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Archive for the 'Dunedin' Category

Federal government offers mortgage help

Okay, so you’ve been living in your home in Pinellas County and faithfully making your mortgage payments, but your home’s value has been steadily slipping and now you owe more than the place is worth. You keep reading about new government programs that are supposed to help, but you need to find out more.

Fear not – there’s a place you can go to find the help you need.

That place is www.MakingHomeAffordable.gov. It’s a website designed to describe the benefits of a federal program called, well, Making Home Affordable. It offers homeowners a number of opportunities to either refinance their mortgages, or modify the mortgages they already have.

The Making Home Affordable program is financed with $75 billion for loan servicers and borrowers. Its designers say that it should be able to offer mortgage help to four million homeowners who need to modify their loans to make them more affordable, or who need to negotiate short sales of their properties with their mortgage providers.

Officials say that the money will allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance up to five million loans they own (or guarantee). Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have set up web sites and toll-free hotlines for borrowers who need to determine if their mortgages fall under Fannie or Freddie. Fannie Mae’s is www.fanniemae.com/homeaffordable (phone number (800) 732-6643); Freddie Mac’s is www.freddiemac.com/avoidforeclosure (phone number (800) 373-3343).

Some borrowers might prefer to get information first from their own mortgage servicer. To do that, go to www.HopeNow.com and fill out an application. That web site is operated by an alliance of mortgage servicers and nonprofit counselors. You can talk to them on the phone at (888) 995-4673.

No matter where you live in North Pinellas County – Tarpon Springs, Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Clearwater, Safety Harbor, or anywhere else, for that matter – the information offered applies to you.

Tags: Add new tag, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Mortgage, North Pinellas County

Mortgage rates down, but bank profits up

Here’s a fact you may not have realized – interest rates on home mortgages have been coming down, but the profit margins for lenders on those mortgages have been going up.

What that means is that mortgages could come down even further, and lenders could still make a nice profit on them.

In January, the average rate on 30-year fixed mortgages fell below five percent. It was the first time that rates had dipped so low since Freddie Mac started keeping track of rates in 1971, 38 years ago.

In spite of that, bank profits on 30-year fixed mortgages have been going up. The gap between mortgage rates and 10-year U.S. Treasury yields (2.5 percent) hasn’t been so great in the past 27 years.

Enlightened home buyers aren’t very happy about that. Some officials in the federal government aren’t pleased, either. California Congresswoman Maxine Waters serves on the House Banking Committee. She believes lenders should drop their rates to benefit homebuyers.

“If the government is making sure that cost is dropping for the banks, it should be dropping just as much for consumers,” she said. “But they’re not. Banks could make loans at 4.5 percent, or even lower, and it would still be profitable.”

Some experts believe banks are reluctant to drop rates for consumers any further because of the losses they have experienced through foreclosures and a more than sluggish real estate market.

It will be interesting to see what the Obama Administration will do about home lending rates as a condition of the bailout.

Tags: interest rates

The light rail saga continued

Since I got all fired up recently about the new light rail system in Phoenix, and how nice such a system would be in Tampa Bay, I thought I’d share our recent experience with light rail transportation in Baltimore.

Light rail in Baltimore

This past week, we spent a few days with family in Connecticut, and then went on to Baltimore for two more days. If you’ve ever flow into Baltimore, you know that the Baltimore-Washington Airport is not very close to the downtown area – it’s located at a central point between Baltimore and Washington, DC.

When I was making arrangements for the trip, I found a shuttle service that could take us from the airport to downtown Baltimore. I don’t remember the cost exactly, but it was around $15 per person each way, or around $60 for the two of us round-trip.

A little later, we discovered that Baltimore has a light rail system that runs from Hunt Valley, north of the city, then right through downtown Baltimore and then on to Glen Burnie in Anne Arundel County. One leg of the rail line down near the Glen Burnie end shoots off and goes directly to the airport.

So that’s what we did.

There was a little bit of a walk through the airport terminal to get to the train boarding area, but once through the terminal doors the train was sitting right there waiting for us. The fare was a measly $1.60 per person (and it could have been just $.55 if I had read down a little further and found the special 55-plus fare). Once on board, the train made about 10 stops before delivering us to the Baltimore Convention Center right downtown.

