Archive for September, 2008
Palm Harbor Short Sales and The Cat Who Wouldn’t Give Up
September 30th, 2008 categories: Stop Tampa Bay Foreclosure
We have to put our 16-year old cat, Moe, to sleep today. It’s gut-wrenching.
I feel like his murderer – and his savior. It hit me last night that it’s not much different than helping someone through a Palm Harbor short sale when the Pinellas foreclosure date is near.
My logical mind says I know we’re putting Moe out of his misery. It’s something we have to do – we’ve explored all of our other options, expensive tests, psychoanalyzed every possible impending (yet imaginary) miracle to death, and yet, we realized we hit the point where the rubber just has to meet the road.
We hired the best professional available – the vets at Westlake Animal Hospital in Tarpon Springs. We are following their guidance and we are sending Moe the Cat packing with a sardine last-meal, a scratch and a kiss, and we’ll be there at the end when he pounces up to kitty heaven. And get a grip Julia … I tell myself, he’s just a cat. I’m tell myself I’m not going get too emotionally involved. But hey, we’ve been friends for 16 years and have been through a lot together.
There are lovely people all over Pinellas County struggling with their upside down houses and the loss of a job, ballooning interest payments, and medical bills who need help navigating their way out. Thousands of options are thrown at them when they are already in a state of disarray financially and emotionally.
The lucky ones find professionals to help them navigate their way out. Through the sea of attorneys, foreclosure notices and extensions, daily nasty phone calls and letters from the banks, upset children that are losing their home and not sure where they are going yet, and often times tears and the family fights that can ensue.
With the help of a caring professional, this gut-wrenching drama can actually turn into a well-thought out and carefully executed short sale plan of action to avoid foreclosure. Credit can be saved, at least in part, and in a rare instances, sometimes without even as much as a 30-day late on a FICO report. Despair turns to Read the rest of this entry »
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SOLD @ $280K! Immaculate 4/3/3 Palm Harbor on 1/3+ Acres – 1588 Ohio Avenue
September 19th, 2008 categories: Featured Listings
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Crystal Beach Florida – Charming Seaside Living Reminiscent of Yesteryear
September 16th, 2008 categories: Crystal Beach Palm Harbor Homes
Crystal Beach Florida home owners don’t have mailboxes, but they have their own zip code – 34681. Residents pick up their mail at the tiny Crystal Beach post office - and that’s just the way they like it. 
Mail delivery is not the only thing old-fashioned in this quaint seaside town.
Within this community of about 1,200 people, you’ll still find a sprinkling of old-Florida “Cracker Houses“. Some of the streets remain unpaved and are covered with white seashells. Moss-covered trees and tall Oaks drape over many of the streets. There is no downtown here – the heart of this town lies within its residents.
Originally a fishing village, Crystal Beach was officially developed in 1912 as a vacation village. It’s grown a lot since then, yet Crystal Beach remains part of unincorporated Palm Harbor in Pinellas County. The famed Pinellas Trail runs through this community, which lies just south of Tarpon Springs and a dab of Palm Harbor and lies just to the north of Ozona and Dunedin, with Alt. 19 (aka Palm Harbor Blvd.) bordering to the East. Best of all, this community snugs up against St. Joseph sound and the sparkling Gulf of Mexico.
The schools are magnificent - as is the case for all of Palm Harbor. In Crystal Beach, your young ones will grow up with the small joys of yesteryear. These include visits to the popular Crystal Beach Pier, a public fishing spot where, at high tide, you’ll find brave kids jumping off the end of the dock in to the warm waters. You can launch your kayak from the beach or take part in the annual Fourth of July festivities which draw a crowd from all over Pinellas County.
At the north end of Town, there’s Sutherland Bayou Boat Ramp, a 5-acre boating facility with direct access to the Gulf. You can also launch your boat at nearby Pop Stansel Park. Like Ozona Florida, Crystal Beach is a golf-cart friendly community, and it’s lots of fun to leave the car at home. If you’re a golfer, the renowned Innisbrook Golf and Tennis Resort is just up Alt. 19 about a mile.
Although the name ‘Crystal Beach’ suggests that perhaps there are sandy beaches here, that’s not the case, except for perhaps a few lucky homeowners on the sought-after Mayo Street or Point Seaside Drive. This is true for the majority of the developments in Northern Pinellas, yet the lack of sand is of little concern to residents. If it’s glorious white sand beaches you’re after, then the causeway to Honeymoon Island and Caladessi Island State Beach (just named the #1 beach in the Country), is just 3 short miles to the south. For the perfect adventure, you can ride your bike on the Pinellas Trail to get there.
If you’re thinking of making Crystal Beach home, you’ve got a wide variety of architectural styles and features to choose from. Home prices start in the 100’s and go upwards of $5M, yet the median price range is about $300K to $900K. Feel free to search the Pinellas MLS to see what’s available, or contact us for a personal tour. If you’re just visiting, there are fabulous vacation rentals, too.
Give us a call at (727)366-0324 request your free relocation guide, which highlights all of the splendor of Pinellas County and beyond.
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Florida Home for Sale Includes Hot Wife
September 8th, 2008 categories: Get Ridiculously Happy
So, what does a Palm Harbor Realtor do with her few spare minutes of time? Truth is, I was just breezing through Active Rain, a clearinghouse for real estate professionals that also happen to be bloggers, and it somehow lead me to this story.
Apparently this divorced single mom, who happens to be ‘hot’ (I’ll let you decide) and her “agent”, have HER included with the sale of the house on both eBay and Craigslist. Yes, that’s right, you get the house and the gal!
Aside from the Ewwwwww Gross factor, has this agent no professionalism? Have we all lost our minds?
