Title

Archive for the 'Palm Harbor' Category

Farmers’ Market in Palm Harbor

Fruit and veggie vendor's stand at the Palm Harbor Farmers' market

If you are a fan of local farmers’ markets, you should know that Palm Harbor hosts a very nice little farmers’ market on the grounds of the  North Pinellas Historical Museum at the corner of Belcher and Curlew Road.

This area has a number of good farmers’ markets that are fun to attend.  The one in Dunedin is a good-sized market, and Clearwater has a somewhat smaller one.  I haven’t been to the farmers’ market in St. Petersburg, but it’s supposed to be terrific.

But anyway, back to the Palm Harbor market; it happens every Sunday at the museum, and vendors are on hand from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. This past Sunday there was a fruit and vegetable stand, a fellow selling very good-looking fresh fish, a woman selling handmade hats, a could of sandwich vendors and several others.  I mostly just nosed around, but I did buy some bananas and some really nice-looking red grapes.

I’ve written about the Dunedin and Clearwater farmers’ markets in the past — you may want to scroll back a few pages and look those over.  It’s nice to have one in Palm Harbor, and you can combine your visit with a tour of the North Pinellas Historical Museum.

Tags: farmer's market, Palm Harbor

Got your eye on a new Palm Harbor home? Don’t drag your feet.

I just sold a house to a couple who had been working with me since last November.  That’s right, it took them a full year to find the house they wanted to buy.

Were these people unusually picky, or were their requirements so specific that the right house simply wasn’t available for a really long time?  I would say “no” to both counts; I think they just wanted to be very careful in what they considered a very volatile market.  They wanted to make sure they didn’t pay too much in case the real estate market continued to free-fall, and they wanted to be sure they didn’t end up with a house that was going to cost a lot to upgrade.

This couple looked very actively during the past year, and they actually made offers on several houses. But if the negotiations on those houses began to bog down, or if the sellers didn’t act like they wanted to significantly drop their prices (and do so quickly), these people would back away.

I think their attitude was exactly the opposite of buyer attitudes two or three years ago, when buyers thought they had to act very swiftly in order to get the home they wanted. Now, caution rules the day for buyers, along with low-ball offers. I don’t think the low offers come so much from a desire to play hardball as from a fear of paying too much in a market where prices may have a way to go before hitting bottom.

The point of all this is the new first-time homebuyer tax credit, which the Congress just recently passed. This new tax credit offers an $8,000 tax credit to first-time homebuyers, and a credit of $6,500 to repeat buyers. That credit for repeat buyers MIGHT entice some move-up buyers to come back into the market, which has mostly been dominated by first-time buyers.

The original tax credit, which was launched last spring and which was to run only through the end of November, made home ownership possible for many first-time buyers. This new version continues to offer that, while also offering a tidy tax credit to people who are NOT first-timers.

But here’s the bad part (and the reason why I started out by talking about those buyers who took a full year to find a home they wanted to buy); this new tax credit is authorized only through April – buyers have to have a binding contract in place by April 30, 2010.

If you think your home search may take a number of months, you’d better get started now. April will be here before you know it.

Tags: first time home buyer, Palm Harbor, real estate, tax credit

22nd Annual Veterans Day observances at Curlew Memory Gardens in Palm Harbor

For the 22nd straight year, Curlew Hills Memory Gardens in Palm Harbor hosted a Veterans Day service .

The program began at around 9:30 a.m. A piper played the bagpipes, a choir from St. Alfred’s Episcopal Church sang to the accompaniment of a keyboard player, and an honor guard presented the colors. There was a threat of rain during the early morning hours, but the sun came out just in time for the service.

Remarks were delivered by Gunnery Sergeant Nathaniel Garcia, a Marine stationed at U.S. Central Command in Tampa.  The ceremony was concluded with taps played by Ron Ashley of the Marine Corps League’s Morris F. Dixon Chapter #54.

A contigent from the Palm Harbor Fire department was also on hand for the ceremonies.

The event was open to the public.

A number of other ceremonies and remembrances were held throughout the Tampa Bay area, as well.  perhaps the largest was at Bay Pines, the Veterans Administration facility in mid-county. A year ago, my husband wrote about the Memorial Day ceremonies at Bay Pines and about finding the grave of an old friend. You can find that post elsewhere on this blog.

Tags: Palm Harbor, real estate, veterans day

North Pinellas Historical Museum displays Palm Harbor’s past

Hartley home, which houses the North Pinellas Historical Museum

Alright, I know what you’re thinking: “Where the heck have you been?”

It’s a fair question. First, we took a vacation and took the grandchildren up to Campbello Island in New Brunswick, Canada (more on this later). Then we came back to a bunch of moving chores and other demands that couldn’t be put off.  So here we are.

So, without further excuses, here’s a quick report on what we did today — a visit to the North Pinellas Historical Museum in Palm Harbor.

The museum is one of those places you can’t miss, being on the busy corner of Belcher and Curlew roads. But I’ve driven past it a million times and never stopped in before.  Today I resolved to do something different.

