October 7, 2009 EWM Relators has announced that seasoned real estate professional Reiner Perez has joined the company’s Aventura office.

Reiner Perez Joins EWM in Aventura

Perez brings to EWM more than a decade of industry experience in sales management, marketing, business development and corporate communications.  Perez, known for his energetic, creative approach to buying and selling real estate, has dedicated himself to exceeding customer expectations in a highly competitive industry. 

“This is the time and place to be at EWM,” said Perez.  “I look forward to working with a team that has earned such high regard in South Florida’s communities.  This kind of rapport, combined with the cutting edge tools and technology offered by EWM, will help me put the needs of my clients first, effectively and efficiently.”

Prior to this position, Perez was with Turnberry, Ltd. in Aventura where he played a key role in such notable projects as Turnberry on the Green, Fountanbleau II & III Condo Hotel on Miami Beach and Oceana V in Sunny Isles Beach.  Perez was recognized by Turnberry as the “Top Sales Executive of the Year” from 2002 to 2007.   He has had many other career highlights, including being presented the Builder’s Association of South Florida’s GOLD Award for Best Sales Associate of the Year in 2005.

“It’s an honor to welcome Reiner to the EWM family,” said Ron Shuffield, EWM President.  “He is an innovative professional — one who will build industry presence through superior marketing abilities and a highly diversified skill set.”

A native of Havana, Cuba, Perez has lived in Florida for more than 30 years.

August 25, 2009 

Home prices posted their first quarterly increase in three years, signaling the housing market has turned a corner.  The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller’s U.S. National Home Price Index released Tuesday rose nearly 3 percent from the first quarter to 133, though that reading is still down almost 15 percent from the second quarter last year. 

Home prices are at levels not seen since early 2003. Prices have fallen 30 percent from the peak in the second quarter of 2006.  The monthly index of 20 major cities increased 1.4 percent from May to June to 142, the second straight month the index registered a gain. All but two cities, Las Vegas and Detroit, saw home prices rise, and Dallas and Denver clocked their fourth-straight monthly increase.  Prices, however, have a long way to go to recover completely. Every metro showed annual declines, with fifteen reporting double-digit drops. 

The Case-Shiller index is a composite of home price indexes for the nine U.S. census divisions. The 20-city index measures home price increases and decreases relative to prices in January 2000. The base reading is 100; so a reading of 150 would mean that home prices increased 50 percent since the beginning of the index.

Top agent Jo-Ann Forster joins EWM

By Yudislaidy Fernandez, Miami Today
 

August 12, 2009

Veteran Realtor Jo-Ann Forster and her eight-member team have left Coldwell Banker, where she was local top producer, to join Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell Realtors looking for growth and change, she says.

It’s a jump from one of the market’s largest residential firms to the other.  With competition stiff among realty firms in a slower residential market, firm owners are seeking to lure new and seasoned sellers, industry leaders say. 

Looking for a reinvention like the “Madonna of real estate,” Ms. Forster said, she decided to join the forward-thinking, technology-driven business model of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell. 

“We always have to reinvent ourselves, especially in the world that we are today,” said Ms. Forster, who has spent three decades in real estate.

A leader in South Florida’s residential market, Ms. Forster was named Coldwell’s top producer in Miami-Dade since joining the company in 2003 and was the state’s overall top producer in 2007.

Ron Shuffield, president of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell, says he has worked with Ms. Forster for years, one by the side of the seller and the other by the buyer.

“Some people don’t think about how our industry is different. We have competitors but we are working together,” he said. “In the past 25 years, I’ve watched her work when we’ve done deals together and Jo-Ann has said, “If I ever leave, I am coming to you.’”

The staff at Esslinger is also excited about working with her on the same team, he added.  Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell is a subsidiary of HomeServices of America Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate. HomeServices and Coldwell Banker rank among the largest residential realty firms nationally. 

Ms. Forster, who specializes in selling luxury real estate, has moved to Esslinger’s Coral Gables office at 550 S. Dixie Hwy. with her administrative and sales team of eight.

