Ramesh Nyberg's Real Estate Blog

Call it a hiccup, or whatever you want, but things are looking brighter after our feelings of dis-MAY. Last May. (Kudos to you old schoolers who remember that little play on words from Allan Sherman- My Son the Folk Singer, one of the funniest recordings ever).

So June had lots of bright spots, most of all that the typically active price ranges ($300,000 and below) showed pending sales outpacing the increase in inventory. Hope that keeps up! Foreclosures continue to make up the majority of sales under $100,000. See the breakdown on the home page of this website, "Miami-Dade at a Glance." You can't miss it, I splashed it right smack in the middle so that its really the first thing you see. If you like this chart, tell me, and spread the word. If you don't, or find it confusing, let me know that too, please.

As far as the municipalities go, you'll notice I focus on just my market area, which includes Coral Gables, the Grove, Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, and Cutler Bay. If you check the charts (click on $ales By the Numbers, at left), you'll see some recovery trends, or at least an encouraging entry into our summer market, which should continue to get better as buyers needing to move before the school year are now in a time crunch.
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Recently my sister came down from Minnesota to spend a few days with me, and that was really nice. Spots visited included Holiday Isle in Islamorada, Bayside Marketplace, and on July 4th, my nephew's restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale, Da Campo Osteria, right on the intracoastal. Nephew Josh is the head chef, and wow, did we get a treat that night. Sunday is "family dinner" night at Da Campo, and we enjoyed a 5-course meal that started with an antipasto serviing of mozzarella cheese made from scratch, right at the table. That was fun to watch and even better to eat, with the several sumptious toppings that came with it. If you ever want a fine, authentic Italian meal, go there and tell Josh I sent you.
Ninety minutes and thousands of calories later (the finale was Blueberry Bread Pudding with vanilla ice cream), we drove home with fireworks popping all around us on the drive.

As always, experimentation leads to success. It was Thomas Edison, when a reporter pointed out to him that an invention he had been trying to finalize had "failed" 100 times that he had tried it.

Edison corrected the young man, saying, "No, I have successfully found 100 ways that do not work."
It's all in how you look at things.

Such is the way with sales, and very often, my cooking. I think I have a better than 1 in 100 ratio with my Indian dishes, but that's probably due to my grandmother's cookbook, some lessons from my Mother some 40 years ago that I still remember and help from a very close friend. :)

To get people out of their summer doldrums, I threw out a quick quiz to my email contacts (if you are not on my email contact list, please let me know, and I'll get you on it asap). I posed two questions, both of which require the participant to go to this site, to the sales data charts, and find the answers to the questions, "How many homes were there for sale in Palmetto Bay last month?" and "How many went under contract (pending sale)?" Ok, yes, if you are reading this, consider yourself eligible. The first person to text or email the correct answers to me get a prize, honest to Pete.

Interestingly, I checked on Palmetto Bay and saw that 9 homes have been listed for sale there in the last week. Of those 9, 2 are short sales, and 2 are foreclosures.

Palmetto Bay's neighbor to the south, Cutler Bay, saw 21 homes come on the MLS in that same time period. Of those, 4 are short sales, and 7 are foreclosures.
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If you haven't been to Metrozoo in a while, its getting a new look. My daughter and I went there for Father's Day, and we lasted 3 hours before we just got baked to the bone with the heat.
The new entrance was just finished- its now a colorful collage of animals and designs, and there is now a lighted scrolling marquee as well. The "Giant Insect" exhibit is a lot of fun.. if you can handle the heat, go and check it all out, but go early (they open at 10am). Take plenty of water and sunscreen, and dress light. I saw a lady there with her husband, walking around the place in a black cocktail dress and high heels at one o'clock in the afternoon. Wonder how long she lasted?
Maybe that was an experiment too!

Happy Summer! Didn't it seem like, on one breezy, mild April day, someone flipped a switch and turned this place into a sauna?
No complaints, we had a longer, nicer "winter" this year. The poincianas are beautiful, the mangos and lychees are almost ready, and, well, that's about it as far as positives for summer in South Florida, isn't it?

The positives do NOT include the real estate market, at least not for May (unless you live in Cutler Bay-more on that in just a bit). For the first time in four months, pending sales took a dive, just about everywhere and in every price stratum. One of the new things you will see at this website is the Miami-Dade at a glance home sales chart, right smack on the home page. It breaks down the market statistics for each price range, so that you can find your market, whether you are buying, selling, or both. Some things that jump out of that chart: 62% of all single family homes sold between $50,000-100,000 in May were foreclosures. In the 100-200k range, 41% were foreclosed properties, and then it continues to taper off by half or more each segment after that.

