Sabrina Weizer is a Realtor with The Jack Coden Group in South Florida.
Every week, we ask a Miami real estate professional for their thoughts on the top three stories from the week before.
This week, we talked with Sabrina Weizer, a Realtor with The Jack Coden Group, Keller Williams’ No. 1 team in Miami. A licensed agent for 16 years, Sabrina sells real estate from Fort Lauderdale all the way to Kendall, specializing in single-family homes and condos.
Miami Agent (MA): Our feature story on 2014 housing market trends has garnered quite a bit of interest; what aspects of the market are you paying the closest attention to, as the year kicks into high gear?
Sabrina Weizer (SW): I’m paying closest attention to buyers, specifically where they are coming from and how they are paying. Are they paying cash, or are they financing?
Last year at this time, everyone was a cash buyer, but now, I’m noticing more and more people are getting financing. The cash buyers are slowly disappearing. The market has tapered down a little, so I’m not sure what’s going to happen as the year moves forward.
International homebuyers are still common, though their composition has changed a little. In recent years, most of the cash buyers were from Argentina, Venezuela, France and Canada, but in the past six months, I’ve experienced a lot of Italians and Brazilians.
MA: When working with home sellers, what do you find they desire most of you, as a real estate agent?
SW: Sellers want to know what they can do to help sell their property, and it’s our job to tell them what they should focus on.
Most importantly, sellers want a lot of communication. They need their Realtor to let them know what’s happening in the market, what is happening with their property in that market and what the buyers are saying. There’s a lot of communication, a lot more hand-holding.
MA: Finally, we keep seeing reports that foreclosures in Miami are on the downswing. Are you finding that’s the case in the many markets you work in?
SW: There are still some foreclosures, but they are further south. There are not as many in my area, and if one does enter the market, it’s gone right away and it’s typically a cash transaction; there’s not much chance for someone who needs financing to buy a decent foreclosure at this point.
The issue is the bidding process. There’s a procedure that the banks have where, for the first couple weeks or so, only people who are looking to purchase a property as their primary residence can take that initial bid, and once those two weeks are over, if the bank has not received a high enough bid for the property, then they go to investors. However, banks hold on to the bids from buyers who are financing, and then when it’s open to investors, the buyers end up getting crushed because they’re not paying cash. In the end, those foreclosures do end up going to a lot of investors, unfortunately.