The U.S. House of Representatives passed an $888 billion stimulus package yesterday. Yes, that is $888,000,000,000. Great idea since the last stimulus package just 5 months ago has done such a "fabulous" job of getting the economy going and lenders loaning money again. Let's railroad another gi
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01/29/2009
That's what State Farm claims at least regarding their homeowners insurance division. The State of Florida did not approve the rate hike that State Farm wanted, so State Farm is planning on pulling out of the homeowner insurance business in Florida over the next 2+ years. That will leave many F
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01/28/2009
This post is an update of a similar blog post I wrote a couple of weeks ago. The City of Sanford is strongly considering putting some major cumbersome burdens on property owners. Some of the proposals include new stringent property codes, registration of all rental properties, designating a loca
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01/24/2009
The multiple listing service a/k/a MLS used by the local Realtor (r) associations has been a fabulous marketing tool for decades now. My local MLS is the Mid-Florida Regional MLS which covers some 9 counties in Central and West Florida and parts of 2 other counties. These counties are home to so
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01/22/2009
Last week the Florida legislature met to try and ease Florida's budget crisis. In addition to raising a whole bunch of fees and miscellaneous taxes, the legislature also gobbled up some of the money in the state's many trust funds. The affordable housing trust fund which is paid for out of do
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01/21/2009
Today is a fantastic day! Whether you like the guy's politics or not, President Barack Obama is in a monumental position today. Being the first minority President of the United States is a big achievement with some very big shoes to fill. He has an awful lot on his plate right now, and I could
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01/20/2009
My wife, kids, and I got to spend some time in Philadelphia during the Christmas holidays. None of us had ever been there, but my wife has some family living in the town so it was a good reason to visit with them as well as see a few sites. Even though it is a giant city, it really is quite a p
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01/18/2009
A friend of mine stopped by the office the other day and saw the stacks of phone books delivered to all the doors in my office building. He asked me the question above. "Does anybody actually still use paper phone books anymore?" I admitted to him that I still keep a set of white pages and yel
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01/16/2009
According to statistics released by RealtyTrac and the Orlando Sentinel, Florida is the #2 state in the USA and Orlando is the #7 metro area in the USA for foreclosures being filed. Whether you like them or not, short sales and foreclosures are here to stay for quite a while. The trend doesn't
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01/15/2009
The latest market number for December 2008 have been provided by the Orlando Regional Realtor Association (R). You can read a more detailed version of the report with lots of charts and graphs at the Metro Orlando market statistics webpage. The info shows a lot more of the same trend we have bee
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01/13/2009
