All Forum Posts by: Ray Hage

Quote from @Don Lewis:

Anyone out there an investment property specialist or know of one you would recommend in West Palm Beach area? If so, please respond, I'm in the market and looking for representation.

 Hey Don, I can definitely help you out in WPB. I am based in Fort Lauderdale but WPB is just a stone's throw away. I am an investor as well with 10 doors as well. I'll reach out via private message as well.

Hi @Danilo Perea, these forums are some of the best places to look for agents that specialize in investments. I am both an agent and investor so I know the south FL market quite well. There are still some investments out there but not a ton of great ones to be honest. I'll pm you to see what your friends may specifically be looking for. 

@Philip Choi You may be better talking to an accountant but generally whenever you pay out of pocket is when you're going to deduct the repairs and treatments. If you haven't spent any money yet, then don't deduct until you do your 2025 taxes.

@Drew Slew Well if you're planning to build on it, flooding issue shouldn't be too bad when you put the structures up as you'll need to comply with regulations of it being a certain number of feet above the current ground (I can't remember the exact amount of feet). 

Regarding insurance, I can refer you to a lady that I use. Flood insurance specifically won't be that different by provider as it is federally regulated.

Frankly, I would keep the land and units if you build. That area is only going up in the long term. 

@Tom Stern You're in a tough spot, I would lean towards selling if you have condos. It's a tough time to be a seller or owner so you might have to sell at a loss if you bought in the last couple of years. Condos are risky now. Personally, as an investor, I never was comfortable with condos because there is too many things that can go wrong with the HOA people. It is a dangerous game without a lot of upside imo

Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:

Quote from @Ray Hage:

Quote from @Jeremy H.:

I have a couple friends that bought condos around PCB in the last few years - it hasn't been a pretty sight. The initial condo had a huge assessment that was based on square footage (something to do with the foundation) - so they ended up selling to try to get out of the assessment. 

That condo was at the Shores of Panama. I don't know whatever happened to the court case, but I do remember it was in the 60-80million range of renovations apparently needed to the structure. 

They sold that condo after a year - mixed reviews on AirBnB and VRBO and bought at Regency Towers. The condo at Regency Towers has been listed since May 2024 - started at 500k and down to 450k now with apparently zero interest. They bought the condo at Regency Towers for 475k in 2024. I believe they are losing money pretty badly at Regency Towers. A quick look at AirBnB and VRBO shows completely open availability through the entire year (including June/July/Aug/Sept). This is not a great sign. 

For me personally, I can't get the STR numbers to work. Between the extra AirBnB fees, special assessments, silly parking they have going on, it doesn't look good for me in the PCB area.

Unfortunately these are common stories. I just spoke with a lender who is also an investor and trying to get rid of his condos. Unfortunately, people are going to lose their butts on condos unless they got them crazy cheap many years ago.

I own a TH with a HOA but so far have been unaffected....though I am wondering do I keep holding or sell? I feel it is a gamble either way

naive question but is summer season the high season I would think winter would be you know people getting out of the snow ?  I have been to FLA in Summer and thats some tough weather .

Kind of like  PHX  Vegas and Palm springs  summer is dead and winter is high season.

You would think summer season would be dead here (because it's just gross with humidity, hurricanes and heavy rains), but it's actually pretty busy just about the same as winter. The only really dead time is Nov-Dec. Sep and Oct are somewhat slow as well. We have had way too many people moving here from all over the world (sidenote: it has turned into the playground for the rich and upper middle class of the world) in recent years and they are still coming

Quote from @Jeremy H.:

I have a couple friends that bought condos around PCB in the last few years - it hasn't been a pretty sight. The initial condo had a huge assessment that was based on square footage (something to do with the foundation) - so they ended up selling to try to get out of the assessment. 

That condo was at the Shores of Panama. I don't know whatever happened to the court case, but I do remember it was in the 60-80million range of renovations apparently needed to the structure. 

