Central Florida & metro Orlando real estate services

Our firm has been providing flat fee MLS a/k/a flat fee listings a/k/a MLS only listings in the Central Florida area for over 10 years now.  We are excited to announce that we can now list properties in the Northeast Florida MLS also called NEFAR. 

  

The Northeast Florida MLS covers the core counties of Duval County, Clay County, and Putnam County but also extends into Baker County, Bradford County, and portions of Nassau County and Saint Johns County.  These counties cover the entire metro Jacksonville area including the cities of Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, Orange Park, Green Cove Springs, Keystone Heights, Palatka, Interlachen, Crescent City, Starke, Lawtey, Glen St Mary, and Macclenny.

So if you have any properties in the metro Jax area just refer over to our flat fee MLS frequently asked questions page to get started. 

A listing in the MLS also loads your property onto Realtor.com and hundreds of other websites.  You cannot beat the internet exposure that the MLS can provide to you.  Millions of consumers worldwide will then be able to find your property online.

And Central Florida Realtors, don't feel left out here.  Our firm on occasion partners with Realtors who have the potential to list properties in areas where they don't have MLS access but need to get the property listed.  For instance if you are a Realtor in Orlando, but have a property to list in Jacksonville or Miami, we can get it done for you for just the small flat fee MLS fee and you can make your full commission on the deal.  Right now our firm has flat fee listings with about 10 other Realtors who need to get their property listed in the proper MLS in order to get it sold - let our membership in these MLS's save you money.

For more info, just give me a call or head over to our website to get started.  

We list properties in 29 counties in Florida including Jacksonville, Orlando, Daytona Beach, Melbourne, Ocala, Gainesville, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Tampa, Sarasota, Bradenton, Port St Lucie, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and more.

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(Copyright © 2009. Sand Dollar Realty Group, Inc. All rights reserved.)   Subscribe to my blog via RSS feed.

Rob Arnold - Your full service and investor friendly Realtor ® in Orlando and Central Florida.

ABR, CPL, CRB, CSP, GRI, Managing real estate broker, Notary Public

407-389-7318 / 1-877-389-7318 www.SDRhouses.com   We Buy Houses Florida

We sell foreclosures, short sales, and bank owned REO properties throughout Central Florida. We sell and list Central Florida real estate and Orlando real estate. Free list of foreclosure and short sale houses available.

I also provide flat fee MLS listings, For Sale By Owner, and menu-based services in most parts of Central & South Florida, the Space Coast, and the Treasure Coast including Orlando, Winter Park, Maitland, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Apopka, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Longwood, Winter Springs, Oviedo, Lake Mary, Sanford, Deltona, Debary, Deland, Mount Dora, Eustis, Clermont, Kissimmee, Winter Haven, Lakeland, Tampa, Sarasota, Bradenton, Miami-Dade, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Port Saint Lucie, Melbourne, Daytona Beach, Ocala, Gainesville, Palatka, Jacksonville, Volusia, Brevard, and more. 

I can't say for sure if it because it is officially Spring time which begins our busy season or if something has turned in the marketplace.  What I can say for sure is that properties are selling.  Sales are up and things are busy.  Our foreclosures and bank REO listings are often getting offers within just a few days and some are going with multiple offers.  Our short sale listings are getting approved reasonably quickly compared to what they were even just a few months ago.  The contract assignment deals are moving too - investors are buying in droves.

Granted the prices are super cheap anymore, but at some point they had to bottom out.  I'm not saying that they have bottomed, but I am saying that buyers are out there.  It might also be due to the new $8000 tax credit that first-time home buyers can get if they buy a home before 12/1/09 of this year. 

 

Don't miss out on a good deal for yourself.  If you do, in a few years you are going to be kicking yourself for passing up this fabulous opportunity in the Central Florida real estate market.  You can look through our property deals on our property webpage or simply sign up for email hot property list to get the latest properties emailed to you 1-2 per week.

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(Copyright © 2009. Sand Dollar Realty Group, Inc. All rights reserved.)   Subscribe to my blog via RSS feed.

Rob Arnold - Your full service and investor friendly Realtor ® in Orlando and Central Florida.

ABR, CPL, CRB, CSP, GRI, Managing real estate broker, Notary Public

407-389-7318 / 1-877-389-7318 www.SDRhouses.com   We Buy Houses Florida

We sell foreclosures, short sales, and bank owned REO properties throughout Central Florida. We sell and list Central Florida real estate and Orlando real estate. Free list of foreclosure and short sale houses available.

