The Florida Roundup - Florida’s growing property insurance crisis, changes to real estate commissions, weekly news brief

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

This week on The Florida Roundup, we talk about a proposed federal bill to lower property insurance rates with Broward County Commissioner Steve Geller (02:47) and then discuss concerns on Capitol Hill over the state’s largest home insurer with the Insurance Information Institute's Mark Friedlander (10:52). Then, we talk about why real estate commissions could be changing and what it means for Florida realtors with the Consumer Federation of America's Stephen Brobeck (26:46). Plus, a recap of this week’s elections (37:21), an update on the turmoil in Haiti and its impact in Florida (39:20), why some state universities are giving students more time to decide (46:34) and March Madness meets spring training (47:44).

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for listening this week. Today, it's the Florida housing market. Sales continue increasing, prices continue increasing, and the number of homes for sale is increasing. Housing prices are up modestly, but we continue to see a real shift in new listings. This is Brad O'Connor in an Instagram post from the Florida Realtors this week. O'Connor is the group's chief economist. There's lots of reasons why we're seeing more new listings, ranging from insurance costs and HOA fees and condo fees to a variety of other reasons.

There's a lot going on in today's housing market. We will be focusing on two things in today's program. One has been around for a while, the high cost of property insurance. The second is a new development, big changes coming to real estate commissions. The traditional 6% total commission when you buy or sell a home may be on its way out after a big legal battle and proposed settlement by the National Association of Realtors. legal battle and proposed settlement by the National Association of Realtors. The stakes are big in Florida with more realtors here than any other place and an expensive housing market to begin with. So if you're buying or selling a home, how do you feel about the commission to the agent you're working with? If you're an agent, what could be the changes to your traditional

commission structure? What would they mean to your paycheck? You can email us, radio at thefloridaroundup.org, or line up your calls now, 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. We'll be talking about that real estate commission change coming up. But first, home insurance. The cost of home insurance has risen faster in Florida than anyplace else, up 68% over the past two years. Some of you may be happy with the 68% increase to your home insurance. A proposal to change how property insurance companies themselves are insured aims to cut Florida home insurance premiums by 25%. But it's a long shot. Florida Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz introduced this federal legislation back in May. It has no co-sponsors and has not gone anywhere on Capitol Hill.

Florida lawmakers, meantime, in Tallahassee wrapped up their state law writing session with no significant changes to the property insurance problems faced by so many homeowners. How has the price of home insurance affected your household budget? Have you experienced any impact from previous efforts to slow down the fast rising cost of property insurance? Call now with these questions and share your experiences. 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. Steve Geller is with us now. Steve is a Broward County Commissioner, but he spent more than a couple of decades in the Florida State Legislature as a representative and as a state senator. Senator Geller, welcome to the Florida Roundup. Thanks for your time today.

Happy to be here. This week, you put your political capital behind that piece of federal legislation that would change how insurance companies themselves are insured. Why do you think this is the way to address the high cost of home insurance for homeowners here in Florida? Florida is what we call a file and use state. What that means is if you're an insurance company, you have to file with the insurance commissioner before you can change your rates, and the rates have to be actuarially sound to be approved. However, reinsurance, which I'll explain in a moment, does not have to be actuarially sound. It does not have to be approved. And if a reinsurance company raises the rates by 40 percent, the insurance commissioner automatically has to approve the rate.

Now, reinsurance is the insurance that insurance companies buy. So an insurance company that insures a billion dollars might keep $100 million, 10% or something, in reserve to pay your daily claims, you know, slip and falls, fire, things like that. But they would buy reinsurance to cover hurricanes or build big claims. In Florida, the cost of reinsurance is about 50% of the cost of your insurance policy. of the cost of your insurance policy. And Florida has by far the highest average insurance rate in the nation. Our average statewide average is $6,000,

meaning here in Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Monroe counties, it's higher than the statewide average. Even if it's only $6,000, that's higher than the statewide average. Even if it's only six thousand, that's five hundred dollars a month towards your mortgage rate, assuming you pay through through escrows when the national average is only fifteen hundred. Right. If we could cut the cost of reinsurance in half, we could reduce property insurance premiums by 25 percent because half of half is a quarter. It's 25 percent. You can put that pen to the back of the envelope on that one. You don't need a pencil to figure that one out, Senator. But let me ask you, though, this federal legislation that you came out this week in support of, the idea is to allow insurance companies who interact with Florida homeowners

to have less insurance themselves, to be less protected themselves. If home insurance carriers are allowed to buy less insurance, doesn't that put them at more of a risk of having the ability to pay out a claim should a hurricane or a tropical storm or some other natural disaster happen? If this bill passes, it would actually give them greater protection, not less. And the reason, you need to understand, a one in 50 year storm doesn't mean we'll go 50 years. It just means there's a 2% chance of a storm that bad happening in any year. One in 100 is 1%. Florida has not been hit with more than a one in 50 year storm since the great hurricane of the 1920s, we'll see Ian could end up hitting 50 years. But what my proposal, I drafted it. It was filed first by Congressman Crist and now Congressman Moskowitz has picked it up. Congressman Crist, of course, is former Governor Charlie Crist of Florida.

