Miami Realtor Being Sued by Developer

Condos by vgm8383

A Miami Realtor is being sued by a Miami condo developer for the tidy sum of $25 million, over comments the Realtor made on his blog about the developer "filing for bankruptcy in the '80's and his current condo project possibly being in trouble."

From what I've read about people being sued over comments made on their blogs, the Realtor should be o.k. However, the broker he was working for terminated him, as they are also named as defendants in the lawsuit.

I understand their reasoning behind this, but this quote the brokerage gave to the Miami Herald irks me a bit:

"We want to encourage associates to be a positive source of information,''

Does that mean they just want their associates to talk to the public about the "rosy" side of the picture and just brush the bad stuff under a rug? Licensed real estate agents in Florida have a duty to fully disclose "all known facts" to clients. Are they asking their agents to neglect that duty a bit?

Florida Passes Tax Reform Amendment

As of 11:40 p.m. the precincts are still reporting, but it looks like Amendment 1 (Florida's Property Tax Reform Amendment) has passed by a pretty wide margin. So, let's recap again what this Amendment means:

• "Doubles" the homestead exemption from $25,000 to $50,000. However, the 2nd $25k does not apply to school taxes (~30% of most property tax bills), so it's more like an additonal $15,000 exemption. (Assuming a 2% tax rate thats about $300).
• Portability of Save Our Homes. SOH is Florida's cap on how much your property taxes can go up in a year. Previous to this amendment passing, once you sold your home and moved, you lost your built up savings and had to start again in your new home. Now, take a good portion of it with you.
• Snowbird only living in Florida part time (non-homesteaded)? Your property tax increases will now be capped at 10% per year. Big whup now you say... but if there's ever a time like 2003-2006 when property taxes nearly doubled for some folks, you'll be happy with this change.

Time will tell if this is *the* spark that the Florida real estate market needs. Those on the fence don't have too many excuses left to wait now.

Find Arizona Retirement Communities On Our New Site

In the last couple of years, as Florida has fallen out of favor a little bit because of high prices, high taxes, high insurance, and hurricanes, more and more boomers have been thinking about Arizona for their new retirement community.

I've talked to several boomers who have made the move from the Northeast to Arizona, and even some who went to Florida first, and they all love the climate and the Arizona retirement communities they found.

If you are also considering Arizona for your retirement plans, I've got great news. The next edition of the for Boomers book series will be Arizona for Boomers: Guide to Retirement Communities.

Feel free to click the link and check out the site. It's a work in progress, and we'll be adding more articles and resources each day to help you find an Arizona retirement community. I don't have an ETA on the book yet, but rest assured we'll keep you posted.

Florida and Allstate Insurance Toe-to-Toe

My advice to people moving to Florida and shopping for homeowners insurance is to always check with your current carrier (assuming you're happy with the rates and service you receive) to see if they offer policies in Florida.

Well, for the time being, if your current insurer is Allstate, you're out of luck. Allstate is locked in a battle with Florida's Insurance Commissioner over documents regarding the rates Allstate charges for hurricane insurance.

Florida's Insurance Commisioner originally ordered Allstate to stop selling homeowner's policies until the matter was resolved, but has now gone a step further and has ordered Allstate to stop writing ALL new policies, including automobile policies.

I don't expect this little tif to last too long...I can't see how the citizen's of Florida come out a winner in having one of the largest insurers not being able to write new policies. Granted, this does not effect policies currently in place or their renewals. But in my mind, healthy competition is about the only thing that ever seems to keep prices down.

Update 1: That was fast...by order of the 1st District Court of Appeals, Allstate is back open for business.

Two Weeks Until Florida Property Tax Vote

Two weeks from today on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 Floridians will step into the voting booths... hanging chads and all... and decide on an important property tax measure.

If approved, the measure, among other things, will serve two main purposes:

1) It will "double" the homestead exemption from $25,000 to $50,000 (Uh, not really double...read what I'm talking about here) and

2) It will also provide portability of the Save Our Homes Tax (Not sure what that is? Learn more here)

You can read more about the property tax bill at http://www.yeson1florida.com/amendment_1.php

Also, this past weekend I read a good (good meaning funny) column in a local paper which "answers some questions" about this whole Florida property tax issue. Think you'll enjoy it!

My favorite question and its "brilliant" answer:

Sun City Center FL: A Complete Guide

Do you know what one of Florida’s first retirement communities was? Sun City Center, located near Tampa Florida began in the early 1960’s and is still under development today. The internet is loaded with information about Sun City Center but sometimes the information is very outdated, and searching online can just get overwhelming.

To solve this problem, and as a follow-up to my first e-book about The Villages, I've put together a complete 117 page guide for Sun City Center at: SunCityCenterFloridaBook.com

You'll find a ton of great information including a complete detailed community overview, useful links, information about buying a home in Sun City Center, what it costs to live there, golf in Sun City Center, and much more. Check it out.

Be sure to watch this space for announcements on guides to other Sun City communities around the country.

