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Real estate and Palm Harbor: Is this the best market for buyers ever?

If I were to ask you to describe your income, would you use words like “reliable,” “dependable,” or “steady?”  Do you think there’s a very good chance that your job (or your business) will be around in a year, or two, or five?

If you took out some sort of loan tomorrow, would you worry about your ability to pay it back because of future income issues? Or would you be confident that your job would remain in place over the long term?

Some people have jobs that pay really well, but which probably won’t be around for long periods.  I’ll give you an example: I have a relative who is working right now as an electrical contractor in Iraq. He’s making REALLY good money, but he doesn’t expect (or want) the job to last forever. After a year or so, he’s going to want to shake the sand out of his jeans, come back to the States, and resume a more normal life.

My relative’s big but short-term income puts him in a great position to pay off debt and accumulate cash. However, it does NOT make him a great candidate for a 30-year mortgage or a five-year car loan.

But YOU, on the other hand, might be sitting on a bigger asset than you realize, if you have a steady and dependable job or other source of income.

Why? Because this may be the best time in the past, oh, 75 years or so, to buy a house.

Which brings me to my second question:

Do you know what the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices is? Okay, I’ll tell you – it is a monthly report that measures the residential housing market. It tracks home values in 20 metro markets in the U.S.

And the Case-Shiller report for October, released just this week, shows a couple of things: 1. Home values in October were flat, and 2. in spite of that, home values during 2009 have generally been in slow but steady recovery mode.

Case-Shiller reports that home values have fallen a full 30% since their peak in 2005. That drop has been stunning – nothing like it has been seen since the Depression, and perhaps even earlier than that. For people who need or want a new home, it is an opportunity of stunning proportions.

And there is even more good news; interest rates have dropped, too, If you wanted a 30-year fixed rate mortgage three years ago, it would have likely cost you around 6.4 percent. Apply for that same mortgage today, and you’ll pay more like 5 percent.

What that means is that median home prices are now about where they were in the mid-1990s, a time when just about every agrees was a really great time to buy. What makes the current conditions even more attractive than then, however, is the difference in mortgage rates – something like 5 percent now, more like 9 percent back then.   

The Wall Street JOURNAL recently did some numbers-crunching, and came up with this conclusion: Buy an average home now, finance it with a 5 percent 30-year mortgage, and the cost comes out to be around 19 times today’s average weekly earnings. Conditions haven’t been that favorable for homebuyers since the 1970s, according to the JOURNAL.

Still not good enough for you? Okay, fine – then throw in the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit, which is scheduled to run through the spring season.

Which brings us back to my original question: How would you characterize your income? Would you describe it as “reliable,” “dependable,” or “steady?”

If it is, and you can feel pretty good about relying on your income over the long term, this is probably the best time to buy a home that has come along during your entire lifetime, and probably your parents’ lifetime, and maybe even your grandparents’ lifetime as well.

The real question is the reliability of your income. These are uncertain economic times, and no one needs additional uncertainty in times like these. Unstable or unreliable income down the road could result in a foreclosure, no matter how attractive the selling price of the home is now.

But if income unreliability is not a major concern, unprecedented real estate opportunities await you.

Tags: pinellas, real estate and clearwater, real estate and palm harbor

Guardian Angel places cats left homeless by foreclosure

Who are the victims of foreclosures? Well, families, of course. Children. Working people.

But what about pets?  Not much has been written about that. If a family loses their home to foreclosure, what happens to the pets they may own? Families can move into apartments, or even move in with friends or other family members.  But that doesn’t mean that the pets can come along.

Pet shelters and humane societies have been reporting that their facilities have been strained to the breaking point as families turn in their pets that they can no longer afford, or pets that cannot go along to smaller quarters.

One group on the west coast of Florida is trying to do something about that.  Guardian Angel Cat Rescue and Adoption is based in Hudson in Hernando County, but they serve all of Tampa Bay. Guardian Angel does not have a shelter, but instead places cats in foster homes until permanent homes can be found.

