supply and demand, renting has become relatively more expensive than buying in most markets,” Trulia CEO and co-founder Pete Flint said in a news release.
In fact, Trulia found that it is more affordable to buy than rent a two-bedroom home in 72 percent of America’s 50 largest cities.
Trulia said it calculates the price-to-rent ratio for the 50 largest U.S. cities using the median list price compared with the median rent price on two-bedroom apartments, condos and townhomes listed on its website.
The median sales price for homes in Miami was $185,000. The average list price for homes for sale in Miami on Trulia is $402,603. The median sales price decreased 38.3 percent compared to the prior year based on 4,142 sales, which is up 20.1 percent compared to the prior year.
Other cities where it’s cheaper to buy than rent are:
Las Vegas
Arlington, Texas
Mesa, Ariz.
Phoenix
Jacksonville
Sacramento, Calif.
San Antonio
Fresno, Calif.
El Paso, Texas
On the flip side, Trulia found that renting is only less expensive than buying in four cities: New York, Seattle, Kansas City and San Francisco.
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2011/01/25/trulia-its-cheaper-to-buy-than-rent.html
The San Francisco-based real estate website noted that the foreclosure crisis has pushed many homeowners to become renters, thus jacking up the cost of rentals.
“Following the principles of supply and demand, renting has become relatively more expensive than buying in most markets,” Trulia CEO and co-founder Pete Flint said in a news release.
In fact, Trulia found that it is more affordable to buy than rent a two-bedroom home in 72 percent of America’s 50 largest cities.
Trulia said it calculates the price-to-rent ratio for the 50 largest U.S. cities using the median list price compared with the median rent price on two-bedroom apartments, condos and townhomes listed on its website.
The median sales price for homes in Miami was $185,000. The average list price for homes for sale in Miami on Trulia is $402,603. The median sales price decreased 38.3 percent compared to the prior year based on 4,142 sales, which is up 20.1 percent compared to the prior year.
Other cities where it’s cheaper to buy than rent are:
Las Vegas
Arlington, Texas
Mesa, Ariz.
Phoenix
Jacksonville
Sacramento, Calif.
San Antonio
Fresno, Calif.
El Paso, Texas
On the flip side, Trulia found that renting is only less expensive than buying in four cities: New York, Seattle, Kansas City and San Francisco.
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2011/01/25/trulia-its-cheaper-to-buy-than-rent.html
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Foreigners flock to Florida for real estate bargains
MIAMI -- Foreign tourists who for years have crowded Florida’s shopping malls to buy clothes and electronics, are now flocking to real estate offices to snatch up apartments and homes at bargain-basement prices.
The investors, mainly from Europe and Latin America, are jostling over apartments in Miami’s trendy South Beach neighborhood selling for $70,000-$100,000, and in less exclusive areas to the north where they start at around $50,000.
“The buying opportunities are maybe the best ever. Who knows if we’ll see prices again like today’s in Miami Beach,” Keys Real Estate agent Michelle Iglesias told AFP.
Property prices in Miami have fallen by almost half (47%) since the real estate bubble peaked in 2006, according to Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price index.
Analysts predict that real estate market prices will not increase until the banks get rid of all their foreclosed properties and there are more jobs in the region.
“Unemployment is still high. People are afraid of losing their homes and credit is hard to get,” said Standard & Poor’s vice-president Maureen Maitland.
In and around Miami, banks each month repossess about 5,000 properties, including apartments and commercial real estate, for delinquent mortgage payments, according to real estate brokerage Codovultures Realty, which has 250,000 such properties on its books across southern Florida.
But foreign investors have kept prices from plunging even further, the Miami Association of Realtors said in its November report. “The international buyers continue to fuel market strengthening, we continue to observe positive signs,” said association president Oliver Ruiz.
Beatriz Lamanda from Venezuela bought two apartments north of Miami Beach for a reduced price of $80,000.
“I’d rather put my money in real estate than leave it in the bank. In a few years I’ll make a nice bundle because the prices are going to go up, no question,” she told AFP.
In the “Icon,” a three-building apartment complex by French designer Philippe Stark in Brickell, Miami’s newest financial district, apartments are selling for $250,000, down from $370,000 two years ago.
“We’ve sold 350 units in the last few months. Most of the buyers are international,” Fortune International’s Alejandra Castillo told AFP. -- AFP
Source: http://www.bworldonline.com/main/content.php?id=22914
The investors, mainly from Europe and Latin America, are jostling over apartments in Miami’s trendy South Beach neighborhood selling for $70,000-$100,000, and in less exclusive areas to the north where they start at around $50,000.
“The buying opportunities are maybe the best ever. Who knows if we’ll see prices again like today’s in Miami Beach,” Keys Real Estate agent Michelle Iglesias told AFP.
Property prices in Miami have fallen by almost half (47%) since the real estate bubble peaked in 2006, according to Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price index.
Analysts predict that real estate market prices will not increase until the banks get rid of all their foreclosed properties and there are more jobs in the region.
“Unemployment is still high. People are afraid of losing their homes and credit is hard to get,” said Standard & Poor’s vice-president Maureen Maitland.
In and around Miami, banks each month repossess about 5,000 properties, including apartments and commercial real estate, for delinquent mortgage payments, according to real estate brokerage Codovultures Realty, which has 250,000 such properties on its books across southern Florida.
But foreign investors have kept prices from plunging even further, the Miami Association of Realtors said in its November report. “The international buyers continue to fuel market strengthening, we continue to observe positive signs,” said association president Oliver Ruiz.
Beatriz Lamanda from Venezuela bought two apartments north of Miami Beach for a reduced price of $80,000.
“I’d rather put my money in real estate than leave it in the bank. In a few years I’ll make a nice bundle because the prices are going to go up, no question,” she told AFP.
In the “Icon,” a three-building apartment complex by French designer Philippe Stark in Brickell, Miami’s newest financial district, apartments are selling for $250,000, down from $370,000 two years ago.
“We’ve sold 350 units in the last few months. Most of the buyers are international,” Fortune International’s Alejandra Castillo told AFP. -- AFP
Source: http://www.bworldonline.com/main/content.php?id=22914
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
3 hotels sold in South Beach
A trio of historic buildings in Miami Beach has been purchased by South American real estate and hotel group Lennox Miami Corp.
The $14.7 million sale included the 62-room Peter Miller Hotel at 1900 Collins Ave.; the 12-unit Miller Apartments at 229 19th St. and the 12-unit Peter Miller Apartments at 1915 Liberty Ave.
All of the buildings were designed in the 1930s by architect Russell Pancoast.
The seller was Kabo Realty Corp., based in Miami. M1 Hospitality Group, a division of real estate brokerage and investment firm Metro 1 Properties in Miami, represented both parties.
Plans for the properties have not been announced, but the broker said the new owners could potentially add more rooms as well as a pool and spa to the hotel.
-- HANNAH SAMPSON
• Ex-UBS banker enters plea: A former banker at Switzerland's UBS pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Miami to a tax fraud conspiracy charge that accuses him of helping a wealthy U.S. client hide assets from the Internal Revenue Service.
Renzo Gadola, 44, entered his plea at a brief hearing after court documents were unsealed charging him with the crime.
The documents claim Gadola and an unnamed second Swiss banker helped an unidentified Mississippi man hide an account at UBS and open another secret account at a second Swiss bank.
Prosecutors say he and the other banker tried to prevent the client from disclosing his secret accounts to the IRS. During a November meeting at a Miami hotel, according to court documents, Gadola told the client the likelihood that his new accounts would be discovered was ``practically zero percent.''
