Life In Bonita Springs

Overheard: Dang, Grandma Was HOT!

First of all, I know I’ve been away for a while. I’ve never, in years of blogging, not written for this long.  Not this long for my blog and not this much time off from the paper.  My plate has been full and well, I’m just starting to get my courage steam back.

Many of my friends, clients and contemporaries that have followed the up and down roller coaster of cancer and illness with my mom.  I’ve been to her northern home three times in three months because of some very serious events.  She always rallies and true to form, even at Christmas, after receiving last rites, she rallied days later and requested a pepperoni pizza from Yala’s in Lorain, Ohio.

She eventually got well enough to make it back to Bonita Springs to see her Florida grand children and her home with the new kitchen ceiling.  The house had one of those dreadful dome ceilings from the 80’s.  It was brought back to life with halogen lights and crown molding.  Donna’s visit was brief, just several days. 

She flew home on a Thursday and had passed away by Saturday night.  Cancer is a mean bitch, almost as mean as the cure.  It took almost four years for the two of them to gang up on her and win.

You can read more about her here: Donna Thomas Fashing Filbert [Gabor] While she would have publicly given me the evil eye for that, she would have privately thought that was funny, too. Lighten up.

At any rate, I’m going to try to start doing my jobs again.  Job number one, boring you with real estate info and Bonita Springs ambassadorial things. Job number two, pishing people off that read the paper mere moments before it hits the bottom of the bird cage.  I sure hope I think of something to write by Tuesday.

I was going announce “I’m back” but I just hear Jack Nicholson’s voice from “The Shining” so I’ll just say see you tomorrow.

See you tomorrow.

Not Bonita Beach, Florida

It’s exactly this type of beach that drives people to Southwest Florida to find beaches that are warm, blue and not covered in ice.  I drove past this sign and thought, beach?  Brrr.  Count me out!  I can’t wait to get back to white sandy beaches and not white icy beaches.

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary Naples Florida

Real estate in the State Streets of Bonita Springs

Last week I stopped to visit Lumberjack and we went for a drive through the state streets.  The state streets is the area of town where all of the streets are named after … states. 

The state streets in Bonita Springs is the area of town with some of the first developed real estate.  There are some older homes, historic homes, the Busk relocated, restored historic homes and a few manufactured homes.

The trees in the area are mature and huge.  The real estate itself offers unusual sized lots, some with gulf access.  There are winding streets.  Not everything is cookie cutter like a gated community.

Today, I drove back through the state streets because Lumberjack and I had seen a Carambola tree that was huge and peppered with the fruit.  The Carambola is also known as the star fruit.  When it’s sliced the right way it creates little star shaped snacks like this:

See the star shape? Need a way to get your kids to eat fruits and veggies? Start by covering their plate with stars.

Needless to say, I couldn’t find *the* home with the tree but I found homesteads with star fruit. At one particular home, there was a man and a woman in front of a house on Tennessee Street and I asked if I could take a photo of their tree for you to see.  They said yes.  The husband went inside and got a bag and loaded it up for me!  Bonitians are always so nice.

I asked how old the tree was and the lady said, “My daddy built this house in 1954.”  I asked if the tree was that old and she said it was probably a few years later.    It was a pretty big tree and the lichen are well developed.  This tree could be fifty years old.  Amazing.

My parting gift of fresh picked Carambola in tow, I headed over to see Lumberjack at work.  He was all about tasting them and maybe starting a tree himself from the seeds.  Seeds from old trees are better and not genetically modified or hybrid.

Even CritterDawg thinks they’re interesting.  Local farmers markets sometimes sell Carambola and occasionally they are sold right on site by home owners. 

If you’re thinking you’d like an original piece of old Florida real estate in Bonita Springs you can pick up a home in the state streets in great price points and have your very own vintage Carambola tree.  You might even get a grapefruit or variety of orange tree, too. 

The real estate along Old 41 is sprinkled with trees from groves of day gone by. Enjoy a day trip and pick up some fresh history for breakfast tomorrow.

Taking Mortgage Broker Recommendations

There’s a big difference between inexpensive and a good value where home loans are concerned. Throw in a few dozen flashy ads with teaser interest rates and all the magic the loan officer promises to work for you and let the mortgage cyclone begin.

Getting a mortgage is unsettling for some people. It’s actually a little bit of work to weed through the piles of paperwork and documentation.

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to work with some very skilled mortgage brokers and loan officers. In spite of the bad press about the mortgage industry there are some quality folks out there whose main goal is to get families into homes. There’s no subterfuge involved.

When a buyer asks for a local recommendation there are only a handful of top performers out there I would trust enough to recommend. They’ve been tried and tested and over performed through difficult circumstances as well as the smooth loans.

Odds are that you’ll get a good recommendation from your real estate agent or at least a decent place to start. The name of the game is getting you moved in so we only want to work with the pros anyway. Most of the former sub-prime specialist, mortgage brokers have moved on and are now riding the gold bubble and throwing broken bracelet house parties, any way.

I’m still amazed when a buyer goes rogue and starts throwing darts to find a home loan. It’s usually not the kind of rogue where they’ve walked through the doors of a bricks and mortar bank but a “borrowing cashola dot com” crap-shoot that over promises and eventually under performs.

Here’s a little bit of advice for you buyers out there that sidle up to the keyboard looking for blind solutions to one of the largest financial decisions of your life: Prepare for debacle on a cataclysmic scale, book a hotel for the day of closing and don’t show up with your moving truck and the ridiculous notion that you’re even crossing a threshold.

If you’re extremely lucky whatever puppy mill is processing or underwriting your loan just might even be in the same time zone. If your crap shoot involves Pacific or Mountain Time prepare for the pain of losing two to three hours at each end of the work day with the time differences, alone.

