The Biscayne Corridor - Hemispheric Opportunity Knocks!

Miami's Biscayne Corridor is about to give birth to a $10 Billion development boom.  When opportunity knocks this loudly, it deserves to be shouted from the highest mountaintop (or condo tower) to as many as are willing and shrewd enough to hear. The following video is therefore offered in the three major languages of the hemisphere. 

English

Español

Portugués

I've been selling and promoting the Corridor's development for the better part of a year in direct opposition to major media reports and so-called experts.  I don't claim to be a fortune teller, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck,..........!

Comparing Real Estate to Other Investments

Comparing Real Estate To Other Investments
by The KCM Crew on January 4, 2012

We recently posted Real Estate: Today’s Golden Opportunity comparing the current housing market to the market for gold about a decade ago. Some commented on the fact that you can’t compare gold to real estate as an investment as gold is a very liquid asset and it would take more time and effort to sell a house. We were not trying to make the case for real estate vs. gold as an investment in our blog. We were just showing that all investments go through cycles and that the best time to buy any investment may be when everyone is saying not to.

However, since the subject of comparing real estate to other investments has come up, let’s take a closer look. There are two major advantages to investing in a home of your own rather than another option:

You Can’t Live in Your IRA

When you buy your own home you are not taking available dollars away from another investment. You are replacing one housing expense (rent) which has no potential for a return on investment with another (mortgage payment) that does give you an opportunity for a return. We realize that there has been research showing that over the last 30 years renting has been less expensive than owning. That research also says that if you invested the entire difference between the rent payment and mortgage payment you may have done better financially. There are two challenges with this conclusion:

Today, in the vast majority of the country, renting is actually more expensive than owning a home.
History has proven that tenants DO NOT invest the difference in their rent and mortgage payments.
Today, study after study shows that owning a home is no more expensive than renting a home. However, even if this wasn’t the case, history shows that owning a home creates greater wealth.

Paying a mortgage creates what financial experts call ‘forced savings’. The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University released a study earlier this year titled America’s Rental Housing: Meeting Challenges, Building on Opportunities. In the study, they actually quantified the difference in family wealth between renters and homeowners:

“Renters have only a fraction of the net wealth of owners. Near the peak of the housing bubble in 2007, the median net wealth of homeowners was $234,600—about 46 times the $5,100 median for renters. Even if homeowner wealth fell back to 1995 levels, it would still be 27.5 times the median for renters.”

There Are Tremendous Tax Advantages to Investing in a Home

There is no doubt that selling an investment such as gold is easier than selling your home. However, this liquidity comes at a price. The price is called capital gains. That is the tax you pay on any financial gain you receive from the investment. This tax doesn’t apply the same way when you sell your primary residence:

Theresa Palagonia, a CPA and the Accounting Manager for the firm G.S. Garritano & Associates, was good enough to explain the Home Sale Exclusion Rules:

“You may qualify to exclude from your income all or part of any gain from the sale of your main home.

Maximum Exclusion

You can exclude up to $250,000 of the gain on the sale of your main home if all of the following are true:

You meet the ownership test.

You meet the use test.

During the 2 year period ending on the date of the sale, you did not exclude gain from the sale of another home.
If you and another person owned the home jointly but file separate returns, each of you can exclude up to $250,000 of gain from the sale of your interest in the home if each of you meets the three conditions listed above.

You may be able to exclude up to $500,000 of the gain on the sale of your main home if you are married and file a joint return and meet the requirements. (Special rules apply for joint returns.)

Ownership and Use Tests

During the 5 year period ending on the date of the sale, you must have:

Owned the home for at least 2 years, and
Lived in the home as your main home for at least 2 years
Certain exceptions exist in which you may qualify for the exclusion without satisfying the tests listed.

Bottom Line

Every investment has pros and cons. That is why there is such an assortment of great opportunities. Real Estate has been, is and always will be one of those opportunities.

All I Want for Christmas is Mortgage Principal Reduction?

Realty Times - Housing Answer: Principal Reduction?

Save Money With Energy Efficient Window Coverings

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  Save Money with Energy-Efficient Window Coverings

  Energy-efficient window coverings help reduce heating and cooling costs and may qualify for the federal energy tax credit. Read

Visit houselogic.com for more articles like this.

Copyright 2011 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

Homes Are Selling Across The Country, and Here's Why...

Homes Are Selling Across The Country, and Here's Why...

We started to see problems with transactions as early as July 2005, but prices continued to climb until about February 2006 in South Florida, which essentially represents the peak in our market.  According to Case Shiller, this is where average prices are now in proportion to then.  With affordability at an all time high due to home prices and low interest rates, whoever isn't convinced that now is the best time in recent history to buy a home is allowing the media to steal away your greatest opportunity for homeownership.