• Sheraton hangs shingle: A former Wyndham hotel will open under a new brand Wednesday: Sheraton Miami Airport Hotel & Executive Meeting Center.
The first Sheraton in Miami-Dade, the hotel at 3900 NW 21st St. has undergone $2 million in upgrades over the last four months in preparation for the change. The hotel, with 405 guest rooms and a 20,000-square-foot meeting center, is owned by Maryland-based Thayer Lodging Group.
Sheraton adds the Miami hotel as part of an expansion that will bring 50 new hotels to the brand's portfolio over the next three years.
• Mandarin Oriental shines in guide: Just one spa in Florida received the top rating from Forbes Travel Guide -- and it's in Miami.
The Spa at Mandarin Oriental, Miami was one of only 20 spas worldwide to receive five stars from the guide, formerly Mobil Travel Guide. This was the third year in a row that The Spa received the award.
Forbes Travel Guide rates hotels, restaurants and spas throughout the U.S., Canada, Beijing, Hong Kong and Macau. This year, 54 hotels, 23 restaurants and 20 spas received five stars.
Only three Florida hotels received the five-star award: Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach, The Ritz-Carlton, Palm Beach and The Ritz-Carlton, Naples
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/15/1973903/3-hotels-sold-in-south-beach.html
The $14.7 million sale included the 62-room Peter Miller Hotel at 1900 Collins Ave.; the 12-unit Miller Apartments at 229 19th St. and the 12-unit Peter Miller Apartments at 1915 Liberty Ave.
All of the buildings were designed in the 1930s by architect Russell Pancoast.
The seller was Kabo Realty Corp., based in Miami. M1 Hospitality Group, a division of real estate brokerage and investment firm Metro 1 Properties in Miami, represented both parties.
Plans for the properties have not been announced, but the broker said the new owners could potentially add more rooms as well as a pool and spa to the hotel.
-- HANNAH SAMPSON
• Ex-UBS banker enters plea: A former banker at Switzerland's UBS pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Miami to a tax fraud conspiracy charge that accuses him of helping a wealthy U.S. client hide assets from the Internal Revenue Service.
Renzo Gadola, 44, entered his plea at a brief hearing after court documents were unsealed charging him with the crime.
The documents claim Gadola and an unnamed second Swiss banker helped an unidentified Mississippi man hide an account at UBS and open another secret account at a second Swiss bank.
Prosecutors say he and the other banker tried to prevent the client from disclosing his secret accounts to the IRS. During a November meeting at a Miami hotel, according to court documents, Gadola told the client the likelihood that his new accounts would be discovered was ``practically zero percent.''
• Sheraton hangs shingle: A former Wyndham hotel will open under a new brand Wednesday: Sheraton Miami Airport Hotel & Executive Meeting Center.
The first Sheraton in Miami-Dade, the hotel at 3900 NW 21st St. has undergone $2 million in upgrades over the last four months in preparation for the change. The hotel, with 405 guest rooms and a 20,000-square-foot meeting center, is owned by Maryland-based Thayer Lodging Group.
Sheraton adds the Miami hotel as part of an expansion that will bring 50 new hotels to the brand's portfolio over the next three years.
• Mandarin Oriental shines in guide: Just one spa in Florida received the top rating from Forbes Travel Guide -- and it's in Miami.
The Spa at Mandarin Oriental, Miami was one of only 20 spas worldwide to receive five stars from the guide, formerly Mobil Travel Guide. This was the third year in a row that The Spa received the award.
Forbes Travel Guide rates hotels, restaurants and spas throughout the U.S., Canada, Beijing, Hong Kong and Macau. This year, 54 hotels, 23 restaurants and 20 spas received five stars.
Only three Florida hotels received the five-star award: Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach, The Ritz-Carlton, Palm Beach and The Ritz-Carlton, Naples
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/15/1973903/3-hotels-sold-in-south-beach.html
Friday, December 10, 2010
Documentations For Purchasing Miami Real Estate Buildings
After the long period of waiting, when you finally get to accumulate the funds to afford a Property, you start looking for prospective homes. After some days of consideration, you produce up your mind to purchase a specific Home. Regardless of the fact that that you are experienced or not, the mile long list of essentials for Buying a Property will surely bewilder you. Property sellers, bucks lenders and Miami Real Estate agents have every Correct to stipulate for relevant documents so that they might rightly evaluate your ability to pay them back. When you fail to submit even one of these documents, your preferrred Dwelling will stay a ideal forever. to prevent such a situation, you should be mindful beforehand, of the essentials, so which you may instantly produce them when needed.
Listed here are some of the documents You’ll need before closing the Miami Real Estate deal. The first records you need to show are of income tax, IRS W-2 form, asset statement and other fiscal documents. The lending institute or entity will desire a promissory note to be able to pull out your credit record. If they feel that you might be financially instable, then you might face potential difficulty in sanctioning the loan. Next, you have to show your bank statement, which will establish your ability to pay off the mortgage.
An insurance policy is also very necessary. Your lender will request for this as an assurance, in case of events of damage or deficit of Asset. This guarantees escape from the risk of losing the dollars they lent you. Preparing your payment stubs is an additional compulsory point. this could reflect the payment you receive per payday and your status as a full time employee. If, you have a spouse’s stub to add to, You’ll stand a much better chance to connect up the requirements of the lending company. Apart from a cashier’s check, you should prepare one of your own. Ensure that your Miami Real Estate lawyer or agent updates you about it.
The last, but not the least is your identification card. Carry two such cars along with your a career forms. The HR team of the company you work for will fill it up and authenticate it for you. Before you buy the Property, you can also ask your Miami Real Estate agent to assist you Through.
To purchase Miami Real Estate homes at Excellent price, contact us. Our agents will instruct you Through all the formalities. In case you are searching for Miami Realtors in your location please take a look at our web site today by simply clicking the link.
Source: http://www.favstocks.com/documentations-for-purchasing-miami-real-estate-buildings/0329173/
By Chandler Man
Listed here are some of the documents You’ll need before closing the Miami Real Estate deal. The first records you need to show are of income tax, IRS W-2 form, asset statement and other fiscal documents. The lending institute or entity will desire a promissory note to be able to pull out your credit record. If they feel that you might be financially instable, then you might face potential difficulty in sanctioning the loan. Next, you have to show your bank statement, which will establish your ability to pay off the mortgage.
An insurance policy is also very necessary. Your lender will request for this as an assurance, in case of events of damage or deficit of Asset. This guarantees escape from the risk of losing the dollars they lent you. Preparing your payment stubs is an additional compulsory point. this could reflect the payment you receive per payday and your status as a full time employee. If, you have a spouse’s stub to add to, You’ll stand a much better chance to connect up the requirements of the lending company. Apart from a cashier’s check, you should prepare one of your own. Ensure that your Miami Real Estate lawyer or agent updates you about it.
The last, but not the least is your identification card. Carry two such cars along with your a career forms. The HR team of the company you work for will fill it up and authenticate it for you. Before you buy the Property, you can also ask your Miami Real Estate agent to assist you Through.
To purchase Miami Real Estate homes at Excellent price, contact us. Our agents will instruct you Through all the formalities. In case you are searching for Miami Realtors in your location please take a look at our web site today by simply clicking the link.
