More and more people are realizing that with today’s depressed prices of Palm Beach County real estate, it might make more sense than they had originally thought for buying a second home. There are two main reasons why people buy a second home, maybe just to get away from the day-to-day stress and the investment opportunities. Whatever your priority, owning a second home may be the right choice for you and your family.

There are many tax advantages that come with owning a second home. You can write off 100% of the mortgage interest. You can write off property taxes. New IRS rules allow for a capital gain on the principal residence whenever people sell, up to $250,000 for singles, and up to $500,000 for couples. Living in your second home for two years or more entitles you for the same capitol gains break.

If the investment return on your purchase of a second home bears more than the bank interest will pay you, then you have made a smart investment. Another aspect to consider is that you have the option to rent in order to cover your second mortgage. You need to decide if you are going to declare it as a vacation home, or rental property though, because the IRS has different rules for both. Also remember that if you declare it as a rental your mortgage could be slightly higher.

click here for article

Shopping for that perfect home in the Boca Falls gated community? Realtor® Caesar Parisi is ready to help you buy your dream property.

search for : buying a second home, tax advantages, owning a second home, capital gain on the principal residence

Economists are suggesting that the next 12 to 18 months could be the best period since the early 1990s to buy property at depressed prices. That’s because the real estate downcycle is close to running its course in many local markets, where prices today are 10 to 25 percent below their peak levels of two and three years ago.

Serious investors understand that real estate is a cyclical business. When times are tough for some owners, the opposite is true for investors with the knowledge, negotiating skills and vision to help distressed owners get out from under burdensome mortgage payments. Real estate consultant Jack McCabe of Deerfield Beach, Florida advises opportunity investors who are now buying waterfront and Boca Raton condo units and single family houses at 30 to 40 percent discounts off last year’s pricing.

The big factor today is financing. In all the earlier down cycles of the seventies, eighties and nineties, money was extremely expensive for investors. This time around, capital is relatively cheap and available, whether from regular lenders or private equity sources. That’s an important point for anyone thinking about whether, and how quickly, to get involved. Read the rest of this entry

search for : buy property at depressed prices, Real estate consultant

Prices of new and pre-owned home prices have fallen steadily since July 2006. According to a report released Tuesday by S&P Case/Shiller, aggregate pricina plunged even more steeply in the third quarter of this year.

The housing market could possibly get a lot worse, according to Yale economist and index co-founder, Robert Shiller. Shiller said, “You’re talking about declines of 50 percent, in real terms. That’s not out of the question.” Referring to the latest declines, Shiller said they were notable for two reasons. “First, the third quarter decline, at 1.7%, was the largest quarterly decline in the index’s 21-year history. And, second, the year-over-year decline posted its second consecutive record low at minus 4.5%.”

Of the 20 markets covered, 15 showed negative returns and all 20 had negative returns for September, compared with a month earlier. Worst hit was Tampa, Fla., where prices fell 11.1 percent compared with a year earlier. The second biggest loss was in the Miami real estate market, where prices fell 10 percent from a year earlier. Charlotte, N.C. and Seattle showed the highest year-to-year gain of 4.7 percent each. But Charlotte declined 0.6 percent in September and Seattle prices fell 0.2 percent.

click here for article

For more information on this and other real estate matters, your first source for Palm Beach real estate should be licensed agent and long-time resident Caesar Parisi.

search for : housing market, Tampa, Fl

Housing, real estate and mortgage lending problems may be this year’s Christmas Grinch. Many consumers accustomed to funding life’s little extras by borrowing against their home’s value may find that with excess equity exhausted, Christmas buying will be slim.

With mortgage delinquencies at record highs and mortgage-equity withdrawals well off the peak hit in the second half of 2006, the housing mess has begun to exact collateral damage on the larger consumer economy. It is one of the main reasons that holiday sales are expected to be the weakest since the recession in the early part of the decade.

In addition to the common second mortgage, or home-equity loan, a popular method has been to refinance with a larger mortgage reflecting a home’s greater market value. Borrowers then paid off their original, smaller mortgage and pocketed the remaining cash—called “cash-out refinancing.” While interest on the new loan was usually less, monthly payments increased.

click here for article

Real estate agent Caesar Parisi stands ready with effective advice on buying or selling Boca Raton FL condos.

search for : mortgage lending, Christmas buying, mortgage delinquencies, mortgage-equity withdrawals, second mortgage, home-equity loan, cash-out refinancing

It takes more than the smell of fresh baked cookies to sell a home in this soft market. The MSN Real Estate message board is full of take-home tips for home sellers from the folks who replied to a request for advice on making a house stand out.

The number one suggestion having been expressed in many variations is “clean every square inch of your property and keep it clean until closing.” More than 200 respondents started at the curb and didn’t stop until the back fence as they posted suggestions to help attract buyers. “Curb appeal” literally begins and starts with the curb. Does it need to have leaves, cigarette butts or other debris cleaned up? It’s amazing at how other things in the yard start taking on a much more attractive look.

Another topic centers around making the property have as much “online appeal” as possible. The finest looking home doesn’t have a chance with poor photography A huge portion of Internet listings are the first impression of your home for many buyers. With so many listings posted in some areas, trying to make out details in dark, blurry photos when there are a lot of other listings to look at could have a very negative effect.

click here for article

Looking for a home in Gleneagles Country Club? Realtor® Caesar Parisi is ready to help you buy your dream property.

search for : fresh baked cookies, Curb appeal, online appeal

Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Palm Beach County suffer from what some call “the problem of prosperity”. Yes, Palm Beach County is a great place to live. But the folks who do something other than clip coupons, or who are otherwise not saddled with work can no longer afford to live here. The problem is the meteoric rises in both land and home costs. There is virtually no place left for those who must actually work for a living, to live.

