By the time you read this article Thanksgiving will be a distant memory as attention turns to holiday shopping, upcoming family get togethers, office parties, etc. We thought it might be an appropriate time to give thanks in SW Florida before the holiday rush.
Give Thanks in SW Florida
I’m thankful the election is over. I was over it months ago really and Election Day couldn’t get here soon enough. Now that the election is over, we can reflect on what the results might mean for our real estate market.
Interest rates are rising. This was the case regardless of who was elected president, so we have some headwind there that doesn’t help. However, rates are still very low and shouldn’t pose a big problem anytime soon.
We are hopeful parts of Dodd-Frank will be repealed. This would help the financing market as onerous regulations have made lenders cautious about lending. The finance industry was to loose before the run-up and they’ve been too tight since.
Appraisal regulations are terrible. We’d like to see these revamped as they don’t serve the buyers or the banks well. They’re forcing buyers to lose homes to cash buyers or put more money down when the home doesn’t appraise. It’s a shame because if the buyer loses out because the home doesn’t appraise and a cash buyer comes in and pays what the previous buyer contracted to pay, it proves the home was really worth it. New regulations within the last few years prevent appraisers from reaching actual value, especially on homes that are highest in the neighborhood. Just because there are not comps at that higher price doesn’t mean home isn’t worth it. It just means a home that size perhaps hadn’t come on the market until now.
We’re already hearing Apple and Ford may build products in the US that were previously slated to be built out of the country. This is good news. We need manufacturing jobs to come back to the US. Lowering corporate income taxes raises the tax base as more companies do business here, and they hire US job seekers versus lower paying jobs somewhere else. It’s a win-win for the US. More jobs mean a healthier real estate market.
We’d like to see the Affordable Care Act reworked so the coverage is actually affordable. We talk to buyers who cannot afford to purchase a home because health care costs have gone up so much. The Affordable Care Act didn’t do much to contain costs, only premiums on those that qualify for subsidies. This didn’t address the problem. We need to control costs, deliver a better product, and make it affordable to more people. It is our hope that the president and congress can work together to solve this issue.
Right now many employers will not hire full-time workers. Some small businesses cannot afford to pay under Obama Care either, so it’s a double-whammy. Repealing and replacing that law could fix this and allow businesses to hire full-time people, which will help the economy and real estate markets across the country.
We’re not here to argue who would have made a better president, or whether the popular vote or Electoral College is best. Now that we have a president, our focus is on what we can do to get the economy going again. We’ve basically had free money for the last 8 years and that didn’t help like you would think. Change is required, and change is on the way.
We think we have the potential to kick-start this real estate market. It will only happen if the economy takes off. Be thankful change is coming, and let’s all hope and pray that change will kick-start this economy.
You can search our website at www.LeeCountyOnline.com for some great bargains in SW Florida. You can also find out what your home is worth online for Free! If you’d like to talk to us, we can be reached at 239-489-4042
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