Jon's Blog

What's Cooking in Ocean Walk

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:59:17 -0600

Life is always full of challenges, and when there are none, people create them. That seems to be the story of Ocean Walk Resort in Daytona Beach, the most luxurious condo-hotel/time share Wyndham Resort in the area.

Two Towers, south tower completed in 2001, and the North tower in 2004, this is the only condo-hotel (resort) wich is not a conversion, meaning that it was built like that and not converted from older hotel, like all other condo-hotels in the area.

The South Tower has, I believe, 299 units, and 167 or 169 are owned by so called whole owners. The rest are time share units. Wyndham Resorts is relatively new to the property, they took over from Fairfield Resorts. Having both whole owners, like in other are condo-hotels, and time share owners here in the area is unique, and has it problems.

The property has 3 distinct groups of owners:

1. Whole owners

2. Time Share Owners

3. Commercial Owners

On the Board they are presented by 2 Board Members from Whole Owners and 2 from Time Share owners wit the remaining one representing the commercial 5 units (restaurant, catering space, etc.)

Couple of years ago there began a conflict between the Whole owners and Wyndham Resorts. Whole owners felt that they were not represented properly, and that the property was mismanaged. They revolted, and formed their own Board of Directors. Wyndham maintain another board of directors, representing Time Share and Commercial units. The situation could not have been amicably resolved and now both groups got their attorneys involved.

Tomorrow, on Monday the judge will look at the parties the first time. A small issue is at stake. The whole owners object to Commercial units being represented on the Board and have one vote. In reality, it creates a winning situation for Wyndham, as they represent both the time share owners and the commercial space, so they always have a 3 against 2 majority.

And this can change tomorrow, if the judge sides with whole owners. Would be interesting to watch the outcome of this first step in a long legal battle ahead.

Buying a Condo-Hotel in Daytona Beach

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:40:07 -0600

It was Monday November 2. My telephone rang. Showing a Canadian number. The gentleman introduced himself and told me he read my blogs. Could I show them condo-hotel properties?

Of course.

We meet in our office. They pretty much know what they are looking for, but they are open to suggestions. They have a lot of questions, they want to know pros and cons of owning a condo-hotel.

Instead of steering them in one direction (You want condo-hotels? Here's what you should buy), I am trying to make sure this is what they will be happy with in couple of years. I am not the first agent they met. They went to someone else, and most probably met more than one agent. They are not complaining, but I can feel that they are a bit frustrated. They are going to spend money and they want to spend it wisely. The agents tried to sell them without educating them. They want a fair deal, but being from Canada, they are not sure what a good deal is. They need guidance.

There are many sides to owning a condo-hotel. I can't simply say that this one is the ultimate best. It depends. I can't make it simple. And they quickly learn the issues.

There are no ideal condo-hotels in the area. Whether it is physical condition, or rental situation, or a divided Board of Directors (or even worse - a misguided Board), there is always something which is affecting the resort now, or may affect it in the future.
I am human, and I avoid some properties, and sometimes it is more of a gut feeling rather than real numbers or real facts behind. But doing it for years, I have developed this 6th sense, that tells me that with everything else equal, stick to this resort and pass on the other.

Sometimes I can only rely on instincts. I often catch myself on saying things today that are different from what I was saying 5 years ago. A lot of things happened, even those that we could not have imagined happening before.

Until 2004 the question "What would happen if a destructive hurricane comes?" was more from the science fiction. But August 2004 has changed it. Before 2004 I would say that there was unlikely the way that a condo-hotel association could be terminated, but we have seen it in 2005. Are we getting smarter? Maybe simply more experienced...

When I tell people about the potential or existing problems, two things happen. They either say that this is not for them, or they get into it with the understanding of the issues. Both scenarios are OK. The problem with condo-hotel is that people have wrong expectations and do not really know what they are getting into.

Therefore, my goal is to give realistic expectations. Constant questions and answers while we are touring the properties. Condo-hotels one day, residential condos another. After which they say "Thank you. We will let you know if we decide to go ahead with any of the properties".

And this is OK. Because this is their money, and they have all the rights to get scared, to decide to wait, or simply get in the car and go to St, Augustine or Jacksonville. They are buying a vacation property, and it can be where there is warm climate, nice sandy beach, and warm Ocean. Which is anywhere in Florida.

They called me next morning. Could I arrange showing of that unit in Ocean Walk again? And could I bring the draft of the offer with me?

It is a short sale. I called the agent as I always do. It gives me the indication whether my clients would waste time, or have a pretty good chance of closing. Sounds like she knows what she is doing. Yes, she would agree to small things that we wanted.

We looked at the unit again, met with owner's liaison, asked her questions, got the rental agreement, and now we have the offer accepted by the Seller, signed and taken off Active on MLS.

Now it is a waiting game for me and my clients. Meanwhile they are talking to their attorney and their tax man to make sure they are structuring the deal the right way. Don't forget, they are Canadians, and besides FIRPTA, I really can't help them with that. But we have time.

They told me that I helped them understand the issues, and they are thankful for that. And I am thankful that they were able to process all the information I was giving them, and, believe me, there was a lot. I give more than they would have expected. Because my goal is to have happy customers, not just customers.

if you want to call me, here's the number: 386-405-4408. Tell me you read it on Active Rain. And stay warm.

The Milky Way or the Holy Cow of Communism

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:26:58 -0600

Holy cow? No, it is not about India.

It is about 1/6th of the world, where, since I can remember myself, we have been catching up with the Rotten West (that's how they put it in the newspapers).

The Spring came in the 50s with the new leader Nikita Khrushchev. They called it the Spring as the dark years of Stalin's terror were behind, and the nation started breathing, just a little bit, and the first time since the war the chances of surviving the executioners' bullet was becoming a reality. There were still labor camps and political prisons, but a black car stopped coming in the middle of the night and take people away to the place from which there was no return. Actually, people started returning… After 10 or 15 years. Those who survived

But we knew that these were the mistakes, and that as a society we were so much better, than the rest of the World. We were about freedom for the common folks, brotherly love between the people, the society where money were a temporary evil soon to be gone, and we needed just a little bit of luck to beat the West and, finally, outrun it for the shining glory of Communism. And the world would follow us to the Communist future. We were proud to call ourselves communists, from elementary school kids to veterans. We were the home to many nations under one Party, which was taking us to the ultimate glory of life on the Planet Earth.

It was time to catch up with the West and finally outrun it and prove the moral superiority of Communism over the rotten capitalism.

There was a whole national movement - DIP (abbreviation for Догнать и Перегнать - Catch up and Outrun). Industrial machinery, expropriated from the defeated Germany was called DIP. The overwhelming enthusiasm was in the air.

Virgin lands (please do not confuse with Virgin Islands - LOL) were ploughed, new industrial giants were built, new railroads were laid, new grandiose housing projects were initiated, and we were promised that every family would have their own room and not a space in the room with 3 other families, separated by hanging sheets).

We were already producing more steel, more bricks, but because we were surrounded by imperialist forces, waiting for a moment of our weakness to attack us, so they could get our natural resources, and also silence us, so that their own folks would not have who to look to and follow, we had to spend a lot of money for our military. We, of course, were peaceful, but this was because of THEM...

Somehow the road to glory was marred by shortages of meat, eggs, milk, potatoes, tomatoes, wheat, corn and everything else edible. Empty shelves of the stores with rows of canned fish were white and clean and empty. Somehow, the weather always cooperated with imperialists, and there have always been shortages of food to put on the table. Actually, shortages were everywhere, and, of course, they were temporary... but I digress.

Back to cows. They, the cows, also had to catch up and outrun those capitalist cows... in their peculiar cow way... the milky way... The cows did not know that they were destined to become the most productive cows in the world. If a normal well fed cow could produce 3,000 kg of milk a year, the Communist Party great leaders figured that if the cows would be giving 6,000 kg – 10,000 kg a year, there will be no shortage of milk.

The kick was in the Почин (Initiative). This movement started even before the WWII, in 1935, when a miner Alexei Stakhanov set the record jack hammering 227 tons of coal in a shift with the local party organizer standing behind his back providing moral support and encouragement. His portrait even made it to Time magazine. That was his initiative, and that’s how the initiative movement started.

Initiatives were highly praised by the Party Leaders as they were supposedly coming from the people, who wanted to do more and to do better for the country. They quickly became the norm, and they were directed by the Party officials (how come that in this industry there are no initiatives? Come up with something and it better be good).