Source: http://www.favstocks.com/documentations-for-purchasing-miami-real-estate-buildings/0329173/
By Chandler Man
Friday, December 3, 2010
Miami Pending Home Sales Up 26% in November
Miami, FL - Total cumulative pending home sales - including single-family homes and condominiums - in Miami-Dade County increased 26 percent in November compared to a year earlier, from 8,288 to 10,495, and increased 2.3 percent, up from 10,264, compared to the previous month according to the MIAMI Association of REALTORS and the Southeast Florida Multiple Listing Service (SEFMLS).
November marks the fourth consecutive month of increased pending home sales in Miami-Dade County. A sale is listed as pending when a contract is signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing. "As an indication of future sales, consistently increasing pending sales is a very positive sign for the South Florida real estate market," said Jack H. Levine, 2010 chairman of the board of the MIAMI Association of REALTORS.
Pending sales of condominiums in Miami-Dade County continue to perform stronger than that of single-family homes. In November, condominium pending sales increased 38 percent compared to the previous year, from 4,414 to 6,094 and increased 3.68 percent, up from 5,878 the previous month.
Pending sales of single-family homes in November increased 14 percent from the previous year, from 3,874 to 4,401, and increased .34 percent from the previous month, when pending single-family home sales totaled 4,386. "The current strengthening Miami real estate market is motivating all types of buyers to act now," said Oliver Ruiz, 2010 residential president of the MIAMI Association of REALTORS.
Source: http://www.thestreet.com/story/10937134/1/miami-pending-home-sales-up-26-in-november.html
By DQNews.com 12/02/10 - 12:12 PM EST
November marks the fourth consecutive month of increased pending home sales in Miami-Dade County. A sale is listed as pending when a contract is signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing. "As an indication of future sales, consistently increasing pending sales is a very positive sign for the South Florida real estate market," said Jack H. Levine, 2010 chairman of the board of the MIAMI Association of REALTORS.
Pending sales of condominiums in Miami-Dade County continue to perform stronger than that of single-family homes. In November, condominium pending sales increased 38 percent compared to the previous year, from 4,414 to 6,094 and increased 3.68 percent, up from 5,878 the previous month.
Pending sales of single-family homes in November increased 14 percent from the previous year, from 3,874 to 4,401, and increased .34 percent from the previous month, when pending single-family home sales totaled 4,386. "The current strengthening Miami real estate market is motivating all types of buyers to act now," said Oliver Ruiz, 2010 residential president of the MIAMI Association of REALTORS.
Source: http://www.thestreet.com/story/10937134/1/miami-pending-home-sales-up-26-in-november.html
By DQNews.com 12/02/10 - 12:12 PM EST
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Art of the deal
New Yorkers who regularly visit Miami often talk about how hard it is to get any work done there — how the city's lazy, beautiful people just bounce around to beaches, restaurants, hotel lounges, nightclubs, house parties and boat parties.
But the reality is more complicated. There’s no other American city that works this hard at partying and is full of so many people hustling for business while they’re partying. And this is especially true when it comes to selling real estate during the Miami social season, which kicks off with a big splash this week as Art Basel and dozens of satellite events take over South Beach and beyond.
Miami is always a place where out-of-towners can show up to a random apartment party, mention that they might want to buy a vacation home and find themselves talking to a broker and a salesperson of furniture packages while they’re still drinking their first glass of champagne. And with thousands of New Yorkers and rich foreigners in Miami for Art Basel, developers and brokers all over the city know that this week is an especially good time for marketing their real estate.
“Out of all the different festivals in Miami, Art Basel is the one that brings in the kind of demographic that is really prime for our properties,” says local broker Mark Zilbert, who specializes in luxury condos. “We’re working seven days a week. And people come into town with no intentions of buying, but they get caught up in the moment.”
In October, we visited the site of 3 Indian Creek, a new, listed-for-$60-million house that’s part of a private, extremely exclusive 300-acre community whose homeowners include Carl Icahn, Julio Iglesias and Art Basel chairperson Norman Braman. Designer and co-owner Felix Cohen greeted us wearing frayed jeans and a white shirt with paint stains. He offered a quick tour of the 30,000-square-foot mansion while contractors were hard at work all around us.
There was no time to waste, Cohen said, because he had a serious deadline. The house, which had already been visited by potential buyers, among them Alex Rodriguez, had to be ready for Art Basel week. Cohen admitted that he was “nervous” about the timing, but 3 Indian Creek (which is being marketed in New York by Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Oren Alexander) was indeed unveiled with a party on Tuesday.
That was the same evening the W South Beach Hotel & Residences held the official Art Basel opening party. The W, like many Miami spots, is hosting events all week and hoping that some art collectors also turn into homebuyers.
Other highlights of the week include:
The Icon Brickell condo building downtown has a Scope Art Show film premiere on Friday and just unveiled its new iPhone/iPad app, which offers neighborhood information, floor plans and event locations. In addition, the Fortune International brokerage is having open houses at Icon Brickell and Jade Ocean in Sunny Isles Beach, where brokers and potential buyers can pick up “VIP Basel” bags with passes to various art events.
The $2.3 billion Midtown Miami mixed-use project is hosting several fairs, including Art Miami, Red Dot Fair, Scope and Art Asia, and offering an exhibit from London artist Willard Wigan, who creates ultra-tiny sculptures that can only be seen through a microscope.
The new JW Marriott Marquis, part of the billion-dollar Metropolitan Miami mixed-use project downtown, has partnered with Christie’s on an exhibit with pieces by Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Keith Haring, Eduardo Chillida and others.
The tony Golden Beach community (where Ricky Martin has put his mansion on the market and where Basel-participating artist Bruce Weber lives) is offering tours with Mayor Glenn Singer to show off the town’s $30 million renovation.
In Wynwood, an emerging area near the Design District, the Bakehouse Art Complex is offering a tour of local studios while also showcasing its two galleries (the Audrey Love Gallery has an exhibit inspired by the seven deadly sins, while the Swenson Gallery is selling budget-friendly $100 5-by-7-inch pieces) and 33,000 square feet of exhibition space
But the reality is more complicated. There’s no other American city that works this hard at partying and is full of so many people hustling for business while they’re partying. And this is especially true when it comes to selling real estate during the Miami social season, which kicks off with a big splash this week as Art Basel and dozens of satellite events take over South Beach and beyond.
Miami is always a place where out-of-towners can show up to a random apartment party, mention that they might want to buy a vacation home and find themselves talking to a broker and a salesperson of furniture packages while they’re still drinking their first glass of champagne. And with thousands of New Yorkers and rich foreigners in Miami for Art Basel, developers and brokers all over the city know that this week is an especially good time for marketing their real estate.
“Out of all the different festivals in Miami, Art Basel is the one that brings in the kind of demographic that is really prime for our properties,” says local broker Mark Zilbert, who specializes in luxury condos. “We’re working seven days a week. And people come into town with no intentions of buying, but they get caught up in the moment.”
In October, we visited the site of 3 Indian Creek, a new, listed-for-$60-million house that’s part of a private, extremely exclusive 300-acre community whose homeowners include Carl Icahn, Julio Iglesias and Art Basel chairperson Norman Braman. Designer and co-owner Felix Cohen greeted us wearing frayed jeans and a white shirt with paint stains. He offered a quick tour of the 30,000-square-foot mansion while contractors were hard at work all around us.
There was no time to waste, Cohen said, because he had a serious deadline. The house, which had already been visited by potential buyers, among them Alex Rodriguez, had to be ready for Art Basel week. Cohen admitted that he was “nervous” about the timing, but 3 Indian Creek (which is being marketed in New York by Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Oren Alexander) was indeed unveiled with a party on Tuesday.