Cracker house behind the North Pinellas Historical Museum

The excuse was a yard sale on the grounds of the museum. There were a number of displays of all kinds of used stuff and we did a tour of the grounds before we went inside.  There were scores of people outside, either selling or buying stuff, but surprisingly there was no one inside the museum building excpet a couple of staffers. So we took our time moseying around inside.

The house itself was originally owned and built by the Hartley family, one of the early pioneer families of North Pinellas County.  A very nice museum volunteer told us how the house sat on the dirt road that was the main thoroughfare between Tampa and the Gulf many years ago, and she explained how people traveling over to the coast from Tampa would stop, water their horses, and perhaps use the Hartley’s outhouse.

The house ’s exterior is made up of concrete blocks which had been cast on the site.  The original block casts, she said, had been purchased from Sears & Roebuck. The house was built between 1915 and 1919.

The museum's parlor

Out back is a classic small Florida Cracker house, a simple living structure that was popular a hundred years ago.  Our guide explained to us how the cracker housercame to be in the back yard: A few years ago, the house had to be moved from its original North Pinellas location.  It was decided to move the house south to Largo, where the Pinellas County Heritage Village is located.

Once on the road, however, word came that the 21-acre Heritage Village facility had no room for the cracker house.  So… hurried negotiations resulted in the house being diverted to the North Pinellas Historical Museum site.

There are many things to see at the museum and lots to learn about Palm Harbor’s early days. Drop by sometime — admission is free, although they won’t turn down a voluntary donation.

Real estate sales up nationally for fourth straight month

The National Association of Realtors says that national sales of existing homes rose in July, marking the fourth consecutive month of home sale increases.

That’s the good news, and it really is good news in a market as bad as this one has been.

 But here’s the not-so-good news; most of that increase can be traced to distressed properties – foreclosures and short sales.

Even so, any increase in home sales is a good thing, and this national trend noted by NAR seems to mirror what we have been seeing here in Tampa Bay – increasing numbers of home sales even as prices have continued a downward trend. Those lower prices have contributed to the uptick in sales, as have continuing good mortgage rates and the lure of that $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers.

That tax credit will come to and end at the end of November, and many observers are predicting a bit of a scramble as first-time buyers try to purchase homes before the deadline.

So the real estate market really looks like this: It’s a great time to buy if you qualify as a first-time homebuyer – prices are extremely attractive, mortgage rates are low, and there is a really attractive tax credit out there for the taking. It’s not so great for people who want to move up to a better home, or who have a home they need to sell.

There really is little activity in the middle- or upper ranges of the market except for those relatively rare cash buyers.

Chamberlins were part of Palm Harbor history

Grave of Franklin and Ella Chamberlin

Back in March I wrote about the cemetery at Curlew Methodist Church in Palm Harbor, one of the oldest cemeteries in Pinellas County. You can read that earlier post here.

Not long afterwards, I got a nice note from Michael Chamberlin of California, who said he had enjoyed the article because his great-grandparents, James F. and Ella Chamberlin, were buried in that cemetery. I filed that information away, thinking I would go back up to the cemetery and see if I could find James’ and Ella’s headstones.

It took a little while, but over the Fourth of July weekend we stopped by the cemetery and walked around a bit.

We thought we would be there for a while — there are quite a few graves in that old cemetery. As luck would have it, the very first headstone we saw — the closest one to the church buildings to the left of the main driveway — said “Chamberlin.”

We were pretty sure we had found the right stone, although some of the information was a bit different from that provided by Michael Chamberlin. He had identified his great-grandfather as “James F.”, but the stone identified him as “Franklin.” Michael said his great-grandmother died in 1926, but the stone had the year of death as 1929.

I took a picture of the gravestone and sent it, along with a note, to Michael Chamberlin. he confirmed that his great-grandfather’s middle name was Franklin, and he confirmed the 1926 year of death for Ella Chamberlin.

In his earlier note, Michael said that his great-grandparents were originally from Beloit, Wis., and that they had moved to Florida and bought a 20-acre citrus grove on Curlew Road in 1910. He said their son, George L. Chamberlin, followed his parents to Pinellas County. He became very active in Republican politics here, and during the Calvin Coolidge administration was named postmaster of Palm Harbor.

It’s interesting how one story leads to another. I believe the old Palm Harbor post office was located in the Sutherland Building in old Downtown Palm Harbor, a building which now houses Peggy O’Neill’s restaurant, which I’ve written about previously.  The post office boxes are still in the restaurant, I’m pretty sure. Maybe I’ll try to dig up a story about the Post Office, and maybe a bit more about George Chamberlin.

It’s fun writing about the history of this part of Florida. If you have any interesting old stories about Pinellas County that you’d like to share, I’d love to hear them.

Special thanks to Michael Chamberlin for providing the information about his family members.

Fourth of July in Dunedin and Palm Harbor

People everywhere have their own favorite ways of celebrating the Fourth of July, just as they have special ways of observing every holiday. In Tampa Bay, we have parades and cookouts and fireworks displays like everywhere else, but people around here love to celebrate just about everything by getting on (or near) the water.

