If you think your local city and county governments and school boards had it tough last year, just wait until 2009. According to a story in yesterday's Orlando Sentinel, tax values in Orange County, Florida are down 10.5% since last year with some segments down significantly more - homesteads 26
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05/29/2009
This is great news for the 50,000+ property owners located in this 3 county area as well as all septic tank owners throughout the State of Florida. The State had originally proposed that all septic systems located in this area be upgraded to the new $15,000+ systems at the time of replacement, h
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05/28/2009
Parts 1 and 2 of this series discussed how banks handle properties up until the foreclosure is completed. Part 3 of this series began the discussion on how banks determine values when pricing their properties and what to look for in finding great deals. The Tricks and Traps of Buying bank owned R
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05/27/2009
The DeSoto County Association of Realtors recently merged their MLS in with the Mid Florida Regional MLS. This is great news for people located in these 2 heartland counties in southwest Florida. It makes it just that much easier for your property to be seen by the 30,000+ Realtors that have ac
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05/24/2009
For the last 7 or 8 years, FHA mortgage loans became a rare breed. Many Realtors and mortgage brokers didn't even know how to handle them. My how times have changed. As a result of this shortage of FHA loans, very few HUD-owned homes showed up on the for sale list. HUD homes are the result of
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05/21/2009
Thanks to the current recession, the Social Security Administration announced last week that their trust fund is even shorter of funds than expected. It will now start running a deficit in the year 2016. That's just 7 short years from now. And it will completely run out of money in the year 20
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05/19/2009
I came across a "revelation" just the other day while negotiating a short sale on one of our foreclosure listings. Why not make banks use this bailout money to hire unemployed people to work in their short sale and loss mitigation departments? That would put unemployed people back to work even
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05/18/2009
In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I discussed how banks handle the initial part of the foreclosure process up to the point that the foreclosure is concluded and the property is secured. You can read more on those articles here: The Tricks and Traps of Buying bank owned REO properties - Part 1 Th
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05/15/2009
The Orlando Regional Realtor Association (r) released their April 2009 real estate market statistics for the metro Orlando area covering Orange County and Seminole County, Florida. The positive trend continues. Just look at those wonderful numbers. Inventory continues to shrink down from month
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05/13/2009
With the prices of stamps going up yet again (44 cents starting today at usps.com), I wanted just share a few ideas to efficiently clean up this dinosaur we call the United State Postal Service. Certainly back in the days of the Pony Express, way prior to automobiles and airplanes, having the fe
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05/11/2009