That was the same evening the W South Beach Hotel & Residences held the official Art Basel opening party. The W, like many Miami spots, is hosting events all week and hoping that some art collectors also turn into homebuyers.
Other highlights of the week include:
The Icon Brickell condo building downtown has a Scope Art Show film premiere on Friday and just unveiled its new iPhone/iPad app, which offers neighborhood information, floor plans and event locations. In addition, the Fortune International brokerage is having open houses at Icon Brickell and Jade Ocean in Sunny Isles Beach, where brokers and potential buyers can pick up “VIP Basel” bags with passes to various art events.
The $2.3 billion Midtown Miami mixed-use project is hosting several fairs, including Art Miami, Red Dot Fair, Scope and Art Asia, and offering an exhibit from London artist Willard Wigan, who creates ultra-tiny sculptures that can only be seen through a microscope.
The new JW Marriott Marquis, part of the billion-dollar Metropolitan Miami mixed-use project downtown, has partnered with Christie’s on an exhibit with pieces by Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Keith Haring, Eduardo Chillida and others.
The tony Golden Beach community (where Ricky Martin has put his mansion on the market and where Basel-participating artist Bruce Weber lives) is offering tours with Mayor Glenn Singer to show off the town’s $30 million renovation.
In Wynwood, an emerging area near the Design District, the Bakehouse Art Complex is offering a tour of local studios while also showcasing its two galleries (the Audrey Love Gallery has an exhibit inspired by the seven deadly sins, while the Swenson Gallery is selling budget-friendly $100 5-by-7-inch pieces) and 33,000 square feet of exhibition space
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Visa deal funding realty, investors get homeland
At a time international investors are drawn to Miami's real estate bargains, the government's EB-5 visa program is an attractive vehicle for them to invest here in exchange for US residency.
Exclusive Visas, an EB-5 consulting firm based in Weston, is advising developers of several projects that would boost the local economy and create jobs while offering participating investors permanent residency for them and their families.
These projects include the University of Miami's Life Science and Technology Park, rising in Miami's health district, and the planned construction of 50 Sonic fast-food restaurants throughout Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
Fred Burgess, president of Exclusive Visas, has been a practicing attorney for 20 years and got involved in the EB-5 program in 2007.
His firm advises clients on how to apply for a regional center and demonstrate the creation of a certain number of jobs to get the federal government to approve the projects.
The EB-5 visa program was created by the government to provide employment-based visas. The government basically requires a foreign national to invest $500,000 to $1 million into a venture that would create 10 sustainable jobs and in exchange, receive a green card.
If the project is in a geographic area of high unemployment, the investor is only required to put in $500,000.
Basically, Mr. Burgess said, "we need to make sure their funds come from credible sources and that they don't have a criminal background."
One project Mr. Burgess has been working on is UM's Life Science and Technology Park.
Under the EB-5 program, developer Wexford Miami is raising $20 million capital from 40 participating investors.
"They are close to selling off," he said. "That EB-5 project will be filled by the end of this year."
He is also advising Miami-based QueensFort Capital Corp., which bought exclusive development rights to build 50 Sonic restaurants in Miami-Dade and Broward in the next four years.
The development firm is acquiring the land where it plans to build the restaurants at discounted prices, which benefits the investors involved. It is seeking six to eight investors per package of two to four restaurants.
Carolina Oliva, QueensFort Capital's senior vice president, said right now most interest in the Sonic project is coming from China, Latin America — particularly Venezuela and Mexico — and the Middle East.
Mr. Burgess and his team travel globally with clients to market their projects, making frequent trips to countries such as China, Korea and Venezuela.
"We travel throughout the world regularly, so we know what the market is looking for and we can advise companies raising capital how to structure their project so it's attractive to the investor," he explained.
Some internationals are drawn to invest in these ventures because they want to come to the US for social, political and even climate reasons.
"We have a big push from Mexico and Venezuela for safety and political reasons," respectively, he said.
More than half of EB-5 visas come from China and Korea, Mr. Burgess noted, adding that when the program first took off it became popular in the United Kingdom.
Although this government-backed visa program has been in place since the 1990s, he said, it got little use until the regional center model was added in 2003.
But the model kept sunsetting every six months, until in October 2009 President Obama extended it three years with a push to make it permanent.
Today, he said, more than 120 projects nationwide are participating under the regional center model.
Source: http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/101202/story4.shtml
By Yudislaidy Fernandez
Exclusive Visas, an EB-5 consulting firm based in Weston, is advising developers of several projects that would boost the local economy and create jobs while offering participating investors permanent residency for them and their families.
These projects include the University of Miami's Life Science and Technology Park, rising in Miami's health district, and the planned construction of 50 Sonic fast-food restaurants throughout Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
Fred Burgess, president of Exclusive Visas, has been a practicing attorney for 20 years and got involved in the EB-5 program in 2007.
His firm advises clients on how to apply for a regional center and demonstrate the creation of a certain number of jobs to get the federal government to approve the projects.
The EB-5 visa program was created by the government to provide employment-based visas. The government basically requires a foreign national to invest $500,000 to $1 million into a venture that would create 10 sustainable jobs and in exchange, receive a green card.
If the project is in a geographic area of high unemployment, the investor is only required to put in $500,000.
Basically, Mr. Burgess said, "we need to make sure their funds come from credible sources and that they don't have a criminal background."
One project Mr. Burgess has been working on is UM's Life Science and Technology Park.
Under the EB-5 program, developer Wexford Miami is raising $20 million capital from 40 participating investors.
"They are close to selling off," he said. "That EB-5 project will be filled by the end of this year."
He is also advising Miami-based QueensFort Capital Corp., which bought exclusive development rights to build 50 Sonic restaurants in Miami-Dade and Broward in the next four years.
The development firm is acquiring the land where it plans to build the restaurants at discounted prices, which benefits the investors involved. It is seeking six to eight investors per package of two to four restaurants.
Carolina Oliva, QueensFort Capital's senior vice president, said right now most interest in the Sonic project is coming from China, Latin America — particularly Venezuela and Mexico — and the Middle East.
Mr. Burgess and his team travel globally with clients to market their projects, making frequent trips to countries such as China, Korea and Venezuela.
"We travel throughout the world regularly, so we know what the market is looking for and we can advise companies raising capital how to structure their project so it's attractive to the investor," he explained.
Some internationals are drawn to invest in these ventures because they want to come to the US for social, political and even climate reasons.
"We have a big push from Mexico and Venezuela for safety and political reasons," respectively, he said.
More than half of EB-5 visas come from China and Korea, Mr. Burgess noted, adding that when the program first took off it became popular in the United Kingdom.
Although this government-backed visa program has been in place since the 1990s, he said, it got little use until the regional center model was added in 2003.
But the model kept sunsetting every six months, until in October 2009 President Obama extended it three years with a push to make it permanent.
Today, he said, more than 120 projects nationwide are participating under the regional center model.
Source: http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/101202/story4.shtml
By Yudislaidy Fernandez
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Homebuyers get creative to close the deal
MIAMI — — When Efrain Hernandez couldn't seal a deal before the first-time home buyer tax credit expired this year, he lost faith that he would ever own a house in this real estate climate.
But the enforced wait got him more than the $8,000 federal tax credit.
Hernandez negotiated a contract on a five-bedroom, three-bath home in a development near Homestead, Fla., talking homebuilder Lennar into $40,000 off the list price, getting it to pay $18,000 in closing costs and scoring a $7,500 no-interest loan from Miami-Dade County to lighten his down payment.
