The typical Delray Beach luxury home buyer isn’t really “typical” any more than the property they will ultimately acquire. It’s a simple fact that the affluent prospective buyers who are Delray Beach’s next homeowners simply can’t be pigeonholed in any meaningful way. The Luxury Home Council defines the group as “owners of properties valued at five times the median price of U.S. homes”—but in fact, many Delray Beach luxury properties significantly exceed that metric. Again, there simply is no “typical.”

It follows that generalizations about today’s Delray Beach luxury properties are also few and far between. But there are some features that writers point to as gaining increasing popularity. Some include—

• Designer Dressing Rooms. Yesterday’s closets are rapidly expanding into walk-in areas with luxurious cabinetry, sound systems, and designer lighting. Glass cases may display handbags and clothing; opening drawers can trigger lighting.
• Gourmet Kitchen features are evolving. Today’s luxury kitchen may have built-in iPhone triggered coffee brewers, wine refrigerators (or walk-in, climate-controlled wine rooms), warming drawers—and/or any of the rapidly surfacing electronic “smart” kitchen adjuncts. There is no ‘typical.’
• Spas. Luxury in today’s master bathrooms really comes closer to what high-end resorts feature in their spas. These begin with double vanities and walk-in showers, then add features ranging from towel warmers and rain...

Last week, in contrast with the nearly unanimous optimistic forecasts coming from the financial and economic think tanks, Delray Beach news consumers were exposed to a single worrisome detail. The cloud on the horizon was called “coronavirus.” Like the 21^st century’s first pandemic—SARS—early reports from its point of origin were covered up by Chinese authorities. The World Health Organization is sending a team to China early this week.  

So far, Delray Beach has escaped direct manifestations of the new strain—and it’s been reassuring that American health services have been quick to take stringent precautionary measures to slow down its spread from Asia. But there’s little doubt that we won’t be able to contain it completely. It’s widely thought that its spread in the U.S. will most likely follow the earlier SARS pattern. That virus was effectively stifled here through similar containment efforts.

At least where Delray Beach real estate commerce is concerned, it seems unlikely that this is a cloud on the horizon that will wind up affecting this spring’s home buyers and sellers greatly, if at all. Locally, expect more disinfectant wipes to be offered in Delray Beach stores and offices (and possibly at this spring’s open houses, too). To date, medical investigators have yet to determine if the coronavirus strain is any more virulent than the influenza strains that annually hit the U.S.

Nonetheless, it’s odd but true that thus far, the only apparent effect on local Delray Beach real estate may have been to boost activity. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association,...

The importance of “curb appeal” as a factor for selling Delray Beach homes has never been questioned. It’s as important as packaging is to breakfast cereal makers—or to any manufacturer whose products compete for shelf space in a supermarket. “Curb appeal” produces a potential homebuyer’s first impression—and that has a way of influencing a lot of what follows.

Yet just exactly the degree to which curb appeal determines any Delray Beach home’s sales success is—like most of the other factors that go into the art of selling—not something that you’d think would lend itself to scientific study.

Not so, as the slogan on the masthead of the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics proclaims. The editors of that periodical take an opposing view: namely, that recent advances in the “theoretical and empirical research using the paradigms and methodologies of finance and economics” can be applied to real estate.

That promise made some headway in a recent article authored by two college professors: “Valuing Curb Appeal.” The academics used newly developed Artificial Intelligence advances (“a deep learning classification algorithm”) to rate Google Street View photos, then combined that with sales data from nearly 89,000 properties. The result was a determination that homes with excellent curb appeal “sold for 7% more than similar houses with poor curb appeal.” Furthermore, in slow markets, that figure rose to as high as 14%.

As a Wall Street Journal reviewer acknowledged...

January has often been a month when Delray Beach homeowners decide to get serious about projects they’ve put on hold during the past year. It’s only logical: most of us tend to regard the annual calendar changeover as a kind of mental departure point. “Out with the old! In with the new!” is more than just a greeting card motto: January has long been a month for committing to major initiatives.

Deciding to sell your Delray Beach home can be such a project—and when you combine that January milestone idea with the popular acceptance of spring as the key home-selling season, you might think that right now—in mid-January—is the ideal time to begin preparations. In the past, that was often the case. But if the National Association of Realtors^®’ latest research is on target, that notion may be passé. For the buyers, at least, the wait is over. For them, spring is already here!

 Research shows that most people think that April is when home buyers start home searches in earnest, but the latest statistics from 2019 show that February was the leader. It racked up the most monthly views per listing. And January was only 1% behind February. In other words, as far as serious homebuyers are concerned, this year’s Delray Beach homebuying push may already be underway!

The NAR believes that it’s the more competitive housing market that was responsible for the shift to an earlier start last year—and they have reason to believe that trend will continue this year. Their economists speculate that low inventories and rising prices caused searchers to begin their house-hunting early last year....

Readwrite.com is an engaging online publication that examines all sorts of brain-teasing futuristic innovations. They write about everything from Facebook (“started as a place to meet people at your college…then the place to meet the people you used to know at college…now it’s not quite clear what it’s for…”) to mapping Mars in 3D.

One of their beats is the future of real estate. So their recent examination of the “Internet of Things,” How IoT is Infiltrating the Real Estate Market, looked to offer a wary examination of IoT—“The Internet of Things”—as a subversive disrupter of the way traditional Delray Beach real estate business is conducted.  