I also provide flat fee MLS listings, For Sale By Owner, and menu-based services in most parts of Central & South Florida, the Space Coast, and the Treasure Coast including Orlando, Winter Park, Maitland, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Apopka, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Longwood, Winter Springs, Oviedo, Lake Mary, Sanford, Deltona, Debary, Deland, Mount Dora, Eustis, Clermont, Kissimmee, Winter Haven, Lakeland, Tampa, Sarasota, Bradenton, Miami-Dade, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Port Saint Lucie, Melbourne, Daytona Beach, Ocala, Gainesville, Palatka, Jacksonville, Volusia, Brevard, and more. 

I am sure most people have heard by now that the President has unveiled a new plan to purchase toxic or troubled assets by partnering with private investors. The general concept seems like a decent idea, but anytime the government gets involved with big bureaucratic plans who knows for sure what will really happen.  We already have seen how well the Detroit bailout went.  The same with the AIG bailout - what a joke.

   

The stock market rallied big time yesterday with its largest one day jump in many months.  Hopefully this shows investor optimism toward the Obama plan.  Regardless, it is a rocky road for the Obama administration to travel.  I certainly wish the President the best, but I continue to be very skeptical about his inexperience when it comes to running a large organization like our government.  I'd be a little less concerned if he didn't have a tax cheat running the U.S. Treasury and instead had someone who actually knew something about running a big financial network. Mr. Geithner is a pretty disappointing choice to be in charge of the economy.  Obama could have done much better in his choice especially with the economy the way it is.

I haven't had a chance to read through the details of this new plan, but I am sure we will continue to hear more about it as weeks progress.

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(Copyright © 2009. Sand Dollar Realty Group, Inc. All rights reserved.)   Subscribe to my blog via RSS feed.

Rob Arnold - Your full service and investor friendly Realtor ® in Orlando and Central Florida.

ABR, CPL, CRB, CSP, GRI, Managing real estate broker, Notary Public

407-389-7318 / 1-877-389-7318 www.SDRhouses.com   We Buy Houses Florida

We sell foreclosures, short sales, and bank owned REO properties throughout Central Florida. We sell and list Central Florida real estate and Orlando real estate. Free list of foreclosure and short sale houses available.

I also provide flat fee MLS listings, For Sale By Owner, and menu-based services in most parts of Central & South Florida, the Space Coast, and the Treasure Coast including Orlando, Winter Park, Maitland, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Apopka, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Longwood, Winter Springs, Oviedo, Lake Mary, Sanford, Deltona, Debary, Deland, Mount Dora, Eustis, Clermont, Kissimmee, Winter Haven, Lakeland, Tampa, Sarasota, Bradenton, Miami-Dade, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Port Saint Lucie, Melbourne, Daytona Beach, Ocala, Gainesville, Volusia, Brevard, and more. 

That's right.  If you buy/bought a home as a first-time home buyer between January 1 and December 1, 2009, the federal government will write you a check for an additional $8000 or 10% of the home's value whichever is less.   What more incentive do you need to jump in and buy something now?  Here is a CNN Money article on the subject with more details.

   

Prices are low, deals are everywhere, and now you can get up to $8000 in incentive money just for buying a home.  If you are a seller, make sure to mention this tax credit to any potential buyers.

I'm not necessarily the biggest advocate of the federal government giving away stimulus money (a/k/a hard earned taxpayer money) to anybody. However since the law is already in place, I would much rather see the money going to hard-working families, than to AIG executives, fancy pant Congressmen, or Wall Street fat cats.

So don't miss out on this window of opportunity.  $8000 is a heck of an incentive to buy a home today.  Our firm has over 200 properties in the Central Florida / metro Orlando area for sale at this very moment.  Many of which are bank owned, short sales, or just plain great deals. 

For a current inventory list of our available properties, go to our website SDRhouses.com .  You can also sign up for our hot property email list that we put out once or twice a week with our latest new deals.  Thanks for reading and make sure to buy something during this buyer's market.

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(Copyright © 2009. Sand Dollar Realty Group, Inc. All rights reserved.)   Subscribe to my blog via RSS feed.

Rob Arnold - Your full service and investor friendly Realtor ® in Orlando and Central Florida.

