It’s not hard to find a good restaurant in Delray Beach, but it is hard to decide which amazing restaurant to go to! We’re here to help you out a bit! We narrowed it down to our 5 favorite restaurants, now it’s your turn to try them all!

Caffe Luna Rosa: “My friend and I ate dinner here and it was one of the best meals I've ever had,” said one Yelp reviewer, and they were right. Ranked as the number one restaurant in Delray Beach, this restaurant with a view doesn’t disappoint. Caffe Luna Rosa is an authentic Italian restaurant and dinning experience, with a little twist—the beach! Located directly across the street from Delray Beach, you can dine and watch the sun set over the water as you eat. To reserve a seat click here!

Cabana Nuevo Latino: With the “hottest and most elegant” party room in all of southern Florida Cabana is the place to be! According to their website, Cabana has one promise to every potential guest: "Be our Guest. Dine with us at Cabana for a truly Legendary experience." The promise goes further than just the social experience at Cabana, they also promise the highest quality raw items used to make their food. They truly believe that they don’t have customers, they have guests—making Cabana a once in a lifetime experience with legendary service. If you don’t believe us, you’ll just have to check it out yourself.

Patio Delray: Though this restaurant is relatively new, it is getting rave reviews. It is a little off the beaten path, but well worth the trip. The food is seasonal, catering solely to what is coming in fresh from local farmers markets—making their seafood some of the freshest around. And, unlike many of the yummiest restaurants in Delray, Patio Delray is family friendly. Enjoy a meal and dessert with the kids, or a craft beer with some friends, there is always something for everyone! To get directions to this hidden gem, click here!

Scuola Vecchia Pizza E Vino: Ranked as one of the places to get one of “101 Best Pizza’s in America,” and awarded as the “Best Pizza Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach 2014,” Scuola Vecchia is a must. Scuola Vecchia’s mission is to bring you authentic Neapolitan pizza using fresh ingredients and age-old traditions. The pizzas are cooked in wood-burning ovens and on Volcanic Stone—giving the food a truly unique taste. This pizza is truly worth stopping in for a slice—or five.

DADA: If you are looking for a trendy place with food, drinks, art and culture, then DADA is the place fro you. Having won New Times Reader’s Choice Awards for Best Restaurant and Best Late Night Dining, DADA is the place to go for a night out with friends. The hours are from 5pm to 2am, so you can stay out until the middle of the night just laughing with friends and enjoying some amazing food. There is also live entertainment every single night! To check out who is playing when you plan on visiting, click here!

Did you know that homes today are a whopping 48% more affordable than homes were in 2006?

Is it true?

It’s true!  A report by RealtyTrac finds that homes today are far more affordable in 2015 than they were during the 2006 housing bubble.

Why?

This is mainly due to lower interest rates now than we have seen in recent years! In the first quarter of 2015, monthly payments on an average-priced home were around 36.5 percent of the average wage. This is lower than first quarter of 2014 when monthly payments—including property taxes, home insurance, private mortgage insurance and a 3 percent downpayment—were at 37.4 percent of the average wage.

This is the most affordable we have seen homes since the first quarter of 2013 when housing costs were at 33.5 percent.

Experts Say…

"Although home prices continue to outpace wage growth in the majority of local markets, this analysis somewhat surprisingly shows that affordability is actually improving in most markets thanks to falling interest rates and slowing home price growth, which is allowing wage growth to catch up in some markets," says Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.

What Has Changed Specifically?

Well, in the second quarter of 2006, the home prices were about 12 percent higher than they are currently. The national wage average was grossly lower—34 percent lower than today to be exact. The cost of a 30-year mortgage also went down, with interest rates falling 44 percent in the last 9 years. Together, this has made the housing market 48 percent more affordable than it was in 2006. 

Florida is also one of the most affordable states to live in, with the most affordable county in the nation being Hamilton County, Florida. In Hamilton County, only 5.6 percent of the average wage was needed to make the monthly payment on an average-priced home—compared to 36.5 percent nationwide. 

Other affordable counties with a low percentage of average wages needed to maintain the home are St. Louis County, Mo. (8.3 percent); St. Louis City, Mo. (9.4 percent), Lake County, Ind. (9.5 percent), and Fairfield County, S.C. (10.3 percent). 

In today’s housing market, we are seeing an increase in interest in buying homes, but a decrease in interest in selling them. So, what does this mean? This means that there are more home buyers than there are homes. Because of this, there is more competition for the homes that are on the market, which increases home prices.

Why More Competition?

Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies' Housing Perspectives (JCHS), suggests that there are quite a few reasons why there are so few homes for perspective buyers. One culprit is that owners are stuck in homes because they're underwater on the mortgage. Another is because of a still-high volume of homes in the foreclosure process that are not yet on the market. A lack of new-home construction and the amount of single-family units that have been turned into rentals also play role in the lack of housing inventory.

The Generational Shift

The JCHS also points out something that experts have not really discussed, "The ongoing generational shift among American households has slowed sales in the short run and is likely to continue to dampen sales over the next two decades.”

This generational shift being discussed is the shift from homeowners being Baby Boomers (Born 1946- 1964) to Generation X-ers (Born 1965-1980). Generation X is approximately 9.3 percent smaller than the Baby Boomers are. They also own about 10.4 percent less households than the Baby Boomers did.

This 10 percent decrease leads to the lowest homeowner rates for that demographic in the past 20 years.

"Traditionally, the 30s and 40s are key ages for housing market activity – particularly for trade-up and new home purchases," the JCHS blog notes. "Indeed, homeowners aged 35-44 historically make up the majority of trade-up buyers. Fewer current homeowners in this key age group has meant fewer potential trade-up buyers and sellers, meaning fewer people putting their homes on the market."

Less people trading up means less inventory for new homebuyers.

What Does That Mean For Us?

Fortunately, Palm Beach, Florida still has many homes available and on the market-- homes that are just waiting for the perfect owner.

Go to www.palmbeachflhomesonline.com to see our full inventory.

The Real Estate Market is Looking Up! 

After years of struggling, many Americans are back on track to buying a home. Factor in steady job gains and low mortgage rates and Americans have the perfect recipe for buying their dream house. In fact, this past August new homes were purchased at the fasted pace in 7 years. 

Home sales surged 5.7% in August alone, which is the fastest pace since February 2008! This new interest in buying homes can be attributed to the smaller price increases for new homes. These new homes are finally starting to push up sales that were hammered hard during the Great Recession in 2008.

Even though the recession ended in 2009, the housing market was slow to turn around. This year is one of the first years that we are really seeing a huge change in the housing market.  In this past year alone sales have soared nearly 22%!

Surveys Show...

Surveys also show that developers and homebuilders have more optimistic outlook for this year than that of the last decade. There are more people looking to buy than there are new homes, so the hope is that these contractors will build new homes and help jumpstart the housing market.

The more houses being built will not only help the housing market, but could also help the economy by providing jobs for builders and their teams. If you also factor in the demand for building material and landscaping services, the economy could have a much-needed boost.

A Stabilized Market

Another reason why the new housing market has seen this much-needed increase this year is because home prices have finally begun to stabilize. Last year home prices jumped a whopping 10.7% in the final quarter compared to a year earlier. This year, there was only a 0.8% price increase from last year’s June to April quarter. 

The median price for new homes is currently $292,700, just $600 more than it was last month. This plateau in pricing has meant that there is soon to be more demand than there is supply. There were just 216,000 new homes for sale at the end of August, enough to last 4.7 months at the current pace of sales.

With low mortgage rates keeping these homes affordable for buyers, it looks like houses are only going to be in higher demand than ever before.