What hourly wage do you pay your secretary/ admin assistant, and for what responsibilities? Do you prefer licensed or unlicensed help?

We pay around $15 per hour. She does a bit of everything not requiring a license.

I pay $10/hr. I don't offer health insurance or benefits but her schedule is flexible & she takes time off as she needs it (and I pay her). I try to be more accomodating that way in light of no benefits (which she doesn't need anyway)

She sends out the recruiting letters, places ads, processes commission disbursements etc. She is unlicensed but I think sometimes it would help if she had some real estate experience. I try to fill in the blanks as we go along.

I would think it would highly depend on your area. A secretary in N. Dakota would take quite a bit less than one in New York City....
I will be hiring a secretary soon, I will be looking for a starving agent (won't be hard to find) who would like a stable income yet be able to get a few leads I hand off here and there.

Rick,

Are you a broker?

yes!

Not to change the subject, but I would love to hear your thoughts on the Florida market Rick.

With all the weather challenges, it would seem like the market could really fluctuate. I lived in Deerfield beach in the early '90's when andrew hit and the market really took it in the shorts for a while.

How long have you been a broker dealing with this kind of thing?

R

Well, I have only been in the Tampa area for a couple years. Mostly in the panhandle we didn't get too much in the way of the major hurricanes. Fortunately I have not been affected by the weather as much of the other parts of florida.

Not sure what kind of answer you are looking for to be honest with you. Maybe you could ask a broker in San Fransisco or Northridge after the earthquakes how they dealt with it.

There is a huge difference there.

I was a shiney new agent when the quake of '89 hit the bay area and that was a pretty big deal but nowhere near the destruction that Andrew left behind.

Hurricanes are a seasonal event - they seem to hit at some strength level every year.

Earthquakes of a level to do damage are far more rare. In my market, the last one to do any damage was the '89 quake. Home purchase prices took a pretty big, but temporary, dip.

I have a friend in the Navy who owned some rental property in southern florida who finally sold the properties off because of being tired of dealing with the yearly hurricane damage.

In the two years I lived in Florida, I was in two hurricanes that did some level of damage. In the 37 or so years I have lived in California, I have lived through 2 earthquakes that did some level of damage.

In short, concerns over weather would likely be a topic of conversation in the transaction in Florida while earthquakes our here are rarely brought up as a concern. I hope that clears up why the question might be asked of someone in the Florida market.

I could see tho that the panhandle might be less effected by this issue.

R

Robert,

We get a lot of people relocating that ask about hurricane threats. We are very seldom ever effected in Jacksonville but most people seem to think Florida=hurricanes no matter which part of the state you are in. Those in S FL are moving to other parts of the state that are less effected.

Sure, nobody is moving to S FL right after a major hurricane hits. The S FL market has bottomed out as well. The prices are just through the rough down there. A lot of S Floridians are using that along with hurricanes to high tail it out of there.

One of the major problems we have throughout the entire state is once hurricane season starts, buyers aren't able to get homeowner's insurance through major carriers like State Farm. I don't think State Farm has taken a new customer since last hurricane season. I've heard there is a waiting list! We have to inform our buyers to start the insurance search ASAP - as soon as their offer is accepted. We do have the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation that will write policies even if a storm is coming - higher rates of course. So I am training my agents on carefully crafting a purchase & sale based on obtaining *reasonable* homeowner's insurance rates. But you may already know a lot of that since you lived in FL.

Thanks Tanya... that is EXACTLY the kind of thing I was wondering about.

It would just make sense to me that with the unique challenges that South Florida presents, that there would be policies or practices that an active broker would implement to address them.

Now out here, we occasionaly will run into insurance related problems as well. We have flood plains, earthquake hazzard areas, etc. If your not right on top of the properties that fall into those catetories, you can have a deal completely fall apart.

R

Your welcome