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Congratulations to yet another team from Venice High School on bringing a state championship to our community. (photo courtesy of the Venice Herald Tribune) The Venice High baseball team is the Florida Class 5A State Champion! The Indians dispatched a strong Port St. Lucie Jaguar team 12-1 in a game ending after 6 innings (10 run mercy rule) at Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota. The Indians baseball team last played for a state championship in 1999 at Tampa's Legends Field, where they lost to Merr... Read Full Post

Well, the most recent housing market statistics are in and all over the print and electronic media...and causing all manner of conversation. The story this month is that in the Sarasota/Bradenton market, home sales increased by 16% over last April and the median price (the median is the number where half of the prices are more and half are less) dropped by 2%. Our regular readers and customers already knew what happened in Venice, and they knew it in the first week of May. In fact, in Venice,... Read Full Post

Hey Andrea, since when is a woman on time, or even early for that matter?? Andrea, the first named storm of 2007, has already worked her way off the Georgia coast, so far ahead of the official June 1 start date of the Atlantic hurricane season. This is somewhat unusual for such an early appearance of a subtropical storm like Andrea. Storms of this type can even evolve into full-blown hurricanes; however, Andrea is expected to dissipate this weekend. Which means that this is great time to brin... Read Full Post

Freddie Mac has announced that it will not continue to purchase sub-prime adjustable rate mortgages (ARM's) when the borrower has qualified only on the introductory, or teaser interest rate after September 1, 2007. Borrowers will need to qualify on the fully indexed rate. Additionally, Freddie will restrict limited or no documentation loans. This action essentially represents the corporation saying to lenders "...quit lending to people who cannot afford it, or we will no longer buy your loans... Read Full Post

There was a great article in last Friday's (1/26/07) Venice Tribune Review by Stephen Frater (article). It was on the front page, above the fold, full headline stating "Home sales' pulse strengthens". Mr. Frater's piece was well written, informative, well sourced and contained a number of remarks from prominent local, statewide and national industry professionals. While the information contained therein does not necessarily describe a return to the days of wine and roses, it was very realisti... Read Full Post

Did you know what the MEDIAN credit score in the US is? it is: Where do you fall relative to that number? Have you ever wondered what goes into these scores? Who is responsible for calculating them? Is there anything can I do to improve them? How do I get mine? Today, we are posting the next installment on our series or posts dealing with credit and will be discussing Credit scores. These scores are calculated from the various data contained in your credit file, or credit report. In the Unite... Read Full Post

Today Jan and I will begin a series of posts in areas associated with home financing. We will start with credit reports and cover topics such as credit repair and protection, a very important issue in todays world, and continue with material on various loan products available to borrowers in the current market. Your credit report, or credit file disclosure, is a record of all of the information that a credit reporting company has obtained about you from various sources, including companies th... Read Full Post

It occurred to me as I was traveling along Center Road on my way home from a listing appointment the other night that the road was almost completely paved in all lanes going both directions and that it was a very pleasant ride, and with that in mind, I took a right at Jacaranda and drove the newly finished Border Road project. Which brings me to the subject for this post...an update on our local CONE ZONES. We have some good news and some not-so-good news when it comes to our local road const... Read Full Post

....Florida Gators Mens Basketball - reigning National Champions... ...Florida Gators Football - National Champions.....'nuff said (he writes as he does the Gator Chomp) Read Full Post

The next installment in our look back at the local real estate market with final 2006 figures will be our look at how the market performed each month compared to the same month in the prior year. Click on the image at the left for a large look at the Median Single Family Home sales presented in this manner. The media is fond of quoting the changes in the median prices using this comparison method. Looking at January 2006, which showed a little residual upward momentum, and forecasting what Ja... Read Full Post