Yes, I worked very closely with him when I was the Senate Minority Leader and he was governor. We're friends from college. But what this bill would do is say private insurers, private reinsurers, you can still sell reinsurance up to the one in 50 year event, which is the probable maximum loss that we will have. But for those truly rare hurricanes, the ones that are more than one in 50 year that we haven't been hit with in 100 years, we would have the federal government step in, issue bonds at T-bill rates, both faith and credit of the U.S. government, would issue bonds to pay off whatever additional losses the insurance companies have. The state of Florida would have to pay it back, and that would be done with a surcharge

on premium. Right. So to be clear there, Senator, it's not the state of Florida that would pay that back. It would be still Florida homeowners because the state of Florida would then be allowed to put an assessment on home insurance premiums for homeowners who would still have to pay that back ultimately. So how does all of that then, you know, turn into the potential of a lower insurance premium if ultimately homeowners are still on the hook? It should result in a premium reduction immediately of about 25%. Would the legislation guarantee that pass through if it is approved by Congress? No, but insurers are required to charge actuarially sound rates. And remember, they're currently getting a pass-through on reinsurance. So if reinsurance goes down by operation of law, the insurance rates would go down. And if

there is a one-in-a-h a hundred year hurricane, which is not likely to occur in the lifetime of any adult currently around now, you'd get a one or two percent surcharge for 10 years to pay that off. So that would mean your savings would go down from 25 percent to 23 or 24 percent. Senator Geller, we've got to leave it there, but we appreciate you explaining this piece of legislation that you put your political capital behind this week. Senator Steve Geller is a former state lawmaker here in Florida, now a Broward County commissioner. Senator, thanks for your time today. Thank you, sir. And remember, when Senator Geller talks about a one in 50 or a one in 100 year storm, it doesn't mean it only happens once a century or once every half century.

Those are the odds that it happens every year. So a one in 100 odd would be a 1% chance of it happening each and every year. So 305-995-1800 is our phone number. About 1.2 million home and condominium owners rely on citizens for their property insurance here. The company has been under scrutiny as it tries to reduce the number of homes it covers. Last month, Governor Ron DeSantis made this claim on CNBC. It is not solvent and we can't have millions of people on that because if a storm hits it's going to cause problems for the state our news partner politifact florida rated this claim mostly false the company is the target of a u.s senate investigation and whether it would need a federal bailout in december on this program citizen ceo tim sirio told us this i see no scenario where we are going

to ask for a federal bailout. Now, Citizens is not like a private insurance company. It is backed by you, by state residents, not by shareholders. If our reserves are exhausted and we still have to pay claims, we must charge a surcharge to Citizens policyholders. And if they're still not enough, we have to levy assessments on all Florida policyholders. All these financial questions have come because so many Florida homeowners have had to turn to citizens to protect what is probably their biggest investment, their home. Mark Friedlander is with us now with the Insurance Information Institute. Mark is based in Jacksonville, knows a thing or two about insurance in the peninsula and the panhandle. Welcome back to the program, Mark. Can citizens be considered insolvent?

Panhandle. Welcome back to the program, Mark. Can citizens be considered insolvent? Citizens could never be declared insolvent like a private insurer because of the backstop program in place that has been approved by the legislature. It's a surcharge or what we commonly call a hurricane tax. Not the greatest solution, certainly, because it would be a surcharge on insurance bills for all policyholders throughout the state of Florida in a worst case scenario. But citizens could never fail. And insolvent is really a strong term. And it's frightening the market and particularly citizens customers. They're thinking they're paying their insurance to a company that's insolvent. That is not the case.

