News about properties and real estate
Where water sells [Central Florida]
For Karen Woods, it’s all about location.
She remembered a real-estate expert telling her: “If you’re going to invest in property, buy on water. God only made so much of it.”
That’s why the 40-year-old Clermont woman and her husband, Jim, recently paid $450,000 for a condominium along the Indian River Lagoon.
A Place for an Energetic Little Boy
After Hudson Lee was born — yes, he was named for the Hudson River — his parents knew they couldn’t remain in their small, noisy, roach-ridden Inwood rental for much longer.
All they needed was a great deal: someplace clean, quiet, big enough for an energetic little boy, and costing, oh, in the low $100,000’s.
His parents — Jason Lee, an actor, and Noelle Knight-Lee, a painter and art teacher — didn’t have the financial wherewithal to move until her father, Jack Knight, visited. He asked how much they would need for a down payment on a new place.
Businesses lose property insurance [South Florida]
Business owners in Gulf Breeze may want to head for higher ground if the property insurance market for the area remains the same. Some carriers are refusing to renew commercial insurance policies or write new ones.
“I had a commercial wind policy and it will not be renewed. I can’t find another carrier,” a Gulf Breeze physician said. Speaking under a condition of anonymity, the physician claimed that his or her business property might go uninsured if no company is willing to issue a policy.
“In my 22 year career, I’ve never had to tell so many people no,” Insurance Broker David Radcliffe said. “I don’t know where to send them.”
Absentee owners investing in O.C. [Southern California]
The true role of real-estate investors in the Orange County housing market is tricky to gauge.
One accounting of their activity – tracking folks who buy property but send the tax bills to another address – shows that these sales continue to be strong.
In 2005, market watcher DataQuick says 3,692 buyers paid $3.24 billion for Orange County homes that fall into this absentee-owner category. That’s 4 percent fewer deals – but 19 percent more money spent – compared to 2004.
$1 million home sales increase sharply [Central Florida]
Sales of single-family existing homes priced at more than $1 million soared 270 percent in Metro Orlando during the past three years, a new analysis shows.
The growth in home prices as well as the surge in the size of homes has helped the trend, according to experts with the Orlando Regional Realtor Association.
Still, $1 million-plus mini-mansions account for less than 1 percent of all existing single-family sales in the region, according to the figures released Monday by the Realtor group and Attorney’s Title Insurance Fund.
Quiet title lawsuit can clear title of missing owner
Seller’s absent boyfriend still on property title
DEAR BOB: I am a real estate broker with an opportunity to obtain a listing on a beautiful house. But there is one little problem. The seller says her boyfriend moved out about 15 years ago and she hasn’t heard from him since. When I checked the official title records, I see the seller and the boyfriend (with different last names) hold the title. The seller says they were never married. Is there any way this house can be sold now? The seller has paid all the mortgage payments since the boy friend disappeared 15 years ago. –Evelyn R.
DEAR EVELYN: As a real estate agent, you were very wise to check the title before listing that house for sale. From your description, it appears the title is unmarketable unless the missing boy friend can be found.
The legal solution is for the mom to bring a quiet title lawsuit. Depending on the exact facts, her attorney can best advise what legal steps to take, such as hiring an investigator and publishing legal notices of the pending lawsuit to clear the title.