"I was finally able to buy the house of my dreams," Hernandez said.
Though cash is now king, new homeowners such as Hernandez are finding ways to buy homes — well-kept ones with current mortgages.
After a long drought, money is becoming available to buy homes. Take Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Andre Brooks, vice president and regional sales manager for the bank's Florida operation, said his company has made more than $3 billion in mortgages this year in Florida, nearly 20 percent more than last year.
But lending guidelines remain restrictive, said Terry H. Francisco, spokesman with Bank of America, so making purchases often requires creativity and calculation.
Among the options:
FHA
Loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration can require a down payment of just 3.5 percent compared with 20 percent many banks typically require.
But there are limits. For one, like other loans with a down payment less than 20 percent, the buyer must get mortgage insurance.
FHA loans also have a maximum and are available only to people who don't have an FHA loan and plan to make the property their primary residence.
Private loan
Made by a noninstitutional investor who does not advertise as a mortgage lender, this requires networking and personal relationships.
Grant S. Stern, president of Morningside Mortgage Corp., brokered a loan this summer for a condo buyer.
The borrower had made a preconstruction down payment of $90,000 on a two-bedroom, two-bath $300,000 condo. He had another $65,000 cash to close, but Fannie Mae's approval for the project expired with the the developer on the verge of default. With no time to get a conventional bank loan, so Stern arranged for a real estate investor to fund a five-year, fixed-rate loan.
"They said, 'Close in one week.' We closed in one week," he said.
Non Distressed Properties
Part of real estate agent Gene Mastro's strategy for buyers is avoiding foreclosures and short sales — especially by buyers who intend to live in the home they buy.
Owners of nondistressed properties are "more ready to correct problems, any minor deficiencies," said Mastro, who works for Coldwell Banker.
And they may be willing to pay all or part of closing costs, which can range from 2 to 7 percent of the purchase price.
Short-term loan
Another way to cover closing costs is a fast, short-term loan that doesn't show up on credit reports.
Todd Hills noticed that some users of his company, Boomerang Lending, wanted fast cash to pay closing costs. His Colorado-based business works like a pawn shop for those with pricier assets, including paintings and fine jewelry. A recent borrower offered a 1955 Picasso sketch.
"It's not something we've experienced before the last six months," said Hills, company CEO, but "it makes absolutely perfect sense. This is a way this consumer can get the cash that they need."
Lease to own
"It's a purchase agreement with a very delayed closing — three months or three years," Manausa said.
Tom Nisbet and fiancee, Greta Leber, have just such a contract on their condo. They are living in the 1,600-square-foot unit they hope to buy. It comes with two parking spaces, a pool and a gym, and it's close to the University of Miami, where Leber is working on her Ph.D.
After watching others' experiences with short sales and foreclosures, they steered clear. "This is by far the best place we saw on the market," Nisbet said.
State and local aid
While the federal first-time home buyer's tax credit ended months ago, it's not too late for house hunters to get government home-buying help.
Many city or county governments offer their own home buyer subsidies.
Government agencies with home-buying assistance programs say they are fielding lots of calls.
Source: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-11-23/classified/sc-bizspecial-1123-credative-homebuyi20101123_1_home-buyer-tax-credit-mortgages-condo-buyer
But the enforced wait got him more than the $8,000 federal tax credit.
Hernandez negotiated a contract on a five-bedroom, three-bath home in a development near Homestead, Fla., talking homebuilder Lennar into $40,000 off the list price, getting it to pay $18,000 in closing costs and scoring a $7,500 no-interest loan from Miami-Dade County to lighten his down payment.
"I was finally able to buy the house of my dreams," Hernandez said.
Though cash is now king, new homeowners such as Hernandez are finding ways to buy homes — well-kept ones with current mortgages.
After a long drought, money is becoming available to buy homes. Take Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Andre Brooks, vice president and regional sales manager for the bank's Florida operation, said his company has made more than $3 billion in mortgages this year in Florida, nearly 20 percent more than last year.
But lending guidelines remain restrictive, said Terry H. Francisco, spokesman with Bank of America, so making purchases often requires creativity and calculation.
Among the options:
FHA
Loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration can require a down payment of just 3.5 percent compared with 20 percent many banks typically require.
But there are limits. For one, like other loans with a down payment less than 20 percent, the buyer must get mortgage insurance.
FHA loans also have a maximum and are available only to people who don't have an FHA loan and plan to make the property their primary residence.
Private loan
Made by a noninstitutional investor who does not advertise as a mortgage lender, this requires networking and personal relationships.
Grant S. Stern, president of Morningside Mortgage Corp., brokered a loan this summer for a condo buyer.
The borrower had made a preconstruction down payment of $90,000 on a two-bedroom, two-bath $300,000 condo. He had another $65,000 cash to close, but Fannie Mae's approval for the project expired with the the developer on the verge of default. With no time to get a conventional bank loan, so Stern arranged for a real estate investor to fund a five-year, fixed-rate loan.
"They said, 'Close in one week.' We closed in one week," he said.
Non Distressed Properties
Part of real estate agent Gene Mastro's strategy for buyers is avoiding foreclosures and short sales — especially by buyers who intend to live in the home they buy.
Owners of nondistressed properties are "more ready to correct problems, any minor deficiencies," said Mastro, who works for Coldwell Banker.
And they may be willing to pay all or part of closing costs, which can range from 2 to 7 percent of the purchase price.
Short-term loan
Another way to cover closing costs is a fast, short-term loan that doesn't show up on credit reports.
Todd Hills noticed that some users of his company, Boomerang Lending, wanted fast cash to pay closing costs. His Colorado-based business works like a pawn shop for those with pricier assets, including paintings and fine jewelry. A recent borrower offered a 1955 Picasso sketch.
"It's not something we've experienced before the last six months," said Hills, company CEO, but "it makes absolutely perfect sense. This is a way this consumer can get the cash that they need."
Lease to own
"It's a purchase agreement with a very delayed closing — three months or three years," Manausa said.
Tom Nisbet and fiancee, Greta Leber, have just such a contract on their condo. They are living in the 1,600-square-foot unit they hope to buy. It comes with two parking spaces, a pool and a gym, and it's close to the University of Miami, where Leber is working on her Ph.D.
After watching others' experiences with short sales and foreclosures, they steered clear. "This is by far the best place we saw on the market," Nisbet said.
State and local aid
While the federal first-time home buyer's tax credit ended months ago, it's not too late for house hunters to get government home-buying help.
Many city or county governments offer their own home buyer subsidies.
Government agencies with home-buying assistance programs say they are fielding lots of calls.
Source: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-11-23/classified/sc-bizspecial-1123-credative-homebuyi20101123_1_home-buyer-tax-credit-mortgages-condo-buyer
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Miami Home Sales Jumped
Miami, FL -- The median sales price of single-family homes in October in the Miami Metropolitan Statistical Area increased 12 percent to $199,100 from a year earlier, according to the MIAMI Association of REALTORS and the Southeast Florida Multiple Listing Service (SEFMLS).
Miami was one of only three home markets and the only major metropolitan area in Florida posting an increase for median sales price of single-family homes. Compared to the previous month, the median sales price rose six percent. "Rising median sales prices reflect strengthening and stability of the Miami real estate market," said Jack H. Levine, 2010 Chairman of the Board of the MIAMI Association of REALTORS.
