Search terms, that is. With all the exposure real estate agents are having to foreclosures, you’ll think we would have learned how to spell this term by now. But no, that’s not the case. Just look at our MLS and you'll find at least a couple of variations. Missing the first “e” seems to be a favorite one. So including these misspellings in our searches is almost a given.

                                                      

"Foreclosures”, “short-sales” and “pre-foreclosures” are terms that have entered most everyone's vocabulary by now. The media talks about them…writes about them and analyses them. We talk about them at the office. Our customers ask for them.

Some areas are more affected than others. But it seems that here in Miami-Dade County no area or neighborhood is "foreclosure" free, including Miami Lakes. I believe that in one way or another most real estate is affected by the "foreclosure" wave that we are going through. I also believe that we are where we are because of greed. The kind of greed that fueled mortgage fraud and that made real estate speculators out of people who didn't even know how to calculate their own mortgage payments. Everyone wanted to get rich...quickly!       

Numbers relate information in a way that often seems devoid of emotion. But many emotions rush to my head and to my heart when I read the statistics below. I don't think they need any commentary. They do speak for themselves.

Miami-Dade County Mortgage Foreclosure Filing Statistics

Year                   Filings

2002                  14,567

2003                  11,605

2004                   9,606

2005                   7,829

2006                   9,814

2007                  26,391

2008                  20,508 (from January through May)

Pictures are even harsher than numbers. They bypass our rational thoughts and hit you with not much warning! Just look at the picture below.

This map shows an area of Broward County, Florida. Each black hammer symbol represents one property in the process of foreclosure. This is a beautiful gated community built around a huge lake.

It is a very sad picture.

But it is what it is. We need to face it and work with it.

By the way, there is a new study done by Harvard University that points at the current housing slump as the worst in the last 50 years. You can download it from this website. The whole version of the report is over 40 pages and covers a lot of interesting information. You can also opt to download only the parts of the report you are interested in.