In agriculture there were plenty of their own initiatives. Like completing sowing the seeds early, so that they have more time to ripe. The initiative took over all other senses, and people were throwing seeds into the snowy land, as the weather this particular year was colder than last, but you could not sow the seeds later than it was last year. It would be a defeat, and there was no such option.

After Khrushchev’s visit to the US, where he was fascinated with corn (there was no corn in Russia), he came back with the solution to food shortage problem. The blissful corn. They planted it from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean and pretty much at the same time. And that imperialist corn boycotted the vast areas of Russia, where they still kept planting it year after year, and the best they could use it for was to feed the cattle. But it was not up to the farmers (collective farms) to decide what and when to plant. If the party said it was good, it was good. Even if it wasn’t.

I remember the anger of Soviet people when they read in the newspapers that in the US they were destroying some crops, but did not give it to people. They were doing it to keep the prices up. We would never have done it. We would have given it to people… if we had what to give. But we didn’t. But morally we were still so much better.

In our understanding those people, that did not get it, should have been hungry … We were looking into the mirror, but we did not see the world behind it…

So they came up with the initiative to make the cows be more productive. The trouble with that was that cows were not responding favorably to the Initiatives. Milkmaids worked hard to get more milk from the cows. There was a ferocious competition between the cows milkmaids to get the best result, and the numbers were growing. 4,000 kg, 5,000kg, 6,000 kg, and even more and way more (and we learned that milk is food, not drink, and that it is measured in kilograms, not liters). Of course, the more milk they were getting, the more water it had. And for every extra kilogram of milk you had to spend 3 times more on food and care.

We were beating you, guys, practically on all counts, you just did not know that. Watch the news and you would hear that we produced more of something, than the US and Belize combined, that we manufactured more tractors, bulldozers, planes, electric bulbs, toothbrushes…. That our cows were the most productive cows in the world, as our chicken…

Our free health care system was undoubtedly the best (and we did not know that our leaders would go abroad for simple surgery), our free education was far superior to everyone else… but we still were a darn poor country…

…Choosing cuts here in the US is a poem for my ears. Tenderloin, picnic, butt, London broil…And steaks: rib eye, porterhouse, T-bone steak, New York strip, sirloin, blade steak….I can go on and on…

In the best of the worlds life was simpler. The choices were meat, or no meat. If meat, 1/3 of its weigh was supposed to be a bone, and they will weigh the meat and then grab and weigh the bone…Our cows were bony, but it was fair and great. Because quite often there was no meat, and no bones… The cows, that made it to the fridges of party and government officials, were meat only, but this was a minor inconvenience.

Of course, we were extremely grateful that the Communist party and the government (The People’s Government) were there for us. We knew that without them we would become an easy prey to Imperialist forces…

All the good was coming from them. The day Stalin died, people cried. The whole nation cried. Because who would save us from the cruel imperialist world now? Government was everything.

Without it we were nothing… Without it there would be no meat and no bones...

P.S. Later, in Brezhnev's era, when we were still not free, but no longer that naive, and did not believe in Hell and in Communism, but were still afraid of Communism (let's call it Communism enforcement) way more than of Hell, there was a joke about the Rotten West.

"Yes, the West is rotten... but smells wonderful..."

* Photos courtesy of Flickr

Comments That Beat the BLogs

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:20:02 -0600

Has it ever happened to you, that you receive a comment to your blog, which makes you feel jealous? It reinforces what you wrote, but does it so much better? Or a commenter comes with a comment, which is better than your blog? Making you feel shallow?

It happens to me. I am blessed with some comments, that make me feel all of the above.

For some timea lready here on AR we have the option to reblog. I think I used it once or twice at most. Often these are sign of laziness by rebloggers (what an awkward word), but often I am grateful to rebloggers as otherwise I would have missed some of the most powerful blogs on AR. The latest example is the post by Janet Guiilbault Economic Cancer: That Sense of "Entitlement" It was originally posted October 23, 2009, and if not for reblogs, I would have missed it.

However, time from time I read comments to the blogs, which are so well thought, written, right on the money, and which could be full-scale blogs and bring more points to the commenter, and it strikes me that we do not have a reblog of a comment feature on AR.

That would be a rare occasion, but these comments worth being re-blogged (re-commented?). So why don't I start this in the way that I can, i.e. write about the comment that I believe should be read by way more people, that are simply commenting on my blog.

Tim Maitski is not a new guy on the block. This Atlanta agent has accumulated over 200,000 AR points, runs a pretty successful Real Estate business. This is pretty much what I know about him. However, time from time I read his blogs or comments, which are not about Real Estate, but about us as a nation (otherwise called political), and he stuns me with his analysis. He says he is not not the average Atlanta Real Estate agent. I am not in that area, and do not have any real estate interests in that area. But he is sure not the average guy in terms of his interests and knowledge.

Lately we are using the word "entitlements "more and more. And here is his comment on my blog post Fixing The Economy. For Better or for Worse?

"Jon, So much of what's going on today was written about back in 1850 by Frederic Bastiat in "The Law"

Here is a quote that is appropriate to what you write about here:

But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law - which may be an isolated case - is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.

The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.

Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it."

Can we say it better today? Are we wiser today? Yes, Tim used a quote. He didnot write it himself. But this quote somehow shows Tim's caliber.

Thank you, Tim

It Is Not Easy To Change

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:29:15 -0600

After immigrating to the US in 1991 and settling in the Bronx (and this is a fascinating story that I will write about some day), we did not make it to Brighton Beach for another couple of years at least.

Brighton Beach, a small place on a southern tip of Brooklyn, became a popular Russian enclave after the wave of immigration in the 70s settled in this place, nicknamed Little Odessa. When we got there, even many signs were in Russian. There were Russian pharmacies, Russian insurance agents, Russian Real Estate agents, Russian stores and everything else Russian. You could hear Russian all around you, and there were a lot of older people who did not need English to live their lives.

And even not Russian speaking people managed to adjust to the changed environment. Mexicans working in Korean owned groceries on all corners learned how to say "Stupid, buy today, or you will pay more tomorrow" in pure Russian with the smile from ear to ear, so conflicting with the rudeness of the phrase...

There was even a joke, that an American stops the car on Brighton Beach to ask for directions, and nobody speaks English, and one Russian guy asked the other Russian guy "So, did his English help him?". When an American walks in a Russian store, where the salespeople spoke no English, you could here when the sales lady calls for a supervisor, who understands English, to come and serve"a foreigner".

One of those famous Russian Stores on Brighton Beach is Золотой Ключик ("Golden Key"). The way the flow of people was organized made you bump into others. I think they did it intentionally in order to create a Russian store atmosphere, where there is a crowd of people shoulder to shoulder...

Where you socialize with those next to you, and you have common dislike against those who are on the other side of the counter, as they have access to goods that you do not have access to (money is not an object here, it is the power to give to one and not give to another). This is a place where you encounter adversity and yell at each other and call other people names... It was so Russian...

The lines in the store were surreal and so weird in America where there are no lines, and no shoulder to shoulder socializing... but it was so Russian, so nostalgic for a lot of people, especially the older ones..

In the Soviet Union, where lines were an integral part of living, your status related to this lines was of tremendous social importance. Party officials did not stay in lines. There was a system of providing goods to them. No lines there. The goods were priced the same, but the value of the ruble there was much higher, as you did not have to bribe to get anything.

The salespeople was another group of people, who had access to goods and distribution. And then there were some important people, who had connections, and who were instrumental in exchanging one goods for another, so that if you had access to meat, you could get clothes in exchange.

And then there were the rest of us. People, whose rubles were pretty worthless. Nobody wanted them.

Actually, there was another group of people, who had a bit of privilege as it pertains to lines - veterans. In the Soviet Union in the 80s, when there were not really that many veterans of the WWII left, they instituted the regulation, that veterans could go to the head of the line, show their veteran's ID and buy without staying in exhausting lines.

The country loved their veterans... in general, but often not up and close. Every time a older guy would be trying to squeeze to the counter through this shoulder to shoulder monolith, the line would be getting adversarialy anxious. Then there would be a nasty exchange, where the veteran, buying a pair of women bra, would get yelled at, and would yell back telling the crowd that he was spilling his blood for these bastards, and now HAS THE RIGHT to buy the bra (cologne, toilet paper, chicken legs, high boots, you name it) without standing in line.

Veterans deserved it. It was the country's Thank you to them, and as little as it was, they cherished the mere fact of their exclusivity.

