News about properties and real estate
Cape targets builder for delays in building homes
The city of Cape Coral is cracking down on a major homebuilder for delays in starting dozens of homes, but the builder says its problems are largely the fault of a bank that stopped financing 380 of them.
Last week, city officials stopped issuing permits for Cape-based Hansen Homes because of a backlog of permit applications that had piled up but hadn’t been picked up or paid for, city spokeswoman Connie Barron said Thursday.
Neighbor island home prices continue climbing
While the pace of home sales went down substantially last month in many neighbor island markets, for the most part prices continued to rise as the formerly tumultuous housing market stabilizes.
The start of the New Year saw a continued lag in Kauai’s housing market. The pace of house sales declined 34 percent, with as few as 35 homes changing hands, according to Hawaii Information Service data released yesterday. However, sales of condominiums grew 32.5 percent: Buyers purchased 53 condominiums compared to the year-ago 40 as more people were priced out of houses.
Home prices on Kauai, like on other islands, shot up last month. More than half of the buyers on the Garden Isle paid more than $650,000 to purchase a house last month. That’s a 30 percent increase from the previous year’s $500,000.
For sale: 1960s-era motel room with that Florida feel. Great investment potential. Faded drapes and framed pelican prints stay.
First came the merging of condominiums and hotels. Then the conversion of apartments into condominiums.
Now the trend is broadening into what may be a uniquely Florida evolution – the condo-motel.
East Sarasota parcel sells for $132,500 per acre
In a rare handshake deal, Indiana investor J.Z. Morris sold 20 acres east of Interstate 75 for $2.65 million.
That comes to $132,500 per acre, a record price for residential land in that part of Sarasota County.
“It went on the market in April 2004,” said David Bartolotti, a real estate agent with Century 21 Advantage who represented Morris. “We had a couple of offers, but no one thought we’d get more than $100,000 per acre.”
Save or pay off mortgage? It depends
Low mortgage rates over the past few years fueled a wave of refinancing. Some of us borrowed against our home’s equity or extended the payoff periods to lower our payments.
If debt makes you anxious, you may be wondering: Should I pay off my mortgage — or not? Well, it depends on your financial circumstances, your time to retirement and your emotions.
“For far-sighted people who have self-control [to save elsewhere], it probably makes sense not to repay their mortgage,” says Anthony Webb, an economist at the Retirement Research Center. Consider:
New Medicaid Rules on Home Ownership – New York Times
The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, signed by President Bush last Wednesday, makes significant changes in the rules regarding home ownership and its effect on eligibility for Medicaid, which is often used to pay for nursing-home care.
Ronald Fatoullah, a lawyer in Great Neck, on Long Island, said that in determining an applicant’s assets, the value of an individual’s home was usually exempt. But under the new law, he said, a person with more than $500,000 in home equity is ineligible for nursing-home care under Medicaid. (Homes occupied by a spouse or a disabled or minor child are exempt. And the law allows states to increase the threshold to $750,000.)