FL Real estate gotta improve now, right?

not sure where you get your information from but results of global warming are the much higehr shifts in temperatures through the year. Warmer summers, cooler winters. By all means this winter is a sign of global warming.
If you have not seen the glaziers melting in Tibet and prettymuch all over the world, seen the ice on Antarctica melting away maybe you want to check that out.


Yes on the real estate question. Yes, you should buy today. No worries. Recession is another dream fantasy of Al Gore. It has been created by Democrats to mislable the excellent economical results of the Bush administration. After all haven't we been taught that debt is good? Hey GW has made it his motto. He has brought more of that "good" to this country than any other president in history. So much "good" that our childrens children will have to pay for it and we all know...that can only be a good thing. Ecomanomics 101

 

I live in CT, am a professional Meterorologist and happen to be looking for a condo in Miami. There are indeed two sides to the warming debate and a large body of peer reviewed journal published reseach within he past year has come to question the more dire model projections of global temperature change over the coming decades. In fact global warming ceased about 10 years ago and one side thinks this is just a pause and the other that it is a reversal of the warming trend and part of warming and colling cycles that have gone on for millenia. The media and the poltico have so much now invested in the global warming scenario that the possibility that the climate prediction models sensitivity to CO2 increase has been greatly exxagerated will not be readily accept and much less even recognized for years.

As for the real estate market in Florida, the picture is more mixed than we are led to beleive by the headlines. In the prime areas, foreign money and US buyers not affected by the recession are slowly taking advantage of a flat market and buying. For example, there is a vast difference between the condo market in Miami proper (which is a disaster) , and Miami Beach, especially neighborhoods like South Beach and SOFI and in the best buildings where prices are holding up as sellers wait it out. Yes, the froth is off the bubble, but you are not going to steal anything prime. There, think 30% off the bubble peaks of 2006 or so but only about 10% off a realistically currently appraised offering. These are broad ranges,,,,there will always be the odd moitivated seller (say one where the bank is about to foreclose) but these situations are not as common. Alsot here is so much interrest in Florida real estate and a steady influx of snow geese (this winter much of the country except the big cities of the NE had record snofalls) that the turn back up can be very sudden.

 

I don't think there are any "glaziers" up there, Martin.

"Tibet is located on the Tibetan Plateau, the world's highest region. Most of the Himalaya mountain range, one of the youngest mountain ranges in the world at only 4 million years old, lies within Tibet. Its most famous peak, Mount Everest, is on Nepal's border with Tibet. The average altitude is about 3,000 m in the south and 4,500 m in the north.
The atmosphere is severely dry nine months of the year, and average snowfall is only 18 inches, due to the rain shadow effect whereby mountain ranges prevent moisture from the ocean from reaching the plateaus. Western passes receive small amounts of fresh snow each year but remain traversable all year round. Low temperatures are prevalent throughout these western regions, where bleak desolation is unrelieved by any vegetation beyond the size of low bushes, and where wind sweeps unchecked across vast expanses of arid plain. The Indian monsoon exerts some influence on eastern Tibet. Northern Tibet is subject to high temperatures in the summer and intense cold in the winter."

Regarding Mortgages: Aside from the overbuilt situation in Miami proper, the main problem with real estate is the unavailability of morgages. Only half of the people that could qualify for mortgages in 2006 can qualify for anything now. We are basically back to a 20% down payment with a min. credit score of 680. I don't know of anyone doing stated mortgages anymore and that was a lot of the mortgage business. For people that want to refinance, if they did not put much down, like 5 or 10%, they don't have enough equity and can't qualify to refinance either even if their property values have dropped only 10%. Thats why you see people walking away, they can't afford the new payments and can't refinance.

BTW, the Flamingo South Beach condo conversion just fell apart. Started out being the biggest condo conversion in US history. AMICO, the management company there is trying to get back the South building properties for rentals. That project was overpriced from the start, with 600 sq. ft. studios going for 350K, and one bedrooms for 450K, and then you had to pay for parking. You could buy the same thing across the street for 100K less or more with no parking.

 

When all of the current construction in central Miami is completed, mostly during the balance of 2008, then it will the time to buy. Not now. There will not be enough buyers nor renters to support the final inventory for at least 2 years. It gets better as you go north, and it seems to always be OK on direct ocean front.

Then in late 2010 the office market in central Miami will tank.

 

Even then, people need to be mindful of the maintenance fees if the buildings are not full. They could be excessive.

 

I have also been a meteorologist for the past 25 years. The glaciers have been melting for the the last twenty-two thousand years. Anytime someone confonts me with that silly buzzword I have a one-word reply "Volcano". I intend to drive my Ferrari, live as happily as I can within the societal framework that exists and leave the mindless Bush-Bashing to the hypocritical jacuzzi socialists.

 

I just did a mortgage through Wells Fargo on a house in Arizona using stated income. I did give them tax returns and lots of banking info, but I doubt that much of it was verified since the loan closed 8 days after I applied for it. Of course they are welcome to verify it after the fact, and I guess they could revoke or call the note if the info I had provided was not accurate, but I don't know how that all works.
BT

 

Depends on which price point we are talking about
I'd be hoarding cash, no point buying today when you can buy tomorrow at 20-30% less
2009 is when I think things will stabilize
As for SoFla condos, like Brickell, it will be many years - eerily just like last time

I rent, and am looking for a gtb

 

I wonder how much of the markets is determined by the constant gloom and doom that the papers constantly drum into evryones head? I've seen buying starting to pick up in our quandrant of the universe. It looks like a time to start buying again.