In 1989-1992 a lot of them came here with the last wave of immigration from the Soviet Union. They did not want to go, but they were tied to their sons and daughters, who decided to look for better life abroad. Life in the US turned out to be better than they expected. After they settled, they figured that they did not need to worry about food and shelter, and free medical help was like in the Soviet Union, but much better, and even those, destined to die there, underwent unheard of before procedures and got their second and third chance in life.

They soon formed the Association of Veterans of WWII (In Russia it is not WWII, it is always the Great Patriotic War, which started June 22nd 1941 and ended May 9, 1945). Somehow eventually they ended up with 2 associations of veterans. The 2 Associations of older people cold not handle their disagreements in a civil manner, and in Russian language media there was a dirty campaign. Each of those associations claimed to be the only true one representing the veterans, and tried to shut the other one...

Puzzled and confused, American media was trying to understand what that all was about, but it make very little sense.I never had Russian radio or Russian TV since we immigrated to the US, and the great fights of my compatriots did not affect our lives. I only once heard the interview with the official of one of those associations.

I remember the journalist asking the old gentleman, what they wanted, and his responses stunned not only the journalist, but myself. They wanted the American Government to acknowledge them as Veterans of WWII. They did not ask for pensions, no. So what did they want?

They wanted the government to issue Veteran IDs, so that those veterans could use them to buy stuff without staying in line.

- Which lines? The journalist could not understand it. The veteran looked at him angrily and repeated the demand.

It did not matter that there were no lines. They wanted to be acknowldged, and the only way they knew were those ID giving the right to buy. No lines? So what? The right, that's what important. Being different from other people was important. They wanted to be IMPORTANT.

The entitlements were so embedded in the brains, that their value survived 11,000 km flight, survived a different life, different reality. They still demanded the Government issued ID even when there was no practical or ethical reason for that.

These people beat the most feared enemy in the history of the world. They beat the Nazi. But they could not beat a small plastic card saying that the bearer of it is an IMPORTANT person. They could not lose the privilege that card was offering... even when there was no privilege any more.

The mighty power of entitlements. It is when not when everyone has a blanket...It is when there is a blanket and yo can pull it your way. And others can't.

* Photo is coutesy of Flickr

Fixing The Economy. For Better or for Worse?

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:13:03 -0600

There is a lot of hype about the extension of the Tax Credit. Some look at it both from a professional point of view, and from a personal perspective as a citizen. I understand that. I wrote about it in Are You Ready to Write a Check for $8,000?

Some are just happy and there is even a notion that all real estate agents gotta be ecstatic about it. Well, not me. And I hope not you.

I am trying to understand how could it happen that we became so narrow minded. We are against wasteful spending, but we are allowing the government to do it at an unprecedented pace. The realities of life are changing, but we are fighting to preserve the status quo by all means. Even borrowing from our own future.

I am afraid the biggest consequence of the way the government is fixing the economy is the one that we are not expecting. And which we are not discussing.

It is the change in our mindsets. In Democrats, Republicans, independents...

A mindset of free people relying on themselves is what makes them entrepreneurial. It is what makes them find the ways to better themselves and the Nation as a result of taking care of themselves.

A mindset of people becoming happy campers if they can get a buck for themselves in the overall destructive and wasteful giveaways is the first step to socialism. Because it is no longer important where we are going, as long as we can pick up some slack on the way.

The road to Socialism does not start when the government proposes another wasteful and politically charged giveaway. It starts when we, The People, become a group of people. When we become happy campers every time we are on the receiving end. When the interest of the Nation becomes the fragmented interest of groups, a blanket that we try to pull our way...

We were angry with banks getting trillions, but we are so pleased with home buyers getting billions... Guys, it is the same waste, different recipients. Since when we start praising the smaller waste as the Good for the nation? It is our nation's check book that is already empty, and we are using our Nation's Credit Card. Bborrowing billions instead of trillions will simply make us bankrupt a day later, but that's where we are heading... and we are happy campers?

It is when we claim that we are to protect the environment, and then decide to rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward, which should have never been built there in the first place. But then we did not know... We can now say that we are wiser today and correct it... but we lack the courage to do the right thing for the future, and instead do a politically correct thing for today. We will rebuild it... As a symbol of what?

If symbols are so important to us as nation, why we can't rebuild theTwin Towers? Eight and a half years later it is still not there, while it took initially 5 years to build them nearly 40 years ago (1966 - 1971). It is not a technology that takes that long, it is our mindset that allowed this to happen.

As people we might have more than we really need. We can survive with smaller homes, cheaper cars... No society in the history of civilization ever had everything, no civilization was demanding to have what they want and get it.

The trouble is when we are ready to sell our souls so that we keep getting it even if this can hurt our future. When we willingly start hurting our future because we want something today, that we can't have, we are losing both.

We are not going to fix our trouble with our grandchildren money, but we will terribly affect their lives.

Don't we care about our grandchildren? Our Future?

The Dogs' Best Friend

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:52:48 -0600

I posted Hottober in Daytona Beach - Florida and it was a teaser for the guys in colder places. When you are shivering, then reading about 80+ Daytona Beach weather and leisurely warm waters of the Atlantic was not a nice reminder from me... Sorry, guys. I simply can't help it.

Tom Braatz from Wisconsin commented on it and here's what he wrote "maybe we should get you to find Lars and I a home in Florida and then would be really a great thing for him to bask in the sun".

First I wanted to send Tom the Buyer Broker Agreement, but then stopped as I did not know who was going to be my client. It is obviously for Lars...

Here's Tom's patriotic dog Lars.

How often we think that dogs are our best friends? Are they? I think this is us, who are their best friends.

Many people call them our babies. But are we the bosses? Or we only think we are?

Of course, they love us dearly... and our hearts melt. They know our weaknesses, and they take us the way we are. Great. But if we are really their Masters, then why do we pick up the poop?

I do not have a dog (yet). My daughter has. So, Bruno (on the left) is not my baby. But he licks me, I am still a relative... who does not pick up the poop

*Photo of Bruno b y Jon Hardison

Hottober in Daytona Beach - Florida

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:44:15 -0500

Hottober in Daytona Beach - Florida.

These are the last days of the most incredible October I can remember. A commentator on local TV station called it Hottober. Daily temperature are either record high, or close to that for at least 3 weeks straight.

Yesterday's high of 89 was a tie with the record temperature in 2005. Water in the ocean is very warm, we are having a second summer, less hot and much more pleasant.

89F may sound hot, but couple degrees less than in August already feel better for us, and we enjoy it.

Right now at 6 PM on Saturday it is 83F and it feels like 88F. It is perfect. I enjoy every minute of it.

How different it feels in the spring and in the fall. When it hits 80 in the spring, it is so hot, and you feel that you are dying without the AC. And in the fall when the temperature suddenly drops to 82F, it feels cool and pleasant, and you turn off the AC and open the windows.

What surprises me is that Daytona Beach is empty when it is the best weather. Back in Russia on the Black Sea they called it a velvet season when school started and kids had to leave. There were fewer people on the beach, which meant that finally you could find where to put your foot.

Because in my native Russia they use centigrade, I do not really compare the temperatures, it is a tricky formula, and I never do it. But it would be interesitng to compare. I got the online conversion table and figured it all out.

So, in Florida average temperature for January is 69.8F. Average July temperature is 84.2F. In Moscow, where I lived last two years before emigrating to US, July average is 64.8F - less than in Florida in January. And Moscow average temperature in January is 18.5F. Sounds cold? Not really. Let me check average temperatures in Vorkuta, the place above the Arctic Circle, where we lived 14 years prior to moving to Moscow. Average July temperature is 53F. Average January is - 5.1. But cold temperatures are 9 - 10 months and annual average is 20F.

Forget about the Arctic. It is warm and green in Florida. It is a velvet season in Daytona Beach now. Come and enjoy Hottober. Are we going to have Hotember?

Welcome Home! Oceanside Inn - Daytona Beach Shores

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:03:07 -0500

Welcome Home!Welcome to Oceanside Inn - Daytona Beach Shores

I had a closing today. One that was traditional and that we now do not have very often. Sitting at the table with the Closing agent and the Buyer felt like a thing from the past. We still did not have the Seller and seller's agent at the table, but this was REO and I did not expect the agent to come.

The unit is direct oceanfront. It is the south east corner, so in addition to all the view directly to the ocean, it also has panoramic vistas south up to New Smyrna Beach. This is the largest studio floor plan in the resort and at 543 sf thee is enough room for my client. This is the only unit on that stack with full standard kitchen. I do not know who the original owner was, as they have put it there initially, instead of small kitchenettes in other units.

