Washington has heard the message! The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 was signed into law by the president this morning. Many homeowners will soon have access to more affordable financing, and first-time homebuyers (those who have not owned a home for three years) will receive a tax-credit to help them enter the market.
Here is a great opportunity to learn from expert Robert C Percival in this full day leasing class sponsored by RCA & SIOR.
Many of you may not know this, but my husband and I raised our nephews for most of their lives. As teens, they chose to move back to Illinois to live with their mother, my sister, and see how things would be there.
Well, it is a few years later, and our 19 year old nephew Nick, whom we think of and refer to as a son, has returned to sunny South Florida, bringing with him his girlfriend Nelly, her five year old son Isaiah, and their 11 month old son Jaden.
I had no idea I would be thrown into the role of Grandma--or what I have them call me, GG (glamourous Grandma)--at just under 40 years of age. To my amazement, I love it!
EXCELENT BUS OPPORTUNITY STORE SELLS A WIDE VARIETY OD SCOOTERS, ATV'S, DIRT BIKES, MOTORCYCLES, APARELL, PARTS AND SERVICE.
Not only can a day impact your life, in our business, being with the right company can help make it even sweeter!
As a member of RAMB and Keller Williams Realty, I consider myself to be extremely lucky (though I feel luck is simply when preparation meets opportunity). Keller Williams is so training intensive, it provides countless hours of video and other type of online training to their associates.
In addition, there are workshops called camps (like Camp 4.4.3 and Camp 36.12.3), that help newbie and seasoned Realtors take control of their business like no other company can. Of course, KWs corporate culture is to offer all training with open doors to anyone from any Realty company with the intent of bettering our industry and sharpenning our agents in order to properly compete in this and any market.
The latest report by the National Association of REALTORS confirms that the current tightened credit markets have had an impact on the commercial real estate industry.
Investment in commercial real estate during the first four months of 2008 was $48.2 billion, down 69.5 percent from $157.8 billion during the same period in 2007 when the financial and credit markets were running smoother.
Vacancy rates in the office markets, for example, are expected to rise nationally to 13.7 percent in the fourth quarter of this year from 12.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007. While overall vacancy rates in the industrial sector are projected to rise to 9.9 percent in the fourth quarter of this year an increase from 9.4 percent in the same period of 2007
in the Intracoastal Mall
3577 NE 163 Street
Miami, FL 3316
Please be our guest...This session will show you how to maximize your Exclusive RAMB Member Benefits:
Immobel 13 Language Website (now including International IDX
and featuring Paris Listings)
Foreign buying activity in US during 2007
Survey: 4,400 NAR members
Average price: $297,000
14% sold over $750,000
43% of foreign investors paid cash
75% bought single-family homes
33% came from North America
26% of Realtors sold to a foreign buyer in 2007
2007 Foreign Buying Activity - Source: NAR Survey:
21% of respondents* have experienced an increase in international business, 72% have seen the level of international business remain constant, and only 6% experienced a decrease. The majority of respondents selling international properties noted that the weak U.S. dollar had impacted foreign sales purchasers.
*4,400 NAR Members responded to the Survey
2007 Foreign Buying Activity - Source: NAR Survey:
According to the survey, 26% of the respondents had served international clients in the past 12 months. Approximately half of the clients subsequently purchased real estate properties in the US. When clients did not make a purchase, the survey respondents mentioned cost of property (54%), immigration laws (27%), and property taxes (24%) as being the major reasons behind their decision.
2007 Foreign Buying Activity - Source: NAR Survey:
The largest group of buyers came from North America (33%), followed by Europe (31%) and Asia (22%). Individually, Canada, the UK, Mexico, China, and India ranked among the top five. The most popular U.S. destinations for the purchase of property were Florida, California, Arizona, and Texas.
2007 Foreign Buying Activity - Source: NAR Survey:
Close to half of all international buyers paid in cash and the majority were attracted to single-family homes (75%), with the remaining 25% opting for condos or townhouses.