With the team approach the “new paradigm for top agents,” she said, Esslinger understood that she would make the move with her full staff.  She plans to continue using her Web site and name, Unique Homes of Miami, she said, and all of her home listings are being transferred from Coldwell Banker to Esslinger.

With headlines constantly reporting on the debt of companies, Mr. Shuffield says the financial strength of his company amidst the economic downturn is reassuring to his employees and consumers.

“What Jo-Ann looked at was the financial stability of our company and the quality of the products that we offer to tap into the technology and resources that can help her market her properties…,” he said.

Realogy Corp., parent of large national franchise Coldwell Banker and others such as Century 21 and ERA, reported a $259 million net loss for the first quarter, despite slashing $310 million in expenses and generating $101 million in commission income from new franchise sales. 

Ms. Forster says the company’s financial standing was not a reason for leaving.  Many companies in the world right now, from large to small, have been impacted by the economic crisis, she added.

“Coldwell has been around for 100 years and I am sure they’ll be around for another 100 years,” she said.

One reason Ms. Forster said she made the leap to Esslinger is because of the company’s interest in staying at the cutting edge of technology.

Mr. Shuffield says the company strives to have the latest technology and uses interactive tools to help associates reach more buyers.  For example, the company started blogging 18 months ago and is posting videos on Youtube.com to get industry professionals and customers to better understand market conditions and changes, he said. “It exposes our services to that many more people.”

Ms. Forster says she plans to continue playing the real estate game her way. “I am my own competitor… My goal is not about money or volume,” she said. “I do seminars for the board of realtors and I tell them “If you focus on money and volume, everything falls.’”

Attracting new talent and top sellers is a priority for residential firms in this tough market, where the fall of some companies is accelerating the process. 

Jeff Morr, chief executive officer and founder of Majestic Properties, an independent real estate firm in Miami, says with some “smaller brokers closing shop,” some former agents have returned to his company because of the opportunities and stability.

Mr. Morr said Majestic also offers resources that smaller companies can’t, such as top marketing tools to promote their listings.

Majestic has added four new agents in the past month and recently welcomed back two former agents.

“In the last three months, business has been good and consistent and we are expecting an incredible season coming up,” Mr. Morr added.

Mr. Shuffield says in recent months he’s also had a “surge of new and seasoned associates seeing what we are doing and wanting to join. It’s gratifying to see those within our industry recognize not only the quality of our company, but the quality of the people who are here.”

Luxury home sales on the rise again in South Florida

Luxury homes are selling again in South Florida — a promising sign of new life in the housing market.

For video interview with Audrey Ross by Herald staff, click here: http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/1167851.html

BY MONICA HATCHER

(August 2, 2009) Patricia Delinois’ Black-Berry is buzzing again. After a long, dreary drought, her Sunday afternoons are filling up with open houses.

Delinois, who handles very expensive real estate, says a flurry of new activity is providing hope that the luxury home market has a pulse again, after taking a beating in recent months — albeit with kid gloves.

“We were having open houses and nobody would come,” said Delinois, presi-dent of Century 21 Premier Elite Realty. “Now, we’re getting five, six, 10 families coming through. I’m really praying and keeping my fingers crossed this is a permanent thing.”

Confidence seems to be returning, as well as a rising tide of money from outside the country, positive signs for both the high-end housing market, and the real estate market in general. Demand fed by foreign money has always been a critical piece of the real estate puzzle in South Florida.

“We’re on our way out of the worst [of the economic downturn]” said Manny Mesa, a Doral-based trial lawyer who is hunting for a bigger home for his wife and four children.

On Thursday, he toured the digs of former Miami Heat point guard Tim Hardaway. Hardaway is asking $3.9 million for the five-bedroom, five-bath home on almost two acres in the Pinecrest area. It boasts a six-foot coral rock wall for privacy and a closet the size of a very large bedroom.

“People are confident that the world is not ending,” said Adam Greenberg, a managing director for BayBridge, a Miami-based brokerage and mortgage banking firm. “They were so concerned it was ending and that our financial system could falter.”

