Taking the Housing Market’s Pulse: Just Say “Aahhhh”… Naples, Ft. Myers, Cape Coral!

 Taking the Housing Market’s Pulse: Just Say “Aahhhh”… Naples, Ft. Myers, Cape Coral! When you go in for your annual physical, you’re hoping for a sunny prognosis. Realtor^® magazine isn’t a medical journal, but it does have a feature called “Market Pulse.” It reports on the patient’s vital signs (if you imagine the patient being the nation’s housing market). The state of the national patient can be relevant here in SW Florida. In fact, the direction of the wider U.S. market is probably the best prognosis for what lies ahead for our own SW Florida housing market.

The NAR’s attending doc is, as always, Dr. Lawrence Yun. When his latest Market Pulse report just appeared in the Realtor mag, it wasn’t hard to picture what would have happened if the good Doctor had performed the pulse-taking in reality.

There would have been an efficient receptionist, and then, the examination room. The wait might have been a few minutes, but if nerves had prompted a checking out of the academic shingle on the wall, it would have been reassuringly plastered with names like Harvard and Purdue.

After the Market Pulse had been taken, the results would have been delivered with a comforting smile. “Jobs are growing,” was the first verdict, given as the doc folded the pulse-O-meter back into its case; “and interest rates remain low…” He would have paused to open the housing market’s chart to scribble a few quick notes, then, without looking up, “Sellers, meanwhile, are reporting faster sales, with homes averaging 36 days on the market.”

Since that’s a lot faster than the 42-day average from the 2015 checkup, that was great Market Pulse news.

But then Dr. Yun might have done one of those little brow wrinkles that doctors use when they’re about to tell us to exercise more or watch what we eat. “But tight inventory in many parts of the country continues to drive prices up…” At that point, having heard this so often, the Market Pulse patient would probably have tuned out the rest. For goodness sake! This lecture hasn’t changed for two years. It’s the one about not enough homes on the market, escalating prices and discouraging first-time buyers who can’t use home sale proceeds to fund down payments. It may be true, but we know, already!

Then it would be time to check out at the reception desk with a promise to be back next year. For those whose primary interest is SW Florida’s housing market, if the future is going to involve buying or selling a SW Florida home, there will be a discreet little card dispenser off to the side of the counter.

Taking the Housing Market’s Pulse: Just Say “Aahhhh”… Naples, Ft. Myers, Cape Coral! Be sure to take one—it says, “Call your {Your Town} Realtor.” That’s me!

A Real Estate Agent in SW Florida Wears Many Hats, Naples, Ft. Myers, Bonita Springs!

 A Real Estate Agent in SW Florida Wears Many Hats, Naples, Ft. Myers, Bonita Springs! The best real estate agent schooling isn’t something that takes place in a classroom. That kind of school is necessary, of course, because some of the most important work every SW Florida real estate agent does has to do with being intimately familiar with the letter of current state laws and Department of Real Estate strictures.

Observing best practices—keeping on top of all the current professional guidelines and legal regulations—does form a solid foundation for building a career in the profession. But important as that is, it’s only a foundation. You have to get busy and build something on it.

As every SW Florida real estate agent soon discovers, doing the kind of effective job that sets you apart begins early in the morning, and often continues long past what is quitting time in many a 9-to-5 occupation. What’s unusual about what goes on during that day is the array of specialized activities to be attended to. Just about every day, you will be energetically juggling tasks satisfying a wide range of different needs, for instance—    

• Pulling and reviewing activity reports from the SW Florida Multiple Listing Service

Keeping your finger on the pulse of the community yields the up-to-the-hour intelligence that’s a vital resource for sellers and buyers in our active SW Florida market

• Monitoring and responding to online contacts

Increasingly, as email and messaging become central to real estate activity, near-  instantaneous response times are the norm

• Scheduling showings

Arranging showings to accommodate both owners and buyers—and handling the inevitable last-minute changes—calls for organizational perseverance (and an abidingly calm demeanor)

• Creating and executing media marketing

Fashioning the kind of attractively worded and designed listings is only the start of the all-important media campaigning that translates into results for your clients  

Simultaneously, an accomplished real estate agent often will be keeping track of closing deadline requirements, handling negotiations between buyers and sellers, facilitating communications with home loan brokers, home inspectors, photographers, staging companies and any number of other facilitators…and fielding the dozen other details that might crop up unexpectedly in the course of the day.