ABR, CPL, CRB, CSP, GRI, Managing real estate broker, Notary Public

407-389-7318 / 1-877-389-7318 www.SDRhouses.com   We Buy Houses Florida

We sell foreclosures, short sales, and bank owned REO properties throughout Central Florida. We sell and list Central Florida real estate and Orlando real estate. Free list of foreclosure and short sale houses available.

I also provide flat fee MLS listings, For Sale By Owner, and menu-based services in most parts of Central & South Florida, the Space Coast, and the Treasure Coast including Orlando, Winter Park, Maitland, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Apopka, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Longwood, Winter Springs, Oviedo, Lake Mary, Sanford, Deltona, Debary, Deland, Mount Dora, Eustis, Clermont, Kissimmee, Winter Haven, Lakeland, Tampa, Sarasota, Bradenton, Miami-Dade, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Port Saint Lucie, Melbourne, Daytona Beach, Ocala, Gainesville, Volusia, Brevard, and more. 

This is a follow up on The Art of the Lease Purchase - Part 1 article.  With it being a buyer's market, sellers and listing brokers need to be creative in order to sell their properties.  Since financing is normally the key to getting a property sold, creative financing can go a long way to get a buyer into ultimately purchasing a property.  In this article I will be discussing how to structure these sort of lease purchase, lease option, rent to own type of transactions.

  

Since lease purchase agreements are not your typical buy/sell transaction, you have to use modified forms in order to complete the paperwork. Basically there are 2 separate agreements.  1 agreement is the purchase & sale contract with the pre-occupancy rider which normally gets signed at the time the price and terms are decided upon by both parties. The other form is the lease agreement which gets signed at the time money and keys change hands.  The parties have 2 distinct relationships.  1 relationship as a buyer/seller and the other as a landlord/tenant.  That way if for some reason the transaction doesn't work out, the buyer can be evicted under the lease and not force the seller to do some sort of foreclosure or ejectment proceeding.  In Florida, evictions can typically be done in a few weeks whereas foreclosures can take 6 months or a year.  By keeping the 2 agreements separate, this technically gives the tenant the right to still buy the property even if they are being evicted. However I've never seen that actually happen.

The upfront money should also be split into 2 groups.  The bigger chunk is an earnest money deposit under the purchase & sale contract.  This money is typically non-refundable and the seller gets to pocket it and do what they want with it right away - this is his "consideration" for taking the property off the market for a year or so while the buyer gets their financial situation and credit in order. The second smaller amount of money is the security deposit under the lease.  This money is placed in an escrow or separate account as required by the Florida landlord/tenant act.  This way even if the buyer does not end up buying, at least they get something back if they move out in an orderly fashion.

Some people like to let the buyer have a portion of the monthly payment go towards the deposit.  To sort of add up during the time of the lease and thus build up some equity.  Personally I prefer not to do this, but if the buyer insists I will allow it as long as they are paying above market rent and give me a good-sized upfront deposit. It is certainly all negotiable.

How much should you ask for the upfront deposit?  I learned years ago that it is best to be vague about this.  Normally when people ask, I tell them we normally ask for 5% of the purchase price as a down payment, but if they do not have that much we are willing to work with anyone who is interested.  You definitely need to be much more liberal right now when the market is slow, so if they try to nail me down on a bare minimum I will give them a minimum figure of a few thousand dollars.  However by being vague, you occasionally meet people who have $10 or $20,000 to put down so you don't want to give them a low upfront amount when they first ask.

Regarding the term of the agreement, I don't like to write these agreements for more than 12 months.  As most people now realize, prices and market conditions can change drastically in a short period of time.  If at the end of a year, the people need an extension you can re-negotiate a reasonable extension of the agreement.   

If you are a Realtor in the transaction, it is certainly ideal to get paid as much commission as possible at the time the upfront non-refundable earnest money is paid.  If you are a seller or buyer in the transaction, you would want to see a good chunk of the commission paid only at closing.  That way the Realtor is forced to stay a part of the transaction and help out with getting the deal to close when the time comes.

The main thing with all this is to be flexible.  In a buyer's market, anything you can advertise to make your property stand out above the others is a good thing.  If you have any questions regarding lease purchase / rent-to-own agreements, feel free to contact me or post them below.

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(Copyright © 2009. Sand Dollar Realty Group, Inc. All rights reserved.)   Subscribe to my blog via RSS feed.

Rob Arnold - Your full service and investor friendly Realtor ® in Orlando and Central Florida.