In fact, Citizens is stronger today, much stronger than it was a year ago. Well, it's been raising its insurance rates and depopulating. The phrase that it uses is depopulating some of its policyholders, which means that essentially they're not allowing some of those previous Citizens policyholders to continue to re-up with their premiums, instead putting them off into the private market. And we have some calls around that coming up here, Mark. But I want to ask you about the other piece of scrutiny that citizens has faced over the past several months. This Senate investigation over, quote, possible requests of a federal bailout. We learned this week, according to the Senate Committee investigating citizens, that citizens really hasn't responded to its request for documents. The Senate is continuing to request these documents. But what do you make of this

congressional investigation? Well, the U.S. Senate Budget Committee has been looking into the entire property insurance industry across the U.S., not just citizens, with concerns about costs and availability in high-risk states like Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and California. But they specifically made requests to citizens. Senator Whitehouse, who's the chair of the committee, claimed citizens didn't respond. But Mr. Serio, the CEO of Citizens, said they did respond. So clearly a dispute over the status of that investigation. And Mr. Serio did put forth in a letter yesterday,

they're willing to sit with committee people and discuss it in detail. So they're not ducking up any means. In fact, Citizens is one of the most transparent companies we've ever seen in the insurance industry. You can go online and see month by month how many policies Citizens is underwriting under the state of Florida here. We've got calls.

Mark Friedlander is with us, Insurance Information Institute. He is based in Jacksonville. Brett has been listening in Sarasota. You've been very patient. Brett, go ahead. You're on the radio. Yes. So basically, Citizens is not, I mean, I don't think that it's a good scenario. It may be solvent. It's not going to go under by any means. And as a homeowner, I recently just got kicked off Citizens. I got a 1964 home, and they sent in a non-licensed inspector to come in and take three or four photos. And he was out in eight minutes. And then I got a letter to non-renew.

So, I mean, that's just, that's garbage. And they need to do something about that. I think DeSantis really dropped the ball with trying to get homeowners insurance kind of reined in. And, you know, it's unfortunate. What have you found as you've gone out to the private market for home insurance, Brett? Seven insurers are still denying me. So it's age of home. I had my roof done in 2015. So the age of the roof is too old that I thought that 10 years was the limit on that. So we're going to try number eight here in the next week. And I have until May to get insurance before this becomes a major situation where I may lose my home because I have a mortgage on my home. So you need insurance on it, yeah.

I need to either pay off the home. I think I'd rather pay off the home than deal with this BS, so to speak. Thank you. I'll take my hat. Brett, yeah, no, I appreciate you sharing that story from Sarasota. Mark, that final comment from Brett, I've heard a lot anecdotally of folks doing quote-unquote self-insured, right? Meaning that they'll pay off the mortgage, in other words, so that they are not required by a mortgage to hold home insurance.

And some folks dropping windstorm insurance altogether and having perhaps just a more traditional home insurance. Self-insurance is a really dangerous proposition. We see roughly 15 to 20 percent of Florida homeowners today don't have insurance, so they're self-insuring. Here's the problem. Bankrate did a recent national survey, showed more than 50% of U.S. homeowners can't afford a $1,000 family emergency. So if you can't afford a $1,000 emergency, how are you going to pay to rebuild your home after a hurricane? It's not possible. Or even less than that, right? A branch comes through the roof, hot water heater perhaps leaks. Odds are your home isn't going to be destroyed. Yes, it certainly happens. But odds are your home isn't going to be entirely destroyed.

It's going to be some perhaps smaller but yet still costly financial disaster. Well, we saw thousands of homes severely damaged or destroyed from Hurricane Ian. That is true, yeah. With homeowners not having adequate insurance coverage, and they're still recovering. And FEMA, while they will have some individual grants in those cases, that's not insurance. They're not going to bail you out. Bob has been listening in from Fort Lauderdale. Go ahead, Bob. You're on the radio. Yeah, hi. I used to have citizen home insurance on my house, a regular policy called an HO3.

And I own my house, single family. But it got so high that I changed over to what's called an HO8. And it's with citizens, and it just covers catastrophic, like things like fire, hurricanes. Oddly, it also covers volcano. I don't know why, but it does. And it cut my premium well over by half, over half every year. And yeah, so I don't think most people know if you own your home, there is this option called HOA and Citizens offers this. And it's this huge reduction in premium.

Yeah, how about that, Mark? HO3, that's the industry lingo for a traditional kind of regular home insurance. HO8 is what Bob has gone to in Fort Lauderdale after he paid off his home. There are different types of policies, but an HO8 is not an equivalent of HO3. I'd have to look at the policy details for citizens because every company writes them different. But clearly, there's significant coverage missing. And I would double check to make sure he has actual coverage for named hurricanes. Because if the policy cost is cut in half,

they're not giving out bargains for certain customers. I mean, everybody pays adequate costs for the coverage of insurance, especially when it comes to hurricane damage. So I'm thinking something significant is missing from that policy as to why he's paying a lower. It sounds like Bob read the policy. He's got volcano coverage here in Florida, Mark. I mean, that counts for something, doesn't it? Well, there you go.

