Catching Up on Real Estate News

It has been a slippery slope in the real estate industry since I last posted a blog! I couldn't figure out how to post my last one and so I dropped the idea, but now I'm back!! For 3 years now we have been in a declining real estate market. At first, hardly anyone realized it was any more than a pullback from the outrageous pricing in the previous two years, '04 and '05. Then, prediction after prediction came out by all sorts of organizations and economists stating we would recover by a certain date. Of course, in retrospect, none of that happened. Florida revamped it's portability of homestead exemptions, the government tried to shore up our increasingly devalued dollar and everyone in real estate related fields put on their game face and looked for signs of recovery. The car industry was faltering, employment was steadily increasing, particularly in related fields and people started missing payments on their mortgage. Little did we realize a year ago just how bad the defaults would become.

Some of those are valid and many are not. Often I show short sales and the owners are sitting there with two cars, wide screen tv's, gorgeous furnishings etc. More of us could afford these extras if we didn't have to pay a mortgage!! Then to add insult to injury, the same folks who aren't making their payments are destroying the home when they finally do leave. To the point where some banks actually offer to pay (to the same people who aren't paying them) an amount of cash for them to leave without damaging the property.

Please let me express my sincerest sympathy for the folks who lost their jobs, had medical problems or other major catastrophies in their lives and unwittingly fell on hard times. I, as well as most Realtors, have a special caring about our buyers and wish them a wonderful life in their new home. Likewise, it's shocking to see so many abuses of the lending institutions. Much finger pointing is going on but this is a shared responsibility by everyone involved. Aggressive lending, crooked appraisers, falsified applications, dummy leases...I've heard it all. This swirl of short sales and foreclosures has severely impacted the average buyer and seller. It has damaged many neighborhoods and neighbors and we will likely feel the impact of this for years to come.