Englewood Edge - Englewood Florida's own online daily newspaper

Oyster Creek Regional Park renamed Ann Dever Memorial Regional Park

Friday, January 27th, 2012 by Mark Chapman ,
with photos by Courtesy photos

Mem­bers of the Placida Rotary unveil the Children’s Advo­cacy Award plaque in mem­ory of Ann Dever.

Sub­mit­ted by Char­lotte County

Ann Dever had a spe­cial con­nec­tion with Char­lotte County’s parks and recre­ation offer­ings while she was alive. Now she will be for­ever con­nected as the Char­lotte County Board of County Com­mis­sion­ers and Com­mu­nity Ser­vices have renamed Oys­ter Creek Regional Park in her honor.

The count held a ded­i­ca­tion cer­e­mony  Jan. 20 to rename the San Casa Boule­vard park Ann Dever Memo­r­ial Regional Park in honor of the late com­mu­nity con­trib­u­tor and sup­porter who died of can­cer in 2009.

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Affordable?

Monday, January 23rd, 2012 by Mark Chapman

Dane Hahn

By Dane Hahn

Real Estate

Houses around Engle­wood are get­ting more afford­able. I have focused on  “afford­abil­ity” in the past, and think that it’s worth look­ing at again in light of the cur­rent con­di­tions. The National Asso­ci­a­tion of Real­tors keeps a ton of data on sales and deter­mines what regions of the coun­try have homes that are the most affordable.

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LBHS softball announces team roster

Friday, January 20th, 2012 by Mark Chapman ,
with photos by courtesy LBHS softball

The Lemon Bay High School var­sity soft­ball team: Andreena Hei­neck, Nikki Woodard, Lau­risa Fisher, Robyn Blais, Courtlin Hol­land, Hunter Mars, Sab­rina Schroeder, Baleigh Clemens, Brooke Clemens, Brooke Carvey.

The Lemon Bay High School var­sity soft­ball sea­son begins Wednes­day, Feb. 1 and Thurs­day, Feb. 2, with pre­sea­son games at Char­lotte High School. Both games start at 5 p.m.

The team sched­ule is avail­able at http://www.c2cschools.com

The team includes:

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Lemon Bay soph completes Eagle Scout project

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 by Mark Chapman ,
with photos by courtesy photo

Jay Har­ri­son poses at the kiosk at Wild­flower Preserve.

Jay Har­ri­son, a sopho­more at Lemon Bay High School, has com­pleted his project to become an Eagle Scout,  the con­struc­tion of a wel­come cen­ter kiosk at the Wild­flower Pre­serve in Placida.

Eagle Scout is the high­est rank in the Boy Scouts of Amer­ica. Less than 2 per­cent of all scouts attain that rank.

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Picture this

Sunday, January 15th, 2012 by Mark Chapman

Dane Hahn

By Dane Hahn

Real Estate

The data we see every day from both the National Asso­ci­a­tion and the Florida Asso­ci­a­tion of Real­tors always stresses that buy­ers start their real estate hunt online. And, with that in mind, it’s crit­i­cal that our list­ings have excel­lent pho­tos. Because, as they say, you only get one chance to make a good first impression.

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Billery Dean mystery set for Feb.

Sunday, January 15th, 2012 by Mark Chapman ,
with photos by Lemon Bay Historical Society

Katie Mal­loy and Mur­ray Fitzhugh rehearse a scene from “The Case of the Pur­ple Porpoise.”

Sub­mit­ted by Lemon Bay His­tor­i­cal Society

Engle­wood detec­tive (and fish­er­man) Billery Dean faces red tide, snow­storms, mur­ders and live tele­vi­sion as the fourth Billery Dean mys­tery, “The Case of the Pur­ple Por­poise,” comes to the His­toric Green St. Church from Feb.y 3–10.

Set in 1957 New Jer­sey and 1947 Engle­wood, Billery, played by Mur­ray Fitzhugh, copes with strange peo­ple­and events to solve the mysteries.

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Don Platt memorial set for Saturday

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012 by Mark Chapman ,
with photos by Nancy Guenther Chapman

Tammy Bird­song talks about her father, Don Platt, left, at his 90th birth­day part in May 2010. Platt died Monday.

A memo­r­ial was held at 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 14, at the New Royal Palm Marina for Don Platt, who died Mon­day, Jan 9. He was 91 years old.

The memo­r­ial ser­vice was to include a VFW and Coast Guard send-off for his ser­vices in the Navy.

Platt was born May 15, 1920, in Sara­sota, the son of Engle­wood pio­neers Grace Biorseth Platt and Joshua Bryant Platt.

