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Archive for May, 2009

Palm Harbor’s Ahern’s Ice Cream

Ahern's Ice Cream

When we first moved to Palm Harbor from Maine in 1993, one thing we looked forward to was a whole new world of ice cream shops. We figured that Florida, being a hot and outdoorsy kind of place, would be a great place for ice cream.

As it turned out, we were a little disappointed. The ice cream we found was pretty good most of the time, but there just wasn’t all that much to choose from, and we found that to be a little surprising.

Later, I read somewhere that New England, a place with long, cold winters,  was one of the most popular places in the country for ice cream. Who would have guessed that?

Anyway, we did manage to find some good ice cream places, and the longer we live here the more we see new ice cream places opening up. When that happens, we fall all over ourselves going to the new place and trying out the ice cream.

Yep, that's me, windowing-shopping the ice cream

One of the newest around here is Ahern’s Ice Cream, located in Palm Harbor on Alternate 19 just south of Alderman. We’ve been there a couple of times recently, and we like the ice cream as well as the people who work there. We spent one visit talking to the owner (and eating ice cream, of course), and we spent the next visit eating ice cream and talking to the very nice young woman behind the counter. She goes to St. Petersburg College and drives a very funky red 1970 Volkswagen bug, which was parked outside.

One thing that’s interesting about Ahern’s is that it sells ice cream made over in Tampa by Old Meeting House Ice Cream, a small, independently owned and operated ice cream business that has been making and selling ice cream since 1947. Old Meeting House still makes ice cream in small batches by hand, just as it did when it started out in the ice cream biz 61 years ago.

Ahern’s (and Old Meeting House) definitely passes our critical Ice Cream Test.

Tags: ice cream, Palm Harbor, pinellas county

A garden of golf clubs in Palm Harbor

Ron Wicks of Palm Harbor has lived around golf for many years, giving lessons and building custom clubs for pro players. He’s retired now, but he still makes a few extra dollars by selling clubs on the lawn in front of his house on Nebraska Avenue.

Tags: Add new tag, golf, Palm Harbor

Buy that Pinellas home with down payment dollars from the state

Florida's old state house

A few posts ago I discussed how some states were finding ways to provide that $8,000 federal home purchase tax credit BEFORE the sale of the home, so buyers could use the tax credit money as a down payment. I said that about 10 states had come up with programs to make that happen, most of them variations on bridge loans.

One state, Missouri, put several million dollars ina pot, and then advanced funds to homebuyers who qualified for the federal tax credit. The buyers could use the state’s money for the down payment, then pay it back when the tax credit check came in the mail. Other state programs were variations on that same theme.

At the end of the post, I asked if you thought the state of Florida should come up with a similar program and, if you did, that you might want to get in touch with your state legislator and say so.

Well, no sooner did I write that post but the Florida Legislature approved its own program.

The Legislature adjourned yesterday (Friday), but before it did it passed a bill providing $30.1 million that can be used for down payments by homeowners. The program goes into effect July 1, and the money will be distributed to qualifying homebuyers (that is, homebuyers who qualify for the federal $8,000 tax credit) by county housing housing administrators.

Details are still being worked out, and I’ll keep you up to speed as that process moves forward. But don’t let the lack of down payment money stand between you and the purchase of a Pinellas County home.

Tags: Add new tag, down payment, Florida, pinellas, tax credit

Are we bailing out the bad lenders?

Banks are getting billions of dollars from the federal government to prop them up following the melt-down of the U.S. housing industry. The melt-down was caused in large part by poor lending practices, especially among sub-prime lenders. And who owned those sub-prime lenders? The very banks that are now getting bail-out money.

That’s the finding of a new report released by the Center for Public Integrity. And a not-insignificant number of those loans financed homes right here in Pinellas County.