What I did dig out as a positive amongst the rubble of May was that the list-to-sale ratio (the difference between the asking price and actual sale price)has been sneaking up in most places. A few months ago, it was predominantly 89-90% everywhere, and now more places are back in the 90's, and that's good. Cutler Bay, Miami-Dade's youngest municipality, hit 100% for May, and that's something we haven't seen in at least 2 years, anywhere. That means that the average sale in that town was at asking price. Realistically, it's telling us that for everything that sold below asking, there were about as many that closed ABOVE asking price as well.

Click on $ales By the Numbers to get all the charts from Coconut Grove south along the U.S. 1 corridor to Cutler Bay, and see for yourself what is happening in your area. As always, I invite comments and questions, and I'm always happy to prepare a more specific market analysis of your neighborhood, or your specifically your home, if you are thinking about selling.

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I have finished moving and so the updates here will be back to normal. My 25-year old son was just down from Gainesville for a visit, and it was great to see him as always. My 21-year old, Greg, is planning to join the Coast Guard in October, and my daughter "graduated" from Kindergarten a few months ago. Life is NEVER boring when you have kids.

Thanks for stopping by to read this blog.. may your A/C function perfectly... Hope you'll come by to check often

I've almost forgotten how to do this!

But I'm back.
Sometimes, you have to put a "closed" sign on the door, roll up your sleeves, and take care of matters close to hand, without any interruption, and that's what I did. So, this blog (and a few other things as well) took a back seat for a while. I missed this!

So, back in the saddle. Look for the updated April stats in the next blog, which should be along in a week or less. I'm behind on updating this page, but that will all change over the next two weeks.

The real estate market continues to be confusing and often times, slow moving. Young buyers in lower spending brackets are frustrated to find so many condos on the market, yet very few which are FHA-approved. Cash has always been king, and it is so now more than ever.

But the GOOD NEWS continues to be the single family home market--pending sales in Miami-Dade County have been on a nice, steep climb, from 1039 in January, to 1300 in February, and 1610 in March. Unsold inventory dropped to 7,987, the lowest it's been below 8,000 since April of 2006!

With Summer approaching, you've got to like these numbers.
I could go into more detail, but the April data will be out in a few days, and we'll be having a new conversation.

So is it a better time to sell? Yes. Is it a better time to buy? Maybe-and depending on your situation, you may be running out of time to get that killer deal on a single family home. The times they are a-changin', again.

Contrary to popular belief, I have not gone completely underground. :) Just partially.
Life takes some interesting twists and turns at times, and right now I am navigating those twists and turns--all positive ones--with little braking. My high school Driver's Ed teacher, Jim Smith, comes to mind, his short rotund form in the passenger seat, calmly trying to hide his fear as we swept through the course. "We mash on the brake during turns.." he said in his slow Southern drawl. (See, I had been practicing driving since the age of 14, so the course almost put me to sleep) But I listened and obeyed--good thing, too: Smith ended up being my head coach in JV Football at Palmetto Senior High.

Ah, but once again I digress. Regardless of the practice you've had with twists and turns, you still have to attend to them carefully, lest you crash. The result has been a temporary re-prioritization of various activities, and this blog has suffered my attention because of it. I pop my head up today to say hello and let you know that I am very much still here.

In fact, another blog entry will follow pretty quickly, generously peppered with February's housing sale stats.

I can't really get into all the changes here--not yet. There will be a blog entry for that later on. Suffice it to say that I appreciate everyone's business, as usual, and I am very much at your service, as usual. In fact, I want to remind everyone that my interests in commercial real estate and business opportunities have increased, and I am open to any ventures you or your colleagues and friends my want to explore. Do call on me, because my resources there are great, and I am currently working several opportunities for my customers in that arena, from warehouses to strip shopping centers. So there's a hint, of sorts, of what's going on in my life.

Best to all--I'll be back here again soon.

All right, you'll simply have to forgive the New Orleans Saints reference here. I'm still a little bouyant after the guys with the "banana on their helmets" (as Adam Sandler described them) brought home the first-ever Vince Lombardi trophy home to the Big Easy. I could go on about this, but I know you who read my blog are not necessarily all football fans, and I'm a frustrated sports writer from way back, when I would write articles about my elementary school's fifth grade softball games, for a non-existent newspaper.

So the real question I am getting here is not about point spreads or final scores, it's about home values. Are prices stabilizing for real? Can I (should I) sell now? Where is the market going? What about this "second wave of foreclosures" we are hearing about?

