As appeared in Sarasota Realtor Magazine
November 2008
Sarasota remains an amazing place to reside
The national (and now international) wave of economic angst and crisis may sometimes seem overwhelming, putting many people in a fearful mood. But through all the historic cycles in the real estate market, Sarasota has always emerged as a market leader during the recovery phase.
Why? It only requires a few hours driving around our beautiful, vibrant, clean and friendly community to understand why people continue to purchase real estate in Sarasota in good times and bad.
Some buy for investment purposes; some for second vacation homes; and others who recently relocated to the area for jobs, family or education and buy for a place to live. Still others are simply ready to escape the rental scene and start building equity in a home that will provide long-term appreciation.
But the major reasons for purchasing in Sarasota, as opposed to other parts of Florida or the nation, are far more numerous and obvious. The reasons are well known to SAR-member real estate agents, many of whom have lived here many years.
The attractions of the coastline of Sarasota are incredible. The natural beauty of the shoreline; the challenging and picturesque golf courses; the wonderful cultural amenities; the clean air, waterways and neighborhoods – all this and much more make Sarasota a top-notch community.
Even local Realtors® who have lived here for only a short time already know what makes Sarasota special, and they often use these unique attributes to market the community.
Sarasota enjoys a magnetism that brings new residents to the sunshine, the fresh air, the blue skies, the crystal sand beaches, the waters, the restaurants, shops, museums and shows. There is an energetic cultural mix of artists, talented individuals, musicians, performers, writers, and other creative people. They obviously enjoy living here, and when people visit Sarasota on vacation, they often do not want to leave. Many return years later to make their permanent home here.
Sarasota has something few other place in the world offer – a perfect mix of new and old, historic and modern, traditional and cutting edge relaxed and energized. There’s something for every lifestyle in Sarasota!
The nation seemed to really start taking notice of Sarasota shortly after the turn of the millennium.
*Sarasota was named in CityWatch magazine as one of its annual Top 100 Cities in which to live in December 2002.
*Expansion Management Magazine chose Sarasota-Bradenton area as the only community in Florida worthy of its Five Star Community ranking the same year. For executives at companies looking to move or expand their businesses, Sarasota-Bradenton scored high for its “Quality of Life Quotient,” judging crime levels, housing affordability and availability, education levels, cost of living, employment opportunities, continuing education opportunities and accessibility to air travel. And Sarasota schools also received a BLUE RIBBON, the highest rating of any school system in the state.
*CNN Money Magazine chose Sarasota as one of only eight cities for the “Best Places to Retire” in their May 10, 2002 issue.
*Sarasota made it into the Top 20 on Employment Review’s “Top 20 Best Places to Live and Work” list, published in June 2000, and again in 2001. The editorial staff looks at more than 300 cities comparing population, unemployment rates, cost of living and job opportunities for professionals on the move.
*Entrepreneur Magazine has rated Sarasota-Bradenton the sixth best medium-sized city in the U.S. for small business, and the eighth best place in the south for entrepreneurs.
*Money Magazine has placed Sarasota Schools in the Top 100 in the nation as well as naming the Sarasota-Bradenton area as the 21st Best Place to Live in the
U.S.
Now, during this historic time of economic strife, these same factors are still here in Sarasota.
Nothing has changed for the worse – if anything, the community has become even more attractive due to improvements in the cultural offerings (the recent Ringling Museum renovations, for one example), new, unique golf courses (the opening of The Concession and the Founders Club), ongoing improvements to the local transportation corridors, additional park development and many other private and public projects.
Once the current cycle gives way to a new upward wave of confidence and resurgence, Sarasota will once more ride the next crest of prosperity and attract a whole new group of people discovering our local paradise.
So, despite the sometimes gloomy economic headlines, local Realtors® can take pride in the fact that they are selling the American dream in a tropical paradise – a place that is now on the map, both nationally and internationally, and will continue to attract newcomers and local buyers for the long term.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
To-Do List
As appeared Sunday, September 28, 2008
Michael Saunders & Company
Amid all the hugely unsettling news that continues to explode daily from the canyons of Wall Street, several highly-regarded economists are still able to detect signs that our wounded real estate market is slowly beginning to heal.
According to financial analyst Eric Landry—writing for Morningstar, Inc., a leading provider of independent investment research—the underlying rationale that a real estate recovery is in the works relies primarily on two fairly basic market fundamentals and one brand new one.
