Life In Bonita Springs

They’re Really That Color!

How Much of The Real Estate is Not Distressed?

Read Also: 

Ten Years of July Real Estate Sales Compared

July 2010 What Price Range Real Estate Sold?

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All information is deem accurate, not guaranteed and subject to change.  Check the date on this report for freshness.  If you have questions regarding your particular neighborhood, your street or your home specifically you’re welcome to contact us for a current market report. Real estate consumers that read this website are urged to seek independent, professional legal, real estate and financial advice before engaging in any transaction. All information is deemed, accurate, subject to change and not guaranteed.

A Decade of Historical Real Estate Sales

Read also:

Short Sales & Foreclosure vs. Equity Sales July 2010

July 2010 What Price Range Real Estate Sold?

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All information is deem accurate, not guaranteed and subject to change.  Check the date on this report for freshness.  If you have questions regarding your particular neighborhood, your street or your home specifically you’re welcome to contact us for a current market report. Real estate consumers that read this website are urged to seek independent, professional legal, real estate and financial advice before engaging in any transaction. All information is deemed, accurate, subject to change and not guaranteed.

Real Estate Sales 400 & Under Lead The Market

Read Also:

Short Sales & Foreclosure vs. Equity Sales July 2010

Ten Years of July Real Estate Sales Compared

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All information is deem accurate, not guaranteed and subject to change.  Check the date on this report for freshness.  If you have questions regarding your particular neighborhood, your street or your home specifically you’re welcome to contact us for a current market report. Real estate consumers that read this website are urged to seek independent, professional legal, real estate and financial advice before engaging in any transaction. All information is deemed, accurate, subject to change and not guaranteed.

Weathering the Real Estate Storm From a Place of Yes

You have to come from a place of yes to be involved in the real estate business. You just do.

These days, real estate agents advise purchasers of how the sale process will work, usually in realistic detail. There are so many challenges to overcome and buyers need to be prepared for them and expect them. If a buyer goes into a transaction on distressed property fully prepared, with their eyes wide open they can usually weather the process.

What most buyers and even sellers don’t know is that the long line of people involved in processing a distressed real estate transaction in some instance is ridiculous. All it takes is for one person in the line up to not come from a place of yes to bring everything to a grinding halt.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve dealt with more than a few people that came from a place of no. I’ve come to the conclusion that when asset managers or loan debt managers are needed at financial institutions, they are psychologically profiled and if they are the type of person that probably burned ants with a magnifying glass or tortured small animals when they were children, they’re hired on the spot.

Don’t get your feelings hurt if you’re that one special asset manager that isn’t malevolent. You are probably a mis-hire and will be internally repurposed shortly.

A group of us have had a date with an on again, off again, on again, foreclosure for a few weeks. Most of us say yes to closing it as a short sale, for which it is already approved. The asset manager says yes to letting it go to foreclosure because the foreclosure drop dead date is four days away it’s simply too late to stop it. His hands are tied, even the hand with the magnifying glass in it.

Fortunately for everyone involved, even Huns need to take a vacay. It is revealed during the absence of our, glass is half empty, asset manager/debt collector that the postponement of the foreclosure had been in their file for weeks. Maybe it was mixed up with all of the miniature army men on his desktop battle field and he just didn’t see it or maybe, just maybe, he’s just likes the word no.

He certainly used “no” enough. No, he won’t extend the short sale approval. No, they can’t stop the foreclosure. No, the agents can’t contribute their commission to pay a back HOA fee overage, just to get the transaction closed. No, no, no.

Real estate agents can counsel buyers and sellers on just about anything that involves closing a short sale or a foreclosure but you just can’t predict the “no” person that just says no because it’s part of their fiber, part of their being, it’s just who they are.

With any luck, there are enough positive people involved in the transaction who come from a place of yes and they are willing to continue working in spite all of the “No’s” being thrown at the transaction.

Then again, sometimes it’s just a twist of fate for a transaction to close. Maybe Mr. No just needs to take a vacation for things to work out.

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Real Life in Bonita Springs is a project by Chris Griffith dedicated to writing useful blog posts for consumers about the Bonita Springs, Florida area.  Find out what it is really like to live in Bonita Springs, Florida by reading about our fair city. You’ll get the latest in local real estate information, Bonita Springs real estate market reports and a little bit of humor.  If you have topic ideas, feel free to request a story about the idea, after all, this site is just for you.

You can subscribe to a weekly email newsletter by visiting www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com and entering your email in the subscription area on the center pane of the web page or by adding us to your reader by subscribing to this blog. Oh, and if you’re reading this content anywhere else but www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com or Naples Daily News it is probably stolen.

If It’s Alive, You Will Be Fined

We’ve had a recent rash of people getting busted for allegedly taking shell fish from Bonita Beach.  Not just by the park and local police authorities but by Bonitians that know the rules and respect the beach and the wild life enough to stop the shell gatherers.

For whatever reason, beach visitors are finding the sand dollars are out and they’re loading them up to take them home for what ever crafting or Christmas tree decorating project they had in mind.  It’s just wrong and it’s against the law.  What the heck is wrong with people killing living creatures for ornaments, anyway?

Here’s the rules about shellfish.  If any part of it is wiggling or moving, throw it back.  If it’s an empty shell on shore, load it up and take it home.  Besides the shell fish, you shouldn’t bother birds or turtles, either.  Most of the critters at the beach are protected so you best steer clear.  Even the sea oats are protected … so don’t pick those, either.   That whole, “Take only pictures, leave only footprints” slogan is for real.  You’re not allowed to take anything alive away with you when you leave Bonita Beach.

