Here is a quick update with real estate and other interesting news from in and around Miami Beach.
ART BASEL FESTIVAL RENEWED – Miami Beach’s Art Basel festival had its 7th year anniversary last week, and we feared that this may have been its last year in Miami. Well, we just heard that Miami Beach has signed-on for another three years of the festival, and we are delighted. This is one of the highlights of each year, with the festival taking place the first week of each December.
MIAMI BEACH PARKING METERS – Miami Beach has introduced a great new service for residents. Coins are no longer necessary for using parking meters. A new, portable device called the iPark is available. You load the small device with an amount of prepaid parking fees, and when you park your car you activate the device and place it on your dashboard. When you return to your car, you deactivate it. Only the parking time used is charged. And, you never need to fish for quarters again. You can find details about this device at the Miami Beach city website: http://web.miamibeachfl.gov/
RENTING CONDOS AND HOMES IN MIAMI BEACH – As we previously-announced, our new sister website is online at www.MySunBreak.com. This site offers thousands of rental properties, including photos and virtual tours. You can take a peek at some of our showcased rental properties on this special page: http://www.mysunbreak.com/showcase.asp
Also, for anyone looking for a stunning apartment at ICON South Beach, we’re launching Unit 3901 for rent, a stunning 3-bedroom corner unit with the best views in South Beach. Available immediately at $9000 per month. You will love it!
BLACKBERRY STORM, MY NEW FAVORITE DEVICE – Blackberry’s new Storm has received mixed reviews since it first debuted a few weeks ago. The New York Times trashed it, and many others complained about bugs and hiccups. Well, I decided to give the new device a try, and on Verizon’s network, even though I have been a die-hard Blackberry 8800 user with T-Mobile for what seems like an eternity. While my first day was a little shaky, after a few days I truly fell in love. Old habits are hard to break (like typing on real keys), but now that I am almost at three weeks with my Storm, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Read my full review on my blog: http://www.zilbertblog.com.
MURANO GRANDE – A BEST SELLER – My sales team and I are celebrating some recent sales successes at Murano Grande, one of South Beach’s favorite luxury condos. Our “Bill and Bryan” sales duo managed to list and sell Unit 2111 in a single day! And, I was very pleased to have listed and sold Unit 1606 in just 10 days. Sales like this are part of a suddenly-busy selling season that started in November. Buyers are taking advantage of lowered prices, and are finding great value in putting together fast, cash closings. By the way, we have a handful of amazing apartments at Murano Grande, most below market pricing. Have a look: http://www.zilbert.com/murano_grande/murano_grande.asp
As a realtor who is constantly on the go, my mobile device is one of the most important tools for managing my schedule and customer contacts. I’ve been a die-hard Blackberry user for many years now, and a T-Mobile customer who has purchased every new Blackberry as it came out on the market.
I am also a gadget guru, enjoying every cool feature that manufacturers create to make devices even more exciting than their predecessors. When the iPhone 2.0 device was launched a few months ago, I wrote a contract with AT&T and purchased an iPhone (and, I was one of those people standing in line at the AT&T store in Miami Beach). I figured that this was the time to make the jump from button-pushing to finger-sliding. Alas, I hadn’t tried an iPhone prior to that day, so I didn’t know what to expect.
I lasted about a day with the iPhone, before returning it to AT&T (and I was happy that I kept my T-Mobile Blackberry 8800). While the Microsoft Exchange e-mail feature was a step in the right direction, it didn’t quite seem to have the immediacy of true Blackberry Exchange Server e-mail. But, my greatest gripe with the iPhone was the disappointing battery life. For a power use like myself, my iPhone was expiring after a mere four hours. I quickly realized that while the iPhone was cool and sexy, it wasn’t the business-ready device that I needed.
So, fast-forward a few months and Verizon announces the Blackberry Storm. The guy with the glasses from the commercial on television was getting the country ready for this mega-launch with a series of compelling ads. It looked sort-of like an iPhone that clicked when you pressed on it. In fact, the television ads really enhanced the clicking sound, just so we wouldn’t miss is. My iPhone experience left me feeling a little un-ambitious about venturing into another touch-screen, so I didn’t give any further thought to the Storm. I also wasn’t sure about defecting from T-Mobile, as I had a long relationship with them. Also, their international services (data access while roaming for a fixed fee) were important to me when I travelled to Europe.