 

+1

Words of wisdom!!!

 

Tax returns are not stated income, but documented income. Stated income is income from bank statements, etc., not federal documents like W2s, tax returns, etc. Also, if you have a 720 plus credit score more options are available to you. My point was anyone with a 580 to 680 credit score, which was a majority of the prior loans, there are few if any programs that exist to fund a mortgage at this time without a decent down payment.

 

I understand that using tax returns is a 'full doc' loan process. I do not think they have a chance to verify all tax info in a week. That is the timeframe I experienced from application to document prep, with a few days extra to close the loan. I also had a relatively low debt ratio for this particular property, so maybe the loan had less than normal restrictions. I agree though that the typical purchase with 10% down using no backup is over. That is probably good overall for the general stability of the real estate market anyway. Huge volatility is bad for the consumer as it rarely relates to actual values, and a select few make huge profits at the expense of the vast majority of people paying into the money pool of the overall market. (think of the initial few real estate investors, the current oil barons, etc...)

BT

 

I just refinanced my house in Boca - only 20% of the home's value outstanding. 685 credit. Payment going DOWN $350 per month. Ended up having to go full doc, because no one would do it stated or assets only. Process took almost 8 weeks. When I bought the same house three years ago, the same loan was 50% (really more like 47%) of the house's value. That loan went through NO Income / NO Assets and took days.

It is a VERY different world trying to get a mortgage today. It is of little surprise to me, having now gone through it, that these people with ARMs popping up to 8%-10% are screwed because they will NEVER get through underwriting. All the way up the chain, from the brokers, to the intermediate lenders, to the banks, to the institutional buyers, there is a pervasive sense of fear of the borrower around the entire industry. Even where rates are competitive, underwriting is off the wall. With everyone operating under a sense of fear, they are recrossing every T and re dotting every I time and time again.

I feel for those folks that were sold interest-only ARMs that are coming due for their first major pop soon. Unless their incomes have gone up (and who's has) they will never meet their obligations nor will they ever be able to get a refi. They are just screwed - and it is only partially their fault. Who was minding the store when those people were given loans that were destined to become unpayable.

Scottie

 

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You are obviously feeble minded to post such a lame cartoon.

 

When it gets this stupid I feel it is my duty to return and deal with it.

25 years as a meteorologist.....now there's a career: 25 years getting paid to pretend like you have a clue what the weather will be like tomorrow and then trying to convince the public that you actually didn't just guess. Was it you who predicted or should I say guessed that the last 2 years were going to be active hurricane seasons.

I feel much safer knowing you are out there guessing the weather and W is guarding the wall as I sleep!

I must Now join Martin back in the jacuzzi.

 

My friend,
By all means, divest yourself of all petrochemical reliance. This will include any interest in Ferraris... Get a piece of land next to a river, grow a crop of flax, have your wife beat it and weave it into crude clothing. Sell your surplus so you can buy lye candles to light up your teepee. Salt any meat that you can trap, raise or barter for the winter. Catch as many fish as you can and you will have a clear conscience about not being an elitist hypocrite.

 

You must have been crafting that statement for weeks or is it plagiarism???

 

The cartoon should have shown all who drive Ferraris and decry the industrial revolution with their heads up their butts. Although I can sense your mounting frustration at being out witted I am now satisfied that I have made my point and will leave this thread with the proviso that a wise man that argues with a fool is at risk... and no I thought that up just now... may be hard for you to comprehend...

 

"Wit, an't be thy will, put me in good fooling! Those wits that think they have thee, do very oft prove fools, and I that am sure lack thee may pass for a wise man"Ö"Better a witty fool than a foolish wit"

Bill Shakespeare

 

I am starting to wonder if you really are a meteorologist. You know...everybody can be on the internet.
One thing is clear though, you have absolutely no clue about global warming or have made even a slim attemt to understand the issue or the solutions.

Cars, and especially your and my and everybody elses Ferrari are not the cause for global warming. They are a tiny by product. One that can be and has been reduced without shrinking on your 'right to drive'. Just as all the technology exists that would make coal powerplants clean. Coal being a large contributor of polution, and coincidently one that is predominant in the US, this is why you see all the "clean coal" commercials, when in fact coal is neither clean nor does it make great energy. There are filters that can be retrofitted to all smoke stacks to reduce output. Nobody asks to shut anything down, neither would it change your lifestyle or require you to go fishing.
Of course it is so much easier to spend Millions of Dollars on lobbyists to make sure that factories do not have to be retrofitted, spend tens of Millions on commercials to convince the public that coal is "clean" when all they want is to keep on polluting to maximize profits.

So please go right ahead with your ramblings and useless attacks on "elitist hypocrats". Keep that butt in the air and the head...well you know. I can tell you know what you are talking about.

 

In the News this morning:

National Geographic Society is reporting that an ice piece the size of Connecticut broke off Antarctica.

 

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He was making fun of the spelling 'glaciers' with a z. I know I probably could not spell achtung correctly, so no worries friend!

BT