When the global economy took a dive last year, real estate prices plummeted, including prices for South Florida’s toniest properties, priced at $1 million or more.

And then things got worse. As the calendar year turned, fear that the global financial system was heading off a cliff brought South Florida’s luxury home market — largely dependent on foreign wealth — to a standstill. In January, just nine houses priced over $1 million sold in Miami-Dade and seven in Broward.

But now brokers and some analysts are sensing a collective, if tentative, sigh of relief among the very wealthy, as evidenced by the recent uptick in luxury home sales. In June, the last full month of available data, 25 were sold in Broward and 41 in Miami-Dade.

The figures are still significantly off from the market’s peak, when about twice as many were selling on a monthly basis. And prices are still droopy.

Nonetheless, real estate brokers say it is evident that foreign buyers are returning to South Florida as news spreads globally that many of the region’s tropical, waterfront palaces are on sale. Among the bargains: Shaquille O’Neal’s 2.45 acre estate on Star Island, which sold recently for $16 million, about $2 million less than he paid for it in 2004.

SALES PITCH

Marketing a really ritzy home can involve having a robust website devoted just to that one property, color spreads in the Robb Report (billed as “The Global Luxury Source”) and advertising spots on shows like Extra and Power Lunch on CNBC. But in other ways it’s not that different from selling a two-bedroom CBS in South Miami. Delinois recommends having scented candles burning and a loaf of bread baking in the oven.

“Smell is very, very important,” said Delinois, who must know something, having sold Hulk Hogan’s home on North Bay Road in Miami Beach for a whopping $17.9 million.

Alas, despite Delinois’ recommendation, Hardaway didn’t have any candles burning or bread baking when Mesa stopped by. He didn’t get the sale either.

Mesa said he was going to keep on looking.

Brokers and analysts say the renewed activity in high-end real estate is at least partly because of a revived interest among lenders in making very large loans, called jumbo loans.

Banks’ appetite for jumbo loans — defined as more than $423,750 in South Florida — had all but evaporated as lenders hunkered down to weather the storm.

“They are marketing, inviting us to their offices to meet with them to tell us what they can do,” said Tere Bernacé, a broker specializing in waterfront properties in Coral Gables and a former banker with Barclays Capital. “They say they are trying to increase their profile again in our market.”

Added Delinois: “I have never had a bank calling before to say they were lending.” BayBridge’s Greenberg said banks are interested in the rich and famous because they are looking for safety.

“They see values as very depressed and borrowers in the super luxury home market as a very unlikely default candidates,” he said.

In the past 30 days, BayBridge has closed three loans that were over $5 million.

“I’ve never had a client that has defaulted on a loan over $5 million, in the nine years I’ve been doing this,” Greenberg said.

Spokesmen for Ocean Bank and BBU Bank in Coral Gables acknowledged they are actively seeking the business of luxury home buyers.

That doesn’t mean the loans are easy to get. Large loans require much heftier down payments — up to 50 percent of the purchase price — and stringent verification of income and assets.

Those who buy in the ultra-luxury category (homes priced at $5 million or more) often aren’t looking for loans.

“Most of the people who buy at this price point don’t finance, and if they do, it’s a matter of convenience,” said Audrey Ross, a senior vice president of Esslinger Wooten Maxwell.

In the past three months, Ross brokered three sales in Gables Estates — each for more than $5 million, she said. Two were all-cash transactions.

FIRST TO RECOVER

Ross, who has specialized in high-end real estate for 25 years, said typically the ultra-luxury sector takes less of a hit in real estate downturns and is usually the first to recover.

Luxury prices have held up significantly better in the current slump than the market as a whole, according to Coral Gables-based real estate analyst David Dabby.

For homes selling for more than $1 million, the price per square foot has fallen about 14 percent in Miami-Dade and 20 percent in Broward from the 2006 peak.

That compares to a 50 percent decline in the market as a whole, Dabby said.