A Real Estate Agent in SW Florida Wears Many Hats, Naples, Ft. Myers, Bonita Springs! Being called upon to wear so many different hats is a challenge that’s not covered in the real estate licensing exams—and one that couldn’t be taught in a classroom. At the same time, I can report that at the end of a full day, it’s one of the most rewarding aspects of being a real estate agent in SW Florida. When you give me a call, you can count on my bringing the whole of my energy and experience into play on your behalf!    

SW Florida Real Estate Watchers Note U.S. Homeownership Dip, Naples, Estero, Marco Island!

 SW Florida Real Estate Watchers Note U.S. Homeownership Dip, Naples, Estero, Marco Island! For SW Florida real estate watchers, it was The Washington Post that came up with the most interesting angle on last week’s most commented-upon real estate headline—which was that across the U.S., home ownership rates had slipped to 1960s levels.

CNBC went with the straight numbers (“Home ownership rates drop to 63.4%”); while website zerohedge decided on a more attention-grabbing route (“Homeownership Rate Crashes to Lowest Since 1965”).

SW Florida readers whose brows might have been furrowed by zerohedge’s “rate-crashing” spin could have been relieved somewhat had they fled to sites like businessinsider, which added, “but may be bottoming” to the sobering news. Yet it was still The Washington Post that made off with the most interesting exposition. Their take was to zero in on the “why” of falling homeownership numbers with: “All the Reasons It’s So Much Harder to Buy a Home Than It Was for Your Parents.”

Chief among all the reasons The Post found was voiced by Lawrence Yun, who is the National Association of Realtors^®’ chief economist. It is, in a word, affordability. As many SW Florida listings reflect, the rebound in residential real estate has meant that asking prices have been rising steadily for some time. “We’ve seen a general rise in the purchase market in wealthier areas and densely populated urban areas,” according to one Boston mortgage exec. “Now the recovery has spread to more rural and up-and-coming areas, too.”

Since The Post headline promised “All the Reasons,” it didn’t stop at affordability. As another economist is quoted, “sales are hitting record highs, prices are growing…but…there’s a chronic inventory shortage.” And NAR’s Yun agrees with that second reason. “People need to focus on the fact that we have a major housing shortage in this country.” More reasons are “income inequality,” which is another way of citing concerns about home prices rising faster than wages; and “rents are up,” which makes saving for a down payment harder for wage earners.

Do all those reasons “it’s so much harder to buy” add up to a coming slump in real estate sales? The jury may be out on that, but the public perception that homeownership is worth pursuing anyway is not. “Most consumers still believe that homeownership is financially worthwhile,” according to The Post, which quotes a 2015 Demand Institute survey. DI found that a full 78% of heads of households agreed—or agreed strongly—that “homeownership is an excellent investment.”

SW Florida Real Estate Watchers Note U.S. Homeownership Dip, Naples, Estero, Marco Island! I agree whole-heartedly, of course; and whether your next foray into SW Florida homeownership is as buyer, seller (or both) the odds are excellent that you do, too. All good reasons to give me a call!

Halloween Gift-Giving Exercise for SW Florida Celebrants, Naples, Ft. Myers, Estero!

It just could be that the absolute best Halloween gift has been identified. It’s one that every SW Florida resident would certainly be surprised to receive.

Halloween Gift-Giving Exercise for SW Florida Celebrants, Naples, Ft. Myers, Estero! Now, in case you are asking yourself who gives gifts at Halloween (other than the candy we hand out to the pint-sized ghosts and goblins), I agree that October 31 gift-giving isn’t in vogue. But thinking about it can be useful. It’s our last chance to get some mental practice in before the season for major league gift-giving hits {Your Town}.

This week is our last chance to fully appreciate this time of year. I’m talking about the not-yet-Holiday season. These are the last few days when there’s no fussing over gift exchanges, Holiday partying, New Years plans—any of it!

