The Daily Soak - July 1

Experts Offer Prescriptions To Get Us Out of the HousingBath

The St. Pete Times asks a panel of Florida elected officials and think tank members for policy proposals to jump-start the state's struggling economy. Both liberals and conservatives weighed in offering everything from promoting carpooling to eliminating Florida property taxes to reducing the size of state government. Florida CFO Alex Sink was the only respondent who addressed the growing foreclosure crisis by suggesting, "the state should explore a program to help people at risk of losing their homes...because there's a bulge coming when lenders reset adjustable rate mortgages in August and September." Mark Wilson, the President of the Florida Chamber, offered the most common sense proposal, "Keep taxpayers' dollars in their pockets by focusing on the core functions of government and eliminating (wasteful) spending."


Website Seeks to "Democratize" The Foreclosure Process

As the number of foreclosure filings keep rising, more and more online ventures are seeking to aggregate the reams of distressed property information and sell it to interested buyers. Several websites like Foreclosure.com, Foreclosures.com, Default Research and RealtyTrac charge $40-$70 for detailed property listings, but a new player in the e-foreclosure space is offering the basic information for free. ForeclosurePoint claims to be"the only national foreclosure marketplace that provides free access to full street addresses of more than 1.2 million foreclosure properties in the U.S." The Seattle-based company offers premium services with more detailed information for a monthly fee. HB.com gives ForeclosurePoint.com high marks for speed and ease of use. Site registration took less than a minute, and a foreclosure search for Dade County returned 54,044 results organized in a neat, 11-column database with pricing estimates pulled from Zillow.


Nothing Says "Florida Real Estate" Quite Like a French Castle

Last month HB.com took you inside the hallowed halls of a swinging, peach-colored Marco Island bachelor pad. Our ongoing salute to bizarre excellence in Florida interior design takes us to the conference room of a Lakeland commercial real estate company. Maria Mahoney, owner of The Mahoney Group, decorated her conference room in a French castle motif, because "(I) didn't want the typical ducks, you know, the things you find in Florida." (Ducks?) The French castle posters have garnered rave reviews from her clients who appreciate the holy trinity of good interior design, "elegance, castles and relaxation." The conference room has been such a hit, Mahoney thinks the time is right to capitalize on the French castle fever sweeping through Central Florida: "I am in the process of setting up a new division of our firm, which will be French castles. Within the next few months we will have an official launching of that new division." Vive La Conference Room!