TRUTH or FICTION in the headlines?

An article in the Wall St Journal on September 12, 2006, stated that home sales have "plunged over the past year in many areas where prices had soard over the preceding five years." The full story is that prices only went down 1.7% although the number of home sales did plummet 12.6% in August 2006 vs. August 2005. More accurately, sales have EASED. Not a huge plunging change! Although not the case in 2004 and 2005, there is a slowdown in home sales during most summers in home sales in Florida!

SOME COURT DOCS GOING ONLINE Oct 17, 2006

30 years of criminal and traffic court records will begin being converted to a modernized computer system that the public will be able to access online at http://pbcountyclerk.com/.

Included will be traffic citations (which can be paid online), court dates and other information docketed in a court file, e.g., listing of filings and activity. The ability to view the individual documents in a particular case is not yet available, but is slated for the future.

From 5 pm this coming Friday until Oct. 9, court filings will be done the old-fashioned way, by hand while all the records are being transferred. The information will be entered into the new system once it is up and running.

The vendor, Affiliated Computer Systems, signed a contract in 1999 for $4.9 million to convert the civil and juvenile records, which went online in 2002. That same year, the county signed contracts totaling $6.9 million to do the same thing for criminal and traffic records.

With 7,000 hits per day, the Palm Beach County Clerk of Court's Web site -- www.pbcountyclerk.com -- already competes with the property appraiser's site as the county's busiest. That number is expected to double when criminal and traffic records are added.

NEWSPAPERS HAVE LOST MANY REAL ESTATE ADS TO THE INTERNET

Newspapers will face a huge loss of real estate ads to the Internet, according to Borrell Associates, a national consulting and research firm that tracks local internet advertising and crafts strategies for media and websites. See http://www.borrellassociates.com/product.cfm?prodID=55 .

"Toward the end of 2005, the Internet became the most-used method of selling a home -- beating out even the old-faithful yard sign," says Borrell. “The $11 billion spent on total real estate advertising stagnated, growing less than 4% over the past four years, while the available advertising inventory -- the number of existing homes for sale on the market -- rose 41 percent in the last 12 months. That metric alone is enough to stop a real estate advertising executive dead in his or her tracks."

The Newspaper Association of America reports that classified ad revenue amounted to $16.6 billion in 2004 -- down from $19.6 billion from 2000. Corrected for inflation the situation is far worse: Newspapers would have to have taken in $21.5 billion in 2005 to equal their 2000 classified revenues. See http://www.naa.org/thesource/20.asp .

Will INTEREST RATES GO FARTHER DOWN NOW?

September 18, 2006 - Says David Lereah, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, "Mortgage rates are one of the bright spots in the economy right now, with an unexpected decline recently in the 30-year fixed rate to a narrow range around six-and-a-half percent. This should encourage some of the nearly 4 million people who’ve found newly created jobs over the last two years.”

CITIZEN's DEFICIT to cost ALL FL HOMEOWNERS

CITIZEN’s DEFICIT to cost ALL FL HOMEOWNERS

A one-time charge of $20.70 for every $1000 of annual homeowner insurance premiums due for Florida homeowners with their next renewal bills, added to rate hikes that have already appeared. This is to HELP cover Citizen’s Property Insurance Corp’s $1.7-Billion deficit from 2005, to shore up the state’s home insurer of last resort and now its biggest property insurer.

This is the second time in 2 years that all Florida home insurance policyholders are being forced to bail out Citizens, which has been drained by hurricane-related claims.

Once the assessment gets the go-ahead from the state Office of Insurance Regulation, homeowner insurance companies will pay Citizens and pass the charge on to their customers when the policies are renewed.

This assessment, already approved, is expected to raise $163-MM, and combined with $715-MM in sales tax money already set aside, plus the assessment Citizens is to consider next month which is expected to raise $822-MM.

This information is from the 9-17-06 issue of the Sun-Sentinel newspaper.

COMMUNITIES TAKE NOTE: DEVELOPERS ARE WOOING FAMILIES

9-1-06: Today’s Wall St Journal has an article about the ways developers are wooing families to their properties, and the ideas may have merit everywhere.

Developers tout fancy gyms, pools just for children, water parks, fake “fossil digs”, couture designer romper rooms, playgrounds with slides and climbing equipment, “kids-only” activity rooms, child-sized “Wild West” sets with saloons and teepees, squirt-gun shootout areas, plastic monkey bars, tunnel labyrinths, and on-call “nanny” staff.

According to Packaged Facts, a New York-based consumer-research company, it costs a middle-income family $191,000 to raise a child to age 18.