The buyer is from Boston. She came here twice and both times stopped in Oceanside Inn to get the feel of the property. Stayed in different units.

After the closing we went to the condo-hotel resort and when we walked into the lobby, she smiled and greeted everyone she saw there at the front desk by name:

"Hi Nick, hi James". And they smiled and greeted her by name. And when I told them that I wanted to introduce the new owner to them, they said: "Welcome Home!"

And it was beautiful.

I love Oceanside Inn - the best condo-hotel resort in Daytona Beach Shores. They can make you feel at home.

P.S. If you are looking for inexpensive oceanfront to call your second home, just drop me a line in the e-mail or call 386-405-4408.

Congressman With Guts. What About The Brains?

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:39:03 -0500

Just heard on TV that Alan Grayson calls himself "Congressman with the guts". No questions, this is a very catching tag line. But if we think about it, I can see rednecks with a lot of guts in every local bar.

What I do not see in abundance in local bars is the mental capacity of a statesman. But I do not see it in Alan Grayson as well.

We are getting to the point where cheap and cheesy get the center stage.

What about "Congressman with the brain" for a change?

Photo is courtesy of Congressman's site. Not copywrite protected.

If you Have What To Say, Say It On YouTube

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:52:58 -0500

We are living at an interesting time. Some very high-ranking representatives of the People find it technically difficult to post the Healthcare Bill on the Internet for people to read. I would not have a problem with that if I were them. An over a thousand page bill is too long even for them to read, and they paid staff for that, so why be worrying about folks who would still not have time to read it, and then check all the references made in the bill, and then have time to understand the immediate changes and how they will affect us, and then the long term effects and how they will change our lives.

I do not know about you, I feel it as an attempt to silence us. Let THEM decide for us. THEY know better. But it does not work today. While some cann't figure how to post text on the Internet in 2009 and for whatever reason are saying that it will take a long time to scan, while nobody need to scan anything, it is in text form on someone's computer, the others simply getting the exposure using new media, like YouTube. So, if THEY want us to trust THEM, why not? Let's watch THEM and listen to THEM on YouTube.

We sure need to know who are US and who're THEM when the time for elections come.

Watch Senator Mike Johanns' (R) Nebraska address on YouTube.

Internet Is A Lousy Agent...

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:48:25 -0500

We all know that Real Estate is local. We all know that it is one thing in California and it is another thing in Florida.

The 3,000 SF villa for $200K is not an indication of a good or bad price. It would be different if it is in Hawaii, or in Alabama.

Our office is in a mid-rise oceanfront condo-hotel, and I remember a couple walking in after seeing the marquee sign. They were laughing. They told us that we are having the sign all wrong, and there was something missing. So, i walked outside and read it: "Condo studios from $32K". Everything was OK. Come back tell them it is OK. There is a burst of laughter. Then they tel us that the sign says "from $32K. You missed a zero".

No, we didn't. It is $32K, no zeros missing. Their jaws dropped. Silence. "What do you mean?" We did not mean anything.

Turns out they just flew in from California, and in California, according to them, a place on the Ocean, even a small one would be the same... with a zero. No, not in Daytona Beach.

I spoke once to the guy who bought 7 condo-hotel units for $50K each, paid cash. He kept saying it would have cost him all the money spent to buy only one in California. that would have been such a deal... i California. But it was not a great deal in Daytona Beach. And he eventually lost all his units.

I received a call from a past client. She is looking for multi-family units. She is from California, and they have a rental there, but they are looking for the best deal. They are smart people, they know how to use the Internet. They do not like our deals, as they do not want to pay $35K-$40K a door. They are finding much better deals around the country. So, what are they finding? Or, two fourplex building and they are getting them for $8K a door. Isn't that's a deal?

I do not know. It is in Texas, and I am not sure that $8K in that location is any better than $35k in Daytona Beach. I just do not now that. Do they work with the agent? Yeah, they deal with the Listing agent and he told them this is a deal of the century. They would need to put some money to update it, but then you get tired shoveling the money. They will give one tenant a break and he will be their eyes and ears... They figured everything.

Now, a year later I asked how it is going with their killer property in Texas... and they do not look happy. They spent some money, and then their eyes and ears rented it all to a bunch of crakheads, and they destroye the property, and the landlords could not get them out, needed to flfy there... they finally w alked away. So much about the great deal for $8K a door.

When people call me to brag what they just found on the Internet, and are asking my opinion, I am not trying to reason with them. I simply say that I am a complete idiot regarding any real estate values besides my narrow beachside, which is not the county, and not even the area. It is just a 300 - 600-yard wide strip of land along the ocean. That's where I have some experience and where I have the 6th sense.

I simply ask them to call me in a year and tell me how happy they are. Guess I still have to wait for the call.

Cause Real Estate is local, dude! And Internet is a lousy agent...

Show Me Crazy Money? Oops...

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:30:51 -0500

Calvin Woodward's article in USA Today FACT CHECK: Health insurer profits not so fat published 10/25/2009 caught me napping. Even knowing that there is a lot of lies about the whole Health Care debacle, I did not expect relatively simple and verifiable fact be ... not even distorted but, just flat lie.

"In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making "immoral" and "obscene" returns while "the bodies pile up."

And do you remember these:

_"I'm very pleased that (Democratic leaders) will be talking, too, about the immoral profits being made by the insurance industry and how those profits have increased in the Bush years." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who also welcomed the attention being drawn to insurers' "obscene profits."

_"Keeping the status quo may be what the insurance industry wants their premiums have more than doubled in the last decade and their profits have skyrocketed." Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, member of the Democratic leadership.

_"Health insurance companies are willing to let the bodies pile up as long as their profits are safe." A MoveOn.org ad.

Read it. I think the danger here is that by this rhetoric by the President and his entourage, they successfully discredited what the insurance industry can say on the subject.

Oh, sure, who would listen to them as they are for the money. Yeah, right... The government is also for the money, and the difference is that insurance has to make money to stay in business, and the government does not have such obligation.

They have us for that, they have our children to foot the today's bills and they have our grandchildren to pay tomorrow bills, meanwhile they will borrow again and then what... loan modification with China?

A Tale of The Past. A Visitor From the Other World

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:09:38 -0500

I heard this story from my relatives, who lived in Riga, Latvia. It was in the 70s, when there was a warmer political climate between the Soviet Union and United States, when Nixon visited Moscow, and when the word American was not associated with locating the closest bomb shelter...

We felt that we were two great nations, with the only difference that American government was a disaster, but people were friendly and only needed a chance to become free... We knew that one day we would come and free them and the rest of the world, and the song about it was a very popular one...

In Riga there is a huge manufacturing enterprise, the largest of its kind in the Soviet Union, with tens of thousand employees. They were manufacturing a lot of electronic goods for other industries, and for consumers they were making those battery operated radios "Spidola", a dream of all of us.

Somehow it became known that a prominent American Union high ranking official, whose family came from Latvia, wanted to visit Latvia. At that time the arrival of American was a bigger event that arrival of ET, or somebody from Saturn. But because he was a Union guy, and Unions were everywhere in the Soviet Union, and 100% of employed (and there was not private employment in the Soviet Union at that time) were members of the Unions, the idea of arranging a meeting with a Union official from USA came to someone, and was approved by.. you know.

They were speaking the same language: labor force, workers, unions, working conditions, etc. This was a great way to show the guest how strong, tens of thousand strong the unions are in the Soviet Union. Union members could have a chance to support the struggle of Unions in the darn capitalist America, where people had to really fight for their rights.

They had the meeting in the huge main concert hall of their Palace of Culture. It was packed. People have never seen a live American and there were way more people who wanted to be there then the hall could handle. The local Union boss has introduced the guest, explained about the constant fight for the better working conditions and better life of workers, and then gave the microphone to the guest. there was no language barrier, the guest spoke fluent Latvian, and they all listened.

Pretty soon he figured that he audience was confused, so he stopped and in usual American manner asked whether someone had a question. And they had, and one guy got to the mike and asked where the guest lived.

Surprised by the question, the guest explained that he lived in his house in New Jersey. And yes, he has a car. And the workers have cars, what's the big deal? And they also live in houses with a bit of land if they choose to, and why on earht would they want to be planting potatoes there?

- The workers have houses? They do not plant potatoes? They have cars? All of them?

-Mister, if the workers have all that, what are they fighting for?