On the other hand, the median sales price of condominiums in the Miami MSA dropped 22 percent in October, to $107,700, compared to the same month last year but increased more than eight percent compared to the previous month.
The sales of existing single-family homes in the Miami MSA decreased only four percent to 546 compared to October 2009 but were 21 percent higher than they were in October 2008. The Miami real estate market experienced rising residential sales since August 2008, posting increases for 23 consecutive months.
In the Miami MSA, condominium sales increased 17 percent to 757 compared to October 2009 and a 72 percent increase compared to two years ago, when sales were already rising. This was the highest increase in condominium sales of any major metropolitan area in Florida.
Short sales and foreclosures are continuing to have an impact on median and average sales prices for both single-family homes and condominiums especially in some areas of the county. "We continue to observe positive signs in the Miami market, and international buyers continue to fuel market strengthening," said 2010 MIAMI Association of REALTORS Residential President Oliver Ruiz. "While distressed properties continue to affect home values, especially for condominiums, we expect home values to improve as excess inventory is absorbed.
Miami was one of only three home markets and the only major metropolitan area in Florida posting an increase for median sales price of single-family homes. Compared to the previous month, the median sales price rose six percent. "Rising median sales prices reflect strengthening and stability of the Miami real estate market," said Jack H. Levine, 2010 Chairman of the Board of the MIAMI Association of REALTORS.
On the other hand, the median sales price of condominiums in the Miami MSA dropped 22 percent in October, to $107,700, compared to the same month last year but increased more than eight percent compared to the previous month.
The sales of existing single-family homes in the Miami MSA decreased only four percent to 546 compared to October 2009 but were 21 percent higher than they were in October 2008. The Miami real estate market experienced rising residential sales since August 2008, posting increases for 23 consecutive months.
In the Miami MSA, condominium sales increased 17 percent to 757 compared to October 2009 and a 72 percent increase compared to two years ago, when sales were already rising. This was the highest increase in condominium sales of any major metropolitan area in Florida.
Short sales and foreclosures are continuing to have an impact on median and average sales prices for both single-family homes and condominiums especially in some areas of the county. "We continue to observe positive signs in the Miami market, and international buyers continue to fuel market strengthening," said 2010 MIAMI Association of REALTORS Residential President Oliver Ruiz. "While distressed properties continue to affect home values, especially for condominiums, we expect home values to improve as excess inventory is absorbed.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Add 2.1 million houses to the glut
There's a large number of homes, either already repossessed by lenders or very seriously delinquent, that are poised to be added to the already glutted regular supply of homes on the market.
This "shadow inventory" jumped 10% during the past year, to an eight-month supply at the current rate of home sales, according to a report issued Monday.
According to CoreLogic, a financial information provider, there were 2.1 million homes in this uncounted inventory as of the end of August, up from 1.9 million units 12 months earlier.
Adding the shadow inventory to the visible supply of homes on the market boosted the total housing-market supply to 6.3 million units from 6.1 million in August 2009. At the current sales rate, it would take 23 months to go through the entire visible and shadow inventory of homes -- more than three times the normal rate of six to seven months.
The potential extra supply raises the risk of further home price declines, according to Mark Fleming, CoreLogic's chief economist.
"[Weak demand] is being exacerbated by a significant and growing shadow inventory that is likely to persist for some time," he said.
The shadow inventory has been growing as banks take a long time to process defaults.
Home prices expected to slide another 8%
Many banks have been slowing the foreclosure process because they already own a glut of homes, according to Rick Sharga, spokesman for RealtyTrac, the online marketer of foreclosed properties.
He said the banks are "managing" their inventory and not pushing delinquent borrowers quickly through the foreclosure pipeline so they don't have to repossess homes that will take a long time to sell.
It's better for the banks to allow borrowers to stay in these homes, doing the maintenance and protecting them from vandalism, than leaving them vacant for months in moribund markets.
Foreclosures: Where does your state rank?
The recent "robo-signing" scandal has further lengthened the foreclosure process. Several servicers temporarily froze foreclosure actions amid questions about whether many of the foreclosure documents were signed without proper review, raising questions about the procedure's validity.
Florida, Michigan, and California have the highest ratios of properties 90 days or more late compared with home sales. Texas has the lowest ratio of distressed properties to sales.
This "shadow inventory" jumped 10% during the past year, to an eight-month supply at the current rate of home sales, according to a report issued Monday.
According to CoreLogic, a financial information provider, there were 2.1 million homes in this uncounted inventory as of the end of August, up from 1.9 million units 12 months earlier.
Adding the shadow inventory to the visible supply of homes on the market boosted the total housing-market supply to 6.3 million units from 6.1 million in August 2009. At the current sales rate, it would take 23 months to go through the entire visible and shadow inventory of homes -- more than three times the normal rate of six to seven months.
The potential extra supply raises the risk of further home price declines, according to Mark Fleming, CoreLogic's chief economist.
"[Weak demand] is being exacerbated by a significant and growing shadow inventory that is likely to persist for some time," he said.
The shadow inventory has been growing as banks take a long time to process defaults.
Home prices expected to slide another 8%
Many banks have been slowing the foreclosure process because they already own a glut of homes, according to Rick Sharga, spokesman for RealtyTrac, the online marketer of foreclosed properties.
He said the banks are "managing" their inventory and not pushing delinquent borrowers quickly through the foreclosure pipeline so they don't have to repossess homes that will take a long time to sell.
It's better for the banks to allow borrowers to stay in these homes, doing the maintenance and protecting them from vandalism, than leaving them vacant for months in moribund markets.
Foreclosures: Where does your state rank?
The recent "robo-signing" scandal has further lengthened the foreclosure process. Several servicers temporarily froze foreclosure actions amid questions about whether many of the foreclosure documents were signed without proper review, raising questions about the procedure's validity.
Florida, Michigan, and California have the highest ratios of properties 90 days or more late compared with home sales. Texas has the lowest ratio of distressed properties to sales.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Tough times for REO buyers
Q: My family wants to buy a house in Miami. They are looking for a foreclosed property around $60,000, and will pay all cash. Do you think the time is right to buy now? If not, when would be the best time to buy? --Mehmet, Florida
A: First, I'd like to ask you and your family to rethink a core element of your approach to this process. I'm often approached with questions by buyers-to-be who say they "are looking for a foreclosure."
I submit that what you're actually looking for is a good deal -- even a really good deal -- on a property that is well-suited for your purposes. I also submit that the property that best fits that description may or may not be a home that was foreclosed on.
Sellers of individually owned homes that are currently on the market are largely aware that they are in competition with many distressed (bank-owned and short-sale) properties.
As a result, there are many bargains available on non-foreclosures, which are often in superior condition to foreclosed homes. As well, individual sellers tend to be vastly more negotiable on terms like repairs, included personal property, etc., when compared to banks.
Now, let's turn to your question of when the best time to buy is or will be. Overall, the best time to buy is the time that makes the most sense for your family's life, plans and vision for the future. This is also a very frequently asked question, though, especially from those savviest of buyers and investors who are fixated on market timing, so let's talk about whether the market has hit bottom.
The most recent Case-Shiller housing index reported that Miami home prices were on their third month of increases, after nine straight months of decline. As a result, some learned observers of the real estate market would say that Miami prices are actually slightly past their bottom.
However, just as many learned observers might opine that the Miami market -- and the American real estate market in general -- are actually simply going to bounce around the bottom of the appreciation trajectory for awhile. Long story short: It's impossible to know with certainty whether the market is at bottom.
