Cape Coral Real Estate : July 2010

Cape Coral Gulf Access homes make great second homes.

What will a second home in SW Florida cost?

As the prices of homes in SW Florida are, can we say, more than affordable, many people across the U.S. and abroad (especially Europe and Canada) are entertaining the possibility of a second home. The biggest question on everyone’s mind is “What will it cost me?” Obviously it is pretty easy to find the listing prices of Cape Coral homes online but to truly understand what the ‘cost’ will be can take doing some research. In this article I will go over the basic costs you can expect to pay when investing in a second home here in beautiful Cape Coral or Ft. Myers, Florida.

First to consider: Cost of Money

Are you planning to pay cash or do you plan to get a mortgage for some of the purchase price? If you plan to pay cash make sure that you are comfortable with the rate of return on your investment. You may wish to consider getting a loan for some of the purchase to keep more capital for other investments (more houses, or?).

If you are going to obtain financing make sure you determine which loan is best for you and your needs. Most investment properties will require 20-25% down. If you are Foreign National you must be prepared to put down at least 30% in most cases. You can also attempt to receive a loan from your country as well. The rates will be lower but you may have to put up your current home as collateral (borrow against your equity). Some second homes may be purchased with less money down. But your payments will be much lower with the more money you put down on your purchase.

For comparison purposes here let’s look at a sample waterfront listing.  The current asking price is $375,000. Let’s assume that you plan to put down 25%. This means that you will be putting a down payment of $93,750. Here is an estimate of closing costs:

Taxes: $ 6,422.24*

Loan fees: $3,846
Prepaid taxes & insurance: $5,778

Total costs to close: $103,374.

• from current 2009 tax bill – properties are reassessed every year here so this could change. Currently this home is assessed at $374,230. Please also note that taxes are NOT higher for non-residents. But full time residents are eligible for exemptions.

To find insurance companies who are still readily writing homeowners insurance in the state of Florida visit www.ShopandCompareRates.com

You can verify tax information online at www.LeePA.org

Next we need to figure maintenance. You will have an electric charge and probably a water bill as well. Let’s assume that you are not here full time and so we’ll estimate these charges on the ‘low’ side.

Monthly Bills
Electricity         $200-400
Water            $  50-150
Lawn            $  75-100
Pool            $  75-100
Alarm            $    20-50

You may also wish to hire a maintenance company to handle all of this. They will have their own crews to handle lawn, pool, cleaning, repairs, etc. They charge anywhere from $50-500 per month above the charges listed above.

You can also have the property rented out during the months you will not be visiting if you’d like to offset the costs. Rental rates very depending upon location and whether we are talking about in or out of ‘season’. You can pay anywhere from 5-15% for property management assistance. This fee is generally deducted directly from your monthly rental income.

Keep in mind that these are estimates and that the real charges could be higher or lower.

Our professional real estate agents can walk you through this process and assist you in determining what makes sense for your needs and wants.

Ready to search for available homes now? Visit our Cape Coral real estate source!

We look forward to hearing from you! If you have any questions at all give us a call!

(239) 542-8521

(888) 764-6665

inquiry@floridafutureagents.com

Copyright 2010 Florida Future Realty, Inc.

I cannot believe what that idiot did today!

Sound familiar? Do you constantly end up dealing with ‘Idiots’ in your real estate business? They don’t know what they are doing. They clearly haven’t read the new laws! They don’t even write up a contract correctly! Sheesh, we should all ‘Raise the Bar’!

It is funny that I am writing this. I have definitely had my moments dealing with ‘idiots’. Yep, I said it. But you know what? Looking back I clearly could have handled the situation differently, better even. Instead of allowing the initial frustrating thought to take over I should have stepped back and realized that EVERYONE makes mistakes.

We all have our moments of saying or writing something ‘stupid’. We have all messed up some document before. We have all misspelled something in our day! We have all done something completely incorrect.

But you say, “I take responsibility for my actions”. Or even “No, I don’t make mistakes”. You are crazy if you think you haven’t made mistakes. We all do! Great, you take responsibility for your negative actions but you don’t think others do? Well maybe you could respond with kindness and actually HELP them out instead of ranting about what they do.

For instance, in this current market we are dealing with a LOT of bank owned properties, short sales and investors. Some of the real estate professionals around here have been handling short sales and/or bank owneds for years. Others are just now starting to take these kind of listings. It appears that the ones who have been handling it for longer are (from the newbies mindset): Rude, non-responsive, even unprofessional
While they are: so much more professional. They would of course answer their phone and most certainly return all phone calls promptly, take more photos of the house, be nicer to agents who ‘are trying to sell this house for the listing agent’!

Funny thing is though on the flip side of the coin these listing agents are “tired of all the stupid questions”, “exhausted with the low ball offers”, “too busy to explain to every buyer’s agent how to write up an offer properly”, “knowing the property is priced so low it will sell fast & don’t need to take 10 photos of it - it is a foreclosure after all’.

Sound familiar? See the problem? Everyone is too worried about everyone else and not worried enough about themselves. We all need to focus more on our own professionalism, our own friendliness, kindness and ethics. We will never force someone else to be something they are not but being rude to them will not help - in fact that will make it worse! (i.e. viscous cycle)

Next time you are thinking about ‘ranting’ about some ‘idiot’ agent/any other person rethink it. Think about being kind and doing something way more productive with your time! Like maybe ‘helping’ someone out!

And please, don’t convey your opinion to the public or your customers. It will only make you look like the loser. People want to be around happy, kind people - not jerks.

So leave your negative attitude, huge ego and BS at home and come out and be positive, have fun, be professional and be more successful!

No one is perfect but we can all make a better effort to be ‘better’. And ‘better’ is not telling someone else how to do their job. It is being better at your own!

My 2 cent rant for the day ;)

Make it a GREAT one!!!!! And wouldn’t you rather be HAPPY than RIGHT?

(and the photo is there to help you RELAX :))