"Dave Kearton" wrote in
:

muff528 wrote:
"Dave Kearton" wrote in message
...
muff528 wrote:
From my home in Lakeland.........some low quality photos.

Going...........



Do your property values go up or down because of events like that,
"and the
smell, that gasoline smell..."


I'm thinking it's got to be worth another 10 or 15 points.


--

Cheers

Dave Kearton

This is Florida. ANY event increases property values. :-)

During the last couple of years prices have spiked, largely because
of speculator buying. This accelerated the normal increases in
pricing in the
state, artificially increasing "values" as determined by the real
estate industry and the taxing authorities. There is currently a
grassroots "movement" to have the state government "do something"
about
the resulting property tax increases. As a double whammy, insurances
have correspondingly increased because of the greater exposure to
risk by the higher "values". Meanwhile, no-one wants to concede that
the artificially inflated values are, in fact, artificial and
short-lived. People who have recently purchased a home don't want to
admit that
they made a mistake and taxing authorities are not willing to give
up what amounts to a windfall. A lot of questionable loans were made
to sub-prime borrowers and many are giving up their homes to lenders
who are now stuck with properties which are not worth the
outstanding loans. People who owned property for any length of time
sold their homes for a large profits. With cash in hand they found
that they could not even replace the home they just sold with one of
equal value without getting strapped with the higher taxes and
insurance. As long as you own a property the taxes can only be
increased annually by a certain small value (~ 3%). As soon as the
property it is sold it is reassessed so a $80k house
becomes a $250k house. Meanwhile the homestead exemption remains at
an archaic $25,000.

You'd think that the big "chem-trail" left by the shuttle would keep
people away. Besides that, we have to put up with that annoying
double
sonic boom just about every time the shuttle returns and it's flight
path takes it near Lakeland. (What a great sound!)

Blue'ns (Sorry for the rant), TP



Hmmm, some similarities here. Real estate (for us) always
goes in boom and bust cycles.


You can tell when it's in the boom cycle, there's more 3-series
Beemers on the road. Then just as quickly, the bubble bursts and
they're all on the evening news, decrying what a sleepy town we live
in "because nothing is happening."


Estate agents, can't live with 'em, can't deep fry 'em.


Although, that's not quite true, the greasy ones fry quite well.

Seattle has two "news"papers, sorta. While waiting for a bus last
Thursday, I noted the headlines on adjacent dispenser boxes:

Seattle Times: Local Home Sales Cool Off
Seattle PI: Seattle Home Sales Shoot Up

In spite of the gnusdweeb silliness, home prices in the region continue to
swell beyond reason; construction of new condos and apartments is going a
tad hyper, all over my neighborhood nice buildings are being torn down so
nice, larger buildings can replace them.

How's a soul supposed to sleep in 'til the crack of noon with all that
noise?

Me grumpy even ~without~ stupid head cold. X^{