Jill Hertzberg, a broker with Coldwell Banker, who along with her partner Jill Eber was ranked eighth nationwide in sales volume last year by The Wall Street Journal and LORE Magazine, said unheard of deals on luxury properties are driving interest.

Hertzberg cooed over a fully renovated home in Miami Beach with a stunning wide-water vista of Miami’s skyline that “`screamed out to anyone wanting a downtown view and a beautiful home.”

Originally listed for $4.1 million, the property was dropped to $3.2 million and quickly drew multiple offers. It is now under contract and a closing date has been set.

“These are great properties,” Hertzberg said. “They aren’t second-rate properties. They are adjusting down to prices that are incredible, that no one has see before and people are buying them.”

By DAVID STREITFELD

(July 29, 2009) The long slide in housing prices is continuing to brake, figures released Tuesday indicate.

For the fourth consecutive month, there was modest improvement in May in housing prices, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, a closely watched measure of the market.

The index of 20 metropolitan areas declined 17.1 percent in May from the same month in 2008, an improvement over April’s 18.1 percent fall.

The report contained another, more startling piece of data: prices increased in May by a half-percentage point from April, the first positive monthly return for the index in three years.

“It is very possible that years from now we will say that April 2009 was the trough in home prices,” S.& P.’s vice president for index services, Maureen Maitland, said.

But skeptics were quick to note that the increase was measured in absolute terms. When adjusted for seasonality, a standard measure, prices showed a slight drop.

From its peak three years ago, the index is down about a third, pushing prices in major cities back to where they were in 2003. Analysts said that the improvement over April was unexpected and welcome, but they differed over whether it could be sustained.

“Recession is over, economy is recovering — let’s look forward and stop the backward-looking focus,” the Wells Fargo chief economist John E. Silvia wrote in a research note.

Ian Shepherdson at High Frequency Economics was more cautious. “We would not expect any gains to last,” Mr. Shepherdson told clients, “because prices are still high relative to incomes and rents, and also because the uptick in sales will, we think, prompt a new wave of supply.”

For 16 months, beginning in October 2007 and ending in January 2009, the Case-Shiller index posted record annual declines. As recently as February, all of the 20 cities in the index showed a decline from the previous month.

In May, only five of them did. The cities that are still dropping are Las Vegas and Phoenix, the two places where the bubble was the worst, and Miami, Seattle and Los Angeles. Prices improved in 13 cities.

A housing market where prices are consistently stable — never mind one that rises — nevertheless appears a long way off. Many analysts say they think the most hopeful possibility is that prices will start to rise modestly on an annual basis late next year. But that date could be pushed back even further if the economy came out of recession and then dipped back in.

As Prices Plummet, Miami Condo Sales Perk Up

By TERRY PRISTIN

(July 28, 2009) Despite a vast oversupply of new condos in downtown Miami, sales have been brisk lately at 1060 Brickell Avenue, a twin-tower development with 570 units in the heart of the upscale Brickell neighborhood. The reason? Prices have been cut in half, to about $200 a square foot.

“We reset the prices at a sharp discount, and the units are flying off the shelves,” said Gary Barnett, the president of the Extell Development Company, the New York-based developer of 1060 Brickell, which was completed last year. More than 200 units have closed since the discount program began in April, he said.

Mr. Barnett, who has developed several new condominium projects in Manhattan, including 535 West End Avenue and the Rushmore, acknowledged that he and his backers lost their entire investment in 1060 Brickell, which is situated at Southeast First Avenue. He said some, but not all, of the mezzanine financing was also wiped out. But because more than 40 percent of the units sold at full price, Mr. Barnett was able to repay his $153 million first mortgage from TD Bank and iStar, a troubled finance company that bet heavily on the South Florida condo market.

Since 2003, nearly 23,000 new condo units have been added to the downtown skyline, from Brickell Avenue up through the more modest Biscayne Corridor — far more than this city of 400,000 people could absorb. About 9,400 remained unsold at the end of June, according to Peter Zalewski, the owner of Condo Vultures Realty, a local brokerage.