They sold that condo after a year - mixed reviews on AirBnB and VRBO and bought at Regency Towers. The condo at Regency Towers has been listed since May 2024 - started at 500k and down to 450k now with apparently zero interest. They bought the condo at Regency Towers for 475k in 2024. I believe they are losing money pretty badly at Regency Towers. A quick look at AirBnB and VRBO shows completely open availability through the entire year (including June/July/Aug/Sept). This is not a great sign. 

For me personally, I can't get the STR numbers to work. Between the extra AirBnB fees, special assessments, silly parking they have going on, it doesn't look good for me in the PCB area.

Unfortunately these are common stories. I just spoke with a lender who is also an investor and trying to get rid of his condos. Unfortunately, people are going to lose their butts on condos unless they got them crazy cheap many years ago.

I own a TH with a HOA but so far have been unaffected....though I am wondering do I keep holding or sell? I feel it is a gamble either way

Quote from @Eric James:

Quote from @Ray Hage:

Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:

Quote from @Ray Hage:

Quote from @Marcus Auerbach:

Quote from @Ray Hage:

I don't think it will be crashing on the whole....condos, however, yes I see a crash that has already started months ago and going to get worse soon. For SFH, small MF, most commercial, etc should have a correction.

I just pulled MLS data last night. Dade has 5.6 months of inventory of SFH and Broward 5.1 months as Jan 2025. Don't get me wrong, it could get worse but I wouldn't freak out yet. I think we are just normalizing.

Just now out of curiosity, I just pulled Broward data for condos/TH and it is 10.8 months and 11.9 months for Dade! Data can be dangerous if you're not looking at the details.

Yeah, this is RPR data, so it's SF+condos combined. So seems like it's more a condo issue at the moment, which points me to second homes and not Airbnb as the main driver. 

As an investor, I am always looking for opportunities and you have a lot more leverage to negotiate in a high inventory market. In my market, anything good goes way over list. 

And for agents changes in the market mean more transactions, so that's good in my book. I work mostly with relocation and higher-end clients and consumers think a super hot market is good for agents. It sucks, I'd rather have 2 offers on a listing and a day to review than 12 offers and 2h binding acceptance! And on the buyer side it's just brutal without inventory. So I'd love for my market to cool off a bit!

The question for me is what are real specific reasons WHY this is happening in S-FL? When you understand the reasons you can form an opinion on the extent of this situation and what will happen next. What do you see?

For the "why" regarding condos...high HOA fees (like 1000/mo...something like 400-500 is now "very low"), high insurance costs, overbuilding (everyday it seems like new building is going up) and high property taxes. Regarding property taxes, they were always high but it's one thing when a condo cost 150k in 2020 and that same exact condo is 350k now. I don't see a good solution to prevent a further crashing for condos.

If they can get insurance rates and mortgage rates to come down a little, we would have a light correction imo for SFH. I don't foresee property taxes going down no matter what DeSantis says. I hope the property taxes go away but I don't think it is likely

talk of eliminating property tax in FLA  is that what your saying ??  Dont see how that could even remotely be possible when U have NO state income tax .. Unlike NV that has massive income from Gambling

 You're gonna have to talk to DeSantis and let him know. Eliminating property taxes has been in the news for about a week now. It is a goofy idea but it is currently being explored. I think it can certainly be lowered as in Broward and Dade, it is more than 2% of the assessed value of the property.

 Only thing I could think of is to institute a large sales tax to replace it. On a recent primary election ballot here in TX there was a question regarding whether people would favor getting rid of property tax if some other equal tax was instituted.

Do you think it could happen there? I would love if they could pass it onto tourists in FL but those hotel taxes are already really high or sales tax (currently at 7%) but I don't see it happening here. Maybe a tax reduction could work on someone's primary, sure, but on all residential or commercial properties seems impossible to me. Here's hoping.

Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:

Quote from @Ray Hage:

Quote from @Marcus Auerbach:

Quote from @Ray Hage:

I don't think it will be crashing on the whole....condos, however, yes I see a crash that has already started months ago and going to get worse soon. For SFH, small MF, most commercial, etc should have a correction.