We have a lot of volcanoes in Florida, as you know. That's some standard language in policies for perils. And obviously, we don't have volcanoes in the U.S., but it is a peril that is covered in other parts of the U.S., rather, but not in Florida. Right. Hawaii, for example. Yeah, on the West Coast, definitely. Yeah, definitely. Mark Friedlander, Insurance Information Institute.

Mark is based in Jacksonville. Always a pleasure, Mark. Take care. Thanks so much. Still to come on our program, some big changes could be coming to how real estate agents get paid. Are you buying or selling your home? 305-995-1800. We're going to continue to hear from you on insurance as well.

305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. As the Florida Roundup continues, you're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. Stick with us. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for listening this week. We're talking about the high cost of home insurance here in Florida. Simon has been listening in in Palm Bay and very patient. Go ahead, Simon. You are now on the radio. Hi, thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to comment on a few things. I'm a licensed home inspector and I primarily do not do full home inspections for real estate. I do

primarily wind mitigations and four points. So I'm at my feet on the ground and I see this all the time. I've been dying to comment on this every time we talk about insurance from Florida Roundup. But there's the main factor that has caused this condition is fraud, roof fraud. And people like to blame the insurance companies and they're complicit in it as well. But really, roof fraud until the passage of the bill last year that changed that, which really the issue five years ago, homeowners did not have that problem with their insurance. And probably most callers would agree with that. Second off, citizens claims to be shedding policies or depopulating. But what I see last week, I did eight home

inspecting. I call them new, but they're previous homeowners that I did inspections for that were shed from citizens. And then six months later, citizens depopulate them. And then after that year, when they're up for renewal, their rate goes up to 7,500 or 6,000 with the new insurance company, and they have to go right back to citizens. And then they're forced to get another four-point inspection. So that is a huge problem. Citizens is not really addressing the issue. Citizens is really the only answer for this, which I appreciate them being in the state, but that is a huge misnomer that they are actually setting policies. And it's just affecting seniors, veterans. It's really tough for homeowners to get this under control. The other

thing is, they're not actually addressing, you know, well, climate change is just really changing the amount of high wind and, you know, hail and all these occurrences that we have in hurricanes. And we're tending to get more of them now. And they're not really running these catastrophe models the way they should. So it's not an accurate representation of what, you know, kind of like when they got caught with their pants down after they thought, you know, the best they could do it, the worst that they would do, Lloyd's of London and all these, and before the 90s, they thought, you know, $3 billion, and then it turned out to be $15 billion. Yeah. Simon, I appreciate the phone call and your expertise there as a licensed home inspector in

Palm Bay joining us here. Vince in Miami, I just want to have you for a couple of seconds. You have an interesting point here. Go ahead, Vince. Yes. Hi. My question is, I have a mortgage. It's around $100,000. And my property is valued at close to a million. And that's not for the land is what's the value. The land is what is close to a million dollars, not the house. The house is a teardown from the 50s. And I have a mortgage, and it's almost tripled in the past six months. And my question is, I don't want insurance. This house has gone through, like, 20 hurricanes and nothing has happened. And if it does and the house blows away, they can take the land and it's worth a million dollars.

I suppose all that's true except for the fact that you still owe $100,000 on the home and that bank or that mortgage lender is going to require you to insure the structure itself. Even though, as you point out, Vince, rightly so, in your case, the land is really where the value is. Hi, Karen, how are you? Good, and you? Nice to meet you. Thanks for opening your afternoon for us and opening the home.

It was a little overcast, but otherwise a beautiful day in late November when I met Karen Prince. She is the real estate agent selling this home on Buttonwood Shores Drive in Key Largo. This is a one, one and a half upstairs. It's a two bedroom with a living area downstairs. It's built in 1959. It is a wooden house. The home has a 29-foot dock with a boat lift and a footbridge with views of Florida

Bay, a metal roof, impact windows and doors. They own 0.31 of Bay Bottom on this house. They own part of the bay? They own part of the bay and there's a mangrove island out here that they own part of. And you heard right, the property even stretches under a part of the bay to a mangrove island. This is a spectacular view. It is. Describe what we're looking at here, directly out into Florida Bay. This is Buttonwood Sound, Florida Bay. The home was sold in February for $2.4 million.