We spent a little time this morning poking around some of the favorite beach spots in Palm Harbor and Dunedin, just to see what people were doing.  Sure enough, the beachs were jammed with people, and the nearby waters were loaded with watercraft of all kinds.

Most of these picture were taken on the Dunedin Causeway, which runs from the mainland out to Honeymoon Island. There’s also a ferry that runs from Honeymoon Island out to Caladesi Island, which we wrote about recently as being the nation’s very best beach, at least in the opinion of at least one person who makes such nominations.

We also took a picture of what we believe is the largest American flag in all of Pinellas County — it flies over an auto dealership on US19. If you know of a flag bigger than this one, which is supposed to be just a little bit smaller than the size of a tennis court, we hope you will let us know.

We hope you are having a great Fourth of July, wherever you may be.

Flags at the entrance to Harbor View subdivision, Dunedin

Tags: Dunedin, fourth of july, Palm Harbor

Home refinance program expanded

     We’ve written here in the past about tax credits and about government programs aimed at saving homes from foreclosure and making home payments more affordable. Now, it looks as though the Obama Administration wants to expand those programs to make them apply to more borrowers than before.
 

    Until now, those government programs have been available to people whose mortgage amounts are up to 105 percent of a home’s value. This week, the administration announced that it wants to raise that limit to 125 percent of value.
Here are some of the conditions that apply:

• The mortgages in question must be owned or backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
• The applicants for new financing must be current on their mortgage payments.

     It is estimated that 30 percent of all mortgages are for amounts that exceed their homes’ values.
     The expansion of this federal home refinance program is an acknowledgement that the original program fell far short of expectations. When it was announced in March, the Obama Administration said it hoped that it would help 4-5 million homeowners who were upside-down on their mortgages. But in the middle of June, the administration admitted that only about 20,000 homeowners had applied to refinance their mortgages under the plan.
One problem has been rising interest rates. Current rates are around 5.5 percent, up from 4.84 percent in April. That rate increase has put a damper on refinances. The government hopes that the new expansion will encourage more homeowners to refinance their homes, and those refinances will make the homeowners less likely to default on their mortgages.
     Got a home in Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Clearwater, or anywhere else in Pinellas County with a mortgage bigger than the home’s value? This expanded program may be for you.

Tags: making home affordable, mortgages, pinellas county, refinance

New data indicates declines in Tampa Bay home values may be slowing

Are we finally starting to see some stabilization in the value of homes in Pinellas County? According to Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index, the answer might be yes.

According to Index data released yesterday, home prices in Tampa Bay fell 0.7 percent from April to May. That works out to an annual rate of 8.4 percent – the lowest rate in quite a while.  Just two months previously, the 30-day decline was 2.7 percent, which translates to an annual rateof decline of 32.4 percent.

The Index said the annual decline of home values from April 2008 to April 2009 was 21.3 percent, the seventh-worse performance among the 20 cities that the index tracks. The worst was Phoenix, which recorded a home value decline of 35.3 percent.

Here is why real estate agents and others are watching these statistics: What we have been seeing for some time now is a steady increase in the number of home sales in Tampa Bay, accompanied by an equally steady decline in sales prices. The increase in sales has contributed to a decline in the home inventory in the Multiple Listing Service, which is good; but home prices have been continually forced down, due in part to foreclosures and distressed sales.

These trends have made us wonder just where the bottom of the market is in terms of home values. These new figures from Case-Shiller may help us find that answer. Of course, it is only one month; and other variables such as higher mortgage interest rates could slow sales and depress home values all over again.

If you would like to see the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index data for yourself, go here.

Tags: home valies, Palm Harbor, pinellas county, Tampa Bay

Palm Harbor is home to Your Claim to Frame

Don Hurt, YOUR CLAIM TO FRAME

We’ve written a number of times before about Old Palm Harbor and the things that go on there, from art shows to special events to the great food available in the local restaurants.

But any discussion about the old downtown area of Palm Harbor wouldn’t be complete without at least a mention of Your Claim to Frame, one of the long-time businesses that anchor the old downtown area.

Don Hurt started his framing business in 1979 in the Highland Lakes Shopping Center on US19, but in 1990 he relocated the business to downtown Palm Harbor, and it has been thriving there ever since, operating out of a tidy yellow building at 1210 Nebraska Ave.

This month marks the 30th anniversary of Your Claim to Frame.

Your Claim to Frame, downtown Palm Harbor

Don not only is known because of Your Claim to Frame; he also has been very active in community affairs and the local Chamber of Commerce. He takes a special interest in the Downtown Merchants Association.

We have a couple of connections to Don and Your Claim to Frame. For one thing, most of the art in our home has been framed by Your Claim to Frame, and we know first-hand that Don is a stickler for great work. And second, Don is a Harley Davidson enthusiast, just as we are.

Your Claim to Frame is one of Palm Harbor’s best businesses, and Don always seems to have time for some friendly conversation. Stop in sometime and say hello, or call 727-784-0708.

Tags: don hurt, Palm Harbor, picture framing, your claim to frame