It was a fiasco. For Latvian worker this was a description of communism. Everyone would have what they want. What more could one even be wanting? Having a home, a piece of land where you could grow some veggies, and owning a car was more than a dream. Even party officials, they had a government car with a driver, but they did not own a car.

They were saying the same words and these words described two different worlds. The worlds that were light years apart..

How often do we hear the words, and think that we know what they mean in another world? Do we understand that freedom is the most popular word in Iran and in North Korea as opposed to American oppression of their own people, and Chavez and Castro cherish a different brand of democracy?

A Train To Somewhere

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:16:09 -0500

I read a blog by James Wells Our country is broke (in more ways than one), so how do we fix it?

I find this train of thought frustrating. It creates a false idea that we can manipulate the society to be better just because we want and when we want, that we can shift the priorities, and do some tweaking to make it better. The problem is that the minute we know what the People should do to fix a system, which so far proved the best working social system in the history of the world, it is not going to make it better, but it has a potential to destroy what we have.

When I was 15-16 and wanted to change the world, I was a staunch supporter of quick fixes, and at that timid age I thought I knew what to do. I wrote to my genius older brother. Instead of coming back to me with a critique that I expected from him, he told me a story to illustrate something that I was missing.

My brother asked me if I knew that the last car on a train was the most unstable and the faster the speed, the bumpier the ride. I sure knew it very well. So, let's cut off the 15th car, the last, the bad car... Now the ride in the 14th is crap. So, let's cut off the 14th car... Eventually all you have is a locomotive, which... what a surprise... is even less comfortable than the last car, but there is nothing else to cut.

Virtues and vices are going together. You can be conscientious about it, you can mitigate the affects of it, but you can't just cut it off. You can't make life good and fair by a decree at the moment you feel like that. If you have an advanced stage of diabetes, and you lose a limb, you do not lose diabetes.

When Bolsheviks (literally translation is "the majority") usurped power in Russia in 1917, their ideologue Vladimir Lenin basically stated that capitalism has its virtues (which we all know), and also has vice. And they were appalling. So, the idea was to keep the good part of capitalism, but to surgically remove the bad. And, because it takes long to educate masses so that they appreciate and want the changes, it is OK to do it forcefully at the beginning, to expedite the changes which will bring good life much faster than in the normal course of History. Like in surgery, pain preceeds the recovery.

Isn't that a great idea, that is still warming up so many even in the United States?

Dualism is in declaring that democracy is the virtue but capitalism is not. Guys, there is no democracy where there is no capitalism. Can we all understand this? And democracy may be a terrible thing, it is just that there is nothing better, and the World has tried many. Democracy is when people are free, and free people are only in a developed capitalist society.

The moral of the story is: Things that look simple are rarely simple. Social systems are complex systems and changing something even with t he best intentions can have disastrous results. Attempts to expedite history, or make short cuts with civilization have ALWAYS proven disastrous.

And yet we still have a line of not even "know-what-to-do-crowd", but "know-how-to-change-the-system" crowd.

The last time I remember seeing one, who I liked, was a little boy, who asked his dad why he could not just take money from the bank so that the family had enough. Really, why not? How it is different from "know-how-to-change" everything crowd wants?

Before Active Rain... and Now. And Who Said There Was Life Before Active Rain?

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:44:18 -0500

Some people claim that there was life before Internet. Interesting. May be these are the same people who claim that there is life on Mars?

Some people even claim they can remember life before AR. Wow, do people live that long? So, how was life before AR?

The legend has it that real estate professionals for the most part had decent life, believe it or not. They were going to offices, conventions, meetings, took classes, believed in NAR and did not trust the banks... The most devoted would even go to the libraries to find answers to today's questions in yesterday's textbooks...

And then came the disease similar to influenza. This viral strain was first observed in 2005 or 2006. CDC failed to notice this stealth epidemic. It was striking only those, who were in Real Estate and related industries and by now has affected 162,562 people, or over 12% of all Realtors in the nation. The disease hit all 48 lower states, hit Alaska and Hawaii, has spread to Canada, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands.

Why some are affected and others are not is not yet clear, but doctors think there is no reason to be concerned. The disease affects only the brain, so there is no immediate danger for the industry.

It is not easy to identify those affected. At first glance they look and behave normal... until in the evening after dinner...when they get to the computer and they write, and write, and write...

Some occasonally read, but it does not occur very often. There are signs of illegal drug abuse (Before Active Rain and Now: My Business is on Steroids), religious beliefs of their own (A Lonely, Stupid REALTOR is Transformed - BEFORE ActiveRain and NOW), and acts dangerous in their desperation (Life Before Active Rain - And Now - I Left My Lovers For Active Rain).

Their trust in NAR has not really dissipated but has shortened ... and now it is not NAR, it is AR.

They self-police, self-control, and, probably, self-destruct. Left untreated the disease becomes chronic. Treating is a challenge. It is contagious, patients become very agitated, and claim that there is no cure.

The signs of the disease are:

1. patients do not go to bed with their spouses, and come hours later.

2. It is possible that some do not go to bed, period.

3. They call it "work" even if they have not sold a condo or a home in two years,

4. They pray that if they keep "working", it will come

5. They believe that more SEO means less bad cholesterol.

6. Their food of choice is organic poultry (RealBird)

7. Their drink of choice is Google juice (preferably, organic)

8. They acknowledge that they are only 10-12% of all Realtors, (they may be realistic at times);

9. They have chutzpah to believe that they can do 90% of the business (delusional)

10, They are trying to spread the disease (Virtual STD)

A careful observer some time may notice the signs of remission. When they turn to religion or politics, they become normal people. They yell and scream at each other and call each other names. But these periods are short.

They claim that their business is more efficient, their sexual social life is more fulfilling. They are the bunch of people who see the light at the end of the tunnel, which has not yet been built.

Yeah, they are a bunch of incurable optimists.

They are AR. No, better this way: "They AR us"

Now

28 Blue Jeans... For A Lesson

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:12:09 -0500

We are getting very close to Closing of this Ormond Beach 2,000sf+ home. After losing a buyer, after going back and forth with contracts, after all that we are soon to close on it (keeping my fingers crossed).

This is a relatively rare case where we are the listing agents. Not because we suddenly ventured into taking listings, this came as a referral from attorney Richard Zaretsky. The Seller was his client, but they needed a real estate licensee to get them the Buyer, and Richard referred them to us, as we worked with him on a few transactions, and maybe because he did not work with anyone else in Daytona Beach area (Thank you, Richard).

I got a call from the agent working with the Buyer. The Buyers wanted to look at the home again. The home is occupied by a tenant, who are very cooperative, and who are genuinely nice people. So, we set the time, no problem. She will take the kids to soccer training, and we can show the house.

Their agent is out of the country, and, obviously, he can't show them the house. He, however, is happy that we agree to do it. Not a problem. The showing is at 6 PM, and I go with my wife Olga, so that we can go home after the showing.

We have not met the Buyers yet. Though we are working with the Seller, their agent asked me to talk to them and explain the final phase of short sale, as they are concerned with it. Being a transaction broker comes handy (LOL).

The Buyers came on time, parked the car, a short introduction, and we go inside. They already know that relying on memory only is treacherous, so this time they have a small digital camera and are taking photos. They finally figured how many bathrooms are in the house, and how exactly the bedrooms are laid out, and many other details.

While I am accompanying Kevin, who is tirelessly checking every corner of the house, demonstrating pretty good knowledge of construction and remodeling, the women sat on a sofa. When we were done and they were already leaving, Pam turned to my wife and said: "Don't forget to tell your husband about blue jeans"

What about blue jeans?

Turned out Pam, like, Olga used to be, is a teacher. She quickly figured that Olga was Russian, and here came the story:

In 1978 Pam was a young teacher. Her class of high school seniors decided to go on a cruise. She contacted the travel agent, and they came with two options:

1. for $xxx they could go on a 3-day Carnival cruise or

2. for the same $xxx they could go on a 7-day cruise in Western Caribbean. Not the nicest ship though, but 7 days.

It was easy. Even then money was an object (LOL). There were two ships of that company going from New Orleans - Odessa and Kazakhstan, both under the USSR flag. Wow, how interesting. So, they went on a week-long cruise on a Soviet ship and with a Soviet crew. And for 28 free-minded American teenagers that was the experience of their lives.

They quickly noticed that everyone was serious. Armed guards, who were there not to control passengers, but to keep an eye on the crew. In the ports only 4 members of the crew would be allowed to leave the ship to avoid mass defection. This was not a huge super cruise liner of today (it was built in England in 1974), but still there were at least a few hundred crew members. Only 4 at a time.