But, the day after the Blackberry Storm launched, I couldn’t stand the idea that I didn’t have the latest gadget in-hand. So, I raced to my local Verizon outlet and picked up a Storm. From a first glance, I noted that the overall size of the device was smaller than I had imagined it to be. It was quite a bit heavier, though, than it looked, but I was fine with that. When I turned the device on, the screen clarity and quality just blew me away. I clicked over to the media icons and played a pre-loaded movie trailer for an upcoming Vin Diesel movie. It simply dazzled me with color and sound, unlike anything I had experienced on a hand-held device. This was like no other Blackberry that I had experienced before.
So, along came the big test. Reading and writing e-mails. Gone was the familiar track-ball, but navigation using the touch-screen was very obvious and easy. The big thrill of this device, however, is that you actually have to push on the screen, so it clicks, for your selection to be acted upon. This was a very odd technique of interacting with a device, and I wasn’t quite sure if this was something that I would enjoy on an ongoing basis. But, the real test for me was how the keyboard was going to work for me when typing e-mails, something I do more than anything else on a Blackberry. Seasoned Blackberry users are, by nature, going to reject anything other than regular, tactile keys. When I started to type (and click the letters as I typed), I was entirely out of my comfort zone. Spelling mistakes were rampant, and I often was pressing the wrong keys. I groaned and moaned and wondered if this device was going to be headed back to its maker, just as my iPhone had been destined to do. Time would tell.
After day 1, I had decided that perhaps I would not keep the Storm, but instead, would replace it with a Blackberry Bold and enable it for my T-Mobile account. I also read a scathing review in the New York Times by David Pogue that, essentially, made me feel like a moron for even holding onto this device for more than a few hours. So, part of me was getting ready to throw in the towel, and the other part of me wanted to give the Storm a few more days in my grasp.
Then, something magical happened. As I continued to use the Storm that week, I found that my typing improved substantially. I found that the icons and features that were important to me were easy to find and select. I found that the speed by which I was typing and navigating around the device was increasing exponentially. Plus, I now had a device that could take crisp photos, shoot video, organize media, read PDF and WORD documents easily, and, alas, browse the web at super-fast speed and with almost the same functionality as Internet Explorer (not quite, though). I found that e-mail messages had rich and full HTML displays. I found that my e-mails were being spell-checked and corrected for me. All in all, I found that the Blackberry Storm was my new device of choice. And, I have since turned off my Blackberry 8800 and cancelled my T-Mobile account. I am a new Verizon customer, and I thank them dearly for bringing the Storm to me. After all, it was the Storm that allowed me to type this entire review with only a handful of spelling errors, and in about 10 minutes time of typing.
So, to all of those people out there who are panning the Blackberry Storm, I would like to say to them that if they give the device a chance they will fall in love with it as I have.
If Gov. Charlie Crist has his way, Floridians in foreclosure will be in their homes for the holidays. Crist is readying a proposed moratorium on foreclosures through the holidays and into next year.
“His main purpose is to make sure Floridians can remain in their houses,” the governor’s spokesman, Sterling Ivey, told=2 0TIME. “He’s talking about Floridians who are working and trying to make ends meet every day. Not those who bought five homes during the housing bubble.” (Read Will E-Retailers Have a Letdown?.)
Details of the plan are sketchy, but Ivey says the Governor favors the approach taken by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — a proposed 90-day freeze that could conceivably give struggling homeowners the ability to renegotiate their loans to more favorable terms. However, the California plan, as envisioned by Schwarzenegger, would require banks to put in place a 90-day moratorium, while Crist is said to angling for voluntary participation by banks (California’s legislature has yet to approve Governor Schwarzenegger’s plan.) It remains unclear whether Crist will seek or even needs legislative approval for his plan, especially if the banks agree to the moratorium on their own. According to Ivey, Crist could make an announcement on his foreclosure plan as early as this week.
The help comes none too soon, as the Florida housing market, particularly in the tri-county area of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, founders under the weight of tens of thousands of foreclosures. And the problem is only getting worse. (Read Exclusive Mutual Funds Reopen for Business.)
One indicator of the severity of the crisis is the number of homes ending up in the hands of banks, which really don’t want to be in the real estate business. These properties are known as “real estate owned” or REOs, which is typically a house or condo that gets repossessed by the lender, usually after failing to sell at a foreclosure auction.