We had decided to stay in the colorful Fells Point area, and that was still a fair distance away, so we flagged down a cab for the last leg of the trip.

Here are the best parts of the light rail train ride; it was really cheap as well as hugely convenient, and it only took 30 minutes to get from the airport to the heart of downtown Baltimore. It also made us feel like we were doing the right thing, environmentally speaking.

Here was the worst part: On the return trip from downtown to the airport, we just missed the Airport train and had to wait 30 minutes for the next one. That wouldn’t have been so bad, but it was cold. No, actually, it was worse than just cold. It was REALLY cold, around 24 degrees, and we had to stand outside for a half-hour. For thin-blooded Floridians, it was torture.

Still, we loved it. One of the light rail stops is Camden Yards, and we’re thinking about flying up there next summer for a Tampa Bay Rays – Baltimore Orioles game. I’m still dreaming about a Pinellas County light rail system, something that could serve Tarpon Springs, Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Clearwater and other North Pinellas communities as well as St. Petersburg and Tampa.

If you want to learn more about Baltimore’s light rail system, go to www.mtamaryland.com/

Tags: baltimore, light rail, pinellas

Don’t pack your bags just yet

Looking at those shiny new light rail cars in the previous post, you may be thinking that a move to that part of the world wouldn’t be such a bad idea. But before you start packing, consider this little tidbit.
Standard & Poor’s puts out a monthly report on home values through its Case/Shiller Home Price Indices, a fancy term for something that S&P calls “the leading measure of U.S. home prices.” It looks at home values in 20 different markets around the nation.
So guess which market has lost the most value during the past year? That’s right, Phoenix. Home prices in that area have slipped more than 32 per cent, more than anywhere else in the country.
Where is Tampa Bay in all of that? Homes in this area have dropped a little under 20 per cent — a good-sized drop, but well below the crash-and-burn experience in Phoenix. Or, for that matter, in Las Vegas, which was second on the S&P list at 31.7 per cent; or Miami, which lost 29 per cent of its real estate value (and led the Florida lost-value sweepstakes).
There’s more, if you’d like to look it over. Just visit www.standardandpoors.com/indices.

Tags: home values

One more story from the Palm Harbor arts show…

 John Mascoll is a native of Barbados and a trained engineer, but what he really loves is turning wood. And his wood working is so beautiful that it takes your breath away. It’s so good, in fact, that he won Best in Show at the recent Palm Harbor arts show.

We don’t really know John, but we have a connection to him — my husband Bill works with John’s wife, Jannice, at St. Petersburg College. Bill spotted John as we walked through the arts show last weekend, and he managed to get a couple of pictures, which I’ve posted here.

John, who lives in Safety Harbor, does very precise wood turnings, producing vases and vessels of all kinds as well as smaller works. He likes to use exotic woods that offer gorgeous grains and shades.

Jannice says that John’s father worked in wood back in Barbados. Once he moved to the U.S. and settled in Georgia, he started going to meetings of woodworkers and learned the craft.

John Mascoll exhibits his work at a lot of arts shows around the area. If you see him, stop by for a minute and take a look.