But Miami real estate brokers, lawyers and developers say the overbuilt condo market has entered a new phase. “Things are starting to move through the system,” said Adam Cappel, the president of CondoReports.com, a Miami research service.

Until recently, many real estate professionals expected investment funds seeking opportunities in distressed real estate to swoop down on Miami and buy condo units by the hundreds at wholesale prices and then rent them out until the market recovered.

A few bulk purchases have occurred — in the dozens rather than the hundreds — but most buyers have paid the current market price, not a wholesale price. For example, an investor from Colombia recently bought 31 units at 1060 Brickell for an average of $203 a square foot, according to Mr. Zalewski. Last week, however, a private equity group paid only $63 a square foot for 51 oceanfront condo-hotel units at the Regent Hotel in Miami Beach, he said. Previous units there had sold for $1,100 a square foot. But condo-hotel units are considered riskier and harder to finance than traditional condos.

For the most part, bulk condo sales have yet to catch on. With the steep decline in values, developers of newer buildings are no longer in control of their projects and must defer to their lenders. “The lenders did not want to take the hit that the bulk purchasers were offering,” said Martin A. Schwartz, a partner at Bilzin Sumberg, a Miami law firm that represents developers.

Another obstacle is that under Florida law, anyone who buys seven condos in a building with 70 or more units may be assuming all the liabilities of a developer, Mr. Schwartz said. “There is an element of risk,” he said. Mr. Barnett, for example, was unable to arrange a bulk sale for 346 units at 1060 Brickell last year at $200 a square foot.

Robert Kaplan, a principal of Olympian Capital Group, a Miami mortgage brokerage, said the focus had shifted away from bulk sales to retail sales because lenders were not willing to take $100 to $125 a square foot when they could get $175 or more. “Every condo lender is considering market-rate sales,” he said. “They have no choice.”

Bargains are being offered for under $200 a square foot at Brickell on the River South, near Southeast Fifth Street. At 500 Brickell, developed by the Related Group of Florida, the industry leader, prices for one-bedroom apartments have dropped to $180,000, from $260,000, said Lucas Lechuga, an agent for Keller Williams Realty in Miami. “The buildings that have slashed their prices are doing pretty well now,” he said. If demand does not keep up, prices will have to adjust, Mr. Kaplan said. “But we’re not seeing that yet,” he added. “We’re seeing velocity at the new lower prices.”

According to Ronald A. Shuffield, the president of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell, a local brokerage, condo sales in new buildings increased to 82 a month, from an average of 50 a month, since April. Jack McCabe, the chief executive of McCabe Research and Consulting in Deerfield Beach, Fla., said, however, that he thought prices were likely to drop a lot further because of the high volume of foreclosures. “There are a lot of buildings where 30 to 35 percent of the units are in foreclosure,” he said. He predicted that bulk sales at prices as low as $100 a square foot would eventually occur, especially for inland properties. “It’s still early,” he said.  In newer buildings with many unsold condos, developers are negotiating uncontested, or “friendly,” foreclosures with their lenders, sparing them the expense of a protracted battle. Last month, the Related Group surrendered its 420-unit CityPlace South development in West Palm Beach, Fla., where only 39 sales had been completed, to a group of lenders led by the Bank of Nova Scotia. Related paid an undisclosed sum to cancel its $119 million construction loan and other liabilities and won the right to continue to manage and maintain the project and run the sales operation — all for lucrative fees.

According to recent news reports, Related hopes to work out a similar arrangement within the next couple of months to retire about $1.5 billion in outstanding debt on other South Florida condo projects, including the company’s showpiece, Icon Brickell, where only 31 of 1,646 units have sold. Related executives did not return telephone calls.

Thomas R. Lehman, a Miami lawyer who has been negotiating several friendly foreclosures, said many developers had already quietly turned over the keys to their projects. “The wave has started,” said Mr. Lehman, the managing partner at Tew Cardenas. “Public records are catching up to what’s already been negotiated. Lenders are realizing that no one is going to buy their loans and they might as well get their projects back and put them on the market.” He said developers often were trying to preserve other assets they might have put up as collateral for their construction loan.

