REAL ESTATE FORECAST: GAINESVILLE, Fla.Saturday, March 09, 2007: UF study: The price is right, so buy now.– Hopeful homebuyers in Florida should act now: The price is right as the state’s single-family residential housing market bottoms out, according to a University of Florida study released today.“If you’re thinking of buying a house, there’s probably not much to be gained by holding out at this point,” says Wayne Archer, director of UF’s Bergstrom Center for Real Estate Studies. “It doesn’t look like prices are going to fall anymore.” Read Full Story

If you live in Florida…read on!
The Miami Herald © 2007, Gary Fineout. Posted February 07 2007
$50K homestead exemption wouldn’t cover all property taxes; ……Click above for full story
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Feb. 7, 2007 – Gov. Charlie Crist’s promise to slash property taxes for beleaguered homeowners would apply to only about two-thirds of the taxes most homeowners pay, top aides told legislators Tuesday, igniting criticism from Democrats that the tax-cut plan could be a “bait and switch.”

This is a good area to voice your thoughts, questions or such to myself or anyone that would care to respond. While this is a Real Estate BLog, let’s have a bit of fun and talk about things like good dining in South Florida, new attractions, etc. If you had a good or bad experience while dining, shopping, etc. this is a good place to speak up. Hope to hear from you soon. Eileen Kedersha

Sun-Sentinel by Paul Owers Posted February 1 2007; For full article please click here
Hoping to bolster its bottom line during the housing downturn, historic home builder Levitt Corp. said Wednesday it will be sold to the Fort Lauderdale-based holding company run by the head of BankAtlantic for $286 million.BFC Financial Corp., already owns 17 percent of Levitt. It also has stakes in Bluegreen Corp., BankAtlantic Bancorp, Ryan Holdings Inc., Benihana Inc. and Cypress Creek Capital.Holders of Levitt’s Class A shares will receive 2.27 shares of BFC’s Class A common stock for each share they own, the companies said. With BFC’s closing stock price Tuesday of $6.35, Levitt shareholders would receive $14.41, a 32 percent premium. BFC shares closed Wednesday at $6.23, down 12 cents.Levitt shares shot up 30 percent, or $3.28 a share,on the news to close Wednesday at $14.16.The Fort Lauderdale-based builder said it needs to improve its capital and liquidity positions while it waits for the housing market to rebound.

Sun-Sentinel by Paul Owers: Posted January 29 2007; For full article click here
When Jim Cahlin looks at commercial real estate in South Florida, he’s starting to see New York.”We’re getting closer and closer to rental rates in major metropolitan markets,” said Cahlin, a broker for Cushman & Wakefield.At year-end 2006, the average rental rate for luxury downtown office space in Palm Beach County was $40.69 a square foot, up from $36.42 at year-end 2005, according to a Cushman report. Broward’s rental rate for comparable digs was $31.08 a square foot, up from $29.29.Rents in the Big Apple and other large cities are north of $50, Cahlin said.Why are South Florida landlords charging so much? Because they can.The high cost of construction is limiting the number of new office buildings in Palm Beach and Broward counties.

Written by: Robyn A. Friedman, Sun Sentinel
Published January 8, 2007
Real estate is bound to be one of the most talked-about issues again this year.People this year are likely to be pondering when the real estate market will recover, what direction interest rates will go and where new development or redevelopment will occur.Just before Christmas, three leading housing economists held a roundtable to discuss some of the many questions that will arise regarding housing in 2007. With a new Congress in control and a housing slowdown under way, what’s in store for home buyers and sellers? Which way will mortgage rates go? How will the slowdown in the housing market affect the overall economy? Here’s a summary of what David Seiders, David Lereah and David Berson said in a recent teleconference.David Seiders, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders: In 2004 and 2005, there was an “unsustainable housing boom,” with sales levels and price appreciation running above what he considered to be sustainable. As a result, 2006 brought an “impressive correction” that might threaten the nation’s economic expansion. Mounting mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures will affect consumer spending. Home mortgage rates will remain stable through 2007, with fixed-rate loans topping out at 6.5 percent. Sales of new single-family homes, which peaked in the third quarter of 2005, bottomed out in the fourth quarter of 2006 and will remain flat this year. Residential remodeling will grow through 2007 and 2008 due to a record level of homeowner equity.David Lereah, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors: Some economists are predicting that the housing market will get worse before it gets better, but Lereah thinks we’re pretty close to bottoming out. “That’s good news,” he said, because it means the contraction in the housing market will be shorter than it was in the previous two contractions we experienced the last 20 years. There is about a seven-month supply of existing homes for sale throughout the nation, but in some local markets — and he singled out South Florida as well as California — there are double-digit months of home supplies for sale.That means these areas will have a more prolonged correction. For the past three months, prices have dropped on existing-home sales, and he expects further declines for the next few months. But that’s not entirely bad; by bringing prices down, sellers are encouraging some buyers to return to the market. Most contractions in the real estate market are due to recessions and job losses, but this one is not. It’s due to affordability problems and investor flight, so the long-term prognosis is good. A quarter of the nation’s markets — those that had a big boom but are now “experiencing pain” — will undergo price corrections this year, but the other three-quarters of the country should be expanding in 2007.David Berson, chief economist for Fannie Mae: The housing downturn is “close to an end; it will not continue throughout 2007.” Prices and sales will continue to decline slightly, but by mid-2007, sales will start to pick up and prices will stop declining. Real estate is highly regional. Even if prices decline in some parts of the country, growth in other areas will sustain the industry as a whole and the national economy. Mortgage originations for purchases will decline this year, but refinancing should rise as people swap fixed-rate mortgages for adjustable rates or draw equity from their homes.Robyn A. Friedman is a freelance writer. Send tips to her at RAFriedman@att.net.

