There is something rewarding about owning your home, but this is also a big investment, especially for first time home buyers. There are a lot of considerations and preparations if you are thinking about purchasing your first home. 

Every now and again, I will hear someone refer to me as a Real Estate Broker... but I am not. I am a real estate agent and a Realtor. It got me to thinking that although it may not make a difference to buyers and sellers in how they interest with professionals like me, it may still be helpful to understand the difference roles in real estate.

It's the day after Thanksgiving and a beautiful day, so we decided to take advantage of this great weather and venture out on the boat as a family. Knowing we would need to feed the kids at some point, we decided to try out the new place we heard about called Celebration Park. 

Too often, the only one thinking about the home inspection are the agents and the buyers. It tends to be "just one of those things that happens to sellers." But, it doesn't need to be. There are very few home sales where home inspections are not done. It is also one of the most important contingencies in a sales transaction and sometimes the only contingency. 

When I am out showing properties, buyers often love the look and feel of older communities for their lushness, maturity and architectural variation of homes that gets  enhanced over time. The compromised can sometimes be in the dated amenity package. However, when an older community updates and modernizes the amenities, you have the best of both worlds. Quail Creek, a 37-year old community, has just announced their renovation plans for the country club.

When it comes to purchasing a home, it can be challenging to understand how mortgage companies will view our financial situations in order to make lending decisions. Having a better understanding of this going into the home buying process is very helpful. So, let's take a look at how lenders view debt versus income.

Water quality has been a topic of interest in Florida lately. Naples Area Board of Realtors has been highly involved in keeping our area informed on this topic. To keep my readers and customers in the know, I am posting the NABOR Water Quality Newsletter and the link to the recent Water Quality Roundtable that took place recently.

Thanks to Hurricane Irma, we had some roof repair needs that we had to deal with. Our first round with the insurance company resulted in a denial to pay for our roof repairs because it didn't meet the 25% rule... however, we learned later that our roof tiles were no longer being produced and that the roof repairs needed were more than originally assumed... so we decided to try again with getting the insurance company to accept the claim and cover it. During this process, we came into contact with a number of roofing companies that were willing to take the lead on helping us. It was our first experience with having to consider the Assignment of Benefits, which led to some self-initiated research that I wanted to share with others.

Because most of the properties I have been the listing agent on sell quicker than competition and often for more, I have gotten the question quite a bit on why I think that is. Since the question has come up so frequently, I thought It was worth doing a post on this very topic that seems to have others scratching their heads.

Lennar has been on a building frenzy since acquiring WCI and CalAtlantic with Lennar signs popping up all over Naples. Perhaps you have noticed the construction that started on Livingston Road just North of Vanderbilt Beach Road. Lennar obtained approval in late 2017 and started construction on their newest community called Sereno Grove.