ABR, CPL, CRB, CSP, GRI, Managing real estate broker, Notary Public

407-389-7318 / 1-877-389-7318 www.SDRhouses.com   We Buy Houses Florida

We sell foreclosures, short sales, and bank owned REO properties throughout Central Florida. We sell and list Central Florida real estate and Orlando real estate. Free list of foreclosure and short sale houses available.

I also provide flat fee MLS listings, For Sale By Owner, and menu-based services in most parts of Central & South Florida, the Space Coast, and the Treasure Coast including Orlando, Winter Park, Maitland, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Apopka, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Longwood, Winter Springs, Oviedo, Lake Mary, Sanford, Deltona, Debary, Deland, Mount Dora, Eustis, Clermont, Kissimmee, Winter Haven, Lakeland, Tampa, Sarasota, Bradenton, Miami-Dade, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Port Saint Lucie, Melbourne, Daytona Beach, Ocala, Gainesville, Volusia, Brevard, and more. 

Before it was GM and Chrysler that got my goat.  Detroit wanted their handout and Washington gave it to them.  Then they wanted it again and Washington kept spooning it out.

 

Now it is American International Group a/k/a A.I.G. in the bullseye.  This is another one of those companies that is "Too big to fail."  I say if the company is too big to fail and they want the government to bail them out, then the government needs to break them up or re-structure them into pieces and spin those pieces off into other companies. (Kind of like what they did with AT&T years ago.) We don't want companies that are that big to exist because when they do fail ... well look what happens.

Americans have already bailed these AIG guys out twice in just the last few months.  Now they want another multi-billion dollar handout.  Congress makes a big deal about the $160 million bonuses that are being paid to executives.  And America is scratching their heads at these bonuses.  How can you pay executives $160 million in bonuses for bankrupting the company??? It doesn't make sense.  If anything, these execs should get fired or worse indicted for fraud, grand theft, etc. 

I will go on the record at saying that Washington has done an unbelievably rotten job with every penny of bailout money we have allowed them to spend.  Remember that $700 billion in TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) funds that was supposed to buy up bad mortgages from banks in order to make banks liquid again.  Well guess how much of that $700 Billion has been spent so far on buying mortgages???  Did you get it right??? If you guessed ZERO, NOTHING, NADA, you were right even though over $300 billion of TARP funds have been given to these banks. (And what they have done with it, nobody knows because it is a big secret.)  The President and Congress certainly can't account for it. 

Pelosi, Obama, Reid, Bernake, Barney Frank, and ex-President Bush are destroying this country as we know it.  It is a true shame.  All of them need to be taken behind the woodshed for a giant spanking! And that's putting it mildly.

I like to be upbeat and optimistic about America and its future.  Unfortunately Washington through incompetence, greed, and lust for power are ruining the American dream for the next generation.

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(Copyright © 2009. Sand Dollar Realty Group, Inc. All rights reserved.)   Subscribe to my blog via RSS feed.

Rob Arnold - Your full service and investor friendly Realtor ® in Orlando and Central Florida.

ABR, CPL, CRB, CSP, GRI, Managing real estate broker, Notary Public

407-389-7318 / 1-877-389-7318 www.SDRhouses.com   We Buy Houses Florida

We sell foreclosures, short sales, and bank owned REO properties throughout Central Florida. We sell and list Central Florida real estate and Orlando real estate. Free list of foreclosure and short sale houses available.

I also provide flat fee MLS listings, For Sale By Owner, and menu-based services in most parts of Central & South Florida, the Space Coast, and the Treasure Coast including Orlando, Winter Park, Maitland, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Apopka, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Longwood, Winter Springs, Oviedo, Lake Mary, Sanford, Deltona, Debary, Deland, Mount Dora, Eustis, Clermont, Kissimmee, Winter Haven, Lakeland, Tampa, Sarasota, Bradenton, Miami-Dade, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Port Saint Lucie, Melbourne, Daytona Beach, Ocala, Gainesville, Volusia, Brevard, and more. 

This is an updated version of a previous article I wrote on this subject a while back ...

These things go by many names in the industry, lease purchase, lease option, lease with option to buy, lease to own, rent to own.  They are all similar creatures.  I want to try and explain these a little bit at least from my own experience with them in Central Florida.  I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but this is how I like to do these.