First among the two basic fundamentals: In former “bubble” markets—of which Sarasota-Bradenton is definitely a prime example—housing affordability has been significantly restored
and actually sits at better-than-average affordability levels. Buyers not only perceive real values in today’s best priced housing opportunities, but find them well worth acting on.
Housing affordability is one of the most encouraging trends contributing to the real estate market’s recovery. According to the widely-used Case-Shiller Index, affordability is finally back
in line with historical averages. This means that in markets like Sarasota, where prices have returned to pre-boom levels, median-salaried earners can now comfortably commit to servicing
the mortgage on median-priced homes. “In fact,” Landry says. “Only one city in the 20-city Case-Shiller Composite Index sits more than 20% above the fair value estimate, and
only four are more than 12% above that metric. Compare this to mid-2006 when 12 of the 20 cities in the study were more than 20% overvalued, nine of them by more than 30%.
Although a few metropolitan statistical areas still have a way to go before their homes are reasonably priced, it’s pretty evident that affordability has gotten appreciably better across
most of the country.”
Having taken the time to analyze historic trends in the Case-Shiller index, it’s important to note Landry’s most noteworthy observation regarding the significance of any market’s return to affordability: Although prices may still decline marginally, once a region recaptures its affordability you will no longer see much more in the way of significant price erosions.
The second fundamental affecting the market’s comeback is this: Although inventories of unsold homes remain uncharacteristically high, they are no longer rising noticeably. In some cases—Sarasota-Bradenton Included—inventories have declined substantially, even in the face of the increase in bank-owned properties.
So far this year—between January and late September—17,091 homes have been actively listed for sale in Sarasota County at one time or another. Compare this to the 23,899 homes
that were actively listed during the same period in 2007 and you’ll note a 28.4% year-over-year reduction in available inventory between 2007 and 2008. (Source: Sarasota MLS) There
are now 17.5 months of unsold inventory, compared to 26.2 months of unsold inventory just six months ago. Seven months of unsold inventory is widely considered a healthy reserve.
The new fundamental that will almost certainly push our real estate market more quickly toward recovery is now falling into place. The Wall Street meltdown has made Washington
all-too-painfully aware that the road to substantive economic recovery will go nowhere until the bulk of bad mortgage loans have been bought up and temporarily purged from the system.
This will enable banks and other lending institutions to focus their energies and resources on re-building their depleted earnings, which in turn will restore their ability to offer traditional
fixed-rate mortgages to qualified home buyers with acceptable credit.
The bottom line in a nutshell: If the colossal crisis on Wall Street is to resolve itself in favor of the very taxpayers who are financing its bailout, home prices must quickly stabilize
so that additional defaults are averted and qualified buyers are empowered to easily capitalize on the best buying opportunities of a lifetime—a mission that you can bet will most
certainly top the “to-do” lists of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
Michael Saunders & Company
Amid all the hugely unsettling news that continues to explode daily from the canyons of Wall Street, several highly-regarded economists are still able to detect signs that our wounded real estate market is slowly beginning to heal.
According to financial analyst Eric Landry—writing for Morningstar, Inc., a leading provider of independent investment research—the underlying rationale that a real estate recovery is in the works relies primarily on two fairly basic market fundamentals and one brand new one.
First among the two basic fundamentals: In former “bubble” markets—of which Sarasota-Bradenton is definitely a prime example—housing affordability has been significantly restored
and actually sits at better-than-average affordability levels. Buyers not only perceive real values in today’s best priced housing opportunities, but find them well worth acting on.
Housing affordability is one of the most encouraging trends contributing to the real estate market’s recovery. According to the widely-used Case-Shiller Index, affordability is finally back
in line with historical averages. This means that in markets like Sarasota, where prices have returned to pre-boom levels, median-salaried earners can now comfortably commit to servicing
the mortgage on median-priced homes. “In fact,” Landry says. “Only one city in the 20-city Case-Shiller Composite Index sits more than 20% above the fair value estimate, and
only four are more than 12% above that metric. Compare this to mid-2006 when 12 of the 20 cities in the study were more than 20% overvalued, nine of them by more than 30%.
Although a few metropolitan statistical areas still have a way to go before their homes are reasonably priced, it’s pretty evident that affordability has gotten appreciably better across
most of the country.”
Having taken the time to analyze historic trends in the Case-Shiller index, it’s important to note Landry’s most noteworthy observation regarding the significance of any market’s return to affordability: Although prices may still decline marginally, once a region recaptures its affordability you will no longer see much more in the way of significant price erosions.
