Naples Real Estate News - 01/11/08
REAL ESTATE TAX REFORM - AMENDMENT 1 - Property assessments on all non-homestead property, including vacant land, commercial business property and second homes, will be capped at 10 percent annually. Take that to the bank!
If Amendment 1 passes on January 29th, this could have an effect
of increasing buyers in the market as the fear of accelerated real estate taxes on Florida real estate will be eliminated.
HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE - Property insurance executives will have to raise their right hands and swear to tell the truth before explaining why most homeowners’ insurance premiums in Florida remain high despite the Legislature’s vow to rein in rates.
MORTGAGE RATES - Rising worries about a weak economy pushed rates on 30-year mortgages below the 6 percent mark, to 5.87 percent, for only the second time in more than two years, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly nationwide survey.
COUNTRYWIDE - Bank of America Corp. said Friday it has agreed to buy Countrywide Financial for $4 billion in stock, a deal that both rescues the U.S.’s biggest mortgage lender and expands the financial services empire of the nation’s largest consumer bank.
HOME BUILDERS CUT OPTIONS - Home builders are slashing the number of options they offer, seeking standardization and simplification to save millions of dollars and survive the housing slump. “If you don’t like cookie-cutter housing, you’re not going to like the next several years,” says Eric Landry, a Morningstar analyst.
Beazer Homes USA Inc. says it reduced its carpet offerings by 85 percent; Pulte Homes Inc. cut back to 400 floor plans from more than 2,000; and Centex Corp. cut its roughly 4,500 plans in half, with more reductions under way.
“Everything’s included’ was born in times that were more like these,” Lennar Corp. Chief Executive Stuart Miller said in an earnings conference call this past summer. It brings “better value to the ultimate purchase price for the home, and that’s going to work well in the declining market.”
Not everyone is enthusiastic about the scale back. “I think that when they get a sort of cooler head and really look at the long term of what works in this industry, they’ll realize (that scaling back) does not work. When somebody’s spending a half-million dollars for a house, they want to be able to select some things that personalize it,” says John Fioramonti, senior managing director of Meyers Builder Advisors, a real-estate consultancy.