Teachers, fire fighters, policeman and health care workers are among many others who are finding it less attractive to live and work in Palm Beach County because of the expense. Those people are leaving the county in significant numbers. In Florida as a whole the net migration continues to be positive. About 1,900 people a day are moving in, while about 970 a day move out. And that’s through the end of 2006. Despite the devastating 2004-05 hurricane season, Florida should exhibit a similar trend in 2007.

Affordable housing of any kind is no longer merely a rhetorical question. If such housing is not provided, and provided both systematically and in large quantities in the next 20 years, then Palm Beach County is going to suffer lower and lower quality public and private services, because less and less qualified people will be willing to undergo long, daily commutes.

click here for article

Real estate agent Caesar Parisi stands ready with effective advice on buying or selling Boca Raton FL condos.

search for : Delray Beach, Palm Beach County

In today’s soft real estate marketplace, more and more savvy agents are promoting the idea for sellers to conduct presale inspections before they put their home on the market. Some sellers do pre-inspections to make sure that they completely disclose defects that may affect the value of the property. Others inspect so defects that might detract a buyer can be repaired before the property goes on the market.

Presale inspection reports can help by making any bad news about the property known to a prospective buyer before he makes an offer. Precious marketing time can be lost if you take your home off the market for a buyer who then backs out after he sees a home inspection report. n addition to obtaining presale inspections, consider contacting reputable contractors to provide repair estimates for significant defects that are noted in your inspection.

Inexperienced Boca Raton home buyers often have no idea how much it will cost to replace a roof or remove asbestos from the heating system. Fear of the unknown is intimidating. A reasonable repair estimate may assuage the buyer’s concern. A buyer whose experience with home maintenance is limited is more likely to estimate on the high side to be safe. Often actual repair costs are less than a buyer might imagine. Asbestos abatement is a good example.

click here for article

Looking for a home in Gleneagles Country Club? Realtor® Caesar Parisi is ready to help you buy your dream property.

search for : Presale inspection report

Restoration of the Everglades has come to a near standstill and the government can no longer estimate how much it will cost or how long it will take. The top federal official in charge of construction says it’s in part because Congress has failed to come through with the promised money. As a result many tasks have fallen years behind schedule.

The project was signed into law by President Clinton with bipartisan support. It called for the construction of reservoirs, back-filling of canals and rerouting of water to rescue the fast-shrinking Everglades and preserve the remarkable variety of plants and wildlife that inhabit it, including egrets, rare orchids, alligators and panthers.

The Everglades once covered 4 million acres of swampland but has shrunk to half its size over the past 150 years because of the building of dikes, dams and homes in booming Florida and the effects of the sugar cane fields and other farms on its fringes. The swampland that remains is in ecological distress because of pollution from urban runoff and farm fertilizers.

click here for article

Real estate agent Caesar Parisi stands ready with effective advice on buying or selling a Boca Raton FL condo. Visiting the Delray Beach community? Contact Realtor® Caesar Parisi for information on buying or selling an Atlantic Grove Condo in Delray Beach Real Estate.

There is nothing new in foreclosure investing. It’s a fairly simple and seemingly foolproof premise. The idea of this form of “flipping” has long captured the imaginations of aspiring real estate millionaires. The process consists of buying at fire-sale prices from homeowners desperate to avoid foreclosure or from banks eager to unload seized homes. The budding entrepreneur then sells the property for an easy profit.

What makes the old formula so compelling today is the unprecedented volume of distressed properties to choose from. Earlier this year, homes in some stage of foreclosure hit a 30-year high of 640,000, and a recent congressional report estimated that 2 million homes would be in the process or have gone through it already by the end of 2009.

Even skeptics concede that you can earn a decent, though not stupendous, living at it. But it’s frustrating and time-consuming work, and today’s market doesn’t change that. “The public thinks real estate is a great way to make money and foreclosures are a way to get property on the cheap,” says John Reed, a real estate author who tracks the claims of industry gurus.

click here for article

Looking for a home in Delaire Country Club? Realtor® Caesar Parisi is ready to help you buy your dream property.

search for : foreclosure investing, flipping, real estate millionaires

A town home, which is simply a multi-story, attached residence, can be owned one of two ways, either with or without the property on which the unit resides. If the developer includes the town house’s lot in the sale, ownership is “freehold” or “fee simple,” just like most single-family detached homes. If the lot isn’t included in the sale, the town-house development is considered either a condominium, or a co-op.

The way a property is owned has a big impact on payments for insurance, maintenance and homeowners’ association fees. Other factors, like finishes, location and demographics, muddy the comparison, too. For instance, will a 2,000-square-foot urban town house with granite countertops, crown molding and marble floors, targeted to baby boomers, appreciate faster than a similar size house with a big yard way out in the suburbs?

f you have already narrowed your search to a particular town house and single-family house, it may be worthwhile to check public records at your local municipality or online. But don’t assume that these rates will be constant forever. A change local demographics might make an urban town house more valuable to buyers in the future than a comparable suburban tract house.

click here for article

Hunting for the perfect home in The Addison? Realtor® Caesar Parisi is ready to help you buy your dream property.

search for : own home, single-family detached home, condominium, baby boomer