Fort Lauderdale Housing Thread

[casualobserver]

[quote=acegolfer;3395066]

I was told by my agent that short sale can take 6 months. quote]

Quite possible if you have both a first and second position underwater with the offer. Then you've got two institutions trying to decide if that's the best they can do. You, the buyer are then frozen relative to other possibilities unless you withdraw your offer and take yourself out of the running before you even know if your offer is good enough. To me, it is a prescription for wasting a lot of time unless you are a cash rich speculator.

[acegolfer]

What's your opinion?

[AJGIANTS]

Originally Posted by compelled to reply

Let's begin this thread with a public service announcement from compelled to reply: DO NOT BUY A HOUSE ANYWHERE IN OR NEAR FORT LAUDERDALE FOR AT LEAST TWO YEARS. Please RENT for at least a year not only because of the real estate situation, but to become familiar with the area as well. You might hate it. That is all.

Absolutely. I am just hoping it still as much of a buyers market in 2 years as it is now. Hopefully more of a buyers market.

[happymccamper]

The Latest....

Existing home sales fall in March - Yahoo! News (broken link)

[Wild Style]

Originally Posted by AJGIANTS

Absolutely. I am just hoping it still as much of a buyers market in 2 years as it is now. Hopefully more of a buyers market.

EVERY single run up in housing prices in U.S. history took about 6 to 7 yrs to correct. By this I mean from peak to bottom. So if it peaked in say 06 you have into about 2012/2013.

[granitelady]

Originally Posted by casualobserver

There's no crystal ball here, folks, it is all speculation. The closest you can come to having some rational approach is to study the market statistics like a hawk and be prepared to act quickly if the key stats start firming for a couple of months in a row.

Like Phoenix, Las Vegas and other desirable sunbelt locations, Florida's real estate boom was as influenced by investment speculators as much as, in not more than, traditional economic/employment drivers. In this regard, speculators, with later/higher acquisition cost bases, will be quicker to sell out since they are just cutting an investment loss as opposed to giving up a roof over their heads. Nonetheless, there are still huge amounts of cash and capital floating around out there looking for a return. There is already evidence that real estate vulture outfits are starting to make some moves.

It is true that banks and other financial institutions will be quick to unload any inventory they are forced to take on, since unoccupied houses are non-income producing assets and REO attracts an especially punitive risk-based capital charge to their balance sheets. Nonetheless, a lot of mortgages were originated by the late night TV outfits who unloaded loan risk via securitization traunches. This fragmentation of risk will delay not only loss recognition pressures but also make it hard for a single creditor to make a decision relative to a single property.

While I will take the locals word that the employment economy is south Florida is not good, there are still a zillion baby boomers to retire. Some will choose Georgia, Texas and the Carolinas, but a goodly number will still choose Florida.

And even for those early wave retirees that are now looking to migrate out of Florida because of insurance costs and more "crowded" conditions, they may indeed want to sell, but chances are they will keep their house listed for a long time at a high price.

While the US economy is struggling, South American economies like Brazil are still going along quite well. Miami and its surrounds will still likely benefit as the logical points of service for South American operations.

This is hardly an exhaustive list of factors......my point being though nobody is going to perfectly predict whether the minuses overrule the pluses and even if so, for how long. A lot of this real estate slump is consumer confidence induced. Who knows what and when something will be reported that turns sentiment around?

We're ultimately left to our own individual brainpower and risk/reward appetite in making our decisions. Best of luck to us all.

wow!!!
you've said it all! I wish I had the ability to put it into words like you...and I totally agree with your thinking, but most of all, enjoyed reading an intelligent post.

[granitelady]

Originally Posted by compelled to reply

For real estate? Or in general? Right now it's the Carolinas for RE. Everyone is flocking there, the economy is growing, it missed out on the subprime mortgage fiasco and excessive speculation, and always sustained healthy growth. In FL the most promising spot is Jacksonville for those reasons but to a lesser extent.

the only problem is that the job market is much worse than Florida in the Carolinas...trust me...I moved to NC in 04 and now am moving back to my crazy but dear Florida