Many banks that have been hit the hardest by the economic melt-down have portrayed themselves as victims of the sub-prime lending industry — companies that were too easy about lending money to people with little cash, poor credit or low incomes. But the director of the Center for Public Integrity says the banks not only knew about those questionable practices, they owned the very lending companies that behaved so irresponsibly.

“The mega-banks that funded the sub-prime industry were not victims of an unforeseen  financial collapse, as they have sometimes portrayed themselves,” said Bill Buzenberg. ”These banks were deliberate enablers that bankrolled the type of lending that’s now threatening the financial system.”

The Center looked at 7.2 million sub-prime loans made between 2005 and 2007.  It said that banks based in the U.S. and Europe poured vast amounts of capital into the sub-prime industry in pursuit of big profits. And it says that at least 21 of the 25 biggest sub-prime lenders  received their financing from banks that are now getting bailout money from the U.S. government.

The Center for Public Integrity describes itself as a non-profit organization “dedicated to producing original, responsible investigative journalism on issues of public concern.”

Tags: Add new tag, home finance, pinellas county, sub-prime

Crystal Beach sunset

Watching the sun go down at Crystal Beach

It’s not all about real estate all the time. Sometimes it’s about slowing down a little and remembering the wonderful benefits that come from living near the Gulf of Mexico in Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Clearwater, or in Pinellas County in general. There’s a beautiful little park-like strip in Crystal Beach, which is just west of Palm Harbor on the gulf. It is a great spot all the time, but never more lovely than at sunset. It is not the only place to admire the sunset around here, but it is one of my favorites.

Tags: Crystal Beach

Old Town Cafe in Old Palm Harbor

Old Town Cafe in Old Palm Harbor

We’ve written a fair amount about Old Palm Harbor, the historical section of Palm Harbor in the Florida Avenue area of town, near Alternate 19. It was the site of the recent Palm Harbor Citrus Festival, and it hosts a number of street fairs and art shows throughout the year.

One place we like there is the Old Town Cafe, which is at 1019 Florida Ave. This is a very casual and laid-back place that invites lingering over a cup of coffee or a beer, maybe some gelato or a light lunch.

Owner Dan Kauffman has put together a very nice ambiance at Old Town Cafe, with an outside deck and an inviting interior. They serve Baby’s Coffee from Key West, and while the are open until 9 p.m. ( 4 p.m. on weekends), the food is more breakfast and lunch — paninis, bagels and croissants for breakfast, sandwiches, salads, paninis and Cuban sandwiches for lunch and dinner.

Dan at Old Town Cafe

If you care about the environment, Old Town Cafe lets you know theycare, too — cups, straws and bags are made of corn, to-go boxes are made of sugar cane.

This is the kind of place where you take your morning newspaper and then linger over a good cup of coffee and a light meal. Take your time and enjoy — no one will rush you here.

Tags: old town cafe, Palm Harbor

Tax credit money UP FRONT for your Pinellas County home?

  If you read my earlier post on the $8,000 first time homeowner tax credit, you know how you can turn the purchase of a new home into some much-needed cash.
     “But,” you wail, “I’ll have to wait until sometime next year to get the cash, and I really need it NOW — in fact, it would sure come in handy as down payment money on the new house.”
     If you live in Florida, you’re right — you do have a bit of a dilemma. You can get an $8,000 tax credit if you buy a new house, but you can’t get the house without a down payment, and you aren’t really expecting any extra cash until, well, next year, when the tax credit money comes in.
     However, if you live in a number of other states — 10, to be exact — your governor and legislature has already considered your problem, and come up with a fix.
      Let’s say you live in, oh, Missouri. In that state, you can get something called a “tax credit advance.” The state will advance you up to 6 percent of the home’s selling price, and you don’t have to pay it back until next August (That’s August of 2010.)
     If you fail to pay the money back once you get your tax credit, it is still not a mortal sin — the state of Missouri will simply roll that advance into a second mortgage with a 10-year payback.  The interest rate on that second mortgage is half a percentage point higher than the first mortgage’s interest rate.
Colorado, New Mexico, Delaware, Tennessee, New Jersey, Washington State, Ohio, Idaho and Pennsylvania now have similar versions of this bridge loan idea. Not every plan is exactly the same, but they all share the idea of providing that tax credit money sooner rather than later.
     Do you like the idea? Do you think we should have something similar here in Florida? Write or call your state representative and say so.
     “But,” you cry again, “I don’t know who my State Rep is!”
     No problemo. Go to the Florida House of Representatives web site and punch in your ZIP code — the site will tell you who you should write or call. Here’s the link: http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/sections/Representatives/myrepresentative.aspx