I’ve seen more buyers create their own hostage situation by choosing an unknown, unproven lender for their home purchase. It just doesn’t have to be that painful.

Lending guidelines are stricter than they’ve been in quite some time. As a consumer you need to be able to pick up the phone and have a living, breathing human on the other end of the line with some authority, willing to answer questions and be able to tell you precisely where you’re at in the process.

When your more passive than aggressive underwriter is sleeping in California when the rest of us are trying to help you close on your home you need to know that there’s a good chance that you’re going to wind up at the Inn. They’ll leave the light on for ya.

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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 left 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.

Lime Tree Park Bonita Banner Delivery

Today I stopped in Lime Tree Park for a home inspection on the remaining part of an estate.  Usually, it’s a little sad to help liquidate the real estate of those who have passed on, then I saw this.

This sunny day I got to see a real old-fashioned paper boy.  He was delivering the Bonita Banner doorstep to doorstep.  He was just as cute as can be and gave me the low down on the activities in the area both on and off the shuffle board court and a little primer on the golf at Country Creek in Estero, Florida.  He plays 18 holes every Friday, by the way. 

You just gotta love people from Ohio … they keep it real.   :)

A Great Day Trip From Bonita Springs, Florida

Happy Valentine’s Day Bonita Springs

Ever hear the saying, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?” Whoever wrote that was either just picking on the women or its one of the old sayings that needs updated to fit modern times.

How about this update, “Hell hath no fury like a divorcing couple with more hate than reason and the money to lawyer-up for the express purpose of legally and emotionally pounding each other just for sport.” That whole “till death do us part” vow at the altar wasn’t a promise to eventually divorce and fight to death.

It’s no joke when they say they person you marry isn’t the same person you divorce. Usually, when a marriage or partnership is coming to an end one of the last persons involved wrapping up the sordid mess is the real estate agents.

Selling real estate is a stressful situation for a lot of people without the added twist of huge changes like death or divorce. Throw in a few attorneys, restraining orders or court appointed real estate agents and little poison darts start flying out of everybody’s eyes and any use of reason or accountability goes right out the window.

There’s occasionally an attempt for civility between the separating spouses “just for the sake of getting the house sold” but it’s an emotional pressure cooker.

Just about any real estate agent has had to deal with the passive aggressive phone call from one spouse to the other to let them know what someone, usually the real estate agent, allegedly said about them. That’s the sneakiest kind of saboteur; the divorcing spouse that decides to finally look out for the other, out of the goodness of their candy coated heart, to gas light them … and they fall for it.

Periodically, the court appoints everyone involved a mediator. It seems that even sometimes not only can the separating spouses not get along, but neither can their legal aid. Someone has to get be in charge or at least in charge of those in charge who can’t get along, right?

One of the first signs that there would be bloodshed should have been that every page of the listing contract was notarized. It wasn’t a fully executed contract signed by all parties, but since there were lawyers loafing around it seemed like a great day to whip out a notary stamp and get to authenticating nothing.

This is exactly how a two hundred dollar service of everyday silverware from the import store ends up eventually costing about four thousand dollars and the equity in a property gets eaten away with holding costs, taxes and condominium fees. Oh, yeah … sometimes these things drag on for years.

When you think about it, maybe him leaving the seat up or her not being the same size as on the wedding day isn’t so bad after all. Calculate the holding costs to fight over your real estate for a couple of years and maybe you’ll just start falling back in love that person in the recliner beside you, all over again.

At the very least it might inspire you to run to Walgreens and pick up a heart shaped box of candy or an underwear rose from the checkout counter. It’s the thought that counts.

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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 left 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.

Now Open Weekends 10 a.m.-5 p.m., February-May ? 15000 Livingston Rd., Naples, FL 34109

(Naples, FL) – Rather than wait until it’s blazing hot, jump in the fun at Sun-N-Fun Lagoon now when it’s comfortably cooler.  The water park is open and waiting for you, your friends and family.

From February through May, we invite you to visit Sun-N-Fun Lagoon located inside North Collier Regional Park.  The park will also be open during the week of Collier County Public School’s Spring Break, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., March 29 through April 5 in addition to the normal weekend hours.

Sun-N-Fun Lagoon Water Park

Facility Attractions:

· One waterslide drops into Sunny's Lazy River

· 4 water slides take you to a drop pool

· Heated family pool

· Tadpole Pool, a children's activity wading water area with a fish slide and more

· Turtle Cove, a pool for ages 5 - 12 years old with lily pads and ropes for climbing

· Sunny's Lazy River, 1200 feet long

· All pools except Tadpole wading area are heated

Cost:

The park is continuing to offer a special discount to Collier County residents with a Florida Driver’s License that has a Collier County address.  With a Collier County address Driver’s License, you and your party will receive $2 off any 48 inch or taller entry, normally $12.  Children three and under enter free and those shorter than 48 inches are just $5.50. 

Add sales tax to all fees listed above.

Group rates, seasonal passes and party packages are also available.  Call (239) 252-4073. 

For more information about Sun-N-Fun Lagoon or other public pool facilities, please visit the Parks and Recreation Department online at www.collierparks.com.  The public may call Sun-N-Fun Lagoon at (239) 252-4021.

Bobcat in Bonita Springs Looking for LBD!

This little rascal is one of a few that live in a preserve near my home in Bonita Springs, Florida.  This was in the middle of the day which is unusual.  They’re usually spotted when the sun is going down.  This time of the year the pickin’s are slim and they’re hungry and hunting in the daylight hours.

Bobcats are very skittish and difficult to photograph.  She heard the camera and was back in the brush in seconds.