The home was sold in February for $2.4 million. If the buyer and seller did not negotiate on the sales commission, the total commission would have been $138,000. That's 5.75%. Prince, as the listing agent, would have gotten 3%, $72,000. The agent bringing in the seller would have been paid the rest. This is how real estate commissions have worked for decades. An agent selling the house offers a commission to the agent working with the eventual buyer. But the National Association of Realtors proposed settlement to resolve lawsuits over real estate commissions changes that. In the settlement, the National Association of Realtors

agreed to remove buyer's agent commission rates from the Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, which is the property listing service that realtors use. Historically, the seller would pay for the buyer's agent's commission, according to Lisa Gursky, the CEO of the Gainesville-Alachua County Association of Realtors. Now, it will be up for negotiation who pays the agent's fee. The real estate industry has always been resilient. We've gone through recessions and technology changes, and so we're approaching this no different. We just need to learn how to adapt and move forward. Adam Gursky, Lisa's son, is the president of the Gainesville, Alachua County Association of Realtors. He says the industry has been preparing for the potential

results of this settlement since the lawsuit began in 2019. There was, we were kind of joking within the industry that, you know, this is kind of like a spaghetti model. You know, you know that something's happening, but you don't know where the storm's going to land. But he also says he isn't worried about drastic changes to the housing market. We keep saying to the public, to our members, you know, buyers and sellers still need to sell homes and buy homes and people still move and all the normal courses of action. So, you know, does this in any way, shape or form halt the market or stop it? No. The settlement still needs to be approved by a Missouri federal court.

The outcomes of the settlement, if the court approves, will go into effect in July. That was reporter Kristen Moorhead from our partner station WUFT in Gainesville. Are you buying or selling a home? How do you feel about the commission to the agent you're working with? Have you negotiated it? If you're an agent, what could changes to your traditional commission structure mean? Email us now, radio at thefloridaroundup.org or call 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. Steve Robeck has been a longtime critic of the existing commission

structure. He's a senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America. Steve, welcome to our program. Thanks for taking some time today. How could this change in how realtors are paid change the cost of homes? Well, it's going to take time. No changes are going to take place quickly. You may not see changes for three to four years, actually, but most experts estimate that commissions will drop by 20 to 50 percent. And currently, by 20 to 50%. And currently, with a 5 million sales in a year, that would represent a savings of 20 to $30 billion. But that's going to take time. For the immediate future, consumers will not see much of a difference. Let's break out our pencils here, right? So the average home, roughly $300,000 across the United States, probably more than that, but we'll use more numbers.

So if two agents are involved, one agent would get about $9,000 under the current structure, 3% of $300,000, $9,000. You're saying that could be cut in half in the next three, five years? I'm predicting that the 5% to 6% rates, which are fairly uniform, are going to evolve to an average of 3% to 4% rates, but there's going to be much more variation. In today's marketplace, In today's marketplace, every agent charges the same thing. The agent that just earned their license charges what a real pro who understands the market and understands how to get you a really good deal charges.

It's just really unfair. The only way an agent can get a raise is by selling more expensive homes, or more of them, essentially. The current system is actually unfair to much of the industry. For example, a buyer agent that shows 30 homes gets paid the same amount as a buyer agent that shows one home, which the buyer has identified through Zillow. Steve, let me ask you then, Florida has more agents than any other state, as you know. So what could be the impact on realtor pay here?

I think probably we're looking at rates coming down. In Miami, I know, we've done research in Miami, they're around 6%, most of them. I think they could come down to 4%. I'm sort of shocked that the people who are spending millions of dollars on their homes are not asking for a discount. I mean, it's just so totally out of whack. So will this lead to fewer agents if you expect the pay to come down per transaction? Do you think in a state like Florida with so many realtors listed?

Yeah, well, Tom, there are many factors that are going to push the marketplace in that direction. Certainly one is the fact there will be less compensation overall. The marginal agents who are working in other jobs, often full-time jobs, many of them will just hack it in. A second factor that will discourage a number of agents and persuade them to leave the industry is the new requirement that they have to have a contract signed by buyers. Now, today, if there is a contract, and often there isn't, it is really not, the buyers don't pay much attention to it because they know that the seller will pay the buyer agent's commission. much attention to it because they know that the seller will pay the buyer agent's commission. But this new requirement is going to lead to lots of conversations and negotiations about the buyer agent commission and agents that are not skillful are not going to be able to deal with the situation. It really upsets what has been the standard expected and accepted business

model and structure in real estate for a number of decades. Most Florida home sales are done with transactional real estate agents. These are agents that do not represent the buyer or the seller, they work with you, but they don't represent you by law. They represent the deal. Should that default be revisited by state lawmakers in light of this legal settlement? Well, Tom, I ran the Consumer Federation of America for 38 years, and I strongly discouraged my staff from ever using the term outrageous. But I'm going to make an exception here. Your system is outrageous. Transaction brokers are facilitators. There should