By Lou BarnesInman News

Long-term rates have confirmed their over-the-holidays rise, but are taking strong economic news very well, mortgages holding at 6.125 percent.
December payrolls grew by a healthy 167,000 jobs, way above consensus forecast, and wages rose .5 percent in the month, nearly double the forecast. The December purchasing managers’ manufacturing index rose above break-even to 51.4, out of its November trough, and the service sector held a strong 57.1.
Christmas sales were on the shaky side, but most of the weakness can be charged off to warm-weather damage to clothing sales.
Oil cracked $55/bbl early this morning, warm weather in play there, too. I suspect also at work is a delayed reaction to the price spike now 18 months old. It takes time for a spike to suppress demand and encourage supply, especially with a structural increase in consumption coming from China (ramping up at least a half-million barrels per day per year), but if you double prices, you’re going to get a downward price correction beyond the ability of OPEC to manage the market.
As oil goes, so goes wagering on inflation: gold is down 20 bucks today to $607, and with it the whole commodity complex. Cost-driven inflation shouldn’t worry anybody.
The biggest story of the week was the Fed’s release of minutes from its Dec. 12 meeting.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke-era communications are as different as can be from his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, who was a superb speaker and author, gave the nation a public voice of economic management and wisdom, but believed that the Fed’s policy thinking should be secret — elements leaked rarely and for effect.
Bernanke isn’t any good on his feet, and his previously clear and entertaining writing style has deserted him in office. However, he promised to run an open Fed, and he is — the most open in modern times. No grandstanding: the understated open door sits in his post-meeting minutes.
During Greenspan’s administration the minutes were a waste of time, just a bunch of bankers kicking the economic can around. Bernanke’s minutes are still pages and pages of that stuff, but he has begun to insert a crucial item: the forecast by the Fed staff. Less than a month after each meeting, Bernanke shares the actual inside forecast upon which the Fed made its decision: “The rate of increase in real GDP was expected to pick up gradually as the drag from the contraction in residential construction diminished, returning towards the end of 2007 to a rate close to the staff’s estimate of potential output growth.” —www.federalreserve.gov, page five of the minutes (put the other eight in the bird cage).
Forget a rate cut. And, any mention of growth approaching its “potential” means a Fed more likely to raise the cost of money than to cut it.
The ripples into the financial markets are not yet wave height, but getting there.
Surprising news of economic health should be good for stocks, but they are sinking, having bet too much on a rate cut. No cut, and the dollar suddenly looks better versus other currencies, based on interest-rate differential: the euro is down to $1.30 from $1.33, and the yen down from 115/buck almost to 119.
Bonds were certainly hoping for a rate cut, too, and are up-side vulnerable. However, the Fed’s worry about labor market inflation is late-year, and that threat is limited by globalization drag on U.S. wages. Bonds are strongly protected by another global force: the immense volume of cash needing a safe place to park, largely indifferent to yield. This inverted curve (10-year T-note .57 percent under the Fed) doesn’t forecast economic weakness, just cheap mortgage money.
Lou Barnes is a mortgage broker and nationally syndicated columnist based in Boulder, Colo. He can be reached at lbarnes@boulderwest.com.
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