The fine for having live shellfish starts at $500 and goes up from there, including up to sixty days jail time.  You’re too pretty for prison, so tow the line.  Didn’t you see the sign on the way to the beach anyway?

Sunday Honey Bee Breakfast

Tens of thousands of people drive by this lily every day. It has a couple dozen friends, too.  They’re located on the east side of 41, Tamiami Trail in Estero, Florida, just north of Williams Road and across the street from Mobile on The Run and Jimmy John’s.  I’ve watched them for a while and decided that today would be the perfect opportunity to take their picture since I didn’t have craptastic cable to do more important things.

This is is about as good as it gets with water lily pictures and me, bare foot, in funky water filled ditch, up to my knees,  hearing things slurp and attack small creatures in the murky water all around me.  I did it … but I didn’t like it.  Fortunately, Panera at Coconut Point has wifi otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to see my feat of bravery.  Happy Sunday.

Hickory Island and Bonita Beach 

Hickory Island has the best mailboxes.  Since there aren’t gated communities and condominiums are limited home owners have the ability to express themselves at the curb.  This mailbox is on Melody Lane. 

There aren’t a lot of streets on Hickory. It’s a narrow strip of land that separates the Gulf of Mexico from the back bay our limited version of the intracoastal waterway.  Every home on Hickory is walking distance to Bonita Beach and many homes have gulf access, plus there is a boat ramp just down the beach at Bay Park North and about 2 miles away at Carl Johnson State Park.

Real estate pricing on Hickory Island begins under the $500,000 price point [August 2010 pricing] for cottages without direct gulf access.

This Shows Where Bonitians are Born

I just stumbled onto this snowbird and Florida relocation map and thought is was interesting enough to share. It was on the Forbes website.  You can click the map above to see it in full scale at their site or to do a search for the county in which you live.  The map above is for Lee County, Florida. It’s easy to use and does not require registration. If you do not see the map above you can click Where Americans Are Moving.  The black lines are “moving in” the red lines are “moving out”. 

Real Estate – More Fun Than a Barrel of Squirrels

Q. Are you a shill for NABOR? A. No, I am not a shill or even a member of NABOR nor have I ever been. If you don’t like what I write, turn the page or click the little red X in the upper right corner.

Q. Are you one of the Griffith’s involved with Moraya Bay? A. No, Griffith is a common last name. I am not the only one. I am also not related to Andy Griffith or Melanie Griffith. I am also not Irish and I do not have red hair. I don’t even like Lucky Charms.

Q. Had enough of the "greedy Realtor" references? A. No, just bored with it.

Q. Are you too special to answer my email? A. No, you were probably rude and I deleted it.

Q. You real estate agents did this! How can you say real estate selling off at bargain basement prices is good news? A. News about the real estate market is relative. Whether it’s good or bad, someone isn’t going to like it. That would probably be you.

There are plenty of people that are bitter about their housing situation and rightly so. You didn’t have to get into the real estate market during the volatile years to end up upside down or at a value below where you started. The current market value in my own neighborhood is back at what I paid for my own home in 1997.

If I could fix anything about the real estate market, I’d start on my own street. While I was at it I’d also get some of my neighbors to pay their HOA fees, too. Then maybe the vote would finally pass for me to get those three dead bushes replaced.

While I’d love to personally take the blame for single handedly destroying the nation’s economy and the real estate market, I just can’t. I have never flown to Bull Shoals, Arkansas or wherever, dragged buyers back to southwest Florida, carted them around in my car for three days, forced them to get a home equity loan and sign contracts to buy four condos in the same building.

That wasn’t me. While we’re at it, I also didn’t orchestrate the pump and dump of Cape Coral, Las Vegas, Lehigh Acres, Phoenix or any tower on Miami Beach.

There are plenty of people that got themselves into a world of hurt all by their own doing.

Put your finger away; whichever one you have displayed. I do not doubt for one minute that there are crappy real estate agents out there, but not all of them are.

To date, I have only met one consumer who took responsibility and admitted in a candid conversation, “I was greedy, the market changed, I got stuck. I was just greedy.” In all these years, one person out of a city, county, state and nation of people that participated in a financial and real estate anomaly that unraveled at one hundred times the speed it took to build up.

With all the blame shifting I have to ask if you really believe that we are an entire nation of hostages who fell victim solely to über powerful real estate agents whose two weeks of real estate class also armed them with hypnosis skill so cunning they were able to render every real estate consumer unable to make their own choices to walk away or to say no?

Maybe we should take over congress, next.

Remember, it’s the red X in the top, right corner.

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Real Life in Bonita Springs is a project by Chris Griffith dedicated to writing useful blog posts for consumers about the Bonita Springs, Florida area.  Find out what it is really like to live in Bonita Springs, Florida by reading about our fair city. You’ll get the latest in local real estate information, Bonita Springs real estate market reports and a little bit of humor.  If you have topic ideas, feel free to request a story about the idea, after all, this site is just for you.

You can subscribe to a weekly email newsletter by visiting www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com and entering your email in the subscription area on the center pane of the web page or by adding us to your reader by subscribing to this blog. Oh, and if you’re reading this content anywhere else but www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com or Naples Daily News it is probably stolen.