Tags: art show, Palm Harbor

Carol Elder Napoli’s art

Carol Elder Napoli

About three or four years ago (when the real estate market was really good!) I was looking for some art — we had just bought a new house and we were interested in doing some decorating.
This is never easy for us; both of us are of the Lyndon Johnson School of Art. He once had his presidential portrait done, and he didn’t like it at all. When someone challenged his opinion, he said, “I may not know much about art, but I know what I like.”
That sort of describes our collective art knowledge. However, we do usually have pretty strong opinions about the art we see. We both like abstract paintings, and we both tend to like bold colors.
So, several years ago, we went to the annual Palm Harbor art show with an eye for the right abstract painting. We had pretty much seen everything without much success when we came upon a booth that displayed a number of paintings that we liked immediately. We spent some time looking them over, and then we realized that the artist, Carol Elder Napoli, was the same artist whose work we had admired several months previously at another art show in Sanibel.
One painting really appealed to us; we bought it and took it home, and it has really stood the test of time for us. We like it more the longer we have it.
So two days ago we were walking through the Palm Harbor art show when Bill spotted a painting in one of the booths. He realized right away that it was one of Carol’s paintings, and it turned out he was right.
Carol remembered us, and we spent some time talking to her and her husband.
Carol’s work carries strong spiritual and emotional messages. She works in bold acrylic colors, which you may be able to tell from the picture above.
Here’s a little bit from her website:
“While painting, the work and I enter into a dialog adding to the mystery of how the work will be completed. Much of the result depends on an emotional, intuitive response to the paint and various images, color and marks that together form a composition. My paintings fit into the “abstract” genre, but they are not to be considered non-objective works. I paint with a purpose and desire to touch the viewer at a place of recognition, perhaps even within a narrative.”
You can learn more about her at her website, http://www.napoliarts.com/ . Carol Elder Napoli lives and works in New Smyrna Beach, and she attends many art shows around Florida.

Tags: art, art show, Palm Harbor

Dunedin’s old-fashioned Christmas

The town of Dunedin has been spending a lot of time planning its Old Fashioned Christmas celebration, and it came together tonight with lots of music, decorations, magic tricks, food, hayrides powered by real Belgian draft horses and even real snow floating down from overhead traffic lights.
It was a great time, and hundreds of people turned out to take part.
We were going to try to take in the boat parade, but we never made it as far as the pier. We spent several hours walking around, taking in the sights, visiting the well-decorated shops and having a

light meal at Sea Sea Rider’s Restaurant.

Dunedin doesn’t mind blocking off the main street in the downtown area, and that’s what they did. They set up an area for face-painting for kids and another area for other crafts for kids. They had

a little gasoline-powered train that the kids seemed to love, and most of the downtown stores were open and highly decorated.

Of course, Santa Claus was there, too. When we went by he seemed to be having a little beard problem that required the assistance of Mrs. Claus.

All in all, a great night. It’s one of the many events that takes place during the year, and really makes Dunedin a wonderful place to live.

Tags: christmas, Dunedin

Dunedin’s green market

 Having spent some time at the Clearwater Farmer’s Market on the day before Thanksgiving, I was fired up to seek out some other farmer’s markets in the area. I knew that Dunedin had an outside market as well, so I went on the internet to see if I could find it.

At first I didn’t have much luck. Turns out they don’t call it a farmer’s market in Dunedin – instead, they call it the Dunedin Green Market. Okay, fine.

Actually, that makes some sense because these markets usually have a great deal to offer beyond farmer’s produce. The Clearwater market had a photographer showing his prints as well as the waffle people I wrote about a couple of posts ago. Dunedin, as it turns out, has quite a lot of diversity as well – a British piemaker, a hemp products seller, a hot sauce booth, a bakery and a number of others.

So I had an enjoyable time here, too, and I even bought a couple of blueberry muffins to take home.

The Dunedin Green Market happens on Fridays in Pioneer Park (downtown) from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. It runs from October through April 24. So I had an enjoyable time here, too, and I even bought a couple of blueberry muffins to take home.

Tags: Dunedin, farmer's market

More Dunedin tax news

Dunedin officials seem to have gotten the property tax message. Just a couple of weeks ago, city commissioners agreed to a five percent reduction in the millage rate after local property taxpayers demanded some action on tax relief. Now, they’ve bumped that reduction to 7.5 percent.

That means a an overall tax reduction of $411,742. The city’s budget will be $57.9 million.

The city says it won’t have to cut services, but it will have to dig into several city reserve funds, especially the Capital Improvements Fund, the Facilities Maintenance Fund and the Leisure Services Capital Improvement Fund.

Tags: taxes Dunedin North Pinellas County

Dunedin Fine Art Center

If you live in (or visit) the town of Dunedin, or really anywhere in Pinellas County, you should make plans to visit the Dunedin Fine Art Center. It’s a real asset to Pinellas, and there’s always something going on that makes a visit worthwhile, whether its a regularly-scheduled outside art show, their classes for youngsters or their gift shop. The website will tell you more — www.dfac.org.

Tags: Dunedin, Dunedin Fine Art Center