The second fundamental affecting the market’s comeback is this: Although inventories of unsold homes remain uncharacteristically high, they are no longer rising noticeably. In some cases—Sarasota-Bradenton Included—inventories have declined substantially, even in the face of the increase in bank-owned properties.
So far this year—between January and late September—17,091 homes have been actively listed for sale in Sarasota County at one time or another. Compare this to the 23,899 homes
that were actively listed during the same period in 2007 and you’ll note a 28.4% year-over-year reduction in available inventory between 2007 and 2008. (Source: Sarasota MLS) There
are now 17.5 months of unsold inventory, compared to 26.2 months of unsold inventory just six months ago. Seven months of unsold inventory is widely considered a healthy reserve.
The new fundamental that will almost certainly push our real estate market more quickly toward recovery is now falling into place. The Wall Street meltdown has made Washington
all-too-painfully aware that the road to substantive economic recovery will go nowhere until the bulk of bad mortgage loans have been bought up and temporarily purged from the system.
This will enable banks and other lending institutions to focus their energies and resources on re-building their depleted earnings, which in turn will restore their ability to offer traditional
fixed-rate mortgages to qualified home buyers with acceptable credit.
The bottom line in a nutshell: If the colossal crisis on Wall Street is to resolve itself in favor of the very taxpayers who are financing its bailout, home prices must quickly stabilize
so that additional defaults are averted and qualified buyers are empowered to easily capitalize on the best buying opportunities of a lifetime—a mission that you can bet will most
certainly top the “to-do” lists of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Canary In The Coal Mine
Michael Saunders & Company
As appeared October 19, 2008
Much has been written, broadcast and otherwise communicated about the crisis infecting the world’s credit and financial markets. Far from being a uniquely American predicament, the fiscal emergency has now stretched its tentacles to include most of the world’s industrialized
nations.
The clue that the crisis would spread well beyond our borders was writ
large long before it actually did. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight,
we now understand that trouble in the U.S. real estate market—and
the toxic sub-prime loans that helped cause it—was the canary in the
coal mine that long ago portended today’s globalized crisis.
For nearly a year now, the correction taking place in America’s real
estate markets has been spreading to other former red-hot real estate
markets such as Ireland, Great Britain and Spain. Stranded atop
a mountain of overpriced, unsold inventories, these countries are
now experiencing the same rejection by true end-use buyers that the
U.S. real estate market began to notice more than two years ago.
Consequently, top real estate and banking professionals abroad are
looking to American real estate experts to help them minimize in
every way possible the time it takes to work through their overabundance
of inventory. Among these experts is Michael Saunders, who
just returned from London following her well-received speech before
the International Forum of the National Association of Estate Agents
(N.A.E.A.).
The reason for wanting to short cut their own real estate correction
is nobler than simply wanting to protect their business interests and
shore-up their bottom lines. Previous financial crises suggest that
the bottom for struggling bank stocks won’t be reached until real
estate prices have fallen back to their fair market value. As long as
property prices remain elevated in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere,
our banking woes will linger.
Having someone in their midst who has famously helped Sarasota-
Bradenton lead Florida in its recovery from the nationwide real estate
correction, attendees at the NAEA forum appealed to Michael to
instruct them on how to get ahead of their own. What they heard is
what associates of Michael Saunders & Company have been consistently
instructing their sellers to do for the past two years. “Price is
king in today’s challenging market,” she said. “If you truly wish to sell
a home in a reasonable or expeditious time frame, begin by listing it
at a price that makes it the most undisputed value in its competitive
set. This means pricing it below a recent certified appraisal, below
a recent CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) or below all other
Clients of Michael Saunders & Company who list their homes in
accordance with this aggressive pricing strategy become eligible to
have their homes featured prominently on the newly launched Best
Opportunities section of michaelsaunders.com, the region’s most
extensive portfolio of residential and commercial properties. Unique
to Michael Saunders & Company, Best Opportunities provides a
dedicated online showcase for the most competitively priced homes
on michaelsaunders.com. Best Opportunities removes the guess work
for today’s value-obsessed buyers by featuring only those listings that
have been judged by a panel of real estate experts to be the best priced
buying opportunities in today’s marketplace.
Since launching this important new tool to help sellers succeed, Best
Opportunities has proven itself an unqualified success. Here’s why:
Visitors to Best Opportunities accounted for nearly than 100,000
online showings of property information, an average of approximately
16,700 per month since the program was first launched six months ago.