The number of REOs is skyrocketing. The first three quarters of 2008 show a spike of 190% in REOs in the South Florida tri-county area, according the real estate consultancy firm, Condo Vultures of Bal Harbour. The number of Miami-Dade properties turned over to lenders by the courts so far this year is 8,656. That’s up 188% from last year’s total of 3,009 during the first three quarters. Similar spikes occurred in Broward County, with a 215% hike, from 2,339 to 7,370. Palm Beach County saw an increase of 145%, jumping from 1,197 to 2,934.
Still, those numbers are just a portion of the overall foreclosures in South Florida. Peter Zalewski, founder of Condo Vultures, projects that nearly 75,000 properties in the tri-county area will slip into foreclosure this year, up from 33,154 last year.
“Foreclosures more than doubled in ’08 compared to ’07, year over year,” Zalewski says. Creeping unemployment, tight credit and property devaluation, where the home is worth less than the amount owed on the mortgage, all tend to indicate the problem will only get worse. “Short of a government intervention, I would envision that we continue to grow higher and higher and higher,” he predicts. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we approached 100,000 [foreclosures"] in 2009, short of government intervention.”
The governors are stepping up to ease the problem before it gets too far out of hand, Zalewski says. “That’s why you’re seeing the Charlie Crists of the world and the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the world try to take steps to impose moratoriums on foreclosures, because the problem is so overwhelming,” he says, adding that a 90-day moratorium should provide homeowners with the chance to refinance their loans and will dovetail with the incoming Obama administration, which holds out hope of providing financial relief to Main Street USA. (Read Four Steps to Ending the Foreclosure Crisis).
The moratorium ultimately may help the banks, particularly if it decreases the number of REOs they must contend with. By staving off foreclosures the banks also benefit when it comes to condos because in Florida the lender has to settle up condo fees for the past six months when they take a property into receivership.
The Schwarzenegger plan would give banks and mortgage servicing companies an out. If they don’t want to wait the 90 days, they could agree to temporary interest-rate cuts to reduce the homeowner’s monthly payments to an affordable amount. The idea is to make it possible for homeowners to pay their mortgages rather than writing off their debt as bad loans.
About the only bright spot with the current housing crisis is that the median cost for housing is dropping. The Greater Fort Lauderdale area shows a drop in its median condo prices, from $160,000 last year to $115,000 today, according to the Realtor Association of Greater Fort Lauderdale. That’s good for those who have money in their pockets or access to credit. While homes in the area may be more affordable, some potential buyers are having trouble coming up with the money to purchase them. But for now, Florida’s governor would be happy to help homeowners find a way to afford what they’ve already bought.
MIAMI BEACH, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Miami Beach-based Zilbert Realty Group (www.Zilbert.com) announced today the launch of MySunBreak.com, an online web service aimed at Miami’s growing rental market. The innovative site provides services to both renters and landlords, and aims to make real estate, apartment and house-hunting a simple and streamlined process.
MySunBreak.com is a free site, and it offers over 8,000 short and long term rentals, mainly along Miami’s coastal areas. It allows visitors to preview condos and single-family homes online with photos and virtual tours. Appointments to visit and preview rentals can be set up through the site, and renters can visit properties 7 days a week, including holidays.
Property owners can list their rentals at no cost, however a brokerage commission is paid by the owner when a property is rented. Owners may also take advantage of a number of services that help them manage, build-out and decorate their properties. The properties listed at MySunBreak.com get global exposure through feeds to a number of global portals, including Google™ Base and Trulia®.
MySunBreak.com’s creator, Mark Zilbert, is best-known for CondoFlip.com, a web portal launched in 2004 to help with Miami’s then-emerging condo resale market. As the demand for condo “flips” cooled, CondoFlip.com was merged into Zilbert’s main portal for general real estate sales at Zilbert.com. Zilbert.com averages 50,000 visitors each month. MySunBreak.com is being launched as a sister site to Zilbert.com. Each site offers a different type of real estate service.
About Zilbert Realty Group
Zilbert Realty Group, Inc. (www.zilbert.com) is a Miami-based real estate company focused on the sales and leasing of luxury condos and homes in Miami’s coastal areas. The company is best-known for its innovative web technologies which bring together buyers and sellers and landlords and tenants. Its President and CEO, Mark Zilbert, is an internationally-recognized expert on residential condo markets and has been featured on all major U.S. television networks and in many national news publications, including the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