The level of control and the lack of freedom stunned young Americans. They suddenly could see with their own eyes the way people were treated, and they were not ready for that. They initiated conversations with the waiters, cleaners, other crew members. It was hard for them to understand that not only these people did not feel humiliated, on the contrary, they felt lucky to be able to have a chance to work abroad, and they were afraid of losing this privilege.

Why were they trying to work there?

Oh, they still had a chance to buy things that were not there back home.

Like what?

Like blue jeans.

Blue jeans????? What's the big deal?

You just do not get it...

When the ship returned to New Orleans, 28 American teenagers left the cruise ship more mature. They left it with a different perspective on life, with different outlook on freedom... not on the paper, not in the textbooks... The only thing that was missing... were the blue jeans. 28 blue jeans that they left in their rooms for the crew

A small price for a lesson

P.S. What a twist to a showing, oh my...

Ocean Walk Resort - Daytona Beach Flagship Condo-Hotel

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:50:48 -0500

Ocean Walk Resort, a part of a billion-dollar Ocean Village complex, consists of a 2-towers. 19-story South Tower was built in 2001. This was the first real project in Daytona Beach on the Beachside in many-many years. George Anderson and his partner really broke the ice. At that time, when Daytona real estate and overall economy were stagnant at best, this was an extraordinary visionary project.

North Tower - 25 story high- followed in 2004. Wyndham Ocean Walk Resort offers 711 spacious suites and timeshare units. Guests of the resorts enjoy outdoor heated pool with waterfall, a computerized golf simulator and the island putting green surrounded by a 250-foot "Lazy River." The full service Vacation Therapy Spa pampers guests with luxurious manicures, pedicures, facials and massages.

Wyndham Ocean Walk Resort combines hotel luxury with condo amenities. The resort's spacious one-, two- and three- bedroom condominiums are beautifully furnished in a contemporary style. The award-winning Wyndham Ocean Walk offers Art Deco styling and South Beach flare.

Check the prices for all units presently for sale in the resort. 12 units for sale.

Address	Unit #	Built	Bdr	Baths	Size	Price
300 N Atlantic Ave	1005	2001	1	1	675	$171,999
300 N Atlantic Ave	1808	2001	1	1	758	$175,000
300 N Atlantic Ave	809	2001	1	1	751	$219,500
300 N Atlantic Ave	1708	2001	1	1	751	$225,000
350 N Atlantic Ave	2120	2004	2	2	1260	$275,000
300 N Atlantic Ave	1909	2001	1	1	683	$289,000
300 N Atlantic Ave	1701	2001	2	2	1334	$330,000
350 N Atlantic Ave	2425	2004	2	2	1463	$399,000
350 N Atlantic Ave	2323	2004	2	2	1463	$425,000
350 N Atlantic Ave	2332	2004	2	2	1492	$449,000
350 N Atlantic Ave	2021	2004	2	2	1454	$525,000
350 N Atlantic Ave	2421	2004	2	2	1597	$549,000

I checked my blog about Ocean Walk dated August last year. There were 26 condo-hotel units starting from $240K for a one-bedroom unit to $710K for a 2 bdr/2 baths Look at the difference. Price is down more than 30% and the same time the inventory is less than half.

And look at SOLDS from August last year until today. 10 units sold (3 more than a year prior), and the sold prices were from $160K for a one-bedroom to $390K for a 2 bdr/ 2 bath units.

Is it the sign that we are at the bottom and with inventory shrinking the prices will start going up?

I think so, do you?

BTW, if you do, my phone number is 386-405-4408. What I wrote here is not all about Ocean Walk Resort, but rather a tip of the iceberg

My First First Time Buyer. One And Only

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:59:16 -0500

While I read about first time buyer incentive on AR all the time, I did not have that happening to us. There is a reason for that. We are in a resort market, working primarily on the beachside, and dealing with condo-hotels or beachside condos. They are not primary residences, and the question of First Time Buyer benefit was mute.

And then I received a call from Lev Levitan, a mortgage broker from Palm Coast, our neighbor city to the North. "Can you find something inexpensive for my client in Port Orange?" Of course. I got the number, called and had a conversation with a buyer, a real first time buyer. She wanted a condo or townhome, or a house in Port Orange, FL, and she could not go over $100K. Financing was a challenge, we had to arrange that Seller would agree to pay up to 6% of the closing costs, and even with that the money was very tight.

But she had a workable (awful word, but you know what I mean) score, and a decent full time employment. And she is full of life, and ecstatic about getting the place of her own.

We checked the available listings in the area. Finding properties under $100K though possible, is challenging. Anthea was not in love with anything she saw. We also had to be careful with condos, as though you could get the right price, the condo fee would be a problem when financing. She asked me about Oak Meadow Townhomes. A very good place for a starter but it is not in Port Orange. So what?

Real Estate 101. You gotta look beyond the specified location or municipality.

There were several listing there, and we looked at 5 of them. Favorites are a 2/2 townhome for $99,900 and a 3/2 for $119,900. The main reasons were the price and condition. After coming back there to show the unit to her brother, she finally decided on the one for $99,900. We negotiated the price and ended up with $92,500 with the Seller's contribution of up to 6% towards closing costs.

Financing was nerve recking process. With the changes in policy, we had 3 rejections. Lev Levitan from EQ Financial kept assuring me that he would get it financed, and after a couple of rejections I did not feel confident. We had to extend the contract, and the seller was very concerned. I feared that we would not be able to get another extension, we were getting dangerously close to the expiration of the contract, and then Lev called and said we were closing on time. What a relief.

We get to closing, and a had a combustible mix of people at the table with such great sense of humor, that bursts of laughter were coming one after another. I was very impressed at how John Pyle from Equity Title was still able to keep his cool, and did not miss a signature, and everything was done. That was that rare closing, which was absolute fun for everybody. Lev Levitan came from Palm Coast to a closing and stole my job off explaining to Anthea the Settlement Statement, but I was OK with it. I very rarely see mortgage brokers coming to closings, and it always impresses me and the Buyer. Anthea was all smiles and happiness. With a steady job and still workable credit score, she did not expect it to be difficult, and was surprised that it was anything but easy, and involved help from her mom.

But that's all done. And yesterday we went to a party to Anthea's new place, a two level townhome with 1,321 sf and a large terrace overlooking the green buffer. Quiet community conveniently located on a very quiet street between two main roads. It is not a posh community with all imaginable amenities, no. But with $50 monthly maintenance, it is a very good starter home for Anthea, who is planning on going for her Master's very soon.

On these photos you see the community, Anthea with Lev Levitan, her mom, her guests. We are wishing her the best. I am sure this is money well spent, and $8K was a great help.

Good luck, Anthea

Aiming High...

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:52:39 -0500

This post is inspired by Gary Wotal, who wrote "If you can think it in your head, you can accomplish it." I usually do not like positive posts, because they are often simplistic. No, it is not enough just to want, even if you want it very strongly, not enough to make yourself believe that you can do something...but on the other hand, if you do not learn to want and set your eyes on something that is difficult to achieve, you will not achieve it. The goal is a direction, and usually with way more steps than one. And to hit the target, that is far, you have to aim high (actually it was said by Gary Keller).

I read Gary's post, and obliging memory brought to the surface the story of our dear friends from the years in the Arctic.

They left for Israel a year before we left for US. There were 4 of them going: our friends Yuri & Julia, who were in their mid 50s, Julia's mom, and their younger son, who was still of school age.

They got to Israel, and while Israel was eager to accommodate all of them, there was a shock that every immigration stumbles upon. It is a multi-faceted problem with a huge number of people who suddenly became nobody. They were uprooted in one place and get into another with no roots there, with no language skills, no marketable skills (as there are hardly any marketable skills without the command of the language)... In a heartbeat parents changed from people who know everything to people who know nothing. Children were learning both the language and life much faster... People were not prepared to that metamorphose.

Our friends are very rational people, with great sense of reason, equal only to their great sense of humor. So, one evening they sat at a table and had a rational discussion.

The question was of biblical importance. What to do? Yury and Julia could get on the welfare trail and skip from one program to another, as so many others did. In Israel if you are 'old' enough, you could survive on the subsidy, but no fat. No luxuries like cars, etc. The other option... what was another option? Well, Yury did not know Hebrew, so expecting him to make a brilliant career in Israel at 55 or 56 was overly optimistic. In Russia he was an electric engineer and worked as a chief electrical engineer at a huge coal mine. Not something needed in Israel.