   

I like to call these arrangements a "lease purchase" and nothing else.  A lease purchase basically means that a tenant is renting the property and ultimately will purchase the property by the end of the lease term. 

I used to like to give tenants a "lease option" or a "lease with option to buy" which gives the tenant the option not to purchase the property if they don't want to, but the end result is either the tenant is going to be able to get financing or they aren't, so why give them an option?  My goal is to sell them the property, not have them rent it and back out.  Also, I don't like the term "rent to own."  When I used this language in my advertising, people started thinking about how they rent a television set or furniture, no money down and make payments for years until it is finally paid off.

The first thing I do once I have an applicant that wants to lease purchase a property is to do a credit check.  I have my mortgage broker pull their credit and see if maybe just maybe we can get this person in to a mortgage right now.  If so, then we don't even have to bother with the lease purchase. We just do a regular sale & purchase right then and there.  More often than not the applicant cannot get a mortgage right now, so we do have to go the lease purchase route.

If the property is one I have listed for a 3rd party seller, I have that seller provide me an application.  Then I have the seller do whatever background checks they need to do.  I help guide them, but it is ultimately their decision on whether or not to accept the applicant. 

Now if the property is one in my own portfolio, I have a system in place for screening.  I already have a lease purchase application posted on my company's website, and I have the applicant fill it out.  My purpose with the background check is two-fold.  (1) to verify if these people have any chance at all of ever buying the house, and (2) to make sure that I really want these people as a tenant for the next year.  If they have acceptable credit and income with just a few dings, they pass #1.  For #2 I screen just like I would a regular old tenant, I check for evictions, criminal, rental history, income history, and overall general character.  Of course the more money they have to give me upfront the more likely I am to be lenient on both #1 and #2.

Typically the more money people have to give you upfront, the better chance they have of closing and not walking away at the end.  However, I still have had people with fairly good sized deposits that ended up not closing.  Back in 2005 at the height of the market boom, I had someone give me $20,000 upfront and a year later they walked away from the deal. (I did give them some of their money back because I just felt really bad for them - business failing, were not getting their visas renewed by the government.) After renting the house to various tenants for 2 years, I finally ended up selling this particular house a few months ago for just a little bit less than my original sales price.  So no complaints from me.

Many years ago I had an attorney draft up a generic document for me to use on my own deals and as time has progressed I have updated this form.  For a 3rd party seller and buyer, I have to send them to an attorney to draft up the paperwork for the transaction because the local Realtor association does not have a standard form for lease purchases and I cannot legally draw up forms for them.

The important thing to remember is that in tough markets you need to be creative and have many tools in your toolbox to use.  Lease purchase should be one of those tools. I will get more into the structuring of the deal in Part 2 of this article ... coming soon.  So stay tuned. 

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(Copyright © 2009. Sand Dollar Realty Group, Inc. All rights reserved.)   Subscribe to my blog via RSS feed.

Rob Arnold - Your full service and investor friendly Realtor ® in Orlando and Central Florida.

ABR, CPL, CRB, CSP, GRI, Managing real estate broker, Notary Public

407-389-7318 / 1-877-389-7318 www.SDRhouses.com   We Buy Houses Florida

We sell foreclosures, short sales, and bank owned REO properties throughout Central Florida. We sell and list Central Florida real estate and Orlando real estate. Free list of foreclosure and short sale houses available.

I also provide flat fee MLS listings, For Sale By Owner, and menu-based services in most parts of Central & South Florida, the Space Coast, and the Treasure Coast including Orlando, Winter Park, Maitland, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Apopka, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Longwood, Winter Springs, Oviedo, Lake Mary, Sanford, Deltona, Debary, Deland, Mount Dora, Eustis, Clermont, Kissimmee, Winter Haven, Lakeland, Tampa, Sarasota, Bradenton, Miami-Dade, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Port Saint Lucie, Melbourne, Daytona Beach, Ocala, Gainesville, Volusia, Brevard, and more. 

****** Virtual Tour 8126 Sun Vista Way, Orlando ******


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The Orlando Regional Realtor Association ® released the market figures for Orange County and Seminole County today. For the first time in several years now, I am optimistic about where the market is headed.  We still have a long way to go by all means, but the numbers are encouraging.  Inventory continues to decrease while sales continue to remain steady.  New listings are less than there were in February 2008 and days on the market continues to decrease.  Here is a direct link to all the statistics.  Orange County market statistics.

