Oh Miami I feel your pain.  Your real estate values already plummeted almost 50 percent (47.7) over the past three years.  With new predictions out, your houses are expected to drop another 29.2 percent by this September for a total loss of value at 64 percent.  This is according to Moody’s Economy.com and reported by CNN Money.com.

Side note here … when I add 47.7 percent with 29.2 percent, my numbers come out to 76.9 percent.  As a result I’m hoping the projections don’t add up either.  Nationwide, the numbers aren’t much better,

The average home price in the United States will fall by about 6% by September 2011, according to a joint report between Fiserv and Moody’s Economy.com. And that’s after plunging more than 27% in the past three years.

Meanwhile, Miami.  I went in search of homes available in Miami and found one, two, three, fifty … all in what I would describe as terribly expensive.  Homes that cost $500,000 AFTER the market dropped?  $1.3 million?  $10.2 million?  How big was that bubble where real estate is near beautiful ocean, sand and sun?

I dug more and found listings for foreclosed condos in Miami.  The highest priced one is $2.795 million.  The least expensive is $309,900 (with taxes coming in at a jaw dropping $6,879 per year).  I did find a two bedroom, one bath single family resident in the sunny city for $319,000.

Holy cow, Miami! How do people afford to live there with these prices and those taxes? Before I completely gave up finding something affordable in this dynamic city, I went to one more source – Trulia.  At last I found homes that were nice and didn’t cost a fortune.  My favorite?

This $229,000, four bedroom, two bath, 1965 square foot home with the beautiful screened in back porch.

Now we’re talking!  If you want more information about it, contact Keyes Real Estate Company or click here.

Photo from this listing.

When someone “FORKS” over some cash for the house occupied by Edward Cullen and his Twilight family, they won’t have to pay as much as the original asking price.  According to CNN Money, the house – located in Vancouver, British Columbia – was originally listed for $3.3 million.  As a reflection of the housing market adjustment, the price just dropped to $2,998,000.

The home features over 5,000 square feet, five bedrooms, two full baths and two half baths.  You might find some pretty big trees surrounding it – trees that are easy to climb if you’re a vampire!

To see more photos, visit the listing agent’s site here.

I’ve been terribly worried about one of my friends who just received notice of foreclosure.  What has troubled me is where does someone go after foreclosure?  Forced loss of a house has a terrible impact on your credit score and with most landlords now requiring a credit check, how can you find a place to rent?

Key is to find a landlord that only has one or two rental properties rather than a giant apartment complex.  The local paper, craigslist, and family or friends are the best options for where to search.  In addition, you can offer to put down a higher deposit  or prepay several months rent.  If this isn’t an option, find a rental BEFORE the foreclosure hits your credit score.

The challenge is if you’re being foreclosed upon, your credit score likely already has some negative hits from missed mortgage payments.  If you keep paying your other bills, however, it could be viewed positively by a landlord – especially if your mortgage payment was double (or much higher at least) than what the rent payment would be.

Don’t give up hope. It may take a few years, but things will look better.

I like the door handle the best.  Have a great WARM SUNNY weekend!

While I want to feel sorry for Cleveland because they were just named the #1 Most Miserable City in the U.S., I can’t.  Why so miserable?  According to MSNBC,

Cleveland secured the position thanks to its high unemployment, high taxes, lousy weather, corruption by public officials and crummy sports teams (Cavaliers of the NBA excepted).

But when you think of Cleveland, there is a LOT of good also.

* The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
* Popular character from Family Guy who now has his own show
* A president whose last name is the same as the city’s but whose first name is a Muppet

I remember I spent a week in Cleveland one day… only kidding.  In all seriousness, one of my happiest memories of Cleveland was when I attended a conference and a delegation from Hawaii was also in attendance.  I’ll never forget the look of joy on their faces when these Pacific islanders had their first snowball fight.  It was magical!

So Cleveland, chin up!  I still love you!

Photo by Yvonne in Willowick Ohio via Flickr Creative Commons.

Technorati Tags: Cleveland, Cleveland Ohio

Although this has nothing to do with real estate or houses – except we’re all tired of shoveling driveways and sidewalks thanks to Old Man Winter digging in permanently – it was too precious to pass up sharing.

Thanks to Newscoma for sharing.

In honor of Mardi Gras, I thought I’d point you to some drama happening in New Orleans right now with it’s infamous NOLA Tree House for artists.

First, it really is an amazing splash of lights and color.  I find it very visually appealing, but also emotionally awesome since I was a child of the 1960′s and 70′s… you know hippies, groovy, cool, artists.  However the surrounding community and the city don’t share the same views because of noise, sanitary, and safety issues.  As a result the city is evicting the residents and ordering the tree house to be disassembled.  From the Best of New Orleans Blog, here are links that tell the story,

Legalize the Tree House! The city sends a cease and desist order.