Common Sense Isn’t Common Practice

It used to be that there was logic applied in the world of mortgage lending. An appraiser determined the value of a home by the axiom, “what a reasonable buyer would pay a reasonable seller”. An underwriter weighed the plusses and minuses of a file (after analyzing the income, the assets, the credit profile and the appraisal) and made a judgment call based on their experience.

Loans with sizable down payments used to be more flexible with how income was documented or what quality of credit was required. Even the decision of what made up “good credit” has been reduced to a FICO score. Determining the risk of a loan affected its approval or denial. Further, loans deemed riskier were given less favorable terms (higher rates and/or costs or larger down payments).

But today, everyone has tried to quantify everything and put everything into a matrix. Credit scores are numerical, and the number determines eligibility and cost. Gone is the concept of explaining why you have defects in your credit. We don’t care why, we just look at your score. Appraisers now are being scored and their data being scrutinized to a level most would find mind-boggling. Amenities that make a home worth more for a particular buyer (like a pool or upgraded basement) are virtually ignored. Underwriters have primarily become fact-checkers and quality control as a computer software program underwrites the vast majority of mortgages today.

Gone is common sense. It has been replaced by numerical formulas and a cover-my-behind, justify-everything-with-data mentality. Basically, the pendulum has swung too far. It used to be that lending was too easy (see the subprime debacle), but now we have eliminated too much of the human element. We need common sense back.

People who have saved 30% for a down payment know what they can afford monthly. Don’t they?

People who had a medical challenge two years ago that is not likely to reappear should not have a twenty year credit history destroyed. Should they?

People aren’t likely to overpay for a home with so much inventory and all the media exposure about falling prices. Are they?

Bring back some common sense when we need it most!

Real Estate As a Hedge Against Inflation (from KCMBlog.com)

Real Estate as a Hedge against Inflation

We haven’t heard a lot about inflation recently. However, prices have started to creep upward over the last year. As examples, here are a few categories that increased from November 2010 to November 2011:

• Food at home – up 6.2%
• Housing fuels and utilities – up 3.5%
• Transportation – up 9.2%

Today, we want to address the issue of inflation and the advantages of owning real estate. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) took an historic look at the impact of inflation. Here are some inflation numbers over the past 30 years:

We can see that real estate has fared very well. The most important number is the $0 increase in mortgage amount. The study assumed that the homeowner took a 30 year fixed rate mortgage thereby locking in the housing expense for the thirty years.

NAR then looked at inflation moving forward over the next thirty years. Obviously, if it remained the same as the last thirty years the percentage increase would be the same. They looked at a low inflation scenario and a high inflation scenario. The graph below shows the findings:

Bottom Line

We can lock in the housing costs of our primary residences and vacation homes at all time lows if we purchase today. Either would be a great hedge against future inflation.

Who says Homes aren't selling?

Home Sales Increase Across the Country

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The National Association of Realtors recently released their 2011 3rd Quarter Housing Report. In the report, they showed that combined sales of single family homes, condos and co-ops increased in EVERY state as compared to the 3rd quarter of last year. Here are the state-by-state numbers.
The next time someone says houses aren’t selling, ask them which state they live in and show them the chart.

Homeownership, As American as Baseball and Apple Pie and Baseball!

Americans Still Believe in the Value of Homeownership

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Last week, Fannie Mae released their National Housing Survey for the third quarter of 2011. They survey the American public on a multitude of questions concerning today’s housing market. Each quarter, we like to pull out some of the findings we deem most interesting. Here they are for the most recent report:

Most Important Reasons to Buy a Home

The study shows that the four major reasons a person buys a home have nothing to do with money. The top four reasons, in order, are:

• It means having a good place to raise children and provide them with a good education
• You have a physical structure where you and your family feel safe
• It allows you to have more space for your family
• It gives you control of what you do with your living space (renovations and updates)

When we talk about homeownership today, it seems that the financial aspects always jump to the front of the discussion. There is no doubt that families must justify a home purchase from a financial point of view today. However, the reasons they actually buy are the same reasons our parents and grandparents purchased their home – to create a better lifestyle for their families.

The Home as an Investment

Though most people purchase a home for non-financial reasons, everyone realizes there is a money component to homeownership. Here is what they said on this issue:

• 64% of the general population (and 69% of homeowners) believe that homeownership is a ‘safe’ investment.
• 55% believe that homeownership has more potential as an investment than any other traditional asset class.
• 68% think that now is a good time to buy a home

Rent vs. Buy

We are always interested in the difference people see in renting vs. owning.

• 63% of renters have aspirations to someday own their own home
• 70% of renters think that owning is superior to renting
• 96% of homeowners see homeownership as a positive experience (4% see it as a negative experience) while 83% of renters see renting as a positive experience (15% see it as a negative experience)
• 97% of homeowners live in a single family residence while 53% of renters live in a multi-unit building

Bottom Line

Even in these difficult times, Americans still realize the value of homeownership both from a financial and social standpoint.