Like it or not, come November 1, as the first Halloween decorations come down, it will be off to the races. Suddenly Christmas carols will be everywhere—on the airwaves and over department store loudspeakers. Store windows will first fill with turkeys and pilgrims, then (even before the last Thanksgiving football game has gone into overtime), ads—yuletide ads—will descend upon the land.

It’s something we tend to forget every year: Halloween isn’t just its own thing: it’s the calendar Rubicon separating the Holidays from the rest of the non-Holiday parts of the year. But that presents a special opportunity for {Your Town} residents who’ve fallen out of practice with gift-shopping. Since nobody actually exchanges presents on October 31, the mental exercise can get your creative juices going without having to spend anything.

The easiest Halloween gifting ideas are good for limbering up. It may be a little late for pumpkin-carving sets (everyone who favors jack-o-lanterns already has theirs, anyway). Likewise, candy is probably already near the bowls, ready to be handed over to the little spooks and goblins. A better idea might be a CD with soundtracks from “The Exorcist” or “Nightmare on Elm Street.”

It doesn’t take long before most people realize what a good thing it is that we don’t really have to exchange presents at Halloween: it’s too tough to come up with original ideas. I gave up soon enough—which is how this best Halloween gift of all came to my attention (it was on the web).

The perfect Halloween gift would be…a ghost town!

It may be a little impractical, but if you search high and low, seven of them seem to be currently available. They aren’t all old mining towns, either (one is an island beach resort whose bridge burned down). Any of them would certainly surprise any SW Florida Halloween gift recipient. They’d certainly have a hard time coming up with something to give in return.

Halloween Gift-Giving Exercise for SW Florida Celebrants, Naples, Ft. Myers, Estero! There is a possibility that I’m slightly prejudiced in the selection of the perfect Halloween gift (being that it’s a piece of real estate). But that’s why SW Florida home buyers and sellers choose to give me a call when real estate is involved. I’m totally focused on the subject!

Top 6 Approaches Set Up SW Florida Open House Success, Naples, Ft. Myers

Top 6 Approaches Set Up SW Florida Open House Success, Naples, Ft. Myers. The debate continues about whether open houses are effective for marketing SW Florida homes. Yes, sales do still originate from them, but the percentages have been declining since social media and online listings changed the way SW Florida prospects look for their next home.

Whether an open house is likely to garner qualified traffic is a decision that clients and I work out together on a case-by-case basis. The choice has to do with the nature of the property, its location, history, and the state of the current SW Florida market. Some properties are much better suited to being shown on a one-on-one guided tour basis, where questions can be answered and strong points pointed out; others shine in any circumstances.

When it’s decided that an open house looks to be a productive event, preparing the property will be nearly identical to that for any showing. The only difference is that more prospective buyers will not have any idea about the house—they will not have seen any photos or taken a video tour. For the owner, then, preparing begins with projecting how those prospects will take in the property. This is a list of the six approaches that are most often cited as being keys to preparing for open house success:

1. First Impression. Most commentaries point to the perennial first impression as being decisive in how the entire open house will be experienced. “First impression” is defined as the prospect’s takeaway from what happens during the walk from car through the entryway. It rates extra attention, so in addition to making it as inviting as possible (via landscaping and paint touchup where it’s needed), if the route unescorted visitors should take is ambiguous, strategically positioned arrow signs make your welcome explicit (in fact, a “Welcome!” Isn’t a bad idea, either).
2. Clean clean. “Clean” can include not just sparkling floors, sinks, and countertops—it means clean air, too: a few clean-scented floral plug-ins make it easy.
3. De-clutter. This could also be #2. You could argue that if a crowd shows up, clearing open space is even more important than usual (but it’s really important always!)
4. Stash personal items. This is 85% true; but the goal is to create the impression that this home is ready for its new owner. Massive family photo displays should be packed away, but a few personal favorite décor items can add a people-friendly touch.
5. Light and bright. Curtains open, lights and lamps on.
6. The rest. The last of the “Top 6” tips is hard to determine—there are many candidates that are cited with equal frequency. Setting the dining room table used to be a leader, but formal dining rooms are disappearing fast. Setting out a local information sheet with great nearby SW Florida restaurants and shopping venues is certainly a good idea for those new to the area. Being mindful of temperature control is important when weather might drive visitors away, as is buying new towels for the bathrooms and setting out cookies and lemonade, water or tea.