On the one hand, here you had this magical tree house and a great group of residents that were putting on just killer parties and we thought that treehouse organizers’ efforts deserved coverage and some exposure. On the other hand, how was the City of New Orleans going to react when they saw a tree house on the cover of Gambit with a story about all the crazy parties?

Not Cool: The Art House is Being Shut Down Completely, Residents to be Made Homeless. The marching orders came.

The residents have been giving until 4 p.m. CST to evacuate the home and have been told by the NOPD that if they don’t vacate, they will be considered squatters (an arrestable offense). The Louisiana SPCA is also there because of the dogs owned by some of the residents.

NOLA Treehouse: TREME Civic Association’s Side of the Story. (Key in complaining about the ruckus).

The first rather conspicuous violation of the HDLC rules was the address on the building that was totally not in keeping with the scale or design of the building.The neighborhood organization was not happy with this but felt in time they would be cited by the HDLC and be required to change it. And then the complaints started to come in concerning music being played until all hours on the weekends. Additionally there were complaints about trash on the street and in the neutral ground.

(Lesson learned: Don’t mess with the neighborhood association!)

NOLA Art House: The Fire Department’s Side. (This is the serious stuff.)

On the January 25, 2010, the NOFD inspected the property at 1614 Esplanade and found numerous fire code violations that would put the occupants in harms way in terms of bodily injury and property damage. The life safety and code violations are based on the change of use or occupancy, primary means of escape, electrical code infractions, and the lack of detection, alarms or communication systems to name a few. A copy of the statement explaining these violations was issued to the project property manager on January 25th. An inspection was conducted today and none of the violations were corrected.

That’s all there is, but I suspect it’ll be hard to keep a good artist down.  I think it would be amazing to see another similar structure sometime, but with proper zoning and safety features in place.  Good luck to the artists!

And let the good times roll, New Orleans!

Photo 1 by Justin Gordon from Facebook.
Photo 2 by NOLA ART House from Facebook.

A recent article in The Top Ten Homes List revealed the 10 most romantic homes in America.  included was a home tucked away in the Smoky Mountains, a romantic home in which to get married in New Orleans, an island getaway, and a home with a gorgeous New York view.

But let’s be realistic here.  How many of us can really afford to go out and buy one of these amazing, romantic pieces of lovey-dovey real estate?  Very few, I’m certain.  Instead you can find romance in your own home.  Forget adding the expensive vinyl soffets for her for Valentine’s Day (though I’d honestly be very happy with that).  Instead, get some scarves and spray them with your favorite flavor (vanilla? musk?).  Then drape the scarves over your lamps in the bedrooms (25 watt bulbs only!) to create some nice mood lighting and an amazing yet subtle smell.

My husband hates the smell of popcorn, but to me a wonderful Valentine’s gift would be for him to rent a couple of recent romance movies, pop some corn, and sit under a warm blanket watching them together.  I would love to see Couples Retreat, The Time Traveler’s Wife, or Julie and Julia.  (Heck, I’d even like to watch Zombieland, but that’s not exactly romantic, is it?)

What are your ideas for finding romance at home?

Reading the findings on what annoys people most in offices situations certainly applies to real estate offices, too.  Although agents are not considered regular employees (we are independent contractors), many of us do work daily in the office environment.  What annoys me at the office?  People not cleaning up after themselves, constant stream of people “visiting” (which doesn’t annoy so much as it prevents me from getting my work done), and slow internet connection time.  Each of these made the Top 10 List of Things That Annoy.

What didn’t make my top annoying list is the phrases that annoy people.  They are (with the percentage of people who find them annoying):

• Thinking outside the box (21 percent)
• Let’s touch base (20)
• Blue sky thinking (19)
• Blamestorming (16) (sitting down and working out whose fault something is)
• Drill down to a more granular level (15) (Look into something in more detail)
• Let’s not throw pies in the dark (15) (we need a plan rather than a haphazard approach)
• I’ve got that on my radar (13)
• Push the envelope (12)
• Bring your A-game (11) (Be ready to do something to best of ability)
• Get all your ducks in a row (11)

Sadly, the only three expression I don’t hear regularly are my new favorites:  Let’s not throw pies in the dark, blue sky thinking, and blamestorming.  (I particularly like blamestorming and plan to incorporate it into my daily vocabulary).

Meanwhile, we Realtors always bring our A-game, have our ducks in a row, push the envelope, think outside the box, have you on our radars, and touch base with our sphere of influence as often as we can!  You’ve been warned!

The balloon represents my new blue sky thinking mode!