The Ship Appears to be Turning

The Ship Appears to be Turning

Today, we are again honored to have Ken H. Johnson, Ph.D. — Florida International University (FIU) and Editor of the Journal of Housing Research as our guest blogger. To view other research from FIU, visit http://realestate.fiu.edu/. Dr. Johnson will also be speaking at NAR’s Conference and Expo in Anaheim later this week. For more information click here. - The KCM Crew

On October 31, CNN Money reported: “Home prices headed for triple dip”.  Reporting on information provided by Fiserv (a financial analytics company), a 3.6% fall in prices on a national basis is expected by next summer.  This will result in the Case-Shiller Home Price Index falling to 35% below its peak in 2006 and marking a triple dip in U.S. housing markets.[1]

Say it ain’t so!  Is housing set for a third dip in five years?  This depend on factors being in place to lessen the impact from market anxiety brought on by worries over a pending wave of foreclosures and the U.S. debt crisis, which we will start to hear more about shortly.

So, what are these factors and what do they tell us?  These factors are really fundamental drivers that encourage individuals to buy versus rent their personal residences.  They are sometimes referred to as housing affordability measures.  The price to income, mortgage payment to income, and a buy versus rent analysis for various markets provide strong evidence that factors are in place to encourage home ownership or favor renting depending on the resulting measurements.  In ongoing research being performed by Beracha and Johnson, these measures are at record levels in favor of buying.[2]  In fact, the price to income ratios in 23 of the 50 states are at 30-year record lows.  The payment to income ratios are at 30-year record low in all 50 states.  A buy versus rent analysis performed in 23 of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas also indicates that hurdle rates (the rates at which potential buyers are indifferent between buying and renting) in all 23 cities are below 25-year average appreciation rates.  All of these results strongly favor purchasing.

What about per capita income and present day prices (relative to past prices)?  Presently, U.S. per capita income is on the rise again and has regained to the level of 2007 (roughly $40,000 per person), while prices of homes on the other hand rest at 2002 levels according to the Case-Shiller Home Price Index.  What about mortgages rates?  Presently, 30-year fixed rates are at near record low levels.

So, let’s put this all together.  Housing is presently more affordable than at any time in the last 30 years.  While income is only at 2007 levels, home prices are even lower coming in at 2002 levels.  All of these factors set the stage for many individuals to favor purchasing over renting.  Thus, while there are grave concerns over the overall health of the economy, fundamental drivers now appear in place to staunch any further significant plunges in home prices. 

The ship appears to be turning.[3]

Endnote

[1] See http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/31/real_estate/home_prices/

[2] Beracha and Johnson (2011) on going research.

[3] This conclusion obviously assumes nothing unprecedented and catastrophic occurs such as the removal of the home interest deduction to combat the national debt or the often predicted foreclosure tsunami actually finally occurs.

Homeownership: Still The American Dream!

Homeownership: Reports of Its Death are Exaggerated

There have been a growing number of reports announcing the death of American homeownership over the last two years. Some have said we are evolving into a rental society and even challenge the long standing belief that homeownership should be a part of the American Dream. They look at the falling rate of homeownership as proof of their point. Others say that the younger generations no longer see the value in owning over renting.

However, this past week, two news items might refute these points. First, DSNews reported the homeownership rate actually increased in the last quarter; the first quarterly increase in two years.

“After falling to a 13-year low during the second quarter, the homeownership rate posted a highly unexpected rise in the third quarter, according to a Census Bureau report.”

Then, Fannie Mae released their 2011 3^rd Quarter National Housing Survey. We will cover this report in more detail on Wednesday. But we do want to mention a few findings the report highlighted. Both Generation Y (birth date mid-1970s to mid 1990s) and Generation X (birth date mid 1960s to mid 1970s) have stronger beliefs in the importance of homeownership than those of the general population.

Here are the numbers for the three major reasons to buy (as per the survey) with the percentage who believe in each reason:

1. It is a good place to raise children and provide them with a good education:

• Generation Y: 84%
• Generation X: 81%
• General Population: 80%

2. You have a physical structure where you and your family feel safe:

• Generation Y: 77%
• Generation X: 79%
• General Population: 76%

It allows you to have more space for your family:

• Generation Y: 76%
• Generation X: 77%
• General Population: 73%

Both generations also believe in homeownership as an investment. 70% of Generation Y and 66% of Generation X see homeownership as a safe investment while 64% of the general population believes so.

Bottom Line

This country’s belief in homeownership is anything but dead. The younger generations have the same if not a higher level of belief than earlier generations. As the economy improves, more people will make the move into a home of their own.