96% of visitors to the site experienced two or more online showings
per session.
As impressive as these statistics are, the true measure of Best
Opportunities success are best found in the actual sales that took
place between April 1 and September 30, 2008. During that six-month
period, 8.9% of all homes listed on the Sarasota MLS (Multiple Listing
Service) were sold. By comparison, 19.98% of all Michael Saunders &
Company listings were sold over the same period. Even more impressive,
25.1% of the homes listed on Best Opportunities were sold; a
percentage that climbs to 32.4% if you include homes with pending
contracts.
Just as world leaders have gathered to tackle the broader issues of the
global financial crisis, leaders of the world’s real estate community
have banded together to share strategies for solving their piece of
the problem. Confidence is ever-so-slowly creeping back into the
global financial system as banks are recapitalized with governmentguaranteed
backing and credit lending resumes. Buyers who froze-up
when the monetary crisis exploded into the world’s consciousness
have returned from the sidelines and resumed making home buying
decisions. More than ever they have price on their minds and are
determined to squeeze every ounce of value out of every transaction.
As fair market values redefine the housing market and property
inventories gradually diminish—both here and abroad—each new
day puts that much more distance between us and the worst days of
the global credit and banking crisis.
As appeared October 19, 2008
Much has been written, broadcast and otherwise communicated about the crisis infecting the world’s credit and financial markets. Far from being a uniquely American predicament, the fiscal emergency has now stretched its tentacles to include most of the world’s industrialized
nations.
The clue that the crisis would spread well beyond our borders was writ
large long before it actually did. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight,
we now understand that trouble in the U.S. real estate market—and
the toxic sub-prime loans that helped cause it—was the canary in the
coal mine that long ago portended today’s globalized crisis.
For nearly a year now, the correction taking place in America’s real
estate markets has been spreading to other former red-hot real estate
markets such as Ireland, Great Britain and Spain. Stranded atop
a mountain of overpriced, unsold inventories, these countries are
now experiencing the same rejection by true end-use buyers that the
U.S. real estate market began to notice more than two years ago.
Consequently, top real estate and banking professionals abroad are
looking to American real estate experts to help them minimize in
every way possible the time it takes to work through their overabundance
of inventory. Among these experts is Michael Saunders, who
just returned from London following her well-received speech before
the International Forum of the National Association of Estate Agents
(N.A.E.A.).
The reason for wanting to short cut their own real estate correction
is nobler than simply wanting to protect their business interests and
shore-up their bottom lines. Previous financial crises suggest that
the bottom for struggling bank stocks won’t be reached until real
estate prices have fallen back to their fair market value. As long as
property prices remain elevated in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere,
our banking woes will linger.
Having someone in their midst who has famously helped Sarasota-
Bradenton lead Florida in its recovery from the nationwide real estate
correction, attendees at the NAEA forum appealed to Michael to
instruct them on how to get ahead of their own. What they heard is
what associates of Michael Saunders & Company have been consistently
instructing their sellers to do for the past two years. “Price is
king in today’s challenging market,” she said. “If you truly wish to sell
a home in a reasonable or expeditious time frame, begin by listing it
at a price that makes it the most undisputed value in its competitive
set. This means pricing it below a recent certified appraisal, below
a recent CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) or below all other
Clients of Michael Saunders & Company who list their homes in
accordance with this aggressive pricing strategy become eligible to
have their homes featured prominently on the newly launched Best
Opportunities section of michaelsaunders.com, the region’s most
extensive portfolio of residential and commercial properties. Unique
to Michael Saunders & Company, Best Opportunities provides a
dedicated online showcase for the most competitively priced homes
on michaelsaunders.com. Best Opportunities removes the guess work
for today’s value-obsessed buyers by featuring only those listings that
have been judged by a panel of real estate experts to be the best priced
buying opportunities in today’s marketplace.
Since launching this important new tool to help sellers succeed, Best
Opportunities has proven itself an unqualified success. Here’s why:
Visitors to Best Opportunities accounted for nearly than 100,000
online showings of property information, an average of approximately
16,700 per month since the program was first launched six months ago.
96% of visitors to the site experienced two or more online showings
per session.
As impressive as these statistics are, the true measure of Best
Opportunities success are best found in the actual sales that took
place between April 1 and September 30, 2008. During that six-month
period, 8.9% of all homes listed on the Sarasota MLS (Multiple Listing
Service) were sold. By comparison, 19.98% of all Michael Saunders &
Company listings were sold over the same period. Even more impressive,
25.1% of the homes listed on Best Opportunities were sold; a
percentage that climbs to 32.4% if you include homes with pending
contracts.
