Archives

May 2007

April new home sales highest monthly gain in 14 years

Posted at 12:56 PM, May. 24, 2007

Economists were expecting a 0.2% increase in new home sales for the month of April 2007. However sales increased by 16.2% which is the largest amount in 14 years.

The median sales price however was 11.1% lower than the month before. This appears to be a successful effort by builders to sell its excess inventories.

Now is a great time to buy, as new home prices are very low, however the lower prices of the new homes, do have a negative impact on those selling pre-owned homes, those that can least afford to reduce their prices.

Lower Property Insurance Rates - Maybe Not

Posted at 5:48 PM, May. 10, 2007

While Governor Charlie Crist and many other politicians have been promising lower property insurance rates, a new twist has taken place.

When U.S. Senator Bill Nelson was the state insurance commissioner he initiated a public computer catastrophe model that was supposed to protect us against the private computer catastrophe models that the insurance companies use. These models predict the likelihood of a weather related catastrophe.

The public model was created by a team at Florida International University in Miami at a cost of $2.7 million of taxpayer money.

So what is the twist. The public model was supposed to provide checks and balances to the private models used by the insurance industry. Unfortunately, the public model predicted catastrophic losses almost twice as high as the private models. If the insurance industry sets their rates based on the public model instead of saving money, we could all be paying much higher property insurance rates, plus we will be paying for the system that all made this possible.

So What Happened to Property Tax Relief?

Posted at 6:03 AM, May. 5, 2007

Governor Charlie Crist had set as one of his priorities, Property Tax Relief. We were promised by him and members of the legislature that we would see it soon. Some were even saying if they did not pass anything during this session then they wasted their time. Well guess what? The session is over with no agreement.

The legislature suspended negotiations until a special 10-day session to be held June 12 - 22. They state they want to get it right, and this session they say will result in a deal. Let us pray!

Will Wesley Chapel Get A Hospital

Posted at 1:37 PM, May. 4, 2007