Miami Condo Shop

Archive for August, 2009


Get Your Miami Condo Market Report Today!

August 29th, 2009 · View Comments

We've just launched a new feature at MiamiCondoShop designed to give you the most in-depth information about what is happening in the market for Miami Condos right now.  Our condo market reports update daily and provide details on information such as median price, inventory, days on market, price per square foot, and year-over-year price changes.  You can even see what is happening in different segments of the market, as we have divided our data into quartiles by price.  Currently, we have online market reports for the following areas:

In addition, you can also receive our market reports via email as well.  If you subscribe to our market reports, you will receive an update on your target market on a weekly basis.  The weekly reports contain additional information compared with what you can find on the online site.

Posted in Stats and Trends | View Comments


The Reality of Today’s Rental Market (For Investors)

August 29th, 2009 · View Comments

The following is an excerpt from an email I recently wrote to a client asking me about the reality of the rental market in Miami.  My client is looking to purchase a unit near the beach for use as an income-producing rental property.

In Miami and the surrounding areas, it has always been more expensive to buy than to rent.  During the bubble, this relationship was driven way out of line as people built in unreasonable expectations for price appreciation.  As prices have fallen drastically, we've seen investors looking to purchase cheap condos in desirable areas which will have good potential for price appreciation over the next 5 years or so.

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Posted in Uncategorized | View Comments


Miami Condo Sales Summary – July 2009

August 11th, 2009 · View Comments

Right now there are some amazing opportunities to purchase condos in Miami Beach, Downtown Miami /Brickell, North Bay Village, or Sunny Isles Beach.  During the condo boom Downtown Miami / Brickell and Sunny Isles Beach were flooded with new luxury condo construction.  Miami Beach had some new construction as well, but most of the activity there was focused on condo conversions.  Keep reading for a summary of what happened in each market in July 2009.  The data used in this summary has been provided courtesy of the Southeast Florida MLS.

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Posted in Stats and Trends | View Comments


How Much Can I Afford to Pay for this Property?

August 6th, 2009 · View Comments

I've been working on finding an FHA approved condo for a client of mine and it's taken a little longer than expected because there are several moving pieces to the deal.  Usually when you look for a home and are preapproved for a mortgage, you know exactly how much home you can afford.  If you can afford (and are preapproved for) $150,000,  you would look at condos at or under that price.

However, when your lender thinks about how much home you can afford they think differently, and they look at your total monthly housing expenses relative to your income.  For a condo, monthly housing expenses would include maintenance fees, taxes, as well as your mortgage payment.  For each property, maintenance fees and taxes are fixed,  what the lender figures out is how much of a monthly mortgage payment you can make.  From the mortgage payment, the lender is able to calculate the mortgage amount, and when added to your down payment produces how much house you can afford.  What you need to keep in mind is that the more your maintenance fees and/or taxes are, the less house you can afford.

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Posted in Financing | View Comments