And frankly, trying to time the bottom is a fool's errand on at least two levels. The first? It's impossible. The second: The desire to time the bottom arises out of fallacious reasoning.
A logic flaw called myopic loss aversion causes consumers to be more afraid of losing money than they are excited about gaining a similar amount of money, or equity.
The fact is this: We all know that prices in Miami are very, very low, and likely near bottom. But some will hold off from buying because they think losing even a dollar's worth of equity would be excruciating; in that desperate attempt to avoid a post-purchase loss in value, they will wait so long that prices will go up and they will experience the opportunity cost of lost appreciation they might have realized had they bought a bit sooner.
Human tendency when trying to time the bottom of the market is to wait too long. When prices hit bottom, everyone comes out and wants to buy, sending prices right back up. The only thing stopping that from happening on today's market are the twin buyer paralytics of unemployment and tight mortgage lending guidelines.
That creates a great atmosphere for you and your family to take advantage of low prices soon, without feeling a desperate, breakneck urgency to buy anything before prices skyrocket -- although I don't expect we'll be seeing any true "skyrocketing" anytime soon.
So this might be a great time for your family to buy, if it's a good time in the context of your lives, and if you are comfortable making the commitment to owning a home for a good seven years, plus or minus a bit.
With a longer-term view, you can feel much more comfortable that you'll come out ahead on the purchase and don't have to be fixated on whether the value of the home rises or falls by a percent here or there in the very short term. But to do that, you have to let go of the all too currently common fixation on getting the absolute most for the absolute least, and decide to be OK with buying very, very low.
"So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over," Warren Buffett once famously said about the stock market, and the same applies to real estate. He elaborated that no one -- not even he -- can predict the short-term market movement and that, in fact, those who buy near the bottom might very well lose money -- in the short term.
But if you wait until the signs of appreciation and recovery are clear enough to make a strong short-term prediction, you will have waited so long that everyone else will be buying, too, and prices will be on the rise. Your bargain-basement pricing opportunity will have passed.
With all that said, if you are committed to buying a foreclosed home, or happen to simply select a foreclosed home as the one that works the best for your family, I'd say that now is a very difficult time for REO buyers. There is a great deal of uncertainty about whether flaws in the foreclosure documentation practices of a number of banks may have created "clouded" or unclear title for the buyers of those homes.
If you do elect to buy a foreclosed home, make 150 percent certain to obtain title insurance, which is commonly forgone by cash buyers. I'd also recommend working with a local title or real estate attorney during your purchase, or consulting with them in advance on how to obtain clear title, if you plan to buy a property at an actual foreclosure auction. Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of "The Savvy Woman's Homebuying Handbook" and "Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions." Tara is also the Consumer Ambassador and Educator for real estate listings search site Trulia.com. Ask her a real estate question online or visit her website, www.rethinkrealestate.com.
Source: http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/articles/2010/11/18/tough_times_for_reo_buyers/?page=1
By Tara-Nicholle Nelson
November 18, 2010
A: First, I'd like to ask you and your family to rethink a core element of your approach to this process. I'm often approached with questions by buyers-to-be who say they "are looking for a foreclosure."
I submit that what you're actually looking for is a good deal -- even a really good deal -- on a property that is well-suited for your purposes. I also submit that the property that best fits that description may or may not be a home that was foreclosed on.
Sellers of individually owned homes that are currently on the market are largely aware that they are in competition with many distressed (bank-owned and short-sale) properties.
As a result, there are many bargains available on non-foreclosures, which are often in superior condition to foreclosed homes. As well, individual sellers tend to be vastly more negotiable on terms like repairs, included personal property, etc., when compared to banks.
Now, let's turn to your question of when the best time to buy is or will be. Overall, the best time to buy is the time that makes the most sense for your family's life, plans and vision for the future. This is also a very frequently asked question, though, especially from those savviest of buyers and investors who are fixated on market timing, so let's talk about whether the market has hit bottom.
The most recent Case-Shiller housing index reported that Miami home prices were on their third month of increases, after nine straight months of decline. As a result, some learned observers of the real estate market would say that Miami prices are actually slightly past their bottom.
However, just as many learned observers might opine that the Miami market -- and the American real estate market in general -- are actually simply going to bounce around the bottom of the appreciation trajectory for awhile. Long story short: It's impossible to know with certainty whether the market is at bottom.
And frankly, trying to time the bottom is a fool's errand on at least two levels. The first? It's impossible. The second: The desire to time the bottom arises out of fallacious reasoning.
A logic flaw called myopic loss aversion causes consumers to be more afraid of losing money than they are excited about gaining a similar amount of money, or equity.
The fact is this: We all know that prices in Miami are very, very low, and likely near bottom. But some will hold off from buying because they think losing even a dollar's worth of equity would be excruciating; in that desperate attempt to avoid a post-purchase loss in value, they will wait so long that prices will go up and they will experience the opportunity cost of lost appreciation they might have realized had they bought a bit sooner.
Human tendency when trying to time the bottom of the market is to wait too long. When prices hit bottom, everyone comes out and wants to buy, sending prices right back up. The only thing stopping that from happening on today's market are the twin buyer paralytics of unemployment and tight mortgage lending guidelines.
That creates a great atmosphere for you and your family to take advantage of low prices soon, without feeling a desperate, breakneck urgency to buy anything before prices skyrocket -- although I don't expect we'll be seeing any true "skyrocketing" anytime soon.
So this might be a great time for your family to buy, if it's a good time in the context of your lives, and if you are comfortable making the commitment to owning a home for a good seven years, plus or minus a bit.
With a longer-term view, you can feel much more comfortable that you'll come out ahead on the purchase and don't have to be fixated on whether the value of the home rises or falls by a percent here or there in the very short term. But to do that, you have to let go of the all too currently common fixation on getting the absolute most for the absolute least, and decide to be OK with buying very, very low.
"So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over," Warren Buffett once famously said about the stock market, and the same applies to real estate. He elaborated that no one -- not even he -- can predict the short-term market movement and that, in fact, those who buy near the bottom might very well lose money -- in the short term.
But if you wait until the signs of appreciation and recovery are clear enough to make a strong short-term prediction, you will have waited so long that everyone else will be buying, too, and prices will be on the rise. Your bargain-basement pricing opportunity will have passed.
With all that said, if you are committed to buying a foreclosed home, or happen to simply select a foreclosed home as the one that works the best for your family, I'd say that now is a very difficult time for REO buyers. There is a great deal of uncertainty about whether flaws in the foreclosure documentation practices of a number of banks may have created "clouded" or unclear title for the buyers of those homes.
If you do elect to buy a foreclosed home, make 150 percent certain to obtain title insurance, which is commonly forgone by cash buyers. I'd also recommend working with a local title or real estate attorney during your purchase, or consulting with them in advance on how to obtain clear title, if you plan to buy a property at an actual foreclosure auction. Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of "The Savvy Woman's Homebuying Handbook" and "Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions." Tara is also the Consumer Ambassador and Educator for real estate listings search site Trulia.com. Ask her a real estate question online or visit her website, www.rethinkrealestate.com.
Source: http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/articles/2010/11/18/tough_times_for_reo_buyers/?page=1
By Tara-Nicholle Nelson
November 18, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Know condo rules before decking the halls
Before you tack, nail or tape holiday decorations outside your condominium or home, consider your governing documents, your right to religious freedom and the story of Laurie Richter Spector.
