Wikipedia defines “consumer confidence” as “the economic indicator that measures the degree of optimism that consumers feel about the overall state of the economy...” Boca Raton homeowners who are contemplating selling their Boca Raton homes may not base their decisions on polls measuring public confidence levels—but when the climate is promising, it sure doesn’t hurt!
Wikipedia completes its “consumer confidence” definition with “….and their personal financial situation.” In fact, it’s well known that people answer pollsters’ questions largely based on their own situations. That’s why businesspeople of all stripes track the monthly University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index like hawks.
So – wow! Last week ended with news that upended what had seemed to be a less than sunny financial outlook. Strong job and sales numbers had seemed to be being overridden by worries about world trade troubles. The tariff back-and-forth between the U.S. and China had dominated business news for weeks. The stock market had registered a couple of days of headline-grabbing declines (although they’d been followed by less well-publicized rebounds). And gasoline prices were rising...
For those on the fence about whether now is the right time to make a major financial commitment like buying or selling a Boca Raton home, the economic atmospherics could have seemed to weigh on the side of waiting for a more favorable outlook.
Apparently, that isn’t how consumers view things. On Friday, the benchmark consumer...
If Hollywood action-adventure movie writers have figured anything out, it’s that after the bad guy has been defeated and the hero and heroine are relaxing, ANOTHER bad guy should suddenly appear to pose an unexpected post-finale even nastier threat! By now, audiences have learned to expect this (but if the filmmakers are clever enough, we can still be taken by surprise).
Selling your Delray Beach home may not seem analogous to an action movie, but there can be some parallels—particularly at the last minute, when the sale seems in the bag and you’re all but packed up and outta there.
The danger here comes in the form of communications from the buyer. No matter how amicable the buyer and buyer’s agent may have been in the course of negotiations, as the deal nears completion, there is always the possibility that an unexpected sticking point might crop up. There are many possible reasons that this happens.
For one, the act of moving is recognized as one of life’s major stressful events—and people can react to stress in unexpected ways. A failure to fix some relatively minor household maintenance issue that was agreed upon might trigger a deal-threatening misunderstanding (even if the reason for the failure was unforeseeable and can be quickly ameliorated). Since selling any Delray Beach home necessarily involves many details, their sheer volume means that some misunderstanding or another is always possible—and misunderstanding can easily lead to distrust. Given the size of the transaction and accompanying elevated stress levels, the danger of a deal-breaking misunderstanding is always a possibility.
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If you page through this month’s Boynton Beach listings, you’ll find a collection of homes that embody all kinds of structural styles. There is no single “Boynton Beach architecture”—although some homeowner associations are aimed at preserving a pleasantly homogeneous neighborhood look.
Now, from out in Southern California, comes word of a small but impressive architecturally conscious project—one noteworthy on a number of fronts. Appropriately, last week’s national rollout came from the Business Insider magazine. That’s appropriate when you consider that the price tags attached to residences in the project—“The Case”—will prohibit buyer interest from all but heavyweight business titans.
At $40 million - $100 million per, the five houses being built by developer Scott Gillen easily fall into the self-described “super-luxe” category. Once completed, the five will find themselves nestled within one of the few gated communities in Malibu. Since it took Gillen eleven years to get his 24-acre project approved by the notoriously fussy California Coastal Commission, it’s a good bet that “The Case” may be the last.
The astronomical price tags are easy to understand when you consider the exclusivity of the enclave, its security provisions, and its architectural bona fides:
Exclusivity. Not debatable. Come on! The humblest neighbor’s house costs $40,000,000.
Security. Since The Case is sited atop a 200’ bluff with a 360-degree outlook, the place is strategically...
On Thursday, USA Today published a view of what many of this spring’s first-timers have encountered in their inaugural home-buying ventures. Our own Boca Raton trends don’t precisely match those tapped by their research—but the themes cited in the national press are familiar here, too.
Although the headline emphasized the difficulties those buying a home for the first time may encounter (“3 Challenges Facing First-Time Homebuyers This Spring”), elsewhere in the piece, some bright spots were acknowledged. For Boca Raton readers inclined toward a ‘glass-half-full’ point of view, they tend to balance out the familiar challenges.
Bright Spots:
- According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, affordability has advanced with the easing of 30-year fixed mortgages to a national average of 4.42%.
- Inventory “has loosened up slightly.” This is a relative finding since the U.S. still lags in properties for sale (at least compared with the historical norm).
- Prices. Price growth has slowed “and leveled off” according to the MBA.
- Spring buying. Nationally, good, old fashioned negotiations have replaced the frenzied bidding wars of last year. But USA Today isn’t calling this spring a buyer’s market—only one characterized by fewer competing offers.
Challenges:
Although the title of her article was “What Will You Do with Your Investment Property?” marketing writer Lynn Pineda’s piece came down to a dissection of a simpler binary choice. It took on the Delray Beach real estate investor’s elemental decision: flip or rent? And rather than concentrating on the run-of-the-mill financial analysis you’d expect, it smartly recognized the other dimension that should enter into that choice: the investor’s personality.
Most investors who buy Delray Beach homes do so with a strategy already in place. The purchase is usually propelled by the value proposition the property represents: a potential for profit that’s evident from the start. The attractive arithmetic may have been based on a fix-and-flip analysis, or on a traditional rental analysis. Especially for first-time investors, the ultimate success of the endeavor (and probably whether it becomes the first of many to follow) will probably also be determined by how well the temperament of the investor aligns with the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy. A breakdown of the advantages for each makes the point:
For the fix-and-flip strategy, the advantages are well-publicized. Author Pineda lists “Quick Money,” “No Long-Term Commitment,” “No Need to Deal with Tenants,” “Moving On to the Next Project,” and “Forced Appreciation” (that is, making improvements that increase value before selling).
For the renting out strategy, the advantages are quite different. Listed are “Long-Term...
