Do you have questions or need a better understanding of Portability or November's Constitutional Amendments? Attend this seminar to help you to understand the New Homestead Exemption and Portability as it applies to future property taxes. Please join Danielle Blake at The Miami Herald in West Broward and get your questions answered.

Danielle Blake

RAMB's Vice President of Government Affairs

Get your questions answered on Portability and the Constitutional Amendments:

Record Number of Overseas Visitors Coming to United States - Visitors experience America and bring abundant benefits

Washington -- Despite increasing airfares due to rising fuel prices, record numbers of international travelers are coming to America.

It’s a bargain for people outside the United States to come here. Hotel room rates in New York, for example, are up 11 percent in dollar terms, but only a mere 1.5 percent increase when calculated in euros, according to Bobby Bowers of Smith Travel Research in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

“Once you’re here, in terms of staying in a hotel, it’s cheap,” Bowers said. “Alternatively, for those traveling from the U.K. to Paris, [they] won’t find the value [they would] get by going to places like Orlando [Florida] or [Washington] D.C.”

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Aug. 7, 2008 – The values of homes, businesses and other properties across Florida declined $153 billion during the last year, and the murky economic picture isn’t expected to improve until sometime in 2009, state officials said.

Total property values dropped an unprecedented 6 percent, double the figure economists had projected last year. The decline would have been worse if not for $55.6 billion spent on new construction, according to data reported by The Miami Herald in its Wednesday editions.  The rest of the story...

FYI:   www.BuscAbogados.com is a new on-line search engine designed to assist Spanish-speaking users finding attorneys in the Miami area.  According to the company, BuscAbogados, the site provides key searches by specialty and sub-specialties and can mix English and Spanish terms in a bilinual format (most attorney search engines do not operate in Spanish).  Currently the site has a database of 7,000 attorneys in Florida, with more than 5,000 in Miam-Dade County.

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.