Posts Tagged ‘Real Estate News’

Just Listed: South Florida Law Blog Named AllTop’s “Best of the Best”

Friday, June 10th, 2011

 Just Listed: South Florida Law Blog Named AllTop’s “Best of the Best”All the top headlines from popular topics around the web: that’s AllTop.

And now the South Florida Law Blog is listed on this popular directory of top news sources. Fresh off the South Florida Sun-Sentinel Best of Blogs Awards, Oppenheim Law is proud to announce we are part of the feed to the AllTop Real Estate topic: http://real-estate.alltop.com/

What is AllTop?
The website helps users answer the question, “What’s happening?” Alltop prides itself on providing aggregation without aggravation, according to its homepage.

The “online magazine rack” collects the latest headlines from the best sites and blogs. Topics include celebrities, fashion, sports, politics – and real estate. The South Florida Law blog is in good company alongside news giants such as The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC and The New York Times and local blogs from Hanoi to Chicago.

The selection process for Alltop is “highly subjective and judgmental”, not based on an algorithm, as with search engines, so to be included is a special honor. South Florida Law Blog fans are now able to subscribe and view the latest real estate news and commentary alongside their other favorite blogs.

About Alltop and Guy Kawasaki
Named “the granddaddy of blog discovery tools” by Mashable, Alltop was founded by former Apple evangelist and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki. Kawasaki was one of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984. Kawasaki is a renowned public speaker and best-selling author of 10 books including his latest, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. Although he’s been described as a business legend, Kawasaki says that being a legend shouldn’t be your goal in life: “What you should do is create a great product or service…the goal is to change the world…if you do that, maybe you’ll be a legend.”

Florida Real Estate’s Mortal Enemy: Excess Inventories

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

Florida Real Estate’s Mortal Enemy: Excess InventoriesWhat is killing Florida real estate? Excess inventories and falling home prices.

House prices have been continuously falling for the first time in 70 years, and South Florida homeowners should expect the trend to continue.

A surplus inventory of houses caused by Florida foreclosures and short sales is the mortal enemy of home prices. Lower prices are needed to sell off excess inventories of residential properties, and in turn lower prices encourage more inventories from anxious sellers.

So how big are excess inventories and how long will it take for the real estate market to absorb them?

According to Economic Consultant Gary Shilling, we are currently facing a surplus of up to 2.5 million excess house inventories in the United States, a number that is subject to rise with further foreclosures and falling home prices.

To forecast the length of time to work off this excess inventory and have the market return to more favorable inventory and price conditions, Shilling developed projections of supply and demand for residential units.

Household formation averaged about 900,000 per year over the past decade as measured by the Census Bureau. Shilling uses this number as a reasonable estimate of yearly housing demand. However, with many college students moving back with their parents after graduation, household formation is not happening as fast as it once did.

New construction of single family homes and apartment units is running about 700,000 per year, and about 300,000 U.S. homes are torn down, converted or removed from housing stock each year. Based on these numbers, Shilling calculates new housing supply to be about 400,000.
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Oppenheim Says: Don’t Give up on Miami, the Heat is on!

Saturday, May 7th, 2011

Orlando's got the real estate Magic, Miami's got the Heat!Orlando’s got the Florida real estate Magic and Miami has the Heat!

Reports are in that Miami and Orlando are dragging Florida out of recession, but for now only Orlando is performing above its economic weight class.

The Miami Herald reported this week that while Orlando represents just 14 percent of Florida’s 7.2 million-person workforce, it accounts for 46 percent of the Sunshine State’s 44,000 new jobs last month, eighty percent of which came from the tourism industry.

Given the city’s abundance of theme parks, brand new “Medical City” popping up with the opening of the University of Central Florida’s new medical school and strong video game industry, it’s no surprise Orlando outperformed its economic class.

Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner told reporters Thursday during his annual review of Florida’s economic outlook that Orlando is “certainly coming out ahead of the other large metropolitan areas in this recession.’’

Here in South Florida, Miami is doing its part to reverse the economic slide the state has weathered over the last three years as well. In the last 12 months, South Florida added 1,100 jobs in the finance sector alone. “Companies are hiring,’’ said Jaap Donath, vice president of research for the Beacon Council, Miami-Dade’s economic development agency. “They’re hiring across the board.’’

While Orlando has certainly grown by leaps and bounds, it’s important to keep the numbers in perspective. The South Florida metro area’s $253 billion economy is more than twice the size of Orlando’s, according to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. The smaller the economy and workforce, the easier it is to show big gains. Additionally, Miami has been sheltered from the brunt of the economic freeze due to its frequent interactions with booming South American consumers.
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More Good News! Higher Real Estate Prices in Select South Florida Cities

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

City of Weston, FLWeston is Number One! Zip codes with good schools, high paying jobs are topping list.

Some areas of South Florida are finally seeing the first steps of a tentative recovery. As reported by the Sun-Sentinel, ten zip codes in Broward and six in Palm Beach County are seeing higher home prices.

33327, in Weston, saw the largest price increase from February 2010 with a 9.3% increase. The areas that have had a price recovery have generally been close to good schools or high paying jobs. While only a few zip codes are showing signs of recovery, the news is nevertheless good for all of South Florida. As an area that was one of the worst hit by the real estate crisis, we are now seeing a recovery before the rest of the country. Prices are still low in other areas because foreclosures and short sales make up the majority of sales.
Every recovery has to start somewhere and it seems to be starting in our own back yard here in Weston.

There is a large backlog of these “distressed” loans and the only way property values are going to go up in the rest of South Florida is if they are cleared out. This is what is happening right now and is the first step on a long road to recovery.

This news comes on the heels of reports that traffic to real estate websites increased 27 percent during the month of February – the largest jump since the first half of 2009. This combined with news that single family home sales across South Florida also went up in February and an encouraging job market leads Oppenheim Law and Weston Title to believe that the economy here in South Florida is showing signs of life after all.
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