So, the only other option was ... to have his own company, and offer some of the practical applications of his research done before he moved to the Arctic. Of course, he was a very smart man, but still, tell me how many people would seriously consider shooting for a company, when they couldn't say two words so that anyone understand them?

His son, who was 15 at that time, told me that great story, as they sat at the table, and were talking about it, and decided ... that Yury would have his own company. It was obvious that there was nothing that they could do to make it happen, No money, no language skills, no experience, nothing... But they aimed high. And kept it in their head. And then there were incubators, similar to US, where you get some grant, and opportunity to do something, and Yasha, Yury;s son was an interpreter and a promoter at his anything but timid 16. Then there was a proposal of a machine, that could be useful in automotive, and other fields, then there was a group of Israeli engineers-investors, who poured money in to the enterprise, where Yury was a minor owner, and the chief engineer, and then they finally sold the first machine (I think it would be more appropriate to call it electro-magnetinc press) in the United States, and Yury came to US to help set it up and train personnel to operate, and it was at Ford Motor Company, then there was a machine made for Japanese automakers, then Yury was invited to US for a symposium and he made a speech in English (he is an extremely brave man)...

It was never easy, the company was always barely surviving... but it lasted nearly 20 years. Yury never became rich from it, but all these years he was a chief engineer, and had a company car, and had a place to go and do what he liked to do, and what he knew, and knew better than anybody else there.

What Yasha stressed is that it was not a chain of wonderful events that just happened to his father, who is one of very few people who made it like him. He does not have any magic. He still stumbles with his Hebrew. And though so many say it was luck, it really was anything but luck. Luck does not fall upon us, unless it is a multi-million dollar lottery jackpot. Here it was not luck. It was the goal set at an empty table in a empty room. And then everything was towards this goal, in steps so little each time, that it was difficult to see the goal, but each of these steps not only brought them closer to the goal, but opened new horizons, and new perspectives.

In retrospect, luck is simply a fair reward for doing everything to achieve your goals.

P.S. Yury has trouble hearing, so I usually talk to Yasha. Last time I asked him about Yury, and he laughed. What happened?

- Oh, nothing, Yury is working on a new start-up company...

A Tale Of The Past. My English Teacher

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:13:40 -0500

Associations have their own peculiar way. A smell, a sudden resemblance, a voice, a passage in the book bring memories of long forgotten things or events, and now they are on the foreground, pronounced and clear like decades ago...

I just posted a difficult post. God, Where Were You in The Time of Holocaust? - I Was In Your Heart... How many times have I asked that question? How many times the mere existence of God was unthinkable because of Holocaust...

I was a post war child, oblivious to the magic of all the stars lining up for me to have the chance to be in this world, the chance that many others did not get... For us it was normal that there were few men in the families, and living in a fatherless household was more of a norm. I did not know better... But I was the lucky one, I got my chance to breathe, to play, to laugh, to cry... So many didn't.

Of all men born in the Soviet Union in 1924 only 4 out of 100 were still alive on May 9, 1945, the great victory day, a joyful day with tears in the eyes, as in a popular Russian song. Mostly wounded and crippled… 1924 was the first year drafted after the war broke up. They were 17-18, poorly trained... and only 4 out of 100 made it. 96 of every 100 were the fathers of those millions unborn kids, who did not sit with me at the desk in the classroom, and who did not pass me a ball on a soccer field...

It was difficult to live through writing the blog. It is like reliving the lives of others, and feeling a pinch of their pain, though just a miniscule pinch, an echo of the faded yesterday. Or before yesterday.

As I was writing about Irena, another Irena came to mind. Her correct name is Irina, like Irena, just a Russian variant. Irina Semyonovna Mishanina, my English teacher. A typical Russian last name, and typical Russian middle name, but hey, we were in the middle of Russia...

I was an inquisitive 5th grader, and she was fresh out of our local University. She was everything you would want in a teacher. Fair, passionate, very involved, genuinely interested in us, a bunch of unruly bastards most of the time. I loved her lessons, she brought the best out of me and others, and it was fabulous. Of the dreadful school years, I remember her as the brightest star.

Anyway, she was my teacher, she knew my mom as a parent, met her a couple of times, exchanged a few words, hardly more. My mom was a chief child psychiatrist in the region, had to fly on emergencies, and we had a luxury of having a telephone. One day in winter it rang. My teacher called my mom, and shortly after walked in crying, all in tears. I was terrified. If I made her cry like that, a lot of leather could follow...

But it was not about me. My teacher was crying and my mom was hugging her... and she was smiling... What the heck?

My teacher was getting married. Her parents lived an hour drive by a bus in a small town nearby. She went to visit them and make some arrangements with the wedding, and they asked her to sit and listen to what they had to say. They kept it secret from her for many years, but now that she was going to start her own family, they broke the silence.

She was not their daughter.

… It was 1941. Nazi occupied a small provincial town where they lived. And one Sunday morning they saw a column of Jews escorted by the Nazi. Families, old and young, men and women, children of all ages, they were taken to the outskirts to a ravine, from where they could hear the echo of machine gun fire...

As many other residents they walked outside and lined the street and sadly watched this slowly moving procession. A young woman with a little girl in her arms looked at them in desperation and caught something in their eyes, something that gave her a glimpse of hope, and she chose a moment when the guard did not see her, and pushed the girl aside... and they grabbed her, and were overwhelmed… and horrified. It was a death sentence. They could easily end up in the same ravine, the punishment for saving or hiding a Jew was death, and it was posted on all electric poles and on the doors of houses.

They did not know who the mother was, nothing... just that name was Irina, that’s all the girl could tell them. They left the town and went to the place where nobody would question them about the child, as they were afraid to stay and be given up by somebody for a bottle of vodka. In a small town everybody knows everybody, and it was not easy to explain the appearance of a child especially when the child had dark eyes and black hair.

They did for Irina what they would have done for their own children... if they had them... and they hadn't. They loved her, they brought her up, they worked hard to give her the chance to study, and they were proud of her. She was not their daughter, but she became one. And she loved them dearly. If they knew that she was not their biological daughter, she did not have a clue. And the news came so unexpectedly, she was so unprepared...

She returned to Saransk, but she needed someone to confide in, and to be comforted. There were quite few Jews in Saransk, and the only one she knew were me and my mom. That evening there was a knot tied between my mom and my teacher. They were not close, but kept in touch all these years and way beyond my stay in school. My teacher had a good family, she lived not far from my mom, and while I was in the Arctic, they were seeing each other time from time, and kept that... not friendship, really, just some connection.

I saw her last time 20 years after graduation, in 1988, at my mom's funeral.

Now, after the tribute to Irena Sendler, I understand and accept that God was in Irina Russian parents' hearts as well.

God, Where Were You in The Time of Holocaust? - I Was In Your Heart...

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:14:00 -0500

A few days ago we got the news that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. A very good man, a client, and a dear friend of ours Bruce Watson sent me an e-mail reminding me about last year Nobel Peace Prize.

Al Gore won it. The runner up was Irena Sendler. She did not win the prize, she did not have the name recognition and she did not have a slide show like our former VP.

But who deserves recognition more than Irena Sendler? Not for what she might do, or not for how she presents herself, as she does not shine in this department, but for what she HAS ACTUALLY DONE. risking her life, and nearly losing it...

Irena Sendler was a member of Zegota, the Polish rescue organization, who risked their lives rescuing 2,500 Jewish Children from the Warsaw Ghetto and hiding them with Christian families. She buried jars with their real and assumed names in the garden, so that they could one day learn who their biological families were.

It was very risky, they had to sedate smaller children. Bigger kids were often rescued in highly timed operations, when the kid would be waiting for the guard to reach certain point, then rush to the middle of the road to the sewage well, and the cover would open for short seconds to let the kid in. You are late seconds, you dead.

Irena was not doing it alone. She assembled a group of women helping her. And this was in Poland, the only country where not only people, helping Jews, but even their neighbors were to be punished.

Irena was finally caught by Nazi in 1943, was tortured but did not give up those who worked with her, nor the lists of kids she hid in the garden. Think about that, a small young woman was stronger than the executioners. They broke her feet, legs, arms, beaten her severely... She lost the consciousness, but she did not betrayed. Her friends bribed the guards, they put her name in the list of executed and got her out.

She tried to unite kids with their parents, but few parents were left there. They were gassed. Children were adopted by Polish families, many went to Israel, which has Irena's name in Yad Vashem

She died quietly in May 12, 2008 in Warsaw at the age of 98. Watch the video. Read the subtitles if you do not understand Polish. The words are so powerful...

