Naples Real Estate Law Blog

Raising capital is often a challenge for startup businesses in Florida. It's a process that often takes several months, especially for entrepreneurs without significant assets to get the ball rolling. A Canadian alternative lender based in Toronto is offering a unique funding solution for e-commerce startups: It claims to be able to quickly make an offer to startups operating in North America within 20 minutes.

In exchange for providing capital to startups, which can range from $10,000 to $10 million, the lender takes a portion of a new company's top-line revenue. This is done in lieu of requiring the founder to sign over equity. While not a new concept, this approach to lending is appealing because it gives founders a chance to grow new e-commerce businesses without giving up ownership.

Most family businesses in Florida don't last long enough for a third generation of relatives to take part. However, even if a family business does not last longer than one generation, it may be the source of funding for education or a well-financed future for many decades.

Nearly 33 percent of the S&P 500 companies are considered family businesses. Also, out of the 250 largest enterprises in Germany and France, 40 percent are family businesses. This indicates that family businesses that are operated efficiently can last and perform exceptionally. It is also not unusual for the growth rate for the family businesses that are made public to exceed that of comparable non-family enterprises.

When an individual would like to buy a home in Florida, he or she must usually apply for a mortgage loan and then use that money to purchase a deed. This traditional path to home ownership will give a buyer full control over his or her property, but the initial costs can be overwhelming. That is just one of the reasons why many people are now exploring housing co-ops.

Housing cooperatives first became popular in areas with booming real estate markets. Homebuyers often found it incredibly difficult to qualify for traditional loans, and many of them got stuck in the cycle of renting for years. A co-op is, essentially, a corporation that buys a multi-unit building. If an individual would like to live in that building, then he or she will take out a co-op loan and invest that money in the corporation.

The number of properties sold and the average price of those properties increased in South Florida in 2018. Miami-Dade County alone reported sales of more than 3.5 million square feet of commercial property, which is the first time in history that the county sold that many properties.

Though the number of sales in Palm Beach decreased slightly, most counties in the southern portion of the state saw record increases. Broward County reported more real estate transactions than any other county in the state.