Category: Uncategorized

Fla. Has 9 of 21 Top Overpriced Rental Markets

TAMPA, Fla. – The rent cost is high, and has been for a while, especially in Florida. As housing costs remain a significant driver of overall inflation, a new study by Florida Atlantic University (FAU) dives into why rent costs are so high in the Sunshine State, especially compared to the rest of the United…
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Turn One Listing Into Five or Six Sales

Open houses should be seen as listing lead generators. In addition to advertising a current listing, it gives agents an opportunity to meet the neighbors, pick up listing and buyer leads, and set listing and showing appointments. Before the open house even begins agents should call and meet the neighbors and other homeowners in the…
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Seller Home Staging Tips

Misty Soldwisch, a broker/owner and team leader with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate in Des Moines, says staging is essential to her company’s success. She estimates that sellers who opt to stage receive 5% more in sales price and their homes sell 20% faster. Real estate professionals should have a dependable relationship with at…
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Housing Starts Down 0.5% – Single-Family 4.1%

Single-family housing starts continued to fall in November, with the pace of construction down 32% since February, the month when mortgage rates began to rise. The housing market continues to weaken as higher construction costs, elevated interest rates and flagging demand harm housing affordability. The count of multifamily units under construction reached a near 50-year…
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Time for a Change? 3 Strategies to Consider

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – To deal with what could be a challenging market shift in the coming year, agents need to implement specific goals and approaches. Many agents rely on the GPS (goal, priority, strategy) system, also known as the 1-3-5 system. Once a desired outcome is identified, it is broken down into implementable steps, where…
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What Could Make Home Prices Drop in 2023?

The U.S. housing market is in an uneasy state of equilibrium. Demand has plummeted as mortgage rates hit a two-decade high, but prices haven’t declined much in part because supply remains correspondingly low. If borrowing costs don’t start to normalize by early next year though, the scales may finally tip. The start of the year,…
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More Sellers Decide to Delist Their Homes

One out of every 50 housings listed for sales – a record 2% – were delisted each week on average during the 12 weeks ending Nov. 20 compared with 1.6% one year earlier, according to a report from Redfin. The share dropped to 1.9% for the 12 weeks ending Nov. 27, which includes the Thanksgiving…
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Oct. New Home Sales Rise Surprising 7.5%

The Wall Street Journal polled economists who predicted a 5.5% drop in Oct. new-home sales – but the Census Bureau and HUD release reported a 7.5% increase. WASHINGTON – October 2022 sales of new single‐family houses were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 632,000, according to estimates released jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau…
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Fla. Insurance Pressures Continue After Nicole

Despite pounding parts of the East Coast, Hurricane Nicole will not hit Florida’s insurance market as hard as Hurricane Ian. CoreLogic, a property-information and analytics firm, released an early estimate Friday that said Nicole’s privately insured losses will be less than $750 million. The modeled estimate represented “gross” losses, which typically means insurance carriers would…
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Strong Buyer Demand Meets Rapid-Rising Rates

The housing market continued to cool in September, though rebalancing from monumental appreciation is producing vastly different conditions depending on region and metro, according to Zillow’s latest market report. Affordability issues are driving the pullback in activity; steep prices mixed with high and volatile mortgage rates have stunted sales and frozen current owners in their…
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