Archive for February, 2009
Crist pushes property tax breaks
On February 20th, Gov. Charlie Crist proposed giving new property tax breaks to first-time homebuyers and further lightening the tax burden for business, landlords and snowbirds. The proposed property tax breaks for first-time homebuyers could be as much as $5,000. Crist gave only broad overviews of his latest proposals as he introduced his new budget. [...]
State Farm Withdrawal Is Approved
Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty today announced an approval of State Farm Insurance Florida’s withdrawal from the state, but subject to several major conditions: • State Farm Florida shall surrender its Certificate of Authority within 30 days, which is needed to write or renew policies.• State Farm shall not place any of its policies in [...]
Which Loan Is Right For You? Part Three… FHA Loans
The last option that I want to discuss is the FHA loan. This loan through the Federal Housing Administration has come a long way. This loan used to be very difficult to obtain with lots of paperwork and very strict repair standards. This is no longer the case. Now FHA loans can easily compete with [...]
Which Loan Is Right For You? Part Two… VA Loans
Part two of our series, “Which loan is right for you”, covers the VA loan set up through the Veteran’s Administration. If you’re a veteran with active duty service, who was not dishonorably discharged, you may want to consider a VA loan. Through the Veteran’s Administration you can borrow 100% of the loan amount. The [...]
Which Loan Is Right For You? Part One… USDA – Rural Housing
This is the first of a three part post on different loan options that are available. The first loan is one that very few real estate agents even know about but that is becoming increasingly more popular. Through the USDA (yeah, that’s right the guys that put the stamp on meats) there is a program [...]
The Pirates Are Coming!!!
It’s that time of year again… Gasparilla! February 7th Tampa will be invaded by pirates and the locals will be overcome by grog (alcohol for ye laymen). If you’ve never been to Gasparilla, it’s well worth spending a day drinking and screaming for beads. If you’ve never heard of Gasparilla, you need to plan a [...]
Would you move to Land O’ Lakes for $15 million?
State officials have approved up to $15 million in incentives in an effort to persuade T. Rowe Price to move to Land O’ Lakes. If the financal services giant takes the state up on their offer they would eventually move 1,560 full-time jobs to the 95-acre site just east of the Suncoast Parkway by 2012. [...]
New Home Sales Fall but…
The Tampa Tribune wrote an article in Friday’s paper titled “New Home Sales Fall To Record Low“. In the Tampa Bay area we were down 14.7 percent in December. These numbers don’t sound good but you have to look at the whole picture. At the very end of the article it was mentioned that existing [...]