Top 6 Approaches Set Up SW Florida Open House Success, Naples, Ft. Myers. SW Florida open houses are just one of the many ways your home can be offered to the public when you decided it’s time to move to a new place. All of them start with an easy first step: calling me! Thank you and Good Luck with your search!

SW Florida Home Sales Prospects: More than a Glass Half-Full

SW Florida Home Sales Prospects: More than a Glass Half-Full. Even the least vigilant of SW Florida’s market-watchers had their antennae out last week, the traditional time of month when real estate statistics are released from the most authoritative sources. National trends in home sales frequently provide clues to the direction the SW Florida market is likely to take—and with the summer selling season already under way, this is the time of year when movements can be more volatile than usual.

Last week’s data was less exciting than has been the case in recent years—and what movement there was seemed to leave opinion-makers perplexed. The Associated Press writers put it this way:

“The housing market enters the traditional spring buying season facing a quandary.”

When you are interested in clues to how home sales are likely to fare, words like “quandary” don’t help. It was in fact glass-half-full/glass-half-empty kind of news. You could see what you wanted to see.

If you were a pessimistic type, your predisposition might have been bolstered by The New York Times Headline, “Existing Home Sales Drop More Than Expected.” There it was! Confirmation of a downturn in activity. Though you could have admitted that the trend might not extend to every corner of the country, the possibility that SW Florida home sales might now head south couldn’t be denied. The New York Times said so!

On the other hand, if you were among SW Florida ’s more numerous optimistic observers, reading the same news left you thinking that the very same headline was actually slightly misleading. It was based on the National Association of Realtors^® report that talked about home sales prices continuing to rise. The “home sales drop” was only (as the headline actually read) against what had been “expected.” Sales levels had been sizzling for months, so expectations had been high (not among the pessimists, certainly). But the numbers showed that existing home sales were actually 2.2% higher than a year earlier!

Reading the entire NAR report could explain why The New York Times emerged with a quandary. In it, readers learned that U.S. job growth “continues to hum along at a robust pace” which could explain why “overall demand for buying is still solid entering the busy spring season.” But then they learned that “anxiety about the health of the economy is holding back a segment of would-be buyers.” On one hand, there was the 48^th consecutive month of “steadfast price growth;” on the other, “unshakably low supply levels.” The share of first time home buyers fell 30%; yet the share of first time home buyers “is up 29% from a year ago.”

The Times’ quandary was certainly understandable. But although not much light may have been shed on the prognosis for home sales in SW Florida, a couple of factors could have been deduced. In the coming months, home sales certainly won’t “be affected by the large East Coast blizzard” that had impacted February numbers.

SW Florida Home Sales Prospects: More than a Glass Half-Full. What is likely to affect sales is the continuation of tantalizingly low 30-year, conventional fixed-rate mortgage rates, “the lowest since April 2015.” If that kind of encouragement has you interested in checking out the current crop of great SW Florida home offerings, I hope you’ll forego the quandary altogether—just give me a call!

Top 5 Reasons for SW Florida Real Estate, Naples, Ft. Myers, Bonita Springs

Top 5 Reasons for SW Florida Real Estate, Naples, Ft. Myers, Bonita Springs. Of the investor-friendly possibilities, real estate has some particularly welcoming attributes that have kept it perpetually close to investors’ hearts (and portfolios). This is particularly the case whenever tenuous national and world affairs make the future unnerving hard to predict.