Bankrupt Home Builders Break Dreams

What a scary time to be a buyer in the real estate market right now. While everyone knows it's a buyers market, the deals are great, and prices are falling faster than a rock, you still have to be careful about taking that final leap and putting a contract on a new home someplace warm.

In November 2007, a popular builder of active adult retirement communities throughout the SunBelt, Levitt and Sons, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. This has left buyers stranded with partially or wholly unfinished homes, not to mention unfinished community amenities. Deposits as high as $50k per, are also presumed lost.

Levitt and Sons is a "wholly owned subsidiary of Levitt Corporation (NYSE: LEV) whose other divisions include Core Communities and bluegreen Vacation Resorts. Levitt Corp. is apparently trying to sever its ties all together with Levitt and Sons so that they won't have to pick up the tab for the unfinished homes, communities, and lost deposits. Merry Christmas have a nice day!

If it can happen to a development company the size of Levitt and Sons, assume that it can happen to anyone. What can be done to protect yourself, your money, and your dreams of owning a (completely finished) new home?

Thats a tough question to answer. To avoid having to put up such a large deposit (most new home builders require 10-20% or more) you could go the construction loan route where you will essentially pay the builder in different phases tied to the construction of the home. But as I've written before, this is not without it's troubles.

Another option that this article says to try is to get the builder to agree to place your deposit in an escrow account held by a third party. If something happens, you'd at least be able to get your money back.

In my experience, I'd say good luck to this. While you might get the smallest of builders and developers to agree to this, most will not. Look...these guys have in-house counsel, out-house counsel, and every other which way of counsel you could think of protecting their (ass)ets first. They're going to make sure that they are covered and protected before you are.

The best solution I can come up with? For now, in today's real estate environment, buy a house that's already built or almost complete (trust me...there's plenty out there) and buy it in a community that is already somewhat established with completed amenities you are happy with. This way if something happens and the second community swimming pool you as a buyer were promised never gets built, you've got the amenities already there to fall back on.

Boomers Go Green With Cohousing

No doubt about it, green is in. And not just the color...the movement. And why shouldn't it be baby boomers at the forefront?

Read about the Wolf Creek Lodge [via TreeHugger] in Grass Valley, California. The Wolf Creek Lodge is a "Cohousing" community for active adults. If you've never heard of cohousing, here's a description from the Wolf Creek website:

"Cohousing communities are small-scale neighborhoods that provide a balance between personal privacy and living amidst people who know and care about each other. Individual dwelling units enjoy convenient access to shared space including a common house with facilities such as a gourmet kitchen, dining room, laundry facilities, guest rooms, library and sitting areas, and workshops. Each home is entirely self-sufficient, complete with a kitchen, but residents often prepare common meals together in the kitchen of the common house."

The environmental benefits of cohousing are achieved through the sharing of resources and space.

While there are currently less than 100 cohousing communities in the United States, look for that number to grow as boomers look for ways to go green and also look for alternatives to the traditional retirement community concept.

Retirement Community Politics

Great article in the Sarasota Herald Tribune about the massive effect retirement communities can have on elections.

The article focuses on The Villages and the 2008 Republican primary.

A large majority of "Villagers" are republicans, and candidates regularly stump there.

Even this guy made a stop there leading up to the 2004 election.

The Villages Homes May Exceed Standards...Get an Inspection Anyway

Came across this article in The Villages Daily Sun about homes that have been built since 2002 in The Villages exceeding the required construction standards.

While homes in the area where The Villages is located need to be built to withstand 100 mph winds, they are engineered and built to withstand 110 mph winds. Wa-la-ya but...

The article implies that you shouldn't bother having a home inspection done...that all home inspectors are crooks and aren't licensed anyway. If you've read any of my books, you'll know I strongly recommend having a home inspection done before buying a home anywhere...no matter how it was supposedly "engineered and built".

Lots can happen once "certified" house plans leave the building department office. Always best to be safe and get an extra set of eyes on the house before going forward.

Bloomberg: "Market to get worse in '08"

On the heals of my post the other day about possible real estate market optimism for 2008, Bloomberg has a report today saying things will get worse in 2008.

According to some experts quoted in the article hope for a turnaround in 2009...at best. Bad news for homebuilders, mortgage lenders and the like.

Good news if you're a boomer looking to get a good deal and don't have a house to sell first.

Boomer Golf News

Wanted to let you know about a new website BoomerGolfNews.com.

The goal of this new site is to cover the world of golf as it relates to the largest segment of the population playing golf, baby boomers.

Look for articles and features on boomers still making a living on the tour, ways you can enjoy the game more as well as improve, new courses to check out in your travels and more.

What will the real estate market do in '08? Who can you trust?

I'm skeptical when I hear that all of a sudden, despite credit and mortgage woes galore, that the housing market is all of a sudden going to get better in 2008. Especially when the folks preaching this info. are "in the biz".

Believe me, I want it to get better too. But pretending like it will get better is about as good as praying for it to happen.

I ran in to this article today in the Herald Tribune (Southwest Florida) about a report saying that New Home sales have reached a bottom. Thankfully, the report is from a researcher at the University of Florida, and not from the Association of Realtors or the Home Builders.