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Prognostications

Monday, January 9th, 2012 by Mark Chapman

Dane Hahn

By Dane Hahn

Real Estate

I always like to read what the other pun­dits are guess­ing before I come up with my own fore­cast for the new year, so two weeks into 2012, I can say with cer­tainty that my crys­tal ball is still a lit­tle cloudy.

Nonethe­less, I am ready to guess what the new year will bring — real estate-wise.

I’m pretty sure that nation­ally there will be an uptick in the rate of home repos­ses­sions in 2012. The good news here is that Florida is pretty well drained of this stock, and as the vacant inven­tory begins to dry up, we should be in a bet­ter than aver­age posi­tion for new sales and the returnof very mod­est infla­tion in the prices of used homes.

There are many rea­sons for the mas­sive back­log in the fore­clo­sure pipeline. Banks are tak­ing months, maybe even years, to actu­ally fore­close on mort­gages in default.

The admin­is­tra­tion is focus­ing on the back­log of home sout there and are mak­ing some wild and crazy pro­pos­als that may or may not work. But the fact that real estate remains a hot topic is help­ful to those who homes are in limbo and to buy­ers and investors who would pur­chase a home, but had been stymied with the red tape and delays.

It’spretty clear that in 2012 and beyond, the banks will work through those back­logs, which will increase the actual fore­clo­sure rate, but should get new fam­i­lies in the vacant homes over the next few months.

Accord­ing to the folks at Cold­well Banker here in Engle­wood, short sales rep­re­sent more than 40 per­cent of their busi­ness. In the com­ing year, dis­tressed home sales will con­tinue to rep­re­sent an increas­ing share of homes on the mar­ket. Buy­ers will shift from con­sid­er­ing whether to buy a short sale to under­stand­ing that they must be edu­cated and pre­pared to do a deal with a seller, a bank or both to access the full selec­tion of homes on the market.

To make smart deci­sions about what to offer and what toex­pect on any list­ing they like, buy­ers will need this infor­ma­tion and be will­ing to nego­ti­ate in good faith with patience as well as to set smart pri­or­i­ties and make real­is­tic com­par­isons between list­ings based on their per­sonal pri­or­i­ties around tim­ing, cer­tainty and seller flexibility.

We’ve all been “dope-slapped” by the dips in home val­ues. In Sara­sota, I have shown con­dos that, in ear­lier times, would have sold for more than $1 mil­lion, but today the ask­ing price is in the $400’s. In Engle­wood, water­fron­thomes once in the $500,000 range are sell­ing for under $250,000. Still, the “afford­abil­ity index” often dis­cussed by the econ­o­mists at the National Asso­ci­a­tion of Real­tors and the­Florida Asso­ci­a­tion of Real­tors is show­ing that buy­ing a home has never been cheaper.

The cost of bor­row­ing money is at an almost all-time low, the cost of pur­chas­ing fine hous­ing is also very low today — mean­ing that as the job num­bers finally cor­rect them­selves, the cost of hous­ing will likely increase dis­pro­por­tion­ately over the next 12 to 18 months. I can’t speak for the other areas of the coun­try that had the same bub­ble we had, and the same burst of their bub­ble — like Las Vegas — but I can speak for Florida, which I see as ready to return to a real estate dri­ven economy.

For years, buy­ers and sell­ers have been wait­ing for that sin­gu­lar event to occur that would cause a quick mar­ket recov­ery. Well, it ain’t gonna hap­pen. Amer­i­cans love instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion. We love to have our cake and eat it too. But the days of get­ting rich quick (legally) are over. Hard work, sac­ri­fice and good real­is­tic ideas equal get­ting rich slowly, and that’s the best we can hope for now.

You don’t make money in the real estate busi­ness when you sell your prop­erty. You make money when you buy. You can’t sell a prop­erty for more than it’s worth, so smart investors buy right, maybe 30 per­cent off the going rate, and then either wait for the mar­ket to grow, or make repairs and cos­met­ics to drive up the likely resale price.

Today the investors will look to acquire rentals that will return 150 per­cent of their monthly costs, and hold these homes as invest­ments. Flip­ping is so yes­ter­day. Ordi­nary cit­i­zens should relook at a refi or remodel and be con­tent where they are for the long haul, or decide their homes no longer fit their lifestyles and their finances, divest of them and move on.

But the good news is, peo­ple will make these deci­sions based on what is or is not sus­tain­able for their lives and their finances, and not based on inflated hopes about what the mar­ket will or will not do.

Dane Hahn is a real estate pro­fes­sional in Engle­wood, you­can con­tact him at 941−681−0312 or by email at dane.hahn@gmail.com.Or see him on the web at http://www.danesellsflorida.com.