I just pulled MLS data last night. Dade has 5.6 months of inventory of SFH and Broward 5.1 months as Jan 2025. Don't get me wrong, it could get worse but I wouldn't freak out yet. I think we are just normalizing.

Just now out of curiosity, I just pulled Broward data for condos/TH and it is 10.8 months and 11.9 months for Dade! Data can be dangerous if you're not looking at the details.

Yeah, this is RPR data, so it's SF+condos combined. So seems like it's more a condo issue at the moment, which points me to second homes and not Airbnb as the main driver. 

As an investor, I am always looking for opportunities and you have a lot more leverage to negotiate in a high inventory market. In my market, anything good goes way over list. 

And for agents changes in the market mean more transactions, so that's good in my book. I work mostly with relocation and higher-end clients and consumers think a super hot market is good for agents. It sucks, I'd rather have 2 offers on a listing and a day to review than 12 offers and 2h binding acceptance! And on the buyer side it's just brutal without inventory. So I'd love for my market to cool off a bit!

The question for me is what are real specific reasons WHY this is happening in S-FL? When you understand the reasons you can form an opinion on the extent of this situation and what will happen next. What do you see?

For the "why" regarding condos...high HOA fees (like 1000/mo...something like 400-500 is now "very low"), high insurance costs, overbuilding (everyday it seems like new building is going up) and high property taxes. Regarding property taxes, they were always high but it's one thing when a condo cost 150k in 2020 and that same exact condo is 350k now. I don't see a good solution to prevent a further crashing for condos.

If they can get insurance rates and mortgage rates to come down a little, we would have a light correction imo for SFH. I don't foresee property taxes going down no matter what DeSantis says. I hope the property taxes go away but I don't think it is likely

talk of eliminating property tax in FLA  is that what your saying ??  Dont see how that could even remotely be possible when U have NO state income tax .. Unlike NV that has massive income from Gambling

 You're gonna have to talk to DeSantis and let him know. Eliminating property taxes has been in the news for about a week now. It is a goofy idea but it is currently being explored. I think it can certainly be lowered as in Broward and Dade, it is more than 2% of the assessed value of the property.

Quote from @Marcus Auerbach:

Quote from @Ray Hage:

I don't think it will be crashing on the whole....condos, however, yes I see a crash that has already started months ago and going to get worse soon. For SFH, small MF, most commercial, etc should have a correction.

I just pulled MLS data last night. Dade has 5.6 months of inventory of SFH and Broward 5.1 months as Jan 2025. Don't get me wrong, it could get worse but I wouldn't freak out yet. I think we are just normalizing.

Just now out of curiosity, I just pulled Broward data for condos/TH and it is 10.8 months and 11.9 months for Dade! Data can be dangerous if you're not looking at the details.

Yeah, this is RPR data, so it's SF+condos combined. So seems like it's more a condo issue at the moment, which points me to second homes and not Airbnb as the main driver. 

As an investor, I am always looking for opportunities and you have a lot more leverage to negotiate in a high inventory market. In my market, anything good goes way over list. 

And for agents changes in the market mean more transactions, so that's good in my book. I work mostly with relocation and higher-end clients and consumers think a super hot market is good for agents. It sucks, I'd rather have 2 offers on a listing and a day to review than 12 offers and 2h binding acceptance! And on the buyer side it's just brutal without inventory. So I'd love for my market to cool off a bit!

The question for me is what are real specific reasons WHY this is happening in S-FL? When you understand the reasons you can form an opinion on the extent of this situation and what will happen next. What do you see?

For the "why" regarding condos...high HOA fees (like 1000/mo...something like 400-500 is now "very low"), high insurance costs, overbuilding (everyday it seems like new building is going up) and high property taxes. Regarding property taxes, they were always high but it's one thing when a condo cost 150k in 2020 and that same exact condo is 350k now. I don't see a good solution to prevent a further crashing for condos.

If they can get insurance rates and mortgage rates to come down a little, we would have a light correction imo for SFH. I don't foresee property taxes going down no matter what DeSantis says. I hope the property taxes go away but I don't think it is likely