Foreign investors love U.S. real estate

So, just for context, what percentage of the total US market would that $1.6 Billion be? Answer: very, very, *very* little. Heck, that's not even that much in the SF Bay market, never mind US-wide.

I'm also reminded of the Japanese purchases of NYC real estate last bust. That ended well - if you weren't Japanese. Too bad you didn't mention that. Lesson - foreign RE money is often dumb RE money in a bust.

Hello from Marlene Graham in NAPLES FLORIDA
Time for some positive stories about real estate. I'm a single mom who lost my husband two years ago in a tragic accident; and shortly after, bet the homestead on the market's return by opening up three offices in a down market. The good news is that now, about a month after the NAPLES DAILY NEWS article that follows ran, it seems as though my huge gamble will pay off. The Naples Florida market has picked up dramatically in the last several days and several of my agents have unbelievably lost deals on multiple offers on the bargain properties. People from Europe and Britain and Canada and Ohio and Connecticut and Missouri and a bunch more places are beating a path to our doorstep to talk real estate. We can actually go out on the street now and tell people that this is the time to buy and they don't throw rocks at us! Sometimes they actually agree with us! And I've had to recruit ten more agents to keep up with manning our offices and showing properties!

The article that follows was one of the first positive articles the Naples Daily News has done on the real estate market. They featured me, for better or for worse. About three weeks after this article ran, NDN followed up wiht one indicating that our market is finally showing some signs of recovery which I can forward to you. They did qualify the headline with the word "some", but heck I was a journalist. I know why we have to hedge our bets.

I am an innovative person, a colorful character, with the most amazing and unique offices in Naples, and best of all, I have some great agents who believe I do have a unique insight into the market. The article below barely touches on the uniqueness of our office, but it does give some credibility to my claim that we are THANK GOD finally going the right direction. And let me tell you, finally we can't wait to get to work each day!

I am also a former journalist in television, newspapers and national magazines and the author of the book "Headfirst into America" which documents my family's 50-state journeys through America ten years ago. I even wrote about the journey in the Ladies' Home Journal. We also appeared on Oprah, Today, The View and hundreds more media outlets.

Maybe I am a knucklehead, but I am bucking the trend and it is working! Time to make people feel good about the economy. Hope you agree!

Marlene Graham
Downing-Frye Realty
539 5th Avenue South
Naples Florida 34102

marlenegraham@earthlink.net
(239) 821-9046
================================

Sign of recovery?
Several realty agencies adding Naples offices
By VICTORIA MACCHI (Contact), NAPLES DAILY NEWS
Saturday, December 22, 2007

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The end of a wobbly year in real estate may not seem like a time to expand the number of offices.

Several local agents, however, are adding offices in anticipation of a 2008 real estate recovery.

On Fifth Avenue South in Naples, the Hamburg-based agency Engel & Voelkers will establish a new storefront in the coming weeks.

Down the road, Downing-Frye grew from three to five Naples offices with new locations in the Third Street South area in early December.

And come next spring, John R. Wood will be expanding as well.

“With the kind of year we’ve gone through in 2007, the tendency is to get lean and mean,” said Marlene Graham, who borrowed against her home to open the new Downing-Frye offices.

Nearly three-quarters of real estate firms in Florida have only one office.

“I go the other way, I see a huge turn-around in the market, and we wanted to be ready for it,” she said.

The risk of being wrong on the timing is always present, the agency owners admit.

The Florida Association of Realtors reported a 29 percent decrease in existing home sales from October 2006 to October this year. Existing condo sales dropped 20 percent.

“The worst part was getting in touch with reality. It took a while for everybody – including us in real estate – to get in touch with (the fact) that the market really has changed,” Engel & Voelkers Naples office Managing Partner Maury Dailey said.

Dailey, after two decades in commercial real estate, purchased a franchise of the global company in December 2006.

The timing, for Graham and Dailey, was essential. They consider their new offices a vote of confidence in the future of the market, and wanted to get operations running early in the season to ride the wave of domestic and foreign visitors – especially the sidewalk traffic.

The approaches to lure traffic in the bustling downtown area, however, differ.

Engel & Voelkers “boutique” will have clean lines, no clutter, and windows free of property ads.

“When you’re outside and look in our office, you will see who is in the office or how many (people) are in the office, what the office looks like,” Dailey said.

The coffee, he added, will be served in china – not Styrofoam – per the company’s mandate.

With the exchange rate favoring European investors now, he hopes the style will appeal to high-end foreign clients.

The minimalist approach, a standard for the company in its 330 offices around the world, is the first line of action.