never be two facilitators. There's no reason for two facilitators in a sale. There should be one facilitator. Plus, it's not disclosed. The Florida legislature some time back rewrote a law to say that if you're a fiduciary agent, you have to disclose that. But if you're a transactional broker, you don't have to. Now, why is transactional brokerage, why is it so attractive to the agents? Well, it's because if you're a facilitator, you don't have the legal liability. You don't have the responsibility that a fiduciary agent has. And might I add that both agents on both sides of the deal, their incentives are aligned toward the price of the property. So would you like to see Florida revisit this default

transactional law? Well, we'd like to see options for Florida consumers. We'd like to have a transaction broker option where it's clearly disclosed that transaction broker is not a fiduciary, only facilitator. They're paid a lot less because they don't have the liability and responsibility. Consumers understand that. But we'd also like consumers to have the option of utilizing a fiduciary agent. And they're still about, when I look at the transactions, we've actually studied four markets in Florida. Maybe about a quarter of the transactions involve a fiduciary agent. Steve Brobeck is with the Consumer Federation of America.

Steve, thanks for sharing your insight with us. Thank you. I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. Beth sent us this email from West Palm Beach writing, this issue is of particular interest to me as I have just enrolled in real estate school only about a month ago. To hear this news is quite unsettling to say the least. This is completely unfair. We received the following voice memo from a veteran realtor along the Gulf Coast. We received the following voice memo from a veteran realtor along the Gulf Coast.

Hi, my name is Eileen. I am a local real estate agent in St. Petersburg, Florida, and I have been selling real estate in this area for 38 years. I have a lot of thoughts, pros and cons regarding the settlement with the National Association of Realtors. But one thing I think I have not heard anybody address is the fact that these changes are, in my opinion, going to most negatively impact buyers who are already struggling to buy a home. And that really makes me sad. Having worked with first-time homeyers and just generally buyers who are economically struggling to make ends meet and achieve the goal of homeownership, they're already struggling to save between 3% and 5% of a down payment in closing costs. Oftentimes, I have had to negotiate seller concessions to help these buyers with their closing costs. And now there's yet another expense that these buyers are going to have to overcome.

And the simple truth is it's going to make the home buying process literally impossible for many. Just wanted to share these thoughts. Helen has been listening in from St. Augustine. Helen, go ahead. You are on the radio. Thank you. As a person who's currently selling her home, we negotiate, we tried to negotiate last year when we first listed our home and we got zero traction. We had nothing, no offers, nothing at all. We're starting again this year. We did not negotiate regarding the commission and we are seeing much more positive

showings, much more positivity coming in, and a completely different relationship with the realtor than we experienced last year. I'd love to see something like the transactional situation that the gentleman mentioned, and I do agree with your last voicemail caller. Veterans in particular, veteran families, will struggle to try to come up with a commission for their buyer's agent when this whole thing concludes with the court case. Nevertheless, my final belief is that

we should not have to pay both commissions as a seller. Thank you so much. Helen, best of luck in selling your home. We heard from a realtor in South Florida as well. Hi, my name is Lourdes Diaz, and I'm a real estate broker in Miami Beach. I think this is a wait and see moment. It's a change, but I don't feel that buyer's agents will be deleted from the real estate industry. When you have a buyer's agent, it protects you as a consumer. Buyer's agents help you with property insurance. They help with inspections. They help you with lenders. And most importantly, they help you with lenders, and most importantly, they help you with negotiations. Most buyers don't know how to negotiate and having an

agent representing you will save a buyer money and hold the deal together. The home buying process is complicated. Most people don't know the process and engaging the services of a buyer's agent is very important. They'll hold your hand through it all and get you to the end goal, which is to buy the property. Brian sent us this email as an agent. I believe this will hurt the buyers who will now be forced to compensate the realtor to help them find and compete for a home. It will increase competition, could even push up compensation beyond 6%, Brian writes, for the two realtors involved in the transaction. Terry in Oakland Park says that realtors do the real work in buying and selling a home in the marketplace.

They schlep buyers around. They adjust when each changed their mind by the buyers and sellers. They work directly with those folks, earning their money. Well, thanks to everybody for sharing your thoughts on this. We'll continue to follow this case as it moves toward a possible court settlement. Still to come, how the worsening conditions in Haiti is an important story for us here in Florida. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being along with us this week. Oh, hey, there was an election day this week. You're forgiven if you didn't know about it. Florida's presidential primary was Tuesday for Republicans. Democrats did not hold one. You already know who won the GOP contest, even if you weren't following along election night. Donald Trump won with 81% of the vote. Nikki Haley came in second with almost 13%. of the vote. Nikki Haley came in second with almost 13%. 1.2 million voters cast ballots,

and despite Republican criticisms of vote-by-mail, about half of all votes in this primary were mailed in. There were more poll workers than voters early on Election Day at some polling places in Pasco and Hillsborough County. Around noon, five hours after polling places opened, one location in Tampa had exactly one voter cast a ballot. Still, Florida's Secretary of State Cord Bird, who's in charge of elections, was trying to drum up interest by voters on Tuesday. It's important for all voters to make their voices heard, even though the result in some people's minds may be a foregone conclusion.