Forbes magazine is one of the foremost sources that knowledge-thirsty investors consult for ideas and commentary about productive destinations for their extra investment capital; and some of those ideas recently surfaced in a piece on why real estate is “investor-friendly.” They pointed to five major characteristics that continue to attract investors:

1. SW Florida landlords have a degree of protection from the kind of volatility that the stock and bond markets frequently experience because rental rates are by their nature more stable over time. Globally, even international investors find U.S. real estate markets to offer relatively safe haven in troubled times. Forbes also notes that real estate investments offer insulation from price movements “since returns are derived from rental income in addition to price appreciation.”
2. Any SW Florida investor who has been around for a while knows how inflation can be a real investment-killer. Research points to the price-raising flexibility that real estate investments embody—but you don’t need to be an academic to know that everyone expects rents to rise when the cost of living does. When inflation rears its otherwise unwelcome head, commercial real estate investments have “the potential to become more profitable.”
3. Last year, global economic growth slowed for most kinds of investment assets, but real estate was an exception. Rising rents alone would have done the trick (but underlying appreciation also didn’t hurt).
4. As an injection of a different asset class, real estate is a portfolio-strengthener. Spreading risk is one of the bedrock principals every SW Florida investor learns from the start—a real estate investment does the trick.
5. Tax benefits. The income from a rental investment in SW Florida can be partially offset by depreciation and loan interest “that can add up to a substantial tax break.”

Top 5 Reasons for SW Florida Real Estate, Naples, Ft. Myers, Bonita Springs. This summer, the current listings offer any variety of such investor-friendly possibilities. When you decide that your own investment portfolio might benefit from the stability and other advantages that distinguish SW Florida real estate investments, I hope you won’t hesitate to give me a call today to investigate!

Officials Unworried by DTI Outbreak among SW Florida Homeowners

It might sound shocking, but SW Florida’s homeowners—present and future—have DTIs!

Officials Unworried by DTI Outbreak among SW Florida Homeowners. Although the press has been largely silent, it’s important that the public be fully educated on the subject. But before anyone calls an emergency meeting to see what can be done…

The good news is that, despite how dire it may sound, having DTIs isn’t a health menace (even though it is true that SW Florida homeowners have both front-end and back-end DTIs). In fact, they’re not only not a problem, the truth is that without DTIs, it’s doubtful any of us could qualify for even the simplest SW Florida home loan.

You needn’t bother Googling “DTIs”—they are Debt-To-Income ratios. So everyone with debts and an income has them. They are quite useful when it comes to predicting the maximum home loan amount that can be handled comfortably. Knowing your DTI will clue you in on how much home you can easily afford. It will also tell the bank or other mortgage lender the same thing—once they verify from your credit history that you are an established bill-paying good citizen.

DTI computations are wonderfully simple. In fact, even without formally knowing how they are calculated, most SW Florida residents have a feel for what they measure—it comes with paying the bills every month. 

The front-end ratio is easy to arrive at. By taking a home loan payment (all-in: principal, interest, taxes and insurance) and dividing it by the monthly before-tax income, you come up with a percentage. A $2,000 mortgage payment with an $8,000 income yields 2000/8000, or 20%. Most lenders would smile on that number; but a maximum of 28% is considered standard for the front-end ratio (although no debt ratio rule is carved in stone).

The back-end ratio is broader. It’s what’s usually meant when “DTI” is cited. Among the bills included are those for credit card and car loan payments, alimony and/or child support, student loans, personal installment loans and payments for co-signed loans (even if the co-signee is paying them). NOT included are other monthly expenses like utility bills, health insurance payments, cell phone and cable bills. 

To finish calculating the back-end ratio, just take those debt payments, add them to the home loan payment, then divide that total by income: the resulting ratio comes out as a percentage. An income of $6,000 with debts of $2,500 would yield a DTI of 41.67%, which is within the federal “qualified mortgage rule.” Forty-three percent is the top number officially allowed.

Officials Unworried by DTI Outbreak among SW Florida Homeowners. So, a rule-of-thumb like “no more than 28% of debt should go toward servicing a home loan” actually just restates the front-end DTI guideline. Other factors—like credit history and liquid assets available for a down payment—go into the banks’ decision-making, but as soon as you familiarize yourself with your DTIs, you’re talking the lenders’ language!

Call me when it’s time to buy or sell, and we’ll soon be talking all of the dialects that make up SW Florida’s real estate language!