News about properties and real estate
Life Difficult for Apartment Owners, Tenants
When Jennifer and Terry Balvin first met, Terry owned a house. But after they married, the Balvins chose to live in her apartment at Martin’s Landing in South Lakeland.
“He is always telling me of the costs and hassles of just going through the purchase of the house — let alone the costs afterward,” Jennifer Balvin said. “With renting, if something breaks, someone else comes to fix it and they (management) pay for the repair . . .”
Fourteen years before the devastation in New York City, Jamaica, and indeed the world, suffered a loss, though clearly not of the same magnitude, when reggae revolutionary Peter Tosh was brutally murdered at his home in Barbican, Kingston by gunmen. Also killed on that fateful night, was Wilton ‘Doc’ Brown, a herbalist friend of Tosh.
Escrow Bomb ticking in S. Florida
You’d be smart to keep a close eye on that escrow account attached to your mortgage. There’s a good chance many Florida property owners won’t have enough money squirreled away this year.
Escrow is money held for future obligations. Every month most homeowners pay principal and interest due on their mortgage plus an additional amount that is put into escrow. When annual property tax bills come due at year’s end and when homeowners insurance premiums need to be paid, your mortgage lender uses escrowed funds to pay the bills.
Citizens deficit to cost all homeowners [Florida]
All Floridians with homeowner insurance policies will have a one-time charge tacked on their annual premiums to help cover Citizens Property Insurance Corp.’s $1.7 billion deficit from 2005, officials with the state-backed insurer decided Thursday.
And Citizens’ board will meet next month to consider another extra charge for all of the state’s homeowners to shore up the state’s home insurer of last resort and now its biggest property insurer.
The extra charge approved Thursday will be $20.70 for every $1,000 of annual premium paid and will be in addition to the rate hikes that consumers already are paying to insure their homes.
Taxpayers strain to swallow hikes [South Florida]
When Patrick Moriarity opened his tax bill this year and saw a 35 percent increase in the amount of money he owed on his two commercial rental properties in Venice, he was more than outraged.
He was disgusted.
Moriarity and new homeowners, owners of second homes and owners of commercial and rental properties have felt the pain of sharply rising taxes in Manatee and Sarasota counties.
What embattled entrepreneur and race car driver Eric Schwartz said he enjoyed most about the restaurant business were the openings, especially designing, refurbishing and decorating a new restaurant. He didn’t like the chronic financial struggle to stay in business in a highly competitive industry.
Schwartz, 49, who founded Upstairs Downstairs Deli with a partner at age 19 and has owned several other Madison restaurants, now runs Sara Investment Real Estate, where he does refurbishing and decorating without worrying about the food service.
The company is named for Schwartz’s wife, who he said always supported him even during the most difficult times. They have four children ages 9 to 16.