TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – Nov. 29, 2010) – Florida Homes and Condos Canada has launched a one-stop shopping site that makes finding a rental or ownership property in Florida as easy as a few clicks of a mouse.
Not only does the new www.flahomesandcondos.ca site showcase hundreds of condos for sale and rent all across Canadians’ favourite sunspot destination, it also has sections detailing how to find real estate professionals in areas such as taxation, law, title insurance, financing and property management.
“We saw this terrific need to make finding both ownership and rental properties much easier for Canadians,” says Kevin Naismith, director of Florida Homes and Condos. “Previous to the launch of this site people looking for Florida properties had to go through scores if not hundreds of individual sites and often in the case of new projects had to register to gain information.”
Nor was there any single site, which would give them an insider’s view of Florida properties, explaining how the rules of Florida ownership differ greatly from those in Canada.
“Canadians looking for Florida properties often rush the process and are totally unprepared to face the realities, “Mr. Naismith says.” It can be the simplest matters such as where to find a qualified lawyer or property management company to look after that home or condo when they are back in Canada.”
Aside from the tremendous wealth of information on the site one of its great benefits is that it is a free resource. Funding comes from Florida brokers and agents who pay $99.95 for a six month period to list an unlimited number of properties much like the Multiple Listing Service.
Those listings often include not just photos and descriptions of properties but also professionally shot videos. The site is also completely searchable by region, city, type of property and price.
Current listings range from suites as low as $40,000 in Fort Myers to magnificent luxury homes at $1 million plus in central Florida.
“Canadians have become the largest single group of foreigners buying Florida real estate,” says Mr. Naismith. “They now account for one third of all residential properties sold to non US citizens.”
A continuing draw is depressed residential prices.
“While prices bottomed in the second quarter of 2009 they have since risen very slowly and experts expect it will be another four years before they return to pre recession levels,” Mr. Naismith says.
“At the same time Canada has fared better economically than any other industrialized nation when it comes to weathering and recovering from the recession. Most Canadians are able to use the equity in their homes to pay cash for their Florida purchase.
All those factors have created a huge demand for a site like this,” he says. “We see it as quickly becoming a must for anyone looking to rent or buy a vacation property in Florida.”