“Our goal is to help cats that are in danger of being euthanized or abandoned due to owners moving, foreclosure, job loss…” their flyer says.

We ran into representatives of Guardian Angel last weekend at the Palm Harbor Arts & Crafts Festival, where they were operating a small booth.  

The accompanying picture shows one of the cats, Termite, who is being being cared for by the Guradian Angel folks. If you’d like to see more, go to www.adoptapet.com and search shelters for Guardian Angel Cat Rescue.  Or just e-mail them at guardianangelCRA@yahoo.com, or call them at 727-859-2208.

Tags: adopt-a-cat, pet rescue, pets, pinellas

Mortgage rates are lowest they’ve been in 38 years

Do you need another reason (besides the low prices and the big tax credit) to think about buying a new home? Okay, here it is: Mortgage rates came down again this week and are now at the lowest point IN THE PAST 38 YEARS!
Freddie Mac does a survey of mortgage rates every week, and this week’s survey shows that rates are at historic lows for 30-year fix rate mortgages.
The rates on 30-year (and 15-year) mortgages came down for the fifth week in a row, according to Freddie Mac. Rates on five-year adjustable rate mortgages came down to record levels a week earlier, and they stayed in that very low range during this most recent week.
Why the low rates? Well, demand for mortgages (and, of course, demand for housing) remains weak; also, foreclosures continue to be a factor.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate for the week was 4.71%, down from  4.78% during the previous week. A year ago, the average rate was 5.53%.

Tags: interest rates, pinellas

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

Is this the best pizza in Pinellas County?

Monty's Pizza

There’s all kinds of different pizza. There’s thin crust, thick crust, Chicago style, New York style and Sicilian pizza, just to name a few. People are particular about their pizza, and not everyone thinks the same way when it comes to deciding what’s good, and what’s not so good.

All that being said, we like Monty’s Pizza in Clearwater. A lot.

We go there just about every Sunday night, and we always order the same thing: a medium deluxe. At Monty’s, a deluxe pizza has five toppings of your choice. For us, that means pepperoni, sausage, extra cheese, olive oil and mushrooms. (There’s one waitress there who doesn’t think olive oil should be a topping. When she waits on us, we order onions, too.)

Monty’s is owned by a family from Connecticut, according to the story on the back of the menu. They have been turning out pizzas in Pinellas County since the early 80s. The restaurant itself is a bit funky, and that adds to the charm. Also, there’s an old Ford outside in the parking lot painted up to look like a NASCAR racer sponsored by Monty’s. If you drive by, you see the Ford before you see the actual “Monty’s” sign on the building.

Monty’s is in mid-county on Nursery, just west of Belcher. If you come on a Sunday night, we’ll probably see you there.

Tags: Clearwater, pinellas, pizza, restaurant

Believe it or not, home construction applications are UP

With real estate sales and values way down from their historic highs of about three years ago, you’d think that developers would be thinking about just about anything except building more new houses.
But you would be wrong.
Developers have been submitting large numbers of proposals for new homes and new commercial developments to state approval agencies. How many? Applications have been filed for more than a half-million new homes as well as about 500 million square feet of commercial space.
What are they thinking?
State officials say it is owners or large land tracts that are behind the push for more development approvals. Whether new homes and communities are being built or not, the people who own those large tracts of land want the permits to build. It increases the land’s value, and it puts the land in a good position to host new developments if and when the market conditions improve.
Much of the land in question is now zoned agricultural, or is envirtonmentally sensitive. But if that land becomes approved for residential or commercial development, it suddenly becomes worth a lot more money.
With real estate in a full stall, you wouldn’t think that new development applications would be taken seriously. But with government and business hoping for an economic jump start, just about anything is possible.