Last to first: The second wave, from all I've been told, is a hypothesis rendered by many real estate soothsayers, who are pointing to the number of short sales out there right now. There are still neighborhoods in South Miami-Dade that are 50-60% short sale. The stats we get from our corporate headquarters, and from the county tax assessor's office, are saying that 48% of all single family homes in Miami-Dade County are upside down on their loans. So it is feasible that there is another wave of foreclosures, but this time they are forecast to be in the $300-500,000 price range.

Two interesting findings--foreclosure filings are down 7% since last year, and prices are still dropping. Nothing terribly surprising here. But we ARE seeing prices stabilize in some neighborhoods. Last night, I met with a couple who are looking to sell in Palmetto Bay. The market analysis I did for them in Spring of 2008 didn't look much different than the one I brought the meeting. If they are going to ask less, it won't be that much less.

The "should I sell" question is a personal one, and I always answer it with a question: How much do you need--or want--to sell? If you have a dream home waiting for you in Tennessee, overlooking the mountains, with the deer walking around in your back yard, and you want to wait until you get $20,000 more for your house, then all you've really done, in my estimation, is tell me that your peaceful retirement isn't worth more than $20,000 to you.
Peace, quiet, and a healthy heart and soul can't be measured in terms of money, in my opinion. So, if that's the scenario, sell. If you are just "testing" the market, and aren't really that motivated to move, don't.
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There is much more going on, and I will tighten up the time between posts (one month is just unforgivable, and you have my apologies) so that we can all get caught up. It's time to step out to that brisk 40-degree breeze (I'm not complaining, my sister called me from Minnesota yesterday, and they've had 10 inches of snow in 36 hours), and get to class.

Next post will be in 7 days or less, and have the latest market stats, more commentary about life, and probably no football.

So this morning I did something I've never done, at least here in South Florida. I went out to the car, and then went back inside to the kitchen, for a spatula.

To scrape the ice of the windshield. Yikes.

And as I type this, the arctic blast that visited us for the last four days is subsiding, and it's a beautiful, blue and sunny 52 degrees.

My website has sternly informed me that its been 23 days since I last updated this blog. Unacceptable. Sorry. I plead holidays, and a bunch of other stuff, but its still not acceptable. I also was waiting for Miami-Dade's statistics to be compiled for December, and finally we have them.

December trended back up after a dip in November, and the inventory in Miami-Dade continued to drop, down to 8,271 homes (single family) unsold. The Miami Herald called the November decline "surprising", when in fact there was nothing surprising about it at all. It happens every November, and we all predicted it. The county's sold price per square foot was up for the third straight month, to $156. Municipalities like Palmetto Bay and Pinecrest have leveled off the last three months. Very little has changed in terms of sales/month, and inventory. Cutler Bay, on the other hand, has seen an increase in inventory the last three months, and while sales bounced back in December to 37, it still has a ways to go before hitting that nice stride of the March to September '09 segment, during which it was averaging about 48 sales per month. Might buyers be leaning back to the more prestigious communities and better school districts? I think we need a couple of more months to tell. One positive for Cutler Bay: the list-to-sale ratio has gradually crept up to an impressive 98%.
In any case, all the new charts and stats will be posted by tomorrow (Tuesday, January 12th) afternoon.
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I took a long look at the possibility of going back to school for my Master's Degree, and spent some time seeing how it would work alongside my business plan. Then, I met with my assistant, and we worked out a new schedule. I'm happy to say that I am back taking classes, and it thus far, the layers of communication we have established have allowed me to keep the business flowing just as it was before. There might be minor adjustments to make, but so far, so good.
I didn't want to tackle college (after all, it's been 27 years since I took any classes!) if was going to effect my ability to provide superior service to my customers. With Jenifer's help, and by re-visiting the schedule and business agenda frequently, it is working, and I will continue to make it work.

I am more and more impressed with the integration of "smart" technology in automobiles, TVs, and well, everything. I just got the new AT&T U-Verse, and I have to say it's remarkable. The ability to record and watch from different rooms, the multi-view screens, the online news, stock, and sports information you can bring up on a sidebar...all very cool. Cars are getting smarter too. The OnStar service on our Saturn sends me an email once a month detailing what mechanically need/doesn't need attention.
The new Lexus, and I think, other vehicles now, have an automatic parallel parking module. You press a button, take your hands off the wheel, and the car parks itself. The new Ford Taurus has a cruise control function that automatically senses the car in front of you and adjusts your speed to keep a safe distance. 

