News: Real Estate News

Posted May 04, 2008 14:03

More property tax reforms. Commercial property owners will be pleased to learn that legislation passed requiring property appraisers to consider zoning and permits before applying the "highest and best use" valuation standard. Florida Association of Realtors has long maintained that businesses should be assessed for current use, not for best "possible" use, and HB 909 by Rep. Peter Nehr (R-Tarpon Springs) will go a long way to help local businesses who are feeling the impact of extraordinary property tax increases. HB 909 also changes the makeup of the value adjustment board in each county to include property owners in addition to local government officials. This will give citizens more say in challenges to property assessments.

The tax benefits set forth in HB 909 complement three constitutional amendments approved last week by members of the Tax and Budget Reform Commission, a powerful group that meets every 20 years and whose members included attorneys, executives, tax collectors and real estate professionals (including 2007 FAR President Nancy Riley). One amendment would cut property taxes by at least 25 percent and cap annual assessments on non-homestead property at 5 percent; a second amendment would give marinas, commercial fishing facilities and other "working waterfront" businesses a possible tax break by setting tax assessments according to current use rather than "highest and best use;" and the third amendment would exempt land held in perpetuity for conservation from property taxes. Other  conservation lands would be taxed based on their current use rather than "highest and best" use.

Read More

Posted March 12, 2008 12:50

Florida's My Safe Florida Home (MSFH) program wants to get the word out, and will do so in many state markets by advertising on TV and radio. And the message will be funny. The commercials will ask: "How fast can you save money?" and then use satire to compare the ease of signing up for a free home inspection with money-saving techniques that don't work nearly so well.

The MSFH program has provided more than 172,000 free wind inspections to Floridians, more than 70 percent of whom saved an average of $224 - without making a single improvement - because the report confirmed that some mitigation already existed and their current insurer dropped the rates.

Floridians whose homes have received free wind inspections from the MSFH program may also be eligible to apply for matching tax-free grants of up to $5,000 to make improvements. Floridians in single-family, site-built homes are eligible. The MSFH program has also partnered with local governments and the Volunteer Florida Foundation to offer low-income homeowners an opportunity to strengthen their homes against natural disasters. For more
information, visit www.MySafeFloridaHome.com or contact the program toll-free at (866) 513-6734.
Read More

Posted February 27, 2008 17:13

Friday, Feb. 29: Deadline to apply for homestead exemption and tax portability

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Feb. 26, 2008 – Only three days remain: Friday is the deadline for homeowners to apply for a homestead exemption, and, for 2007 homebuyers, the last day to apply for property tax portability – the right to take tax savings from a home protected by Florida’s Save Our Homes amendment and transfer it to a home purchased last year.

Homestead exemption

Floridians who live in their home are “homesteaded,” which grants them benefits.  However, homestead status is not automatic, and new homeowners must declare themselves to be homesteaders by March 1 of each year to their local property tax appraiser.

A major benefit of declaring a homestead is the homestead exemption, which generally deducts $25,000 from a home’s assessed value for tax purposes. Take a home’s assessed value, subtract $25,000, and apply the local millage rate to calculate the property taxes due.


Read More

Posted February 06, 2008 11:24

If you have questions about portability, the additional homestead exemption or other benefits of Amendment 1? Check out the Florida Department of Revenue’s (DOR) Web site (http://dor.myflorida.com/dor/property/sb4d.html). If you sold a homestead property in 2007 and qualified for homestead on a new home as of Jan. 1, 2008. You have only one month – until March 1, 2008 – to apply for property tax portability and the homestead exemption. The portability application and other pertinent forms can be found at the Florida Department of Revenue's Web site.
Read More

Posted February 05, 2008 22:24

Is your local government spending twice as much as it did five years ago yet crying that it’s poor? Or have local officials been wise caretakers of your tax dollars? In an effort to educate Floridians about their own local government income and spending, Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink has announced the launch of “Your Local Government Dollars and Cents,” which can be found on her Web site at www.MyFloridaCFO.com . It gives Floridians easy access to their local government’s revenues and expenditures. “I encourage every Floridian to use this tool and get more involved in how their local tax dollars are spent,” Sink says. “With governments actively cutting their budgets, it is essential that Floridians make it clear what their priorities are for their communities.” This new tool allows you to search by city, county or special district for a variety of revenue information including: ad valorem taxes, grants, fees and fines. You can also look up a local government’s expenditure information, including amounts spent on schools, transportation, public safety, general government and more. You can create reports comparing governments, revenues and expenditures, and electronic data is available by year from 1993 through 2007. Since 1973, Florida law has required the state Department of Financial Services to collect this financial information from local governments. If you’re also interested in revenue and expenditures data for local school districts, that information can be found at Florida’s Department of Education, according to Sink.
Read More

Posted January 11, 2008 12:28

A new report from the Attorneys’ Title Insurance Fund Inc. on January 8, 2008 (The Fund) finds that Florida’s housing market slowed in 2007 in nearly every county analyzed. The report also shows that real estate markets flattened out in spring 2007, before the subprime mortgage crisis in August knocked markets down another 10 percent across the state. Since then, the state’s housing market has flattened and is expected to begin to recover during the next several years.

The 2008 Fund Real Estate Forecast, commissioned by Florida-based Attorneys’ Title Insurance Fund's Consumer Education Campaign, was created by economist Dr. Hank Fishkind of Orlando-based Fishkind & Associates, Inc., using deed data for more than 30 Florida counties. The report provides a snapshot of the national economic outlook and 33 county-specific forecasts for 2008 through 2010, as well as a section detailing how actual 2007 data compared to projections that were made in last year’s Fund 2007 Real Estate Forecast report.

“Florida is one of the leading states for job creation and outperformed the rest of the country despite the housing market meltdown,” Fishkind says. ‘The state’s population growth also slowed, but is still nearly greater than all of the other Southeastern states put together. Florida has a very large and powerful economy that has gone through a cyclical downshift, but it is still outperforming compared to the rest of the nation.”

The Fund’s 2008 Real Estate Forecast shows that Orlando continues to be the strongest residential real estate market in the state because of its large share of fast-growing industries, such as tourism, healthcare, education and
defense manufacturing. Not all markets in Florida mirror Orlando’s resiliency, however. Miami-Dade is currently going through the worst condominium bust cycle that Florida has seen since 1975, according to Fishkind. Additionally, the report says that significant excess supply of single-family homes in the Fort Myers and Cape Coral markets will not begin to be absorbed until 2010.

“With Florida’s real estate market, it is important to maintain some rerspective as recent reductions in home prices come after a very lofty and unsustainable peak, and prices are still up considerably compared to 30 years ago,” said Fishkind. “Florida has created a tremendous amount of wealth and – despite many of the problems that loose lending practices and subprime mortgages have caused – the state now has the highest level of homeownership ever. The market has some indigestion now, but housing markets will return to normal during the next few years; the damage for some is significant, but in the aggregate, Florida still had some significant economic gains.”

Read More

Posted December 21, 2007 00:45

Christmas comes early to millions of homeowners in foreclosure! The President just signed into law the Mortgage Relief Act which among many items suspends the issuance of a 1099 to a homeowner who executes a short sale. No more tax ramifications on a short sale for a homeowner in foreclosure. When a debt is forgiven on a home loan, the homeowner must count that debt forgiveness as income and pay taxes on it.  Senator Bill Nelson of Florida  cosponsored a bill, the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 that creates a three-year exception for debt forgiveness on home loans, helping families already unable to meet their mortgage payments to avoid incurring large tax bills as well. The legislation also extends a provision allowing homeowners to deduct mortgage insurance payments from their taxable income.
Read More