It's still important whenever there's an election for voters to get out and make sure that they exercise that voting muscle. Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Early approached the primary election day in anticipation of the election season coming this fall. It's not a dry run or a dress rehearsal. This is the real thing. But it's a process where we aren't so flooded with ballots that makes sure all of our procedures are working well. Voters trickled into polling places across the state throughout the day. Emphasis on trickled.

Here's Megan Bowman from our partner station WUSF in Tampa. Around 10 people had shown up at a precinct in Wesley Chapel by about 10 a.m. And polling locations in Lutes and Land O'Lakes saw very little traffic. Brian Corley is Pasco's supervisor of elections. You know, a lot of folks are wondering, like, basically why vote because it's already over in their minds politically. So that's clearly correlating to a lower turnout than would be expected if there was a contested primary. By around 2 p.m., just over 15 percent of Pasco's Republicans had cast a ballot, including mail-in and early voting. I'm Megan Bowman in Tampa.

We have some updates now on the deteriorating situation in Haiti with gang violence escalating, the government on the edge of collapse, and its impact here in Florida. A plane carrying 14 Floridians from Haiti landed Wednesday in Orlando. The state emergency management agency coordinated the flights. Here's the governor on Wednesday. We understand that there's people that are really in danger right now that are our fellow Floridian. The state says these flights will continue for at least the next one to two weeks. Separately, Florida Congressman Corey Mills flew 23 Americans out of Haiti on two separate flights. Natalie Satout works with a group called Faith in Florida.

It organizes congregation community groups. She says she's grateful for the flights, but hopes more can be done to help Haitians trapped in their own country. The same way that I see that they were capable of charting private aircraft to provide protection to make sure that folks were airlifted out of Haiti safely, I believe we can do the same type of effort in providing humanitarian relief. Before starting the flights, Governor DeSantis ordered state law enforcement agencies to deploy more officers to the Keys and South Florida. He said it was in anticipation of, quote, a potential influx of illegal immigrants from Haiti. This week, he floated a familiar sounding idea, sending possible Haitian migrants

who land in Florida to Martha's Vineyard. Here's what the governor said on a podcast with host Dana Lash. We do have our transport program also that's going to be operational. So Haitians land in the Florida Keys, their next stop very well may be Martha's Vineyard. Paul Christian Namphy is the lead organizer for Family Action Network Movement. That's a leading nonprofit in South Florida providing legal and social services. We are absolutely outraged by his response. We need to humanize the response for people who have already suffered immeasurable trauma, who are refugees fleeing for their lives. The violence and political turmoil in Haiti is an important story for Florida. Half of Haitian immigrants who live in the United States call Florida home, and Florida has been a source of guns smuggled out of America that wind up in the hands of Haitian gangs, who may just wind up acting as the government there. Here's Tim Padgett from our partner station WLRN in Miami.

Last week, Haiti's interim prime minister, Ariel Henry, announced he'll resign. That is, he'll quit when a transitional governing council is put in place to lead Haiti out of violent gang chaos and into new elections. Problem is, it may be too late at this point to set up any kind of new government in Haiti except gang government. That's one of Haiti's gangs firing their semi-automatic rifles earlier this month at the Toussaint-Louis-Vertour International Airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince. They succeeded in shutting the airport down, largely to keep Henri from returning to Haiti. And that's an uncomfortable reminder. Even though the gangs have terrorized Haitians in recent years, with murders, kidnappings, food, fuel and medicine hijackings, most Haitians have shared a goal with most of the gangs, namely getting rid of Henri,

who they say represents Haiti's corrupt and anti-democratic ruling elite. As paradoxical as this sounds, the Haitian people are both living in fear and grateful. Haitian-American Pierre Imbert of Aventura is a founding director of the non-profit IET Community Trust. He's in frequent touch with Haiti, and he says an unsettling number of folks there have started to identify the criminal gangs as political movements. Some I have directly spoken with talk about how Ariel Henry was forced to resign because of the gangs. Unfortunately, the gangs are standing up as saviors. And right now, you just cannot ignore that very reality. Danessa Deris is a security guard for a business in Port-au-Prince. She says she believes gang leaders like Jimmy Cherizier, known as Barbecue, represent a sort of people's rebel uprising.

