IS S1196 FAVORABLE FOR REALTORS? |
An
Opinion By Jan Bergemann Published May 6, 2010
It was interesting to read the Florida Realtors News Special Report, dated April 30, 2010. Headlined “2010 Florida Legislature Adjourns.” The Florida Association of Realtors praised the “reforms” achieved by passing S 1196. Funny enough, they are using the same bullet-points as the proponents of the bill -- most likely without even reading the wording of the bill?
This is the wording used in the FAR Special News Report:
That really makes me wonder what they are thinking. Consider that realtors should have a big interest in making homes and condos located in mandatory communities more marketable -- meaning attractive to potential buyers.
Nearly nothing in the bill will achieve that goal. But I guess they haven’t figured that out yet, since FAR’s official board members have never claimed to understand what is really going on in the real estate market. Most likely this report was written by the same folks who bolstered the sales numbers by listing all changes of ownership as “sales.” Don’t forget: In case of a foreclosure the name on the title changes, but it surely doesn’t mean it’s a sale. You might book it under the category of “forced sale”? I
still have to laugh when I remember the presentation by FAR President
Russell Grooms at the HOA Task Force meeting in Yes, a number of investors are grabbing some “bulks” of condos, betting that the favorable market will return one day. But the major source for new homebuyers and condo buyers has always been – and may be again one day in the future – the flow of retirees from up North moving to Florida, once called The Sunshine State. But
that flow has abruptly stopped. Not just because of the economy, but even
more because of the ugly headlines pertaining to
If the politicos running FAR really think that the enacting of S1196 might help to improve the dead real estate market, I can only say: “Dream On!” A huge percentage of FAR members need the single-family homebuyers to come back to the tables of the title companies in order to survive. Has FAR ever figured out that quite a few of their members have lost their incomes? They can’t pay association dues any longer, because the policy of greed finally killed the real estate market. PLEASE
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