Richter Spector, of Fort Lauderdale, fought back in court several years ago when her condo association demanded she remove a Jewish mezuzah from her door shortly after the holidays. While the case was eventually dismissed, now all Floridians share a state-supported right to post religiously mandated symbols — albeit small in size — anytime of year, regardless of association rules.
"I had a bad experience," said Richter Spector, about her association's order to remove her mezuzah — a small display case no longer than 6 inches long that encases a scroll with religious messages — from the exterior of her front door.
"But I am glad we went through it," added Spector, who left the condo community after the 2007 incident. "Nobody should be deprived of freedom of religion, especially in their own home."
Spector's experience is especially relevant this time of year, when residents' religious beliefs — and desire to express them publicly through holiday decorations — sometimes run afoul of HOA and condo rules.
Richter Spector argued that her right to religious freedom trumped the authority of the association. She said she was following Jewish religious law by keeping a mezuzah near the entrance of her home, and in letters to the association cited the fact that at least one other owner was allowed to keep a Christmas wreath up months after the holiday.
The association cited rules against exterior modifications and threatened eviction and a $1,000 fine.
Both sides refused to budge and ended up in civil court until the Florida Attorney General's Office intervened on behalf of Richter Spector and ordered the association to allow mezuzahs. The association was also ordered to post a sign in the building to let owners know their right to display mezuzahs.
Now it's a rule of the land. In 2008, the Legislature amended state law to guarantee condo owners a special right to display religious objects outside the door. While the statute does not mention the word "mezuzah," it covers objects with the same dimensions of a traditional mezuzah — 6 inches long, 3 inches wide and 1.5 inches deep.
Richter Spector says her ordeal remains a bittersweet victory. It also serves as a civics lesson about protecting your rights as an owner in a shared community.
But keep this in mind: Your condo or homeowners association may be able to put the kibosh on large religious displays and nonreligious decorations of any size.
Before you decorate this year, give your governing documents a once-over. Some associations limit sizes and locations of holiday displays, some enforce fines for taking too long to remove them post-holiday. Others may have no rules because they were not passed properly or have lapsed.
The state of Florida, which regulates condo communities, allows condo associations to pass rules that keep the community and residents safe. That means if your decorations interfere with that, you could have a problem.
There are not similar regulations for homeowners association per se, but an HOA may ban displays that block common areas, walkways, street intersections or the view of drivers on the road. An outdoor lighting display with poor wiring could be the subject of removal, possibly at the expense of the owner should governing documents provide the association the authority to fine and/or pay to have a display moved.
Source:http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/realestate/condos/fl-decorations-condocol-1117-20101116,0,7701864.column
Daniel Vasquez can be reached at CondoColumn@Sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4219 or 561-243-6686. His condo column runs Wednesdays in Your Money and at SunSentinel.com/condos. Check out Daniel's Condos & HOAs blog for news, information and tips related to life in community associations at SunSentinel.com/condoblog. You can also read his consumer column Mondays in Your Money and at sunsentinel.com/vasquez.
Richter Spector, of Fort Lauderdale, fought back in court several years ago when her condo association demanded she remove a Jewish mezuzah from her door shortly after the holidays. While the case was eventually dismissed, now all Floridians share a state-supported right to post religiously mandated symbols — albeit small in size — anytime of year, regardless of association rules.
"I had a bad experience," said Richter Spector, about her association's order to remove her mezuzah — a small display case no longer than 6 inches long that encases a scroll with religious messages — from the exterior of her front door.
"But I am glad we went through it," added Spector, who left the condo community after the 2007 incident. "Nobody should be deprived of freedom of religion, especially in their own home."
Spector's experience is especially relevant this time of year, when residents' religious beliefs — and desire to express them publicly through holiday decorations — sometimes run afoul of HOA and condo rules.
Richter Spector argued that her right to religious freedom trumped the authority of the association. She said she was following Jewish religious law by keeping a mezuzah near the entrance of her home, and in letters to the association cited the fact that at least one other owner was allowed to keep a Christmas wreath up months after the holiday.
The association cited rules against exterior modifications and threatened eviction and a $1,000 fine.
Both sides refused to budge and ended up in civil court until the Florida Attorney General's Office intervened on behalf of Richter Spector and ordered the association to allow mezuzahs. The association was also ordered to post a sign in the building to let owners know their right to display mezuzahs.
Now it's a rule of the land. In 2008, the Legislature amended state law to guarantee condo owners a special right to display religious objects outside the door. While the statute does not mention the word "mezuzah," it covers objects with the same dimensions of a traditional mezuzah — 6 inches long, 3 inches wide and 1.5 inches deep.
Richter Spector says her ordeal remains a bittersweet victory. It also serves as a civics lesson about protecting your rights as an owner in a shared community.
But keep this in mind: Your condo or homeowners association may be able to put the kibosh on large religious displays and nonreligious decorations of any size.
Before you decorate this year, give your governing documents a once-over. Some associations limit sizes and locations of holiday displays, some enforce fines for taking too long to remove them post-holiday. Others may have no rules because they were not passed properly or have lapsed.
The state of Florida, which regulates condo communities, allows condo associations to pass rules that keep the community and residents safe. That means if your decorations interfere with that, you could have a problem.
There are not similar regulations for homeowners association per se, but an HOA may ban displays that block common areas, walkways, street intersections or the view of drivers on the road. An outdoor lighting display with poor wiring could be the subject of removal, possibly at the expense of the owner should governing documents provide the association the authority to fine and/or pay to have a display moved.
Source:http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/realestate/condos/fl-decorations-condocol-1117-20101116,0,7701864.column
Daniel Vasquez can be reached at CondoColumn@Sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4219 or 561-243-6686. His condo column runs Wednesdays in Your Money and at SunSentinel.com/condos. Check out Daniel's Condos & HOAs blog for news, information and tips related to life in community associations at SunSentinel.com/condoblog. You can also read his consumer column Mondays in Your Money and at sunsentinel.com/vasquez.
Monday, November 15, 2010
For the quarter, home prices fall
South Florida home prices continued to drop in the third quarter, spurring an increase in condominium sales, even as single-family sales slumped, a report released Thursday by the Florida Association of Realtors found.
In Miami-Dade County, condo sales jumped to 2,527 in the third quarter, up 43 percent compared to the third quarter of last year. Single-family home sales dipped slightly to 1,812, down 1 percent from last year.
In Broward County, both condo sales and single-family home sales were down in the third quarter. Condo sales totaled 2,459 for an 8 percent drop, and single-family home sales totaled 2,076, an 18 percent drop.
Median prices dropped across the board. Single-family homes in Miami-Dade was $191,100, down 1 percent. Median-priced condos cost $104,600, a decrease of 24 percent.
In Broward, condo prices were $73,100 and single-family home prices stood at $209,600, down 10 and 2 percent, respectively.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/12/1921731/for-the-quarter-home-prices-fall.html
TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA
In Miami-Dade County, condo sales jumped to 2,527 in the third quarter, up 43 percent compared to the third quarter of last year. Single-family home sales dipped slightly to 1,812, down 1 percent from last year.
In Broward County, both condo sales and single-family home sales were down in the third quarter. Condo sales totaled 2,459 for an 8 percent drop, and single-family home sales totaled 2,076, an 18 percent drop.
Median prices dropped across the board. Single-family homes in Miami-Dade was $191,100, down 1 percent. Median-priced condos cost $104,600, a decrease of 24 percent.
In Broward, condo prices were $73,100 and single-family home prices stood at $209,600, down 10 and 2 percent, respectively.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/12/1921731/for-the-quarter-home-prices-fall.html
TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA
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