But what has been a catastrophe for developers has been a bonanza for renters. According to a report commissioned by the Miami Downtown Development Authority, a quasi-independent city agency, 62 percent of the already completed new downtown condo units are occupied, split evenly between renters and owners. Monthly rents have declined 15 to 20 percent in Miami, with the median rate at $1.64 a square foot, Mr. Zalewski said.

The Related Group has instituted an unusual rent-to-own program, in which no price is set in advance and all of the rental payments count toward a down payment, if the unit is purchased within a year.

Joe Higgins, the owner of Grove Town Properties, a local brokerage, said about one-quarter of his rental clients were University of Miami law students doubling up with roommates, but the rest were professionals working downtown.  With so many new buildings on the market, tenants have become choosy and now demand features like an updated kitchen, Mr. Higgins said. “Renters don’t want the older buildings,” he said. “They want the granite; they want the stainless steel.”

(July 28, 2009) There were fresh signs Tuesday that home prices in much of the country are stabilizing and the housing market is on the mend.

Home prices in May posted their first monthly increase since the summer of 2006, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city index. Prices rose from April in 13 of the cities tracked, notably Cleveland, Dallas and Boston.

The news follows upbeat reports showing sales of newly built and existing homes rose in June for the third straight month. And new home construction, while still weak, is the best it’s been since the fall.

The news: The 20-city home price index rose 0.5 percent from April to a reading of 139.8, but was still 17.1 percent below the reading of 168.6 in May a year ago. It was the fourth consecutive month the index indicated prices have turned the corner and are heading back toward positive territory.

The 20-city index has lost more than 32 percent since its peak reading of 206.52 three years ago. That means home prices are back to mid-2003 levels.

The report: The Case-Shiller index measures home price increases and decreases relative to prices in January 2000. The base reading is 100; so a reading of 150 would mean that home prices increased 50 percent since the beginning of the index.

What it shows: The index tracks repeat sales of a designated group of homes in each city. By measuring the sales price of the same properties over time, the index prevents the data from being skewed by a change in the types of homes sold. Sales between related parties, such as family members, are excluded because they may not reflect true market values.

What it doesn’t show: The indexes only measure price data in 20 major metropolitan areas in 15 states and the District of Columbia. So many areas of the country are not represented.

Why it matters: Investors closely watch the Case-Shiller indexes to gauge the level and direction of home prices. The indexes include a broader mix of properties compared to the index created by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. That index excludes many high-end properties, as well as homes bought with riskier mortgages or all cash.

The quote: “We may be on the way to recovery,” said Maureen Maitland, vice president of S&P’s index services. “I say ‘may’ because it’s only been a couple months of data and home prices are seasonal … It will take a couple more months to see if we have turned around.”

By Alan Zibel, AP Real Estate Writer

Thursday July 23, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. housing market has started to recover from the most far-reaching crisis since the Great Depression, data released Thursday show.

Sales of previously occupied homes rose for the third month in a row in June, the National Association of Realtors reported. That hasn’t happened since early 2004, during the boom.

“The turnaround in the housing market appears finally to be here and indeed may be gaining some speed,” wrote Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors Inc.

Stocks jumped on the news, with the Dow Jones industrial average rising above 9,000 for the first time since early January.

Home sales rose 3.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.89 million last month, from a downwardly revised pace of 4.72 million in May. Sales were up in all four regions of the country.

It was the highest level of sales since last October and beat economists’ expectations. Sales had been expected to rise to an annual pace of 4.84 million units, according to Thomson Reuters.

In another encouraging sign, the share of foreclosures on the market is shrinking. About one out of three homes sold in June was foreclosure-related, down from nearly half earlier this year.

And the glut of homes up for sale dwindled to 3.8 million. That’s a 9.4-month supply at the current sales pace and another important sign of a recovery. When the market balances at a 7-month supply prices should begin to stabilize, the Realtors’s group said.

That probably won’t happen until next year because of a backlog of foreclosures that have yet to come on to the market. The median sales price was $181,800 in June, down 15 percent from year-ago levels but up slightly from $174,700 in May.

