Agent Newsletter
Weekly Calendar


Vero Beach
Monday : Script practice  Monday, January 22 10:00am – 10:30am 
App files Monday, January 22  10:30am - 11:30am 


Melbourne
Tuesday : Workshop To Success 10:00 AM (Week One - A)
AppFiles - Basic System Set Up 11:30 AM

Wednesday: FBC - 1st Time Home Buyer Workshop Wednesday 24, 6pm - 8pm

Thursday : Script practice Thursday 25, 9 am - 9:30 am

Friday Workshop For Success 9:30 AM -10:30

Bobbie's Corner
Q: Does Florida law mandate that the real estate closing take place in the county where the real property is located? 
A: No. However, many contract for sale/purchase forms include pre-printed provisions indicating where the closing must take place.
National Association of REALTORS® Research Department
Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends Report 2017

Eighty-eight percent of all buyers purchased their home through an agent, as did 92 percent of buyers 36 years and younger, 88 percent of buyers 37 to 51, and 87 percent of buyers 52 to 61 years. Ten percent of buyers 71 and older purchased their homes directly from the previous owner.

Buyers from all generations primarily wanted their agent’s help to find the right home to purchase at 50 percent. Buyers were also looking for help to negotiate the terms of sale and to help with price negotiations.
 
Help understanding the purchase process was most beneficial to 36 years and younger buyers at 74 percent.
 
Referrals continue to be the way that most buyers find their real estate agent. Referrals by friends, neighbors, or relatives were higher among younger buyers such as 36 years and younger (52 percent, up from 46 percent last year) and 37 to 51 (39 percent) compared to older generations.

When choosing an agent to work with, working with an agent that is honest and trustworthy was the most important factor for buyers.
 
Nearly seven in 10 buyers interviewed only one real estate agent during their home search, consistent across all generations.
 
Eighty-eight percent of buyers would use their agent again or recommend their agent to others, also consistent across all generations.
Q: Must I display my brokerage company’s information on my website?
 
A: The advertising rules of Section 61J2-10.025(3)(a), Florida Administrative Code, require that Internet ads display the brokerage company’s licensed name above, below or adjacent to the brokerage or individual licensee’s point of contact information. The Code further defines point of contact information as mailing and/or physical addresses, email addresses, and telephone or fax numbers.
Tax reform may hit middle-class, second homebuyers hardest
 
NEW YORK – Jan. 15, 2018 – Tax changes that recently took effect will make owning a vacation home costlier and may hurt resale value in the second-home market, according to a Reuters analysis. While second homeowners can still deduct the interest on new mortgages up to $750,000, experts predict that many people will no longer itemize their expenses on Schedule A. In addition, the new tax rules raise the standard deduction to $24,000 for a married couple, which may be too high a threshold for many people to reach without being able to claim more than $10,000 in combined property and other state and local taxes. Homeowners also can no longer deduct interest on home equity loans.

Prices could decline by about 10 percent in some markets, with pricey coastal areas the most vulnerable, says Zillow economist Aaron Terrazas.
The new tax rules will have a significant impact on second-homebuyers who are part of the middle class and extremely price conscious about a second home, where even a shift of a few thousand dollars can greatly impact affordability . The median buyer's household income in 2016 was $89,900, and only 34 percent of buyers had household incomes over $100,000, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Source: Reuters (01/03/18) MarksJarvis, Gail
Bitcoin fever grips U.S. real estate
 
NEW YORK – Jan. 15, 2018 – Bitcoin offers foreign investors a way to dodge currency controls at home and US sanctions.

Bitcoin fever has hit the U.S. real estate market, especially that of Florida, offering foreign investors a way to dodge currency controls at home and U.S. economic sanctions. As of the end of last year, the digital currency was listed as a way to pay for some 75 properties for sale, especially in south Florida and California, according to the real estate firm Redfin. "Bitcoin accepted" is a message now seen in the description of homes for sale in the Miami area.

One seller is going even farther, saying he will take only Bitcoin (33 of them to be exact) for his half-million-dollar downtown condo in the Florida metropolis.
Bitcoin has been on a roller coaster ride of late, shooting up to nearly $20,000 a piece in mid-December and then dropping sharply around Christmas. It started the year at around $14,000.

Its use in real estate transactions is novel, and agents are wary because of its high volatility. "I'd be blown away if a year from now, we see hundreds of real estate transactions in Bitcoins," said Jay Parker, Florida CEO for the Douglas Elliman brokerage agency.

Still, such transactions can be useful for foreigners who want to invest in the United States and cannot otherwise do so, said economist and Bitcoin expert Charles Evans of Barry University. "This seems to be driven by international investors who are circumventing inefficient banking and currency controls at home, and by U.S. cryptocurrency enthusiasts," Evans told AFP.
"The governments in those countries restrict the amount of money that their residents are allowed to transfer abroad through the banking system. Bitcoin enables individuals there to bypass such restrictions," he added.

This could be a draw for investors, who even before the Bitcoin rage were already hot on the real estate market in south Florida. Nearly half of all foreign buyers of property in south Florida are from Latin America. According to the National Association of Realtors, over the past five years, investors from Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina – in that order – have led purchases in this part of the state. Bitcoin offers another advantage for some foreign investors: it lets them dodge U.S. economic sanctions. Evans cited the example of Venezuela, which imposes strict currency controls and is enduring runaway inflation that surpassed 2,600 percent in 2017. What's more, many senior officials in the government of Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro have been hit by sanctions imposed by Washington, which considers his administration a dictatorship.

Evans said there is also a lot of interest in Bitcoin among Iranians, whom he described as "doubly hit" with restrictions in Iran and international sanctions.
Bitcoin could make it harder to launder money through real estate in South Florida, some say. The cryptocurrency "is a terrible medium for large-scale money laundering, because all Bitcoin transactions are recorded in the publicly available transaction record known at the blockchain," said Evans.

Although Bitcoin has been associated with the drug trade and cyberattacks, blockchain "leaves a lot of fingerprints," former Florida representative Jose Felix Diaz told Politico. "So if you're using it for illegitimate reasons, the state and the federal government should have every tool at their disposal to go after you," Diaz said. Last year, Diaz sponsored a bill-turned-law that includes Bitcoin in Florida's laws for fighting money laundering. Real estate agent Parker said money laundering via Bitcoin is far from posing a risk because "the beneficial owners of the real estate are always going to be able to be traced."
Parker said the fad of doing real estate deals in Bitcoin could be as volatile as the currency itself.

"I think it's a gimmick. There's not much risk. The only risk is if the currency crashes before you can liquidate it," said Parker. "I think the people that are using Bitcoins to try to market their properties are doing it with the very purpose of getting you to write about it, getting their properties exposure," said Parker.

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