There are "smart" homes now, too. High-tech appliances that need repair  automatically download repair patch files, and fix themselves. There are refrigerators that scan the bar codes on every item you put inside and take out, and at the end of the week or month, calculates what you need to replace, prepares a shopping list, and emails it to the grocery store. (I don't have such a grocery store, either) I haven't sold one of those homes as yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Then you go there and pick up your pre-purchased groceries. My father-in-law wouldn't care for this. He likes his trips to Publix as much as I like going to the stadium for my Dolphin game.
My son was showing me how the PS3 not only plays DVDs, but it can access your home network, and display shared photos, files, and movies. He and his buddy went online on the PS3 and actually downloaded game demos. You can play live against people from all over the world, too.

Speaking of smart, U.S. News and World Report just published their analysis of the nation's school systems, including the country's 100 "Gold Medal" schools. South Florida had five schools on the top 100 list: Design and Architecture High School in Miami ranked number 15; The Alexander W. Dreyfoos Jr. School of Arts (West Palm Beach) came in at number 57; Key Biscayne's Maritime and Science Tech High School ranked number 66; the New World School of the Arts in Miami was number 82, and Coral Reef Senior High (south Miami-Dade County) was number 95. Congratulations to those great schools, teachers, parents, and students!
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I want to thank all of you for reading this blog this year. I hope you will continue, and I hope you'll share it with your friends and family. Remember, I would love to hear your feedback on the blog content, the sales charts, anything you care to comment on.
I hope you have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, or whatever else you celebrate, as well as a great New Year. 2010 is full of promise!

I always contend that Palmetto Bay is the place to be. Probably because I live here. The November sales statistics show that Palmetto Bay was the only one of the trio that I track whose sales went up. While pending sales and closings dipped sharply for Pinecrest and for Miami-Dade overall, the Village of Parks (maybe that's why we are so positive here!) went from 12 sales in September, to 20 in October, and notched 25 sales in November. Nice! Maybe its the abundance of peacocks and other wildlife, too.

During my morning exercise walk the other day, I walked through a crowd of at least 15 peacocks, all jumbled up alongside the road at 77th avenue and about 181st street. Then, I went along the lagoon at the Palmetto Bay Village Center building and saw a crocodile sitting in the water. He is apparently a permanent resident, as I saw him this past Thursday, too.

The rest of the stats looked pleasantly predictable: the inventory of unsold homes in Miami-Dade continued to drop (hooray!) -- that's 14 consecutive months of decline --and we were at 8599 unsold homes for November. The drop in sales was expected, as shopping, travel, and other holiday matters take center stage.

Two big additions to the sales data page are coming! Because of sales activity and customer requests, I will add the Village of Cutler Bay, and I will spotlight Coral Gables and Coconut Grove as well. Cutler Bay is being added because that is where the majority of my 2008 sales were. The Grove is being added because a customer suggested it, and I think its an excellent place to spotlight because of its unique nature, and appeal to both investors and residents alike. This addition will actually take in all of the area that Coconut Grove sits, and in this blog we will narrow down the conversation to just Grove properties.
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Well, my tree is up--it went up just a few days after Thanksgiving, but I cheated: it's artificial. I had real trees for years, and after a while, I just couldn't equate paying $70 bucks for a real tree, dress and undress it, and then throw it away in January. So three years ago we got a tree that looks very real, with the lights already on it. Yes, I know, that pine smell is wonderful, and I DO actually miss trips to the tree lot, walking around in a "forest" and inhaling that scent. Maybe I'll just go visit one this year.

I met six really nice people last Sunday evening, but I kind of wish I had not.
We all met--literally--at the intersection of SW 136 St and Old Cutler Road, when the lady in front of me decided to take a left turn directly in front of an oncoming car. That car swerved, hit her, then hit me head on. I never really saw him coming, and I was only vaguely aware that she was turning off Old Cutler. And so that dark evening, just seconds after we showed my daughter the moon through the moonroof, headlights suddenly appeared directly in front of me.

There was no time to get out an "omigod". The collision was hellacious. There was that brief moment after the crash that I sat there, my head spinning, smelling the charge from the airbags, and hearing the hiss of fluids from the engine, wondering if this was the afterlife.
Amazingly, my wife and daughter and I were uninjured (unless you count my sore shoulder from the seatbelt and scrapes from the airbag). Even more amazing that none of the other people in the  other vehicles were hurt either.

I guess if you have to crash, do so right in your real estate farm area.

Every Thanksgiving from here on in there will be some reflection on that crash, not just because we survived it, but because Thanksgiving was truly horrific for another family.
Lisa Knight Mehrige, one of our Realtors, was murdered along with her twin sister and two other family members on Thanksgiving night, at a family gathering. Their brother was the killer, and as I write this is still at large.
Lisa was one of the nicest, sweetest people you'd ever want to work with, and her death has shaken our office deeply. She worked along with her mother, Carole.
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Business has been typically slow as most everyone turns their attention to the holidays.

More details to come after this weekend.