Just as world leaders have gathered to tackle the broader issues of the
global financial crisis, leaders of the world’s real estate community
have banded together to share strategies for solving their piece of
the problem. Confidence is ever-so-slowly creeping back into the
global financial system as banks are recapitalized with governmentguaranteed
backing and credit lending resumes. Buyers who froze-up
when the monetary crisis exploded into the world’s consciousness
have returned from the sidelines and resumed making home buying
decisions. More than ever they have price on their minds and are
determined to squeeze every ounce of value out of every transaction.
As fair market values redefine the housing market and property
inventories gradually diminish—both here and abroad—each new
day puts that much more distance between us and the worst days of
the global credit and banking crisis.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Housing - Recovering With Confidence
As appeared Sunday October 12, 2008
Michael Saunders & Company
The word “confidence,” as in “lack of,” has been the watchword most commonly attributed to the increasingly turbulent housing, credit and financial crisis now infecting markets throughout the world. Confidence in our housing market, in our banking institutions, in our government and its ability to protect us from corporate greed and mismanagement has waned to such an extent that progress in shoring up our embattled economy has pretty much ground to a halt. You never realize how negative a force fear is and how powerful an opposing force confidence is until there’s too much of the former and precious little of the latter.
From the moment he became President on March 4, 1933—in markedly worse economic times than these—Franklin Roosevelt knew instinctively that his New Deal would most certainly wither on the vine unless government could conquer irrational fear while injecting new confidence into the American way of thinking. Students of history and anyone of a certain age easily recall the most famous line from that day’s inaugural address: “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
But in other remarks from the same speech—that ring eerily prophetic of today’s overreaction to fear—Roosevelt calmly championed the proper perspective: “Our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we still have much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence; have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.”
Just over a week later, in his first Fireside Chat on March 12, 1933, Roosevelt spoke to that era’s banking calamity and the crisis in confidence that ensued. Again his words ring eerily prophetic of today’s financial climate. “We have had a bad banking situation,” he said. “Some of our bankers had shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the people’s funds. They had used the money entrusted to them in speculations and unwise loans.
This was, of course, not true in the vast majority of our banks, but it was true in enough of them to shock the people of the United States, for a time, into a sense of insecurity and to put them into a frame of mind where they did not differentiate, but seemed to assume that the acts of a comparative few had tainted them all. And so it became the government’s job to straighten out the situation and do it as quickly as possible. And that job is being performed.”
Finally, in seeking to expel fear and restore confidence, FDR ended his first Fireside Chat with a powerful call to courage and confidence. “After all,” he said. “There is an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold; and that is the confidence of the people themselves. Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan. You people must have faith; you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses. Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system, and it is up to you to support and make it work.”
Confidence trumps fear whenever a worker invests new savings in a 401-K plan; it trumps fear whenever someone thoughtfully sizes up the market then buys a few good stocks (at bargain prices, no less); it trumps fear whenever an educated home buyer says yes to the best values in home prices in many years. While others yield to fear, Warren Buffet, America’s most admired investor, refuses to waste time cowering when he could be shopping for bargain blue-chip investments. He’s confidently pumping billions of his own fortune into companies and stocks that will not only help shore-up these wounded financial institutions but also set a high-profile example of how confidence put to wise and practical use will yield nothing but positive results
According to a new survey conducted by the Online real estate giant, trulia.com , more than half of all non-homeowning Americans believe that in spite of all the woes in the housing sector, owning a home is still the quintessential cornerstone of the American Dream. In the end will the age-old quest to secure the Dream be what ultimately causes the housing market to recover? When confidence turns into action and action into prudent long-term investments, such as the family home, can recovery from our present-day fiscal and psychological morass be far behind?
Michael Saunders & Company
The word “confidence,” as in “lack of,” has been the watchword most commonly attributed to the increasingly turbulent housing, credit and financial crisis now infecting markets throughout the world. Confidence in our housing market, in our banking institutions, in our government and its ability to protect us from corporate greed and mismanagement has waned to such an extent that progress in shoring up our embattled economy has pretty much ground to a halt. You never realize how negative a force fear is and how powerful an opposing force confidence is until there’s too much of the former and precious little of the latter.