Tags: pinellas county, tax credit

Mystic Fish in Palm Harbor wins award

Mystic Fish

One of our favorite local restaurants, Mystic Fish on Tampa Road in Palm Harbor, has won Best Overall and Best Use of Ingredient at the All Childrens Iron Chef Challenge at the Renaissance Hotel Tampa. It’s the second year in a row that Mystic Fish has won that honor. The winning dish was Steamed Maine Lobster with Spicy Slaw and orange -Apricot Curry Sauce and Togorashi Shrimp with Orange Marmalade brushed Bacon and Blood Orange Sabayon.

To learn more, go to their website — www.3bestchefs.com/mystic. To see our review of Mystic Fish, look over to the right of this page and click on “restaurant reviews” under “Local Resources.”

Tags: Add new tag, Palm Harbor, restaurants

Pinellas County homebuyers: Don’t miss the $8,000 first time homeowner tax credit

    More than half of the people who plan to buy a home in the U.S. this year are first-time homebuyers. And ALL of them should look into the $8,000 tax credit that is being offered to first-time homebuyers this year by the federal government
 
      This is a pretty exciting to for first-time homebuyers to get into the market, what with very low prices and historically low interest rates. The $8,000 tax credit is just icing on the cake. It’s hard to imagine that such a “perfect storm” of home-buying advantages will come together again, at least in the lifetimes of most of us.

      Are people really aware of the first time homeowner tax credit? Apparently so – the IRS says that of all the 2008 tax returns filed by March 6, more than a half-million returns claimed the first-time home buyer credit.

      If the tax credit sounds good to you, don’t wait too long – it is only available until Dec. 1, 2009.

 Here are the nine most important things you need to know about the tax credit:

     1. The credit is available to all first-time buyers of any kind of home, new or re-sale.
 First time home buyers are defined as people who have not owned a residence during the three years prior to the purchase date.

     2. The tax credit is an amount of money equal to 10 percent of the home’s purchase price, up to a credit of $8,000.

     3. The income limit for a single taxpayer is $75,000; for married taxpayers filing jointly, income must not exceed $150,000.

     4. If you exceed the income limits, you may qualify for a partial tax credit.

     5. The tax credit does not have to be repaid. Previous tax credits were really interest-free loans.

     6. People who buy homes and claim the tax credit must use the home as a principal residence for at least three years. Those who fail to do that may have to pay the credit amount back to the government.

     7. Claim the tax credit on your federal income tax return by using IRS Form 5405. No other application or form is necessary.

     8. The credit may be claimed even if you have little or no federal income tax liability. An example: You had withholding in the amount of $4,000, but ended up owing taxes totaling $5,000. Normally, you would owe the government another $1,000 on top of what was withheld. However, if you purchased a home and claimed the tax credit, the IRS would send you a check for $7,000 – the $8,000 tax credit minus your $1,000 tax liability.

     9. The tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction in your tax liability. In other words, if you owed the IRS $8,000 in income taxes for 2008 and you claimed the $8,000 tax credit, you would owe the IRS nothing.

Want to know more? Take a few minutes to listen to an expert – Robert Dietz, the tax economist for the National Association of Home Builders. Click on the YouTube icon above.

Tags: Add new tag, first time homebuyer, pinellas county, tax credit