Orange County covers Orlando, Winter Park, Maitland, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Windermere, Apopka, Belle Isle, Waterford Lakes, & College Park.

For the numbers listed below, in Orange County there were a total of 13,876 properties for sale as of today's date.  During February 2009 there were 2006 new listings and 818 solds.

 

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(Copyright © 2009. Sand Dollar Realty Group, Inc. All rights reserved.)   Subscribe to my blog via RSS feed.

Rob Arnold - Your full service and investor friendly Realtor ® in Orlando and Central Florida.

ABR, CPL, CRB, CSP, GRI, Managing real estate broker, Notary Public

407-389-7318 / 1-877-389-7318 www.SDRhouses.com   We Buy Houses Florida

We sell foreclosures, short sales, and bank owned REO properties throughout Central Florida. We sell and list Central Florida real estate and Orlando real estate. Free list of foreclosure and short sale houses available.

I also provide flat fee MLS listings, For Sale By Owner, and menu-based services in most parts of Central & South Florida, the Space Coast, and the Treasure Coast including Orlando, Winter Park, Maitland, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Apopka, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Longwood, Winter Springs, Oviedo, Lake Mary, Sanford, Deltona, Debary, Deland, Mount Dora, Eustis, Clermont, Kissimmee, Winter Haven, Lakeland, Tampa, Sarasota, Bradenton, Miami-Dade, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Port Saint Lucie, Melbourne, Daytona Beach, Ocala, Gainesville, Volusia, Brevard, and more. 

The Florida legislature began their regular Spring session this week.  The biggest concern is of course the State of Florida's budget woes.  There are monumental shortfalls everywhere and the State is slashing and burning programs left and right while looking at all sorts of tax and fee increases.  There is a lot going on to say the least.

            

The Florida Association of Realtors ® has a great legislative tracking webpage, and I will be keeping up with them as best I can.  FAR's webpage. 

So far in reviewing these bills I see the following:

(1) Several measures affecting property taxes including the following.  Most of these have been proposed before but didn't get anywhere.

 - A proposed cap of 1.35% of assessed value. HB 385

 - A proposed cap on assessment increases on non-homestead property of 5% per year. HB 97

 - A proposed 50% exemption for new home buyers that would be phased out over a period of time. HB 97

(2) Several proposals requiring landlords to notify tenants if the property they are renting goes into foreclosure or a short sale situation. One of the proposals mentions a $10,000 fine for non-compliance. HB 401

(3) A proposal to allow vicitims of domestic violence to amend or break a lease.  (This has been proposed several times in the past but never made it anywhere.) HB 517

(4) Requirement for landlords to notify lenders if they plan to rent their property out, and restrictions against lenders who foreclose on tenants. HB 875

(5) Requirement for lenders to register vacant properties in foreclosure onto a State registration list. HB 119 and 221

(6) Amendments to the foreclosure fraud law that passed last year. HB 1181

(7) More changes to Florida's already confusing homeowner's insurance laws. (There are a bunch of these bills #'s .)

Those are the more significant bills affecting the real estate community that I was able to find in digging through this long list.  If you want to affect changes, now is the time to be contacting your legislators.  Don't wait until after the bills have become law. 

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(Copyright © 2009. Sand Dollar Realty Group, Inc. All rights reserved.)   Subscribe to my blog via RSS feed.

Rob Arnold - Your full service and investor friendly Realtor ® in Orlando and Central Florida.

ABR, CPL, CRB, CSP, GRI, Managing real estate broker, Notary Public

407-389-7318 / 1-877-389-7318 www.SDRhouses.com   We Buy Houses Florida

We sell foreclosures, short sales, and bank owned REO properties throughout Central Florida. We sell and list Central Florida real estate and Orlando real estate. Free list of foreclosure and short sale houses available.

I also provide flat fee MLS listings, For Sale By Owner, and menu-based services in most parts of Central & South Florida, the Space Coast, and the Treasure Coast including Orlando, Winter Park, Maitland, Ocoee, Winter Garden, Apopka, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, Longwood, Winter Springs, Oviedo, Lake Mary, Sanford, Deltona, Debary, Deland, Mount Dora, Eustis, Clermont, Kissimmee, Winter Haven, Lakeland, Tampa, Sarasota, Bradenton, Miami-Dade, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Port Saint Lucie, Melbourne, Daytona Beach, Ocala, Gainesville, Volusia, Brevard, and more.