Matt and I have seen some desperate measures from people in the wrong hands, but folks, if you’re trying to sell your Dunedin home, find yourself an agent with a professional and PROVEN MARKETING STRATEGY to get your home sold!
If you’re smarter than this gal, I bet you can find your own dates.
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Ozona Florida, an “Old Florida” Waterfront & Golf-cart Friendly Community
September 7th, 2008 categories: Ozona Palm Harbor Homes
Ozona FL offers “Old Florida” small-town living with the added benefit of being part of a larger, surrounding community with fabulous amenities. Sometimes it seems that this eclectic waterfront community likes to keep itself a secret from the mainstreamers of Palm Harbor. One thing’s for sure, having an Ozona address unofficially puts you into the insiders club.
Part of unincorporated Palm Harbor, Ozona is not quite a city, yet there’s certainly more to love here than your average neighborhood.
Hugging the Gulf of Mexico, Ozona sits just south of Tarpon Springs and Crystal Beach and north of Dunedin -and stops to the East at Alternate 19 (aka Palm Harbor Blvd.). Boaters relish in it’s surrounding waters leading to St. Joseph Sound and the open Gulf of Mexico. There’s Sutherland Bayou to the north and Smith Bayou to the south, and that’s Lungreen Cove just north of the dash after Ozona in the picture above. While Ozona is a small community of about 1100 people, it supports 5 marinas for those that don’t have the luxury of a dock in the backyard.
Ozona is a golf-cart friendly community where you’ll find parents cruising their kids to school in style. There’s also the annual Christmas golf-cart parade, with the carts fully decorated to the nines. If actually playing golf is what you’re after, Innisbrook’s four championship courses are laid out on over 600 acres about a mile up the road in Palm Harbor.
If you were to search for Ozona homes, you’d find them from the low $200’s for a funky cottage up to the $2M+ range. The cute and somewhat dusty downtown “main” street (Orange Street) brings you back to yesteryear, and here you’ll find casual restaurants including Molly Goodhead’s and The Ozona Pig. There’s also the Ozona Blue Grilling Company just down the road, where you can have lunch and a cocktail while taking a dip in the waterside pool! For your sweet tooth, there’s Chocolate Studios, featuring exotic homemade chocolate creations. If you prefer to prepare your own fine dining experience, then a trip to the Ozona Seafood Company is a must – they have incredible fresh fish, meat and all sorts of gourmet goodies.
If you’ve got young ones, they’re eligible to go to Ozona Elementary- the school in Palm Harbor that elicits tons of rave reviews from parents year after year, and is brilliantly managed by it’s Principal, Kerry Apuzzo. Better yet, the local high school is Palm Harbor University High, ranked in 2008 by Newsweek at #208 of the top 1400 public high schools in the nation (of which there are over 27,000!)
Even if you’re not a big fan of the water, yet you enjoy an “Old Florida” town feel, you’ll fall in love with the charm and sense of community that Ozona offers. It is unsurpassed in North Pinellas County – except perhaps by the other seaside community to the north which is Crystal Beach.
Then again, it depends who you ask.
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The Pinellas Trail, all 34 Glorious Miles of It and Growing!
September 6th, 2008 categories: Pinellas Things to Do & Events
Of course, here at The Pinellas Peach, we are raving mad about The Pinellas Trail, which is the stupendous 34-mile artery that connects residents from Tarpon Springs to St. Petersburg. 
Originally the Orange Belt Railway in 1884, The Pinellas Trail is now used by over 90,000 bicyclists, runners, roller bladers, and Sunday strollers per month. In 1983, the trail was the brainchild of a man who’s son was killed while riding his bike. By 1990, the first 5-mile section opened connecting Taylor Park in Largo to Seminole Park in Seminole.
The trail has now grown to over 34 miles long as shown on this map, and just this year plans were put in place for the Pinellas Trail Loop, which will connect The Pinellas Trail from downtown St. Petersburg to the East Lake Tarpon!
Along the way, you’ll find bike racks, refreshment stops, restaurants, pay phones (in this day and age?!), parks and bike shops along the trail. It even runs past the causeway to Honeymoon Island where you can take the ferry to Caladesi Island - recently voted the #1 beach in the country.
As Palm Harbor Real Estate Consultants, we have seen first-hand the added value awarded a home that is close to The Pinellas Trail or even backs up to it. Why? People love it – and we do too!
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Seller-Funded Downpayment Assistance for Pinellas Real Estate Purchases Soon to be a Thing of The Past
September 6th, 2008 categories: Mortgage Updates
Effective October 1st, you can no longer have the seller pay your down payment on your Palm Harbor real estate investment, or even a hut in Timbuktu. Unless you’re a veteran of the armed forces, you 
will need at least 3% of your own or gifted money to purchase a home anywhere in the US – with no exceptions. The reason? The recent approval of HR 3221 and all that it entails.
The passage of this bill eliminates ALL seller-funded down payment assistance with FHA-guaranteed loans. In addition, if you were thinking of buying a new home, home buyers will no longer be able to rely on nonprofits that funnel money from home-builders into seller-funded down payment assistance programs.
HR 3221 therefore finalizes HUD’s long quest to end that practice as well. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) claims that the provision of monies from the seller causes an artificial inflation in the housing market statistics. This is because the record of the transaction at closing, (known also as the HUD), reflects the price of the home to be higher to compensate for the closing costs paid by the seller (a fair argument).
The belief is also that the odds of the homebuyer defaulting on the loan triples as they are basically buying the home with no money out of their pocket but with money provided by another party. Seller-funded down-payment assistance has become extremely popular as it was used on more than 35 percent of all home purchase loans insured by FHA in fiscal year 2007. This is a dramatic increase compared to less than 2 percent seven years ago. We want you to be aware of how the changes can affect you and your home purchase plans. Feel free to contact us regarding this pending change.
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