From the moment he became President on March 4, 1933—in markedly worse economic times than these—Franklin Roosevelt knew instinctively that his New Deal would most certainly wither on the vine unless government could conquer irrational fear while injecting new confidence into the American way of thinking. Students of history and anyone of a certain age easily recall the most famous line from that day’s inaugural address: “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
But in other remarks from the same speech—that ring eerily prophetic of today’s overreaction to fear—Roosevelt calmly championed the proper perspective: “Our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we still have much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence; have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.”
Just over a week later, in his first Fireside Chat on March 12, 1933, Roosevelt spoke to that era’s banking calamity and the crisis in confidence that ensued. Again his words ring eerily prophetic of today’s financial climate. “We have had a bad banking situation,” he said. “Some of our bankers had shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of the people’s funds. They had used the money entrusted to them in speculations and unwise loans.
This was, of course, not true in the vast majority of our banks, but it was true in enough of them to shock the people of the United States, for a time, into a sense of insecurity and to put them into a frame of mind where they did not differentiate, but seemed to assume that the acts of a comparative few had tainted them all. And so it became the government’s job to straighten out the situation and do it as quickly as possible. And that job is being performed.”
Finally, in seeking to expel fear and restore confidence, FDR ended his first Fireside Chat with a powerful call to courage and confidence. “After all,” he said. “There is an element in the readjustment of our financial system more important than currency, more important than gold; and that is the confidence of the people themselves. Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan. You people must have faith; you must not be stampeded by rumors or guesses. Let us unite in banishing fear. We have provided the machinery to restore our financial system, and it is up to you to support and make it work.”
Confidence trumps fear whenever a worker invests new savings in a 401-K plan; it trumps fear whenever someone thoughtfully sizes up the market then buys a few good stocks (at bargain prices, no less); it trumps fear whenever an educated home buyer says yes to the best values in home prices in many years. While others yield to fear, Warren Buffet, America’s most admired investor, refuses to waste time cowering when he could be shopping for bargain blue-chip investments. He’s confidently pumping billions of his own fortune into companies and stocks that will not only help shore-up these wounded financial institutions but also set a high-profile example of how confidence put to wise and practical use will yield nothing but positive results
According to a new survey conducted by the Online real estate giant, trulia.com , more than half of all non-homeowning Americans believe that in spite of all the woes in the housing sector, owning a home is still the quintessential cornerstone of the American Dream. In the end will the age-old quest to secure the Dream be what ultimately causes the housing market to recover? When confidence turns into action and action into prudent long-term investments, such as the family home, can recovery from our present-day fiscal and psychological morass be far behind?
Monday, October 13, 2008
Longboat Key Offers Serenity Now
as appeared on CNN.com
October 12, 2008
Longboat Key offers serenity now
Thousands of visitors from colder climates flock to Longboat Key in winter
Off season, the island feels like the closest thing to having a private beach
Longboat Key is less than 11 miles in length and no more than a mile wide
Neighboring St. Armands Key offers a shopping circle of boutiques and restaurants
LONGBOAT KEY, Florida (CNN) -- Like any sun-drenched beach paradise, Longboat Key offers water sports, biking and tennis, but the best way to enjoy the island may be by doing nothing at all.
This thin sliver of land off Sarasota on Florida's west coast is home to 8,000 people year-round, but come winter, the population swells
dramatically.
Thousands of visitors from colder climates flock to LBK -- its shorthand moniker -- from January to April to enjoy its balmy temperatures and the sparkling turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Off season, however, the only crowds are the sea gulls grooming their feathers on the warm white sand, and Longboat Key feels like the closest thing to having a private beach.
Read the entire story
October 12, 2008
Longboat Key offers serenity now
Thousands of visitors from colder climates flock to Longboat Key in winter
Off season, the island feels like the closest thing to having a private beach
Longboat Key is less than 11 miles in length and no more than a mile wide
Neighboring St. Armands Key offers a shopping circle of boutiques and restaurants
LONGBOAT KEY, Florida (CNN) -- Like any sun-drenched beach paradise, Longboat Key offers water sports, biking and tennis, but the best way to enjoy the island may be by doing nothing at all.
This thin sliver of land off Sarasota on Florida's west coast is home to 8,000 people year-round, but come winter, the population swells
dramatically.
Thousands of visitors from colder climates flock to LBK -- its shorthand moniker -- from January to April to enjoy its balmy temperatures and the sparkling turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Off season, however, the only crowds are the sea gulls grooming their feathers on the warm white sand, and Longboat Key feels like the closest thing to having a private beach.
Read the entire story
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