gtb

Aug

28

Are you informed on all the facts about the SOH Initiative ?

Filed Under Buyers Tips, Helpful Information, Mortgage | Leave a Comment

The Save Our Homes (SOH) initiative has been in the headlines a lot. Soon you will see campaigns FOR & AGAINST the amendment as the coming election season starts to heat up. The best advice is to become as informed as possible so you know how it will affect you.

The Basics:

On January 29, 2008 along with the Florida Presidential Primaries, a constitutional amendment will be placed on the ballot that may change how homesteads are assessed in the State of Florida. If the amendment passes, all property owners who have a homestead exemption as of January 1, 2008 must choose to do one of the following:

a) Keep their existing homestead exemption and their current Save Our Homes cap.
- or -
b) Convert to the Super Homestead Exemption and give up Save Our Homes.
If the amendment passes, all persons with homestead exemption in 2008 will continue under Save Our Homes unless they file a form with the Property Appraiser’s Office to switch to the Super Exemption.

Owners of homestead property in Pasco County can view the millage and current tax rate along with other property appraisal information on the appraisers web site.

Nobody can guarantee which option is better for you or guarantee that the forecasts they make will prove accurate over time. Uncertain future variables such as inflation, the increase in real estate values, the length of time you will continue to live in your home and the amount of capped value you currently have must be considered.

money

The Super Homestead Tax Calculator can help you make your own forecast of which option would be best for you, based on the variables that you select. This should prove helpful to many who those of us that may have to make that decision in just a few short months.

A Great place for any information you want to know about the SOH is the Florida Homestead Services Bulletin Board .
Tons of information and current dialog ….. you can even ask a question and receive an answer from the forum.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. If you would like to receive new articles in your email box Subscribe to Greater Tampa Bay Real Estate BLOG by Email. Thanks for visiting!

Aug

23

Realtors save you money with builders SPECIAL deals - redux

Filed Under Buyers Tips, Helpful Information, Mortgage | Leave a Comment

Builders Specials The Wall Street Journal today posted another supporting article today highlighting the continuing angst of Builders with too much inventory and not enough buyers. They are continuing to up the ante to bring in buyers by offering even more:

  • Lavish incentives
  • Perks,
  • Price Cuts

How about a pool for free or even two years of property taxes and insurance - rolled into the deal ?

As anxious builders pile on incentives now is a great time for Tampa Florida Buyers. Of course make sure you check out your borrowing capability up front. This is where a good Buyers Agent can assist again. The Realtors that have not bailed are in the know with Mortgage Companies and Builders, ready to deal and work with you on financing options.

Call my partner Marie Becklund or I today…… we are in the know and can save you some dough $$$$$$

727-239-2536 or 727-410-6229

Aug

21

How not to become a Florida Foreclosure Statistic

Filed Under Helpful Information, Mortgage, Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Florida ForeclosuresTampa Business Journal had an article today that relates some slightly improved statistics for July Foreclosures in Florida.
We currently hold the # 2 status Nationally, right behind California, not an enviable position by-any means.

July data shows:

  • 9 % decrease in Florida foreclosure activity for the month.
  • More than 19,000 foreclosures were filed in Florida in July
  • 78 percent increase over the previous year.

So how can you as a home owner protect yourself against a foreclosure ?

“Take Action Early to Avoid Foreclosure”, Says the Homeownership Preservation Foundation, an independent nonprofit that provides HUD-approved counselors dedicated to helping homeowners.
    You can call them any time at: 888-995-HOPE Callers are connected with counselors who work for HUD-certified counseling agencies. The financial counselors help homeowners, free of charge, to address their financial situation and understand their options. They also work to establish a dialogue between the homeowner’s mortgage company and the homeowner.

    The foundation recommends the following six steps to prevent foreclosure:

    1. ??? Take action immediately. If you are going to be late with a mortgage payment, contact your mortgage company right away.
    2. ??? Call the Home-ownership Preservation Foundation to speak, free of charge, to a counselor about your financial situation.
    3. ??? Organize and prioritize your bills and debt. Alert agencies such as your credit cards and utilities — make them aware of your financial crisis. Do not write
    checks hoping that you’ll be able to cover them. Late fees and bounced check fees can be extremely high.
    4. ??? Make every attempt to protect your credit score.
    5. ??? Watch out for predatory lenders and scams. Before signing any document concerning your home, check with an attorney or your mortgage company.
    6. ??? Make sure you take action. Doing nothing will only make a bad situation worse.

Seek help early and you may be able to save your home.

    Additional Resources:

Aug

17

Arm yourself with the latest information about SPAM

Filed Under Helpful Information, Technology | Leave a Comment

Two really great articles on the recent upswing in SPAM are in circulation and well worth educating your self on.
The most recent of these articles is a short read posted on Thursday by the USA Today.

Spammers find new ways to slip through

    They talk about the new strains of SPAM that have been flooding all of our mail boxes recently:
  • PDF Documents
  • Faux electronic-greeting cards
  • Excel and Zip files
Spam

“The next article is a bit of a read but well worth the education”

New Yorker explains spam in a unique way and informs us of the losing war on junk e-mail

The writer, Michael Specter, does a great job of tracing the history and evolution of spam from its origins during the ancient Arpanet age (the beggining of the internet) to the global botnet wars of today. He explains in clear, layman’s terms everything from the basic economics of spam to relatively arcane topics like Bayesian filtering.

Specter makes some connections that are seldom mentioned in stories about the routine skirmishes of the spam wars. “He points out that since the federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 tried to regulate spammers under the law, they have actually moved further outside the law”. How bad has the spam problem become ? Heres a few sobering facts:

  • 85 percent of the 4 billion e-mail sent to Hotmail each day are rejected as spam (and you know some of the remainder is just spam that isn’t automatically flagged)

  • 130,000 of Hotmail’s 258 million accounts exist solely to trap and examine suspicious e-mail

  • The volume of spam has increased nearly tenfold in the past three years, due almost solely to botnets.

Aug

15

The Silver Lining in the continuing saga of mortgage lending woes.

Filed Under Mortgage, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Is there really a Silver lining in the continuing saga of mortgage lending woes ?

silver liningAs the blood letting continues in the subprime lending markets, secondary markets continue to weigh on mortgage lenders as well.

“Headlines this week are full of examples and we are only mid week“

  • Houston, Texas-based Aegis Mortgage Corp,one of the largest U.S. mortgage lenders files for Chapter 11. According to Reuters reports , Aegis made “prime” and Alt-A” wholesale loans, and “subprime” retail and wholesale loans to residential borrowers who couldn’t qualify for the best rates.
  • Calabasas, California-based Countrywide Financial Corp, reported that their loan production fell 14% in July and experienced a 33% fall in second quarter profit, impacted adversely by continued weakness in the housing market. Credit Costs also rose in the quarter, as a result of a rise in mortgage loan defaults.

This month we have also seen the demise of Melville, New York’s American Home Mortgage Investment Corp & Atlanta-based HomeBanc Corp.

All of this has the net effect of cleaning up the likes of the predatory lending push that got it’s start in the late 90’s. This helped lead the way for the subprime system breakdown, due to de rigueur high-leverage, low-cost loans that were touted as the newest rendition of the American Dream.

On the same note, the Federal Reserves latest Survey results on domestic credit standards, has a sliver of silver in it.

This is good news out of the doom and gloom. So the actual Silver-lining may be; that the squeeze on mortgage consumers is about ready to plateau.

Next Page →