Monday, April 28, 2008

Miami-Dade Real Estate: Why Home Developers Are Temporarily Turning Their Sights To Retail Market Projects

The Miami-Dade area is a famous tourism, business and recreation hub in the state of Florida.
This area, which is renowned for being called as the “Gateway to the Americas”, and for being “Americas Playground”, has a lot to offer tourists, business and real estate investors, and young families as well as retirees. The residential markets so far still continues to rise up after reeling from the previous US mortgage slump.

The Area Is Also Seeing Lower Retail-Market Rentals

The South Florida retail market, according to economists, is experiencing record-high rents and record-low vacancies. In Miami-Dade, which is being seen as the most underserved by retail of the three large South Florida counties, average rents on stores here has risen by 41 percent in 2006, from $21.52 to $30.45 per square foot. Broward and Palm Beach counties have seen similar trends.

Along with robust population growth, job growth and consumer spending, the sharp upturn follows limited development of new retail outlets from 2000 to 2004, when most of the funds were generally diverted into into condo developments. These days, developers and investors are setting their sights on retail development, and an estimated 6 million square feet of retail space is under construction in South Florida for delivery in 2007 and 2008

Why Most Property Developers Are Temporarily Shifting To Commercial Projects

According to real estate market analysts, a lot of developers are turning to commercial projects as a temporary shift, or deviation from the residential markets.

While most of the area's retail venues, which range from strip shopping centers to the traditional enclosed mall, are faring quite well, a large segment of the new funding is going into something that could seem out of place in sprawling South Florida. These days, mixed-use developments, which are also called lifestyle centers or town centers, are being built to meet the preferences and demands from consumers and local government units, for old-fashioned downtowns.

According to retail market observers, the average household income is about $130,000 in this region, which many say is quite above the national norm, and every shopping center or department store chain in the country sees this as an opportunity, and there's been a lot of interest from restaurants and the fashion business.

Retail market analysts also have noted that the average stay in a regional shopping mall 10 years ago was two hours,but now it's under 50 minutes. So from a new product standpoint, the mixed-use, shop-work-live" setup is seen as the retail market's future. It also gives developers flexibility during the long build-out process.

If the residential market seems to be going the wrong way, you have the ability to swap it out with offices, says the retail market observers. For instance, an ambitious shopping development project is planned for the City of Doral in western Miami-Dade County.

The builder, Flagler Development Group, is developing Downtown Doral, a 120-acre mixed-use community which houses 2,840 condominium apartments and townhouses, totaling almost 800,000 square feet of office space, has 180,000 square feet of retail, a new city hall, a new elementary school and 3 acres of parks and green space. The project will be developed in phases in the over the next seven to 10 years.


Vanessa Arellano Doctor
Aventura Condos 

Guide in Relocating in Miami Real Estate

If you are preparing to relocate with your family in Miami, you will no doubt to have an enjoyable stay in this city. In relocating, you will be faced with a lot of changes.

Most of the move in different city is due to company request. If this is the case, usually, the company will take good care of hiring and paying for a relocation specialist to help you out with your move. Of course, you are new with this city, so you are not familiar with anything. It is a good idea for you to work with a relocation specialist to assist you. This relocation agent can make it easy for you to find the best location that has an easy transit for you. There are some relocation services who can take good care of relocating your pets.

Typically, relocation teams can do the work for you from selling your former home to buying your new home in Miami real estate. Since you are not familiar yet with the city, the relocation team can also help you out in familiarizing the city.

It can be a hassle on your part when you have to move from city to city. It would be a hassle –free on your part if you hire a relocation agent to assist you with your quest. Of course, in relocating, you have to secure yourself and your family, and this relocation agent can assure you that you will have a hassle-free transit. Relocation duties are quite hard and frustrating, but with the aid of a relocation agent, you can enjoy your real estate experience.

Take note, you have to assure that you will be getting the right relocation agent. You have to contact few agents, about 3. You can check out some with your of your yellow pages. You can call them and interview them via phone, but if you have much time you can interview them personally. Get the agent that has the expertise and experiences that can aid you with your quest.

The agent will help you find a new home in Miami real estate, so that would be a relief for you, imagine the heavy task that was taken off your shoulder.

When relocating, there are factors to be considered. When you relocate to anew city, you have to thin about your children. Of course, you want to put your children in a good school. Since you are new to this city, it is quite hard for you to find a school that would be could enough for your kids. Seeking for schools can a bit hard task for you. The relocation agent will help you out with your problem; he/she can give you lists of schools, so it will make it easier for you to do the task.

Relocating to Miami real estate agent can be an enjoyable task if you work with the right relocation agent.

Eliza Maledevic Ayson
http://www.miami-realestate.net

Sarasota Commercial Real Estate: Conflicting Views On The Market's Recovery In 2008

Like most real estate markets in the US today, the commercial real estate market in the Sarasota-Bradenton region is seen as a struggling one these days, compared with other markets across the country. This fact was analyzed according to a new report released by the New York-based analyst, Integra Realty Resources. Although the report says that recovery will be slow, and may not fully happen this 2008, some local experts are disputing the findings, and say that the region should not be lumped together with other weaker markets, such as those in the northeast of the country.

Office And Retail Markets Are Currently Flat, However Some Disagree

The Inegra Realty report, which is annually published for the last 18 years, verifies current market conditions for office, retail, industrial and apartment properties. IRR is made up of a network of independent appraisers and has 58 offices across the country, which includes the Southwest Florida region, Tampa and Naples. The report analyzed and ranked each market it studied as being in one of four stages: recovery, expansion, hyper-supply or recession. In analyzing the office market for 2007, the Sarasota-Bradenton area was noted as one of only three places nationwide to be in the "recession" stage, along with the cities of Detroit and Dayton, Ohio.

Majority of the other markets analyzed were either in the "expansion" or "recovery"stages. The recent report suggests that Sarasota-Bradenton region was not faring all that well with its retail market as well. Although IRR found 71 percent of markets experiencing retail expansion in 2007, the local market was analyzed to have fallen into recession in that category as well, largely in part because of the bursting of the housing bubble. The report adds that Sarasota moved from expansion into recession as the effects of the housing slump were felt.

According to the director of the Institute for Economic Competitiveness at the University of Central Florida, while he agreed with the sentiment that housing was certainly having an effect on the commercial sector, he was a bit skeptical of the report's conclusions though. According to the UCF expert, "the commercial side is definitely seeing a decline," referring to the local market. "But for Sarasota to be lumped in with a city like Detroit, that's a little shocking to me. The underlying economies of those two places are just completely different. The University of Central Florida analyst notd that it's sometimes hard to know what figures into an analysis like IRR's, and adds that he would have to take a closer look at their methodology to see how they came to that conclusion.

Some Are Not Surprised At The Report's Findings

According to local real estate analysts, with more businesses leaving Florida than moving to the state, the commercial real estate sector may be in for a tough and tricky year. The local experts says he was not surprised to see Sarasota-Bradenton's office market listed as struggling in the IRR report.

Local housing observers say that, "In Sarasota, offices are very flat and will likely be that way for some time", and that "There's already more than what's needed when it comes to office space."

Some note that when it came to Sarasota-Bradenton market as a whole, there was a long way to go, and most don't believe Sarasota is on the path to recovery yet in 2008. Many view that new construction across the board is likely to slow, with anything connected to the residential side being especially hard-hit. New condominium projects that were the norm during the boom periods are now proving almost impossible to finance.

Vanessa Arellano Doctor
http://siestakeyrealestate.com