To Zillow or not to Zillow ......

For anyone who has bought or sold a home in the past several years, you probably noticed that things have changed since the internet came into being. There is a LOT of information out there. Being an information junkie myself, I love being able to look up property information from so many different sources right from my computer but there are problems. The same issues come up as with any other category like healthcare or how to make the best ribs - you need to know what information to trust and you also need to know how to not waste your entire life, looking for more information!! It's overload and sometimes things aren't as they seem to be.

Sometimes as a Realtor, it feels like it's me vs. the internet! That's a huge mismatch .... I'm much better than the internet!! I have a standard line about using the net for new clients looking to buy or rent a home. Go ahead and search as much as you want, just beware of false information and scams, and be ready for a lot of useless information. Zillow is the leader in online real estate without a doubt - it's great for some things but not for others. It's easy to use and has tons of listings and tons of information on those listings.

The problem is that there are many listings on there that are out-of-date. I've had clients jumping up and down because they found a house for sale on Zillow that I didn't send them, just to find out it was sold 3 months ago. Another issue is that even though it's great for some people to have all of the auction properties, pre-forclosures, and pre-pre-foreclosures on there, the vast majority of buyers either couldn't purchase these or should not want anything to do with these and they just take up space.

Here's a new one: Zillow is now listing for sale by owner properties which is great. I have a first time homebuyer client and he's anxious because he really needs a house in the next few months, is FHA, and is qualified for the low end in the area he wants. So he's looking through Zillow. He finds some properties and sends them to me (trained well) One of the houses comes up, looks decent but says it's a cash sale only so I tell him it won't work. I'm curious though so I look on the mls. The house is listed as a foreclosure on the mls for $15,000 less!!!

So this is a wholesaler who advertises properties on Zillow looking for a buyer who will pay him more than what he can buy it for through the bank. Genious but not cool for my buyer or anyone elses.

Beware.

My advice, call me, call a Realtor. We're free for buyers or very close to it. FREE. I'm not saying don't use the net but let us help you and frankly, let us do at least most of the work. We'll work to find you the best home for free since the commissions are paid by the sellers. It's the greatest thing ever. Call me at 954-980-7120 or email me at adamehlmann@gmail.com.

IS THE APOCALYPSE NEAR????

Someone asked me yesterday if I was worried about the big crash that's about to happen in real estate. It definitely seems like there has been a slight slowing in the market lately but I wasn't aware of any impending doom. I thought I'd check out what people are saying and do some research on my own.

I looked at fortune, cnn money, kiplinger, money.com, bloomberg, and others. Everyone says about the same thing. Prices in general are still appreciating but not at the rates of the past few years and it seems likely that they will continue this pattern into the near future. This makes perfect sense to me as prices naturally rebound sharply after a large drop such as the recession of 2007-2009, then appreciation should slow down and continue on a more "normal" pattern with slight changes based on interest rates, affordability, regional differences in markets, and how many people are shopping for homes. This is good people!! This is what the market is supposed to do.

So many stats out there! There are plenty of stats showing prices in Broward and some by zip code but I wanna see the good ole FTL only! The only way to do that is crunch the numbers. I made this graph straight from sales off the MLS database. This is in real-time folks! I started Jan 2011 since before that, everything was pretty flat since late 2007. It goes month to month all the way through May of this year so this is the most up to date info out there. I'm using the mean sale price as this is less volatile than average. Even then, you can see it spike up and down and up and down. Just like any market, you need to ignore the month to month jumps and look at the general line. Basically, the take away from this is that the overall price of homes in Fort Lauderdale are going up at a relatively steady rate over time. I see a slight slowing of prices but not even as much as what I thought when you look at the whole city. It looks healthy to me. Yes, interest rates are going up but very slowly; Inventory is a bit low but I don't think that will be a long term issue. I don't know this for a fact but it seems like more and more young people are moving into the city and that will bring more and more. I feel like this is a rebirth!


Locally, I see lots of very positive opinions about the South Florida area. Check out this article:
http://www.housingpredictor.com/best-real-estate-housing-markets/
Here are their top 10 markets for 2016:

Rank	City	Forecast Appreciation
1.	Miami, FL	18.7%
2.	San Francisco, CA	15.9%
3.	Los Altos, CA	15.5%
4.	Seattle, WA	14.9%
5.	Medford, OR	13.9%
6.	Eugene, OR	12.8%
7.	Napa, CA	12.7%
8.	Naples, FL	12.5%
9.	Austin, TX	11.6%
10.	Tucson, AZ	10.5%

Ft. Lauderdale will always follow closely behind Miami. (until it overtakes it:) The Miami market has gone through an amazing change since the recession. It's no longer tied to the US market as it's such an international city now. People are lining up from all over the world for a piece of it, and prices keep rising. Ft. Lauderdale will go along for the ride.