To this end, there will be no personalization of the desks. Associates will be able to use the office as a resource for serving clients – but there will be no photos of the kids frocking near the pier, or the teddy bear from last Valentine’s Day.

“We don’t want somebody from another culture who comes into our office and gets offended. We’re trying to welcome the community so we’ll keep it is as plain and simple as possible,” Dailey said.

At Downing-Frye, however, clean lines give way to stacks and racks of tourism brochures and local magazines.

The emphasis is on promoting tourism as much as it is on selling properties, said Graham, a former travel writer.

The attempt is to get visitors to fall in love with Naples.

“It’s always been my belief to sell real estate second, and community first,” Graham said. “If they like the community, they’ll want to pick a roof to put over their heads.”

She keeps the office doors open until 10:30 p.m. on Fifth Avenue South.

On a Friday evening, several couples with babies and puppies browse the tourism brochures and listings, then take a break to sit on the chairs in front of the office. Tourists come in to use the free Internet to print out boarding passes daily.

Lately, she said, the bulk of foreign tourists has been from Canada.

“It’s no secret. The exchange rate has had a nice influence on our market here,” Downing-Frye general manager Mike Hughes said. “I think a lot of people recognize the current market as a rare opportunity.”

It’s the market environment Dailey also prognosticates – and hopes – will happen soon.

“It won’t actually get out into the reporting until after the fact (but) that’s going to start happening this season I believe – that the best properties are going to be picked up by Europeans or really sharp Americans that realize we’ve got to be close, or we’ve already bottomed out.”

A $50,000 down payment on a property early this year equaled 37,920 euros. European investors can now make the same purchase with 34,819 euros – an 8 percent difference.

Although Dailey reiterates that Engel & Voelkers caters to high-end buyers, the median sales price of homes purchased by foreign buyers in Florida last year was $352,400, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. Only 11 percent of sales to foreigners were over $1 million.

He still intends to carve a place in the niche market, and once the exchange rate flips, he and his 25 associates will be in a position to sell real estate abroad to local buyers.

Whether it’s stripping the office of clutter like Dailey plans, or stuffing it with souvenirs and advice on the community like Graham, “the key is being well-positioned for the future,” Downing-Frye’s Hughes emphasized.

Adding to the positive outlook, Bonnie Williams of John R. Wood’s marketing team said the firm will expand its offices, tentatively in the spring.

“A couple of years ago, everybody had this sense that ‘All I need to do is put a sign in the yard and someone is going to give me (the price) I want’,” Dailey said. “I think that mentality really hurt the market and hurt everybody.

“We’re still a little below (those year-to-year figures) but actually recovering,” he added. “I think we’ll see those values again, but it’ll take time to get there.”

Contact Victoria Macchi at vmmacchi@gmail.com

One has to wonder how old Marlene is, and if she's seen a down market before. They don't bounce back like a rubber ball - they take many years to recover to the previous levels.

But on another note, shouldn't you be screening out obvious advertisements?

I'm a Floridian too, and this "European saviors" story is the latest farce to try to put hope in a pessimistic situation. I remember right after 9-11, when tourism dried up. Tourists would save us, right? Especially people from Eurpoe looking to buy houses in Orlando so they could go to Disney all the time....or so it was said. It took about 4 years for the tourism market to finally recover. Funny thing that Orlando is such a horrible housing market. Just because someone lives in Europe doesn't mean he/she is stupid enough to not know what is going on with property in the U.S.

Marlene, good luck with your business. Sounds like you need to run out and spend the rest of your money hiring people, who will otherwise be collecting government unemployment benefits. Using your logic, I'll spend the next hour in front of my bathroom mirror repeating "I'm a star NFL football player". If I repeat it enough, it must be true, correct?

Agree with Jim D- can't believe you allowed the realtor to run the usual realtor BS without questioning her motives. I'm in CA and believe that foreigners, especially Asians will be bringing money into our real estate, although I don't pretend to know when or into which sector (the survey quoted suggests shopping centers). Think about it, though, what else does the US have to offer the world except armaments, tobbacco and ...a piece of the rock in a stable political environment where the rule of law is essentially respected. With prices down some both in USD terms and due to currency strengthening in China for example, I've got to think those folks are going to be recycling all the paper we sent them in return for plasma TV's.

I would welcome money from Asia and Europe to absorb some of the glut of avaialble houses for sale. There are very good prices on properties in built-out resort communities with private lakes and golf courses such as Lake Wildwood in Penn Valley, CA. Future private lakes are now impossible in California - no future competition. Its time to clean out the speculators.