The drama pricing

The median price for a home in the Sarasota-Bradenton market has dropped $109,200 since the beginning of 2006, based on the September sales report by the Florida Association of Realtors. Back in January 2006, the median was $353,500. Now it is 31 percent less.

"The sellers have reduced their pricing; they've done the drama pricing." says Nancy Riley, this year's president of the Florida Association of Realtors.

SH-T

Not to bee

Mystery bee-killing disease returns to Florida

By JEFF NESMITH
Cox News Service
Published on: 10/25/07

WASHINGTON — Unexplained honeybee deaths have recently started showing up in Florida, the same state where the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder was first discovered a year ago, the Agriculture Department's top bee scientist said Thursday.

Blows for "blowjob"

It's ok to Tase:

"In short, the FDLE determined that our officers acted well within state guidelines," university President Bernie Machen said in a letter to students, faculty and staff.

Two officers who were placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation were reinstated Wednesday, Machen said.

But don't use the phrase:

Meyer then began giving a speech that used a crass term for oral sex

Naughty boy

Atop his list of favorite donees: the family-values-focused Heritage Foundation, which has published papers with titles such as "Restoring a Culture of Marriage."

A Quorum of Pantywastes

"Mommy mommy, I didn't do it, I didn't poop in my pants - he did, and he did, and he did"

State of De Nial

Florida is now scrambling to reduce property taxes and the cost of homeowner's insurance. Over the summer, Gov. Charlie Crist signed a bill to roll back property taxes to last year's level. Next year, Floridians could vote on a constitutional amendment that would lower property taxes by increasing the tax exemption given to permanent residents. "Is Florida Over?" WSJ

So the counties, in a panic, are making sure property values go ever higher to offset any reductions.

Mysterious spread of good sense

"Instead of everyone making the assumption that they're going to move to Florida, now it's more of an open playing field," says Dave Schreiner, national vice president at Pulte Homes' Del Webb communities. "Is Florida Over?" WSJ

External Costs

A 2006 study called “The External Costs of Foreclosure” by Dan Immergluck of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Geoff Smith of the Woodstock Institute showed that “each conventional foreclosure within an eighth of a mile of a single-family home results in a 0.9 percent decline in value.” Stephen Frater, SH_T

Proceed with Caution. . .

Caveat lector: Reading this could impair Rush Limbaugh's "credibility."

not a fire sale

“St. Joe Co., Florida’s largest private landowner, plans to eliminate more than 75 percent of its workforce, sell about 100,000 acres of land and scrap its dividend to contend with the worst housing slump in 16 years. ‘This is not a fire sale,’ CEO Peter Rummell said today on a conference call. ‘We are not dumping stuff on the market and we are not going to make stupid decisions but there are things that we believe have reached their height in pricing.’” Bloomberg, via the Housing Bubble Blog.

The family that Tases together stayses together

Walk into Sam's Club and it's already Christmas! Here's an EZ gift idea for all your loved ones:

Maxpedition Hook & Loop Modular 3-Clip Holster:

Brought to you by:

We the People

Mike Gravel speaks a language that is not Democrat, not Republican. It's oddly like a language of the people:

Media Reform Conference Sat. Oct. 6

The Florida Media Project is holding a Media Reform Conference on Saturday, Oct. 6, in Sarasota.

Somehow not all the traditional media managed to mention it.

Make your political points, but with decorum

We Penilestatians, cheered by the mild sun, the happy waves, the cooling Trade Winds, always speak with respect of public figures, no matter what reservations we might have of them in private. But just look if you can bear it at this:

On the off-chance that anyone thought I was overstating the pure, malignant evil of corpse-humping Republican rent-boy Rudy Giuliani, I thought I'd take a look at his recent pronouncements.

Continuing his scab-scratching exploitation of the 9/11 attacks, the hideous Draculoid slaphead stated that, for him, "every day is an anniversary of September 11th."

Language, TUT TUT! and for no other reason -- certainly not because we disagree one whit with the actual thought of this post -- we emit our Tuts to Mr. Between the Hammer and the Anvil.

We trust this will put him so securely in his place that his future posts will show some manners. If not, we'll never link to him again.

Send in the anti-clowns

According to this site, the story of Kamel Zaki -- the guy whose Homeowners Association is trying to suppress him -- is going national:

This HOA looks like a bunch of clowns across the United States and probably beyond. Treat your homeowners fairly and do what is best for your neighborhood, even if it is not what you might personally want.

Amerikan nightmares

via The Housing Bubble Blog:

The Associated Press. “Sherrill Zenie said all she wanted was a piece of the American Dream, but what she got was ‘a kick in the rear.’”

“Zenie is one of a legion of a relatively new type of homeowner, a ‘flipper,’ who sought fast money by rapidly buying and selling homes to capture a profit on each as prices soared. Speculators who bought multiple homes like Zenie were once a boon to the U.S. economy when they pushed home prices to record levels over a five-year period. Now their unsold homes are the bane of a sickly housing market.”

“‘Nobody is looking, either to rent or to buy,’ says Sherrill Zenie, of Delray Beach, Florida, who is stuck with two unsold condominiums there after profitably selling two others.”

“She owns the condos outright, as well as her own home, part of a vacation home in Vermont. But taxes, maintenance and a home equity credit line cost over $2,000 a month for the two condos alone, a stretch for Zenie, who is out of work on disability.”

“‘I wanted to follow the American Dream,’ she says. ‘I wanted to be an entrepreneur and make some money — not a killing, but some money. Instead, I got a kick in the rear.’”

“Her husband has found a job in another state to help pay the bills. ‘Am I panicking? I would be hysterical if my husband weren’t in Mississippi working.’”

“‘People were buying a condo in Florida, or five condos in Florida before they even broke ground, and before they even had the condo half-way built they would sell them for hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits,’ notes Jim Gillespie, CEO at Coldwell Banker Real Estate.”

“‘The big lesson is that even during hot times, if you’re going to invest in real estate or stocks or bonds, gold or silver, or anything, and you try to time the market and invest with the intent of flipping in a very short period of time, eventually you are going to get burned,’ Gillespie said.”

Does it occur to someone like this that "the American Dream" is perhaps not truly traceable to some hogwild crapshoot that has little to do with reality and less connection to common sense?

On NPR today: why a guy works for Blackwater: So he and his wife can go on a real vacation, to a biker convention, in style:

Patty Herbert shows me their new air-conditioned trailer. They paid cash for it recently. And they'll use it to tow their two Harley Davidsons behind their Ford F350, to the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. link