Tags: building permits, new construction, pinellas, real estate

Pinellas County’s brunch of brunches

Don Cesar Hotel

There’s brunch, with a nice variety of food and a decent price tag, maybe put out by a good local eatery. And then there is brunch put on by the Don CeSar Hotel, one of the premier hotels in the Tampa Bay region. This brunch is a few steps, or many steps, above the average, with smoked salmon and mounds of the best fresh fruit and carving stations for prime rib, lamb, ham and pork, as well as a dizzying array of fancy homemade desserts.

The Don CeSar is where we had brunch this morning. It was truly memorable and worth describing to anyone thinking about moving to Pinellas County.

First, a little bit about the hotel. The Don CeSar overlooks the Gulf of Mexico in the south part of the county, just south of St. Pete Beach and just

Don CeSar Hotel entrance

north of Pass-A-Grille Beach. It is pretty old but beautifully kept in bright pink paint with white trim.  It was built in the 1920s. Then, just as now, it is a place for the well-known and the well-to-do.

It became a convelescent center for the U.S. Air Force during World War II and then fell into such disrepair that it was abandoned and almost torn down in the 1970s. But local people put up a ruckus to save the Don, and someone bought it and renovated it to its present glory. It has been an icon of the Tampa Bay region ever since.

But back to the brunch; it features more than 200 separate items as well as pasta and omelette stations . There’s a dessert staion for crepes and a sundae bar. If you like bubbles with your brunch, there’s even complementary champagne.

We’ve lived in Pinellas County since 1993, and this was our first brunch trip to the Don CeSar. At around $100 for two, we won’t be going back every weekend, but it’s a nice treat or special occasion.

Tags: Don CeSar, pinellas, real estate

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

Orange season once again in Pinellas County

 
It wasn’t too many years ago that North Pinellas County was nothing but orange groves. If you lived in St. Petersburg or some other nearby community, a nice weekend jaunt might be a drive up US19, which back then was little more than a two-lane road, and perhaps stop at a roadside citrus stand for a bag of oranges or grapefruits.

Almost all of those orange groves have given way to housing developments, car dealerships and other businesses. But one roadside stand, Citrus Country Groves, has managed to survive to the present day.

Located on US19 in an unincorporated part of Pinellas County at the corner of Belleair Road between Largo and Clearwater, Citrus Country Groves has soldiered on, offering small cups of free orange juice, bags of citrus fruit and all kinds of touristy gizmos to send back or take back to the friends and neighbors up north. There is even an active orange grove of several acres out back, lcated on what now is pretty expensive real estate.

This year, the owners of Citrus Country Groves took the signs off the building, and people were worried that Citrus Country Groves might have finally decided to sell out. But the owners say the signs were removed only to make it easier to paint the building.

The seasonal business is set to open on schedule, on Oct. 23.

Citrus Country Groves is a Pinellas County landmark. Stop by for a glass of orange juice, and take some home with you while you’re at it.

Counters

Tags: florida oranges, pinellas

Property taxes UP in Pinellas County

I’ve written recently about property valuations going up in nearby counties. But I haven’t been able to report anything about Pinellas County because county tax officials hadn’t released any figures.

That’s changed. As expected, the property valuation numbers for Pinellas are up. WAY up.

According to Property Tax Appraiser Jim Smith, the value of property in Pinellas County has risen 20.3 percent over last year. That means that property in the county is now valued at $75.7 billion.

In 2005, property values rose 14.6 percent; in 2004, the increase was 10.7 percent. So this year’s valuation increase is huge.

Over in neighboring Hillsborough County (that’s where Tampa is located, for all you out-of-staters), the property valuation is up even more than in Pinellas — 22 percent.

Property owners may not be too happy about the sharp increase, because it will undoubtedly mean higher property taxes. But county budget officials are smiling, because the increase in valuations will mean about $45 million in additional county tax revenues. According to the County Commission, at least some of that increase will be returned to the taxpayers as part of a property tax cut.

That cut might total $10 million – $11 million off the $45 million increase.

Tags: pinellas, taxes