So, hopefully we can trust this report without being too skeptical. While it certainly isn't exceptionally cheery (sales sales will be flat for the next year, but not declining), it isn't the worst news one could receive if they've got Florida real estate on the brain.

Think Airport Security is Bad Now?

If you think airport security is bad now, just wait until TSA gets its grimy hands on even more of your private data.

Read this post from Gadling.com about TSA's push to get even more control of your private data.

It's sure to tick you off...

Picture from nedrichards on flickr

Pet Showers, No Smoking HOA's, Oh My!

Here is an article from RISMedia on the hottest homebuying trends for 2008. Two of them really caught my eye and I wanted to share them with you here.

Shower for Fido
The first is pet showers. Maybe you've heard of this before, or maybe you thought yes, I put my pet in the shower too, so what?

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about an dedicated shower JUST FOR your pet. In some cases these have marble tile and the highest level of shower fixtures. Pretty cool if you're a pet lover.


No Smoking by Order of The HOA
The next trend for 2008 which we're starting to hear more about is "Non-smoking HOA's". What like you mean I can't smoke at the clubhouse? Ok, I'm used to not being able to smoke in public anyway.

Nope, I mean you can't smoke in your own home. This rule was already upheld in one court case but I'm sure we'll start seeing lots more cases being tried on this topic before long.

So, let me ask my readers: Any interest in a shower just for your pet, or desire to live in a no smoking allowed HOA?

Photos by bchow and wizardhat respectively on flickr

Try Mahalo For Online Travel Research

Online travel research can be pretty frustrating, especially if you've never been to the destination your headed and don't know much about the area.

For example, try searching "Las Vegas hotels" in Google. Now, some of what comes up for you may be relevant, but a lot of it is not. This is simply because this search engine result page (serp) is based on an algorithm, with little to no human attention paid to what is displayed.

Mahalo is a new human-powered search engine that uses...you guessed it...ACTUAL people to create their serps.

This is great for the baby boomer who just doesn't have the time or patience to sift through spam search results mixed in with relevant content. If you search for "Las Vegas hotels" in Mahalo, you actually get listings of Las Vegas hotels as well as websites for further research (ie: Frommers, Fodor's, etc.). What a concept!


Check out Mahalo's Travel page today. And who knows, you might just get hooked and start using it for all your web searches. Plus, if you happen to search for a topic not in their results (remember, Mahalo's results are being built by hand and not every possible destination or search term is covered yet) you will be shown results from various other search engines.

Baby Boomer Jobs

Forbes.com has an article/slideshow featuring seven "ideal" jobs for Baby Boomers.

Obviously not all of them will appeal, but you might get some good ideas. I especially like the prospects of "Move Specialist" Wellness Coach", and "Travel Coordinator".

Some Florida Banks to Avoid

TheStreet.com just ran an article about some Florida banks that are feeling the squeeze due to not only bad mortgages (as you've heard by now Florida has a lot of) but also bad construction loans that developers are defaulting on.

I'm all for the local bank. I believe in supporting the little guy. And I know my money would be safe (FDIC insured, etc.). But for now my money is with one of the big boys, at least until we learn a little more about this mortgage/construction loan fallout.

Luxury RV Parks - Home is Where You're Parked

Despite gas being over $3 a gallon in most parts of the country, many boomers are shunning the once popular idea of choosing one great place to retire and making it their life to travel (in style mind you) to wherever they feel like.

The luxury RV travel market is on fire in recent years with luxury rv parks popping up all over Florida and other Sunbelt states.

The nomadic lifestyle that rv-ing affords used to be for the budget conscious. But not anymore. Fancy RV's these days cost more than most houses. And getting a space at one of the premier luxury rv parks can be quite an expense as well.
(Image Credit: Aaron Jack on Flickr)

But then again, we're not talking about a simple concrete pad with power and water hookups. We're talking about championship golf courses, clubhouses, swimming pools, all the amenities you could want or need.

So where should you set out finding information about the luxury RV lifestyle? Here are a few links to start with:

• Go RVing
• Go Camping America
• Google Directory Listings by State
  

Wireless and Internet Security Systems Great for 2nd Homes

A recent broad daylight break-in and robbery in my gated Florida community reminds me that everyone needs to be careful and vigilant when it comes to keeping you, your loved ones, and your property safe. As I've said before, crime doesn't discriminate based on location. Just because you live in a gated community doesn't necessarily mean you're safe.

I recommend having a security system installed (make sure you are given a yard sign and window stickers which can act as an added deterrent). Most people only set it when they are away from the home or when they go to bed at night, but now we'll be keeping ours on during the day as well, and you should too.

Security systems are available through companies like Brinks and ADT. Personally I use a system through Alarm.com that uses wireless signals (much like a pager) so that if a phone line is cut, it will still notify the authorities in case of emergency.

This type of wireless security system can also be controlled through the internet, which is great for a second homeowner. Through an online interface you can see system activity, arm and disarm if necessary, and more. Check it out if you're looking for a great wireless internet security system.

Be safe!