Now she went to God. And she’ll ask God: God, where were you in the time of Holocaust?” And God will answer her: “I was in your heart.”

I do not understand Polish well, just some spots. But when he said "God, where were you..." I understood every word, it sounded like in Russian, and the words scarred me right across my heart...

So, do we know who the runner up was this year? Maybe someone who actually did something?

Image is courtesy of Flickr

Wanna Keep Your Wife? Beware...

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:39:06 -0500

There is an old anecdote. It is a Russian anecdote, and in Russia very old anecdotes are called 'Anecdote with a beard'.

So this one is with a beard. Here it goes:

A guy who worked all his life making machine guns for the military moved to a different area, and is looking for a job. He finds one in a shop assembling the cribs.

At the end of his first day a foreman comes to him and asks him how it went. Frustrated guy turns to him and complains - "No matter how I try, every time I end up with a machine gun". And he showed the foreman a bunch of machine guns, that he put together.

The moral of the story is simple and self evident. I see similar things with short sales/foreclosures/loan mitigation/bankruptcies. Every time I hear people go to the bankruptcy attorney for advice, they end up with declaring bankruptcies. Sometimes it is so frustrating.

I know the situation, and people could benefit from doing a short sale, but they would rather die than trust me over the attorney, and most probably end up doing stupid things. I even suggested to people I know that I would go with them to the consultation, but they just trust the attorneys.

Well, they are so darn smart ... and they have an attorney. Don;t we suggest that they do just that, consult an attorney?

If you love your wife, do not go to a family lawyer for any real estate advice, as you would end up in divorce.

... Cause that's what they do, assemble machine guns instead of cribs...

Towers Nine Condominiums in Ponce Inlet - Florida

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:58:21 -0500

Towers Nine Condominiums in Ponce Inlet - Florida

Presenting you Towers Nine in beautiful and quaint Ponce Inlet. This direct oceanfront condominium building with 50 Two-bedroom / Two baths and Three-bedroom / Three baths condo units.

This is the last Towers condo in the series of 9 seven-story oceanfront buildings that were erected by DiMucci Companies in Ponce Inlet from 1991 (Towers One) and Towers Nine in 2000.

Currently there are 6 condo units for sale in Towers Nine. Lowest priced 2/2 is $499,900 and lowest 3/3 is $499,000. Paradoxes of the market where you can buy a 3 bdr/3 baths condo for $900 less than a 2 bdr/ 2 bath.

There are 42 condos currently for sale in all of Towers in Ponce Inlet starting from $219K in Towers Five for a 2/2, and a 3/3 in the same Towers Five for $369,900 and all the way to a 5 bdr/4 baths 4,009 SF penthouse for $1.8 Mil. The highest priced 2/2 is in Towers Nine and is priced at $597K, and the highest priced 3/3 is in Towers Eight and it is for sale at $824,900.

Below is the table showing you what units in Towers Nine were selling for. The last sales were in 2007, so they are not representative of the prices today, but I still thought you would be interested in seeing it.

Unit#	Towers Nine	Bedr	Bath	Asking	Sold	Date Sold
8404	Towers Nine	2	2	$487,000	$480,000	7/23/2004
8403	Towers Nine	3	3	$559,000	$550,000	4/13/2004
8605	Towers Nine	3	3	$589,000	$540,000	6/18/2004
8201	Towers Nine	3	3	$650,000	$650,000	12/22/2004
8301	Towers Nine	3	3	$749,900	$715,000	1/20/2005
8701	Towers Nine	3	3	$790,000	$731,000	6/29/2007
8205	Towers Nine	3	3	$799,999	$775,000	8/22/2005
8207	Towers Nine	3	3	$849,900	$840,000	8/30/2005
8103	Towers Nine	3	3	$995,999	$800,000	7/31/2007

If you are fond of Ponce Inlet as I am, please, give me a call at 386-405-4408 or drop me a line in the e-mail.

Seeing Beyond Cliches

Jon Zolsky (FunCoast Realty LLC) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:16:14 -0500

I have been thinking about writing a few posts about the cliches and how they limit our vision. I will only talk about the cliche in regard to health and medicine here.

It is not that we can avoid forming cliches, they are part of living, but the problem is that they tend to stagnate our perception of the world, which is constantly changing. It is interesting to look at cliches as they are a product of our history, culture, political and social aspirations.

Coming from another culture, the first thing that strikes you is that things are perceived differently in different cultures. I am talking to a client, we are on very friendly terms, and start talking about his heart condition. He sarcastically asks me whether I am a doctor. I am not. The topic is closed. This is beyond me. His heart, his life are in the hands of a doctor with a level of trust that he would not put even in G-d. He does not question his doctors decisions. And this is the same guy, who is critical of everything and everyone else, and who praises himself on having an independent opinion about things.

But it is very common in America. Doctors know what they are doing, and you do what they say or you die. So, if you listen to the doctor, you do not die? And if you do listen to the doctor, do you really live longer? Or you die according to the textbook? Classic example are some cancers, where people, who chose not to undergo radiation and chemo live even longer and with a better quality of life or maintain the quality of life longer.

There is more than only Western (or American), or just one approach to medicine, there is more than only Western (or American), or only one approach to life. The basic problem was and remains that as professional trade, the doctors treat the disease, and not the person. Why? Besides cultural and all other stuff aside, it is just practical. It is easier. Disease is a simple system, meaning that the relation between cause and effect is direct or as close to direct as possible. And this gives us a heck of a confidence that the system is working.

Example: high sugar, take a drug = normal sugar. The goal is achieved. Is it? Who said that the goal was normal sugar? Who cares about sugar. Is a person healthy now? Is it good for him in the long run? Does this mean that he will not get worse from the same disease or the complications from the same disease later?

But this is pretty much, of course, in a simplified way, how the doctors work. There are a lot of diseases, and there are a lot of ways treating these diseases. So, when you visit a highly trained and specialized doctor, you are already not a whole person, as he is not trained to see you as such, you are a manifestation of the disease. And if you have other symptoms, there are other narrowly trained professionals, who would administer a highly specialized treatment for those symptoms.

Eventually, you end up with a handful of pills, where each of them has a list of at least dozens if not more known side effects from unwarranted adoration of your doctor to death of the natural causes at unnaturally early age.

Our fascination with drugs, that magically do the work, is akin to believing in Santa Claus, but with no age limits from puberty to senility. People take drugs with no fear, while the overwhelming majority of drugs simply take over the functions that were supposed to be performed by our body.

The biggest misconception is that medical science is ... actually a science. It is not. It a a compendium of empirical methodologies lacking uniform scientific approach. That's why you get tons of researches saying this drug does something, and another bunch saying it doesn't. A human is a complex system (not necessarily meaning "complicated", but meaning that any change in one parameter causes change or changes in other parameters and these changes can't be simply defined, and foreseen. A cause and effect system is a simple system. Complex system is where cause may have unpredictable effects. A complex system is when the parts of the system put together operate in a different manner than the sum of the functions of the parts.

It comes awkward as I am trying to translate from Russian. I do not have a clue about the terminology here, but I am hoping you get the concept - thank you.

I have no doubt that there are great doctors out there. I am cutting out surgeons from the consideration, as their skills are more of technical nature. But I would like to give one example of treating the person vs treating the disease.

At the end of the 19th century there was a very famous clinicist in Imperial Russia - Sergey Petrovich Botkin. He was once called to a man, whose health was slowly deteriorating, and nobody could diagnose the disease. He was treated by most famous doctors, who were considered stars. Nothing helped. The man was already bedridden and there was no hope left.

Botkin came, walked in the vestibule, went to the bedroom where the patient was waiting for him, stopped in the doorway, and then turned around and went back toward the entrance door without saying a word. While he was putting his boots on (a Russian tradition), puzzled family members and family doctor asked professor Botkin what happened, why he did not even check the patient, did not ask him a single question, did not even approached the bed, he pointed his cane to the walls and said "change the wallpaper". The family members and the family doctor were furious. They paid dearly for the professor's consultation, and this was simply an insult. How dare he?

But they still changed the wallpaper. And the patient get off the bed.

The man was very sensitive to lead. They changed the wall paper to non-lead, and he got his life back.

Botkin saw patients in a larger system than just symptoms, he saw a person. Others tried to treat the symptoms. And while he came out rude and obnoxious, he saved the patient... without actually treating him. He knew the art and science of medicine, not just the trade.

It was 140 years ago. What has changed in the approach? Say you?