We appreciate that the gang stood by the people to get the job done, Darice said. I personally don't think they've hurt the people more than Haiti's politicians have. That's a remarkable statement given the UN says the gangs were responsible for almost 5,000 homicides last year. Either way, the gangs are now obstructing the effort to form that transitional governing council. Fort Lauderdale attorney Michelle Austin-Pamise is a founding member of the Haitian American Foundation for Democracy. What this shows is that it's moved from just the gangs attacking each other, the gangs kidnapping individuals on the streets, to the gangs directly attacking the government. Now the gangs kidnapping individuals on the streets, to the gangs directly attacking the government. Now the gangs do not fear the police. And frankly, there's not much of a Haitian police force left to fear, nor does it look like the UN-backed, U.S.-funded multinational security

support mission, to be led by a thousand police officers from Kenya, will be deployed to Haiti anytime soon. Austin Pamis insists Haitians know they can't move forward under gang governance. Gang control of the country is contrary to the people's interests. True enough, but can the country ever control the gangs again, especially if the U.S. and the international community keep failing to help Haiti control them? If not, what could emerge instead of that transitional council is a sort of coup d'etat government led by a gang-supported figure like former senator and police commander Guy Philippe. If they want to kill me, I'm ready. They can come and kill me. I'm ready to die for

my country. That's Guy Philippe 20 years ago this month talking to me and other foreign correspondents in Port-au-Prince. He had just led the overthrow of then-Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide. Philippe's attempt to seize power then failed, and he would later go to prison in the U.S. on drug charges. But last fall, he was released. He returned to Haiti, and he's now making a new bid with the gang's help to take over. I'm preaching a peaceful revolution. That's what I'm trying to do in Haiti. Last week from Haiti, Philippe told Local 10 News here in South Florida he represents a less corrupt choice for Haitians than the transitional council the U.S. is calling for.

That's a questionable claim coming from an ex-drug trafficking convict. Questionable especially to Haitians like Yvonne Altidore, a single mother trying to find food for her two young children in Port-au-Prince amid the gang brutality. People like me are the real victims of this so-called revolution. It's the poor like us who are losing everything. And if Haiti's violent power vacuum keeps getting filled by gangs, Haitians like Altidore are likely to keep losing even more. Jeremy Dupin contributed to this report from Port-au-Prince. I'm Tim Padgett in Miami. And I'm Tom Hudson. You're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. Springtime is a time of

renewal, a time to look forward. It's college admissions time. While the admission letters have certainly been delivered, the financial details have not for lots of families. While the admission letters have certainly been delivered, the financial details have not for lots of families. So the University of Florida, University of South Florida, and University of Central Florida are pushing back the deadline for students to commit or not to the next school year. The new deadline is now May 15th. Nancy Guan from our partner station WUSF in Tampa explains. It's taking longer than usual for colleges to tell students how much they'll get in grants, scholarships, or loans. That's due to delays with the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. The form helps higher ed institutions determine how much money each student receives.

Jerrica Peets is with Leap Tampa Bay, a group that helps students apply for college. I know that there's a little bit of panic happening because of that situation. You're talking about the difference between being able to afford to go to UF or if you need to go to a state college. Federal data shows that fewer students are filling out the FAFSA than last year. The latest the FAFSA form can be submitted is June 30th. I'm Nancy Guan in Tampa. And finally on the roundup, change is in the air. Spring officially began this week, which means spring training baseball is winding down and March Madness is heating up. Florida colleges have five teams in the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments combined. The Gators, Owls, and Hatters are playing in the men's brackets,

combined, the Gators, Owls, and Hatters are playing in the men's brackets, UF, FAU, and Stetson University. Two of the Florida women's teams are playing in the tournament, the Eagles from Florida Gulf Coast University and the Florida State Seminoles. As the college basketball season is in its final innings, baseball is about to tip off. Yeah, I know. For a couple of months every year, Florida is home to 15 Major League Baseball squads. The Grapefruit League is squeezed from Dunedin to Fort Myers on the Gulf Coast and Port St. Lucie to West Palm Beach on the Atlantic Coast. Like so many winter tourists, those spring training baseball players will soon return home. Opening day is next week. Summer is calling. And that is the Florida Roundup this week,

produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF Public Media in Tampa by Bridget O'Brien and Grayson Docter. WLRN's Vice President of Radio and our Technical Director is Peter Mertz. Engineering help each and every week from Doug Peterson and Charles Michaels. Richard Ives answers our phones. Our theme music is provided by Miami jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at AaronLeibos.com. Thanks for calling, emailing, listening and supporting public media in your neighborhood.

I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend.