South Florida On The Market

Trying to buy a home when you are up against the clock is stressful. If you are renting and on a lease, it can feel like a ticking time bomb: Are you going to be able to find a house and get an accepted offer or should you re-up your lease for another year? For first-time home buyers, the pressure is on and you don’t want to end up on the streets. Sometimes a lease break is inevitable if you land your new home earlier than anticipated. But, how can you get yourself off the hook without losing your shirt? First off, you should never take a lease-break lightly. Leases are binding documents and in many states they are very strictly enforced, meaning your landlord could take you to small claims court to collect missing payments. There are no guarantees that your landlord will let you off scot-free, but it’s worth a shot! How to Break a Lease When You’re Ready to Buy As a landlord myself, I have seen seen hundreds of tenants come and go. My advice to any renter is to first try an

U.S. housing became less affordable in the first quarter and the cost of carrying a mortgage could increase by the end of year – making 2018 affordability more challenging than it's been in decades, according to the Spring 2018 edition of The Housing and Mortgage Market Review (HaMMR).   The report found that U.S. housing affordability worsened by 5 percent in the first quarter of 2018, and authors predict that the monthly mortgage payments needed for home purchases could go up another 10-15 percent by the end of the year. For homeowners, there's good news in the report: Home values are expected to continue to appreciate.   According to the latest quarterly Arch MI Risk Index, a statistical model based on leading housing market indicators, the average probability of experiencing home price declines remains unusually low at 5 percent. The shortage of homes for sale means that the likelihood of local housing busts – or even mild price declines– over the next two years is

#EllimanMag ’s Spring/Summer issue celebrates the warmth of the season. Inside you’ll find #Elliman ’s extensive portfolio of luxury resale, new development and rental properties. Pick up your copy at any DE office location or sales gallery today! #ItsTimeForElliman pic.twitter.com/xx2u5i8Ooo — DouglasElliman (@DouglasElliman) April 12, 2018

We all know that many types of disclosures can be provided between parties during the course of a real estate transaction. However, it's important to know which ones are required – and when they're required – so that the seller and buyer are in compliance with both the law and the contracts. Many Florida Realtors contracts contain a section regarding disclosures. Some of these disclosures are generic in nature, meaning that the required disclosure is contained within the body of the contract itself. For example, the radon disclosure contained in the contracts (residential and commercial) is based on statutorily proscribed language that must be given either before or within the contract. However, other disclosures may require additional attachments or information to be given. One example is the building energy-efficiency information. Pursuant to Florida Statutes 553.996, "a prospective purchaser of real property with a building for occupancy located thereon shall b

In March, a jury trial involved landowners who had easement rights taken by Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC, under the power of eminent domain. The case was heard in a federal court before U.S. District Court Judge James S. Moody, Jr. in Ocala, Florida. According to the landowners' attorneys, the case – Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC v. +/- 3.921 Acres of Land, Sunderman Groves, Inc., No. 5:16-cv-00178-JSM-PRL (M.D. Fla. 2017) – is allegedly the first jury trial in which property owners have challenged Sabal Trail regarding the measure of compensation for the taking of both temporary and permanent easements as part of its 516-mile natural gas pipeline project that will span Alabama, Georgia and Florida. According to court documents, landowners Chuck and Jan Sunderman had a 40-acre tract of land in Bay Lake, Florida, split down the middle by Sabal T rails natural gas pipeline – a distance of 1,336 feet. Sabal Trail (owned by Spectra Energy, NextEra Energy and Duke Power) says

In the 1985 case Johnson v. Davis, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that a home seller who knows of facts that materially affect the property's value that aren't readily observable and known to a buyer has a duty to disclose them to the buyer. This is the law in Florida today. A nondisclosure claim under Johnson v. Davis has four elements: The home seller must know of a defect in the property The defect must materially affect the property's value The defect must not be readily observable by the buyer and must be unknown to the buyer The buyer must establish that the seller failed to disclose the defect to the buyer In 2011, the 2nd District Court of Appeal heard a separate case, Jensen v. Bailey, and rendered an opinion that focused on the first element of liability under Johnson v. Davis – that the home seller knows of a defect in the property. Specifically, the court considered whether anything less than actual knowledge is sufficient to satisfy the first

April 17 is the deadline for paying income taxes, but tax advisers still can't agree on whether homeowners who prepaid their 2018 property taxes in 2017 can fully deduct them. Congress passed a tax reform bill late last year, capping write-offs for state and local taxes at $10,000 per return for single filers and married couples. The move set off a rush of homeowners to prepay their property taxes for 2018 at the end of the year before the tax bill took effect this year. The overhaul "barred deductions for many prepayments of 2018 state and local income taxes, but it was silent on deductions of prepaid property taxes," The Wall Street Journal reports. On Dec. 27, the IRS warned prepaying owners that not all prepayments of 2018 property taxes would be deductible on 2017 returns. To be eligible for a write-off, the owners must have known their tax liability at the time of payment, the IRS stated. But some tax specialists disagreed with the IRS' reasoning that prop