A recent survey reveals that 58 % of home owners across Florida place positive views regarding the continual rise of the value of their homes over the subsequent 12 months. The general perspective holds regardless of indications that the five-year boom in the Florida housing market is declining. This online survey, which is conducted every year by Florida-based Attorneys? Title Insurance Fund?s Consumer Education Campaign, samples a poll of more than a thousand home owners throughout the state within the period of May 30 to June 6, 2006. The survey focused on dynamic Florida housing markets such as Broward, Miami-Dade County, Tampa, Sarasota County, Fort Myers-Naples, West Palm Beach, and Orlando. The respondents are aged 18 and above. The survey puts forward that home owners have been vigilant about the condition of the Florida housing market, in spite of the fact that affordability remains to be the major obstacle to purchasing a home (71 % of respondents? opinions). Homeowners in Miami-Dade and Fort Myers-Naples are even more likely to say that ?affordability? is a considerable purchasing obstacle (both 83 %). With nearly a 30 % rise from 2005 figures, Tampa witnesses the biggest increase in percent citing ?affordability? as the primary obstacle to home ownership compared to other areas in Florida.
The interesting facet of the result reveals that the views of home owners across Florida are split about whether the year 2006 is a good or bad time to purchase Florida real estate (amounting to 42 % for both views). However, by examining samples for select regions such as Sarasota County (53 %), West Palm Beach (49 %), and Orlando (43 %), statistics reveal a slightly higher chance to believe that now is a good time to buy a home as compared to regions like Tampa (42 %), Broward County (39 %), and Miami-Dade (34 %).
Nonetheless, hurricanes still linger within the minds of home owners. Nearly half of all respondents (47 %) said that they have apprehensions about being hit by a storm. Another 16 % of the respondents mention the impact of a housing bubble as their biggest worry, and even fewer cite escalating mortgage interest rates (13 %), devaluating home prices (5 %), or becoming the victim of real estate scam (1 %) as their biggest real estate anxiety in Florida. What is surprising about these figures is that Florida home owners do not rank high in terms of the concern of being the victim of real estate fraud, especially for the fact that Florida was recently branded as the top state across the nation with regards to prevalence of mortgage frauds.
The survey also reveals that the most confusing part of purchasing a property in the Florida housing market is the understanding real estate laws, which is evident in 41 % of the respondents citing such. In point of fact, about a third of Florida home owners found that understanding Florida real estate law is extremely confusing. Other aspects in the process of buying Florida real estate that are considered confusing includes understanding settlement/closing process with 24 % of the respondents saying that it is extremely confusing.
About half of home owners of Florida (48 %) have consulted with a real estate attorney in the past. This aspect of the survey shows that residents in South Florida consult real estate attorneys more frequently compared to residents in other parts of the state. For instance, 67 % of residents in Miami-Dade County, 61 % in Broward and 60 % of residents in West Palm Beach cite that they have been consulting with real estate attorneys, whereas only 37 % of residents in Tampa and 44 % in Orlando have done so.
Dranreb Earl Juanico
http://florida-mortgage.xon.us
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