 The Internet of Things is the technology that enables a galaxy of devices to connect to the web to perform “smart” functions in a coordinated manner. Readwrite’s piece described how IoT is “popping up everywhere”—seeping its way into many diverse industries. It explored four key areas where IoT inroads are “having a profound impact on real estate”: 

• Energy efficiency. “Smart” lighting, for instance, adjusts lighting to respond to changing conditions, and WiFi-enabled water heaters allow owners to control times of day when hot water will be needed—and when not. Similarly, plumbing sensors can be installed to measure temperature changes to determine usage patterns.  
• Maintenance costs. IoT monitors can track usage and sense irregularities in equipment performance—then...

There are many ways to look at housing affordability in Delray Beach—but if you’re a typical prospective homebuyer, the one that makes a real difference isn’t found in the real estate statistics.  The truly decisive “affordability” factor is the dollar amount of the mortgage payment that goes with the price of the home. It’s either affordable or it isn’t.

It's a well-publicized fact that U.S. home prices have risen dramatically since the end of the Great Recession. That would seem to mean that average housing affordability over that period has been in decline—especially early in the recovery when incomes were rising slowly (if at all). Since then, many commentaries have pointed out a “housing affordability gap” that (along with a shortage of homes for sale) has been used to explain lackluster market activity.

For most of Delray Beach’s prospective homebuyers, all that is background noise. It might keep some from even starting to look for a new house, but when circumstances dictate that it’s time to find a new home, true “housing affordability” comes down to those monthly cost figures. And the actual numbers are headed in the right direction.

The final 2019 statistics won’t be in until long after the Waterford crystal ball has dropped in Times Square, but as of this summer, the “typical mortgage payment” has actually shrunk year over year. That was Corelogic’s finding, published this summer. By September, TheMortgageReports contributor Aly Yale could write, “home prices might be up, but...

For those pondering the timetable for selling their Delray Beach house, last week’s developments may add a couple of plusses into the “sooner” column. There are always pros and cons about listing in the fall versus waiting for the spring and summer market—but last week’s information could tilt toward acting now.

First (and most well-publicized) was the outlook for home loan interest rates…again! The news wasn’t unexpected, but the accompanying commentary added a compelling note. The Fed again lowered their benchmark rate by .25%, which is very likely to keep mortgage rates in the historically low range for homebuyers—but the Fed Governors also made it clear that this is very probably their last action for a good while. As Bankrate.com observed, “policymakers signaled they’re ready to hit the ‘pause’ button on additional cuts.”

In other words, for buyers who’ve been patiently waiting for the best possible home loan rates, they will likely decide they’ve waited long enough—the coming mortgage rates are unlikely to dip much lower. For those thinking of selling their Delray Beach house, low rates mean that buyers find higher asking prices acceptable since lower rates equate to more affordable monthly payments. Today’s buyers have demonstrated pronounced sensitivity to that bottom line.

The second news arrived as a less-publicized cluster of informed opinions. Most persuasive was the official voice of quasi-government bigshot Freddie Mac’s flat assertion that “…the housing market remains on solid ground.” They reported that housing starts, building...

 If “downsizing” figures large as a goal many Delray Beach homeowners are seriously considering, The Washington Post is now citing a newer phenomenon that many older home buyers are discovering: “smart sizing.” It’s a cute phrase that might sound like a real estate feature writer’s invention—but the details will probably ring true for some retirement-bound adults who plan to be moving from or to Delray Beach in the near future.

  The cut-to-the-chase definition for “smart sizing” is the recognition that retirees who automatically equate downsizing with affordability might not necessarily be accurate. Retirees usually need to transition to fixed income living, so affordability is a primary priority. But downsizing alone can overlook other needs—some of which can turn out to be equally important.

The Post recounts examples of home buyers whose presumptions in moving turned out to be wide of the mark. Most convincing is a statistic from active-adult communities, where home sizes average 1,500-1,800 square feet. A housing research firm reports that about 30% of those who move to age-restricted (55 or older) communities “move to a larger place within the community after they’ve lived there for a while.” Since they remain in those communities, apparently the only reason for moving again is over-estimating the degree of downsizing.

Other anecdotes deal with other preconceptions. One couple thought their ruling priority was in “not having three levels.” But after seeking one-level houses that would fit their needs, they wound up with a multi-story home. Reality dictated...

When it comes to selling your Delray Beach house, the word that pops up in every discussion is the ubiquitous “decluttering.” Decluttering means exactly what it says: removing clutter in all its forms. Not just the debris that piles up in every Delray Beach household (old magazines, less-than-priceless dust-catchers, toys that have seen better days, etc.), but also some more prominent articles that overfill space.

But when it comes to taking real action in a decluttering campaign, there is another word whose value can’t be overemphasized. The reason that decluttering is something that needs to be discussed at all is that it can be painfully hard to execute. It means giving up something that has value, or at least used to have value—and which through familiarity has become comfortable to be around. You may not have used that set of TV dinner trays that halfway block the garage entrance door, but who says you won’t need them? Those bookends that are actually cut from a single geode may not have had any books between them for years…nor has the little table lamp been able to stand up straight without the coasters you hid beneath it years ago…but how can you just toss either of them? And if you put them out in a yard sale, who would ever buy them?

That is where the other word that’s connected with decluttering comes in. It’s an action word—one that energizes decluttering. It’s a word that you can place on a sign when you have a yard sale. In fact, you don’t even have to have a yard sale. Just set the clutter out on the front lawn with the word in big, bold letters.

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