9:00am - Registration and Breakfast
9:30 - 11:00am Seminar
What you will learn:
Foreign Buying Activity in 2007 - Source: NAR Survey:
The survey found that a typical international buyer purchased a single family home for holiday purposes at $297,400 with mortgage financing, and stayed at the property for 2.6 months. Over 14% of properties sold to international buyers were in excess of $750,000.
Source: NAR 2007 Profile of Buyer's Home Feature Preferences
Mozy (www.mozy.com) helps prevent a real estate professional’s worst nightmare: data loss. After installing Mozy on your PC and configuring it to back up your most critical data, the software automatically copies files to secure Web storage. You can set this to happen once a day, once a week or even as you work.
The price for this peace of mind? If you have less than 2 gigabytes’ worth of data to protect (a definite possibility if it’s mostly Word documents and Outlook records), Mozy won’t cost you a penny. Break the 2GB barrier, and you’ll pay $4.95 per month, which entitles you to unlimited storage space. In both cases, the Mozy software makes it simple to find the files and file types that you want to preserve.
Gmail (gmail.google.com) offers real estate professionals a host of advantages over traditional e-mail, starting with Web accessibility. You can access your account on any computer using any browser. Even better, you can connect to Gmail via your cell phone using either its Web browser or a special Gmail application.
You’ve just captured some walk-through videos of an exciting new property. Now you need an easy way to add them to your Web site so your customers can see the footage. Enter YouTube (www.youtube.com), which lets you upload unlimited videos of up to 10 minutes each, then “embed” them in your site using its familiar player.
All you do is sign up for a free account, then start uploading your videos. If you shot them using a camcorder, you’ll need to import them into a video-editing program first, and then output them again in a YouTube-friendly file format.
Want to make your site stand out from the crowd? Stock it with a mortgage calculator, a Zillow home-value estimator and other handy tools. You don’t need a degree in programming to make this happen; just head to Widgetbox (www.widgetbox.com), home to thousands of “widgets” you can use free of charge.
Why spend money on pricey office software when you can get your work done on the Web? Google Docs (docs.google.com) offers browser-based word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. Granted, the interface looks a little stark compared with Microsoft Office, but that’s a small price to pay for such convenience. Google Docs documents can be created, edited, viewed, printed and shared on any computer. That means you can access your files at home just as easily as you can at work.
If you’re looking for a good spot to host your property photos, look no further than Flickr (www.flickr.com). The site makes easy work of storing and displaying photos, and you can’t beat the price: It’s free if you upload less than 100 megabytes’ worth of images per month. If you need more space, you can open a Pro account, affording unlimited storage, for just $24.95 per year.
FREE! KompoZer www.kompozer.net
FREE! Google Page Creator pages.google.com
FREE! Florida Association of Realtors® Florida Living Network http://fl.living.net
Supplement your Web site by taking advantage of the free Web page that FAR offers each member on the public Florida Living Network™ site. There is also a free company web page accessible to the Broker.
All you have to do is go to the Florida Living Network (http://fl.living.net).
Click on the "Find a REALTOR®" link at the left hand side of the page.
MILWAULKEE – July 21, 2008 – Home sales trends might soon shift into a reverse commute.
First-time buyers who used to "drive till they qualified" by seeking affordable housing in outlying suburbs with cheaper land are rethinking that strategy, say local brokers. High gas prices are reordering some buyers' definition of affordable: the shorter the commute, the more affordable the house.
"Buyers are upfront about that. Buyers are calculating their commuting costs for properties they like, and considering that as part of the living in that house," said Diane Alexander, an agent with Realty Executives Integrity in Brookfield.
She has been trying to sell a "darling" house in Ixonia, in Jefferson County, for three months. "At $179,900, it's a first- timer's house, but it's tough, with the long commutes," Alexander said. The rest of the story....
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