News About Properties

Ultimate Homes selects top local luxury properties [South Florida]

Beautiful homes are a common sight in Southwest Florida. But according to a recent national publication, Collier County is home to more than a dozen of the most luxurious homes available in the United States.

Ultimate Homes, a publication of magazine Unique Homes, placed 13 of the nation’s 1,000 most expensive residential properties within the greater Naples area.

“There are very good reasons why Marco Island and Naples rank among the most desirable places for the wealthy to live,” said estate agent Linda Sandlin of Re/Max Results Realty. “The luxury real estate market is being driven by dramatic increases in the numbers of very wealthy Americans as well as technologies that allow them to manage businesses and portfolios from virtually anywhere. Naples and Marco Island are among the premier sought-after luxury locations.”

Capital Partners bids for REIT [Central Florida]

Orlando-based Capital Partners Inc., a fast-growing real estate investment company, has made a $4.4 billion cash offer for Highwoods Properties Co., a North Carolina company with extensive property holdings locally and throughout the Southeastern U.S.

Capital Partners confirmed Wednesday it is offering $36 a share for Highwoods, a publicly traded real estate investment trust whose stock has been trading between $31 and $33 a share in recent weeks. The $4.4 billion purchase price includes the assumption of a bit more than $2 billion in debt.

Try-Mor residents in limbo [South Florida]

For almost a year, Carol Kuebler has lived with the uncertainty that has become all too familiar for those living in mobile home parks throughout Florida.

It’s the unsettling question, “Who’s going to own our park tomorrow?”

But for Kuebler, that uncertainty now carries a sense of urgency.

Gifting real estate may escape taxation

DEAR BOB: My son and his wife live in a free-and-clear house I own. He pays utilities and maintains the property. He proposes I add both their names to the title so that in 24 months we can sell the property and he would then purchase in his name only a more expensive home. My son says no tax will be due on such a sale under that $500,000 tax exemption rule you often discuss and the sale isn’t even reportable to the Internal Revenue Service. I realize I would be passing on the value of the home to him but I am not confident of the tax situation. Is he correct? –James S.

DEAR JAMES: When you gift the house to your son and his wife, that event requires you to file a federal gift tax return. However, no gift tax will be due if your total lifetime gifts exceeding the annual $12,000 per gift per donee exemption are not more than $1 million.

Foreclosure filings on Florida homes leap

Florida foreclosure filings jumped by 6 percent from April to May, according to a study by RealtyTrac Inc., an online data concern. That’s one new filing for every 821 Florida households.

By contrast, national foreclosure filings rose by less than 2 percent, averaging about one new filing for every 1,247 U.S. households.

The numbers for St. Lucie County were even more grim. One of every 719 households there was the subject of a foreclosure filing in May, reported Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac. And in Palm Beach County last month, RealtyTrac found, one of every 561 households faced a new foreclosure action — almost double the national average.

Lending a Hand: Many benefits of interest-only mortgages

There has been way too much negative press over mortgages that have the option to pay just the interest each month. In the first place, the very term “interest-only” is a misnomer. The implication is that such borrowers can only pay the interest that is due each month when in fact they can pay whatever amount they want as long as at least the interest on the principal is paid.

For example, if we take a $500,000 mortgage at a rate of 7 percent, the monthly interest payment would be the annual interest — $35,000 — divided by 12 for a total of $2,917 per month.