Nevertheless, prices have risen for three straight months in about half of the 55 major metropolitan areas tracked by the Associated Press-Re/Max Housing Report, also released Thursday.

July 13, 2009– More people can now take advantage of living a sophisticated urban lifestyle in the heart of Downtown Miami, as Met 1, the residential component of the billion-dollar Metropolitan Miami mixed-use development is offering select units for leasing, starting at $1,250 per month – a price which includes cable, internet and telephone – with immediate availability thanks to a streamlined approval process for tenants that in most cases takes no more than 24 hours to complete. 

Met 1 Now Leasing

Additionally, Met 1 is offering a rent-to-own program where tenants may utilize a percentage of their rent to purchase their unit.  The 447-unit, 40-story building, developed by MDM Development Group, is in the epicenter of the sprawling downtown neighborhood and offers scenic views of Biscayne Bay and the City of Miami. 

“There is simply no development in downtown Miami like Metropolitan Miami,” said Patrick O’Connell, Senior Vice President of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell (EWM) Realtors’ Development Services Division and Managing Broker of the company’s Brickell office.  “Seven days a week, people are coming to our open houses and getting excited about what’s being offered here.  We are also making it convenient to get situated quickly.”

The L-shaped Met 1 is pet friendly, outfitted with a state-of-the-art security system and conveniently located near several Miami hot spots including American Airlines Arena, the Miami Art Museum, Miami-Dade College, Bayside and Bayfront Park.  One- and two-bedroom units, designed by architects Nichols, Brosch & Sandoval, are available starting at $1250 per month.

Kitchen designs include European wood cabinetry, granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances.  Elegant bathrooms offer custom marble vanities and stylish fixtures.  For added convenience, above the 12th level, residents will find a large pool and an exclusive “Great Room,” a private clubhouse and a fully-equipped health and fitness center. 

Individuals looking to live in downtown Miami have many options these days,” concludes O’Connell, “but the Met is in a class by itself.  Once people visit, it’s easy to see why so many have fallen in love with this once-in-a-lifetime community.”

A short sale is when the proceeds from the sale of a home are less than the mortgage balance owed, and the lender agrees to discount that balance in order to achieve the sale.

There is a fee of $250 to the seller to cover out-of-pocket charges for the necessary title search, title examination and lien search.  The fee is non-refundable to the seller once these services are provided.

The Starter Kit is aimed at those individuals who know that their mortgage amount is higher than what their residence is worth and need to expedite the sales process in order to avoid foreclosure.

“As anyone who has dealt with short sales can tell you,” says Marisa Pia Capua, Esq., president of EWM Title, and the author of the Starter Kit, “the biggest challenge in this process is waiting to hear whether the financial institution has accepted the offer from the potential buyer or not. By utilizing the Starter Kit, a short sale seller can begin the complex process before their home is under contract, helping to speed up what are often maddening time frames.”

The Starter Kit includes sample forms and contact information to get the process started.  The helpful, knowledgeable staff at EWM Title will assist sellers by following up on the paperwork submissions to push things along so that when that offer comes along, a quick closing is sure to happen.

“Initial response to the Starter Kit has been phenomenal,” adds Ron Shuffield, president of EWM.  “With such a large percentage of residential sales now short sales, the Kit is an important resource for a seller who is facing these circumstances and needs to move the process along as rapidly as possible.”

With local roots that are almost 50 years old, EWM Title is one of Florida’s most recognized and reputable title companies.  EWM Title has been at the forefront of short sale activity, and has unmatched skills at providing answers and resolving issues quickly through this often-difficult process.

“We recognize that any homeowner engaged in a short sale is under great stress,” concludes Capua.  “At EWM Title, we provide the personal touch so often lost in this fast-paced market that can help them work through the process.”

For additional information or to access the ‘Short Sale Starter Kit’, please visit www.ewm.com/title, or contact Short Sale Expert Laura Coiner of EWM Title, at 305.960.2578.