In real estate, the standard response to a slowdown is to cut expenses as transaction volume falls. But according to Montreal-based team leader Joëlle Bitar, who manages over 100 active listings, this strategy keeps most brokers from ever reaching the top of the industry. Bitar, who leads a 25-person team and ranks among the top ...
Aggressive financing and bundled perks from production builders are creating a growing problem in mid-market residential real estate, trapping recent buyers in homes they cannot resell at market value. According to one Pensacola-area agent, this challenge is especially acute in the $300,000 to $400,000 segment, where production builders dominate, and their incentives distort the normal ...
Sergio Sciortino, a broker associate with Keller Williams Village Square Realty who has worked in Bergen County for over 25 years, says the buyer mix at open houses and in transactions has returned to pre-pandemic norms, despite continued media reports of ongoing urban migration. “I read those headlines too, and I saw all that, and ...
Insurance underwriting standards have become powerful gatekeepers in coastal Florida real estate, forcing homeowners to replace functioning building components to meet requirements that often have little to do with the property’s actual condition. Kathy Batterton, team leader of The Kathy Batterton Team in Pensacola, says her team’s recent experience shows how insurance carriers now control ...
The expansion of rent control and vacancy stabilization regulations in New York City over the past five years has triggered a capital outflow that is shifting where institutional real estate investors allocate capital, according to Aaron Manoucheri, co-founder of multifamily operator Manoucheri Brothers. Manoucheri reports that both investors and owners are redirecting capital away from ...
Media headlines calling Cape Coral the worst housing market in America have sparked concern. Still, local real estate leader James Sommers, Team Leader at James Sommers Team, says these narratives overlook key facts about how the market is actually functioning. Instead of a collapse, Sommers sees Cape Coral returning to pre-pandemic sales activity, with transactions ...
A steady migration is redrawing the real estate landscape in secondary markets like Pensacola, as more buyers leave established neighborhoods and city centers in favor of rural properties with acreage. Local real estate professionals say this shift is not just a matter of lifestyle preference but is systematically altering demand patterns and development boundaries across ...
In off-grid communities across the Hudson Valley, infrastructure risks that rarely appear in market data are quietly derailing real estate transactions at the inspection stage. While the real estate industry routinely tracks financing issues, appraisal gaps, and inspection problems, one overlooked factor has become the leading cause of failed deals in areas without municipal infrastructure: ...
Homebuyers in coastal real estate markets are increasingly at risk of misjudging what they can genuinely afford. According to Lorraine Weber, a Long Island realtor specializing in post-Hurricane Sandy communities, many buyers focus on negotiating the lowest purchase price while overlooking the factors that actually determine their monthly housing costs. This oversight, she says, can ...
Sergio Sciortino, a broker associate with Keller Williams Village Square Realty and a 25-year veteran of the Bergen County market, says the gap between pandemic-era mortgage rates and today’s borrowing costs has fundamentally changed seller behavior. Many homeowners who locked in rates below 4%, some as low as 2% or 3%, are now opting to ...
Home sellers may be losing thousands of dollars when real estate agents avoid discussing professional staging, according to Fiorenza Bilak, founder and CEO of Stage The Space, LLC. While staging is widely recognized as a tool that helps homes sell faster and for higher prices, Bilak says misunderstandings about cost, timing, and impact often prevent ...
Oversupply, rising costs, and tougher regulations have exposed how fragile the short-term rental model really was – and why so many investors are now facing losses, foreclosures, or a forced reset. Short-term rentals (STRs) were once the darling of residential investment, offering seemingly endless returns during the post-COVID boom. But that trend has shifted profoundly ...
While headlines focus on Brooklyn’s soaring median prices, the real action in New York real estate is happening at the ground level, where the pace of deals is outstripping what most buyers – and even some agents – expect. Patrick Dominique, a realtor at One Stop Agency specializing in Queens, Nassau County, and Brooklyn, says ...
In Bergen County’s current real estate market, where homes routinely sell above asking price and inventory remains tight, the biggest obstacle to closing deals is not price but property condition. Paula Clark, a 30-year industry veteran and team leader of The Paula Clark Group, reports that inspection contingencies have become the primary source of negotiation—and ...
Bergen County, New Jersey, stands apart from other suburban markets, maintaining strong home prices despite broader affordability pressures. The key factor is its unmatched proximity to Manhattan, which creates demand that neighboring regions cannot match. According to Paula Clark, a 30-year real estate veteran and team leader at The Paula Clark Group, this geographic advantage ...
