Trulia - Rushing to Invest Before Interest Rates Rise? Read This First. │ September 23, 2015 Consider these 4 factors before jumping into an investment property. For now, at least, interest rates are still at an all-time historic low. The average annual interest rate in 2000 was 8.05% with 1 point, according to FreddieMac.com, while the January 2015 average interest rate was just 3.67% with 0.6 points. Click to Read More

Bradenton Herald - Home Flipping Increasing in Florida Again. │ September 18, 2015 Are home flippers returning to Florida’s housing market? According to the state’s chief economist Amy Baker, the answer to that question is yes. Click to Read More

WSJ.com - U.S. Home-Builder Confidence Climbs in September. │ September 16, 2015 A gauge of home-builder sentiment this month rose to its highest level since November 2005, a sign the U.S. housing market is shaking off worries about the global economy and volatile financial markets. An index of builder confidence in the market for new single-family homes rose to a seasonally adjusted level of 62 in September, the National Association of Home Builders said Wednesday. A reading over 50 means most builders generally see conditions as positive. Click to Read More

WSJ.com - U.S. Construction Spending Surges. │ September 1, 2015 With 300,000 new residents expected in 2016, Florida is Florida again, and the real estate market is roaring back. Or is it? Yes and no, the three News-Press Market Watch experts say in this analysis of the third quarter of 2015.  It’s a market unlike any they’ve seen, where you can be right or wrong, and some of the most spectacular wins seem to come from left field. Click to Read More

The Wall Street Journal - Selling is the Easy Part. The Trick is Getting $100,000 or More Over the Asking Price. │ August 27, 2015 In the San Francisco Bay Area’s hot real-estate market, the question for many sellers isn’t whether they’ll get an offer. It’s how much over the asking price the offer will be. “It’s easy to sell,” said Ken DeLeon, a real-estate agent based in Palo Alto. “The key is getting the extra $100,000.” Click to Read More

Miami Herald - South Florida home prices rose in March 2015 │ May 26, 2015 Home prices in South Florida rose for the 38th consecutive month in March, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, a closely watched barometer of the housing market. Resale values for single-family homes in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties were up 8.7 percent in March 2015 compared to March 2014. Click to Read More

Herald Tribune - Small Real Estate Investors Taking Over in Southwest Florida │ May 25, 2015 Bijan Gorji knows how to think like the biggest minds in real estate. The California transplant is not quite investing billions of dollars in property portfolios across America, but having spent two decades securitizing loans, Gorji sees the same thing as Wall Street: The rental market is scorching. Click to Read More

Gulfshore Life - Realty Check: What Your Money Will Buy for $7.6 million. │ May 1, 2015 When it came to the waterside home at 274 little Harbour Lane, Royal Shell Real Estate agent Gary L. Jaarda says the couple who purchased it were immediately smitten. “They came to the open house, saw it, fell in love with it and bought it on the spot,” he says. Jaarda sold the estate to the couple for the original asking price of $7.6 million just one month after it had hit the market in November. Built in 1997, the house rests on a lot and a half and exceeds the size of most other 5,000-square-foot hom...

By Jeff Jaarda, for BayWatch News This article appeared in the March 2015 issue of BayWatch News It’s nice to reflect on how far things have come in the real estate market the last few years. It’s been well documented in this space that inventory has been scarce. As of this writing there are 78 resale properties for sale in Bonita Bay, while at this same point in 2014 there were 140 properties for sale, in 2013 there were 211 for sale, and in 2012 there were 208 for sale. The average sales price in Bonita Bay is up 38% from two years ago while the median sales price is up 16% from two y...

Naples Herald - Study: Naples Residents Among Happiest in U.S.. │ February 28, 2015 University of British Columbia (UBC), recently surveyed residents from U.S. metropolitan areas about their satisfaction and ranked Naples, FL as the fourth-happiest city in the U.S. No other city in Florida made it on the top 10 list of happiest places to live. Author Dan Buettner conducted a longevity study on the oldest U.S citizens to create a model for living longer, being active and living happier, healthier lives. Click to Read More