Real Estate Information

Now every homebuyer qualifies for a Stimulus Packet, in The Reserve at Hidden Lake, Sanford.

     Atlantic Development Corporation is going to double the Stimulus Packet for buyers in The Reserve at Hidden Lake in Sanford.  As of today, and for the month of July 2009, all those who purchase homes in The Reserve at Hidden Lake will receive an $8,000 stimulus packet from the developer, and first time Home Buyers who qualify, will receive additional $8,000 federal tax credit.  In other words, a qualifying first time homebuyers will get up to $16,000 when purchasing a home in The Reserve at Hidden Lake.  

     This is how it works; the $8,000 stimulus from ADC is given to any buyer of a home in the subdivision and can be used for closing cost, upgrades or down payment. It can not be applied as a down payment on a FHA insured loan.  The $8,000 federal tax credit is for qualifying first time homebuyers that close on their transaction before December 1^st 2009.   

Big Eco friendly bonus. 

     The homes in The Reserve at Hidden Lake are all Eco friendly, designed, with insulated walls, additional insulation in the ceiling, zoned air-conditioning and electronic thermostats.  All features that will save the homeowner money and reduce the cost of owning an ADC built home. Other benefits of owning an ADC built home in The Reserve at Hidden Lake; are the incredibly low price of the homes and today's low mortgage rates, which makes this an incredible opportunity for the homebuyers of today. 

     The Reserve of Hidden Lake (www.TheReserveatHiddenLake.com) is a small subdivision on Peterson Place in Sanford, with 26 single family attached homes.  Priced today at $179,000

     The Viking Team (www.thevikingteam.com) it a father and a daughter team of Realtors, serving home buyers and sellers in Central Florida for 10 years.

     Atlantic Development Corporation (http://www.adcfl.com/) Atlantic Development Corporation is a diversified firm specializing in commercial and residential projects.  That encompasses virtually every area of the marketplace from site selection to occupancy throughout Central Florida. 

Luxury on a Budget.

Do you have champagne taste but only a beer budget?  Would you love a luxurious home but can't afford it?  Look no further, The Reserve at Hidden Lake in Sanford Florida has it all.  The large single family attached homes are designed and priced in that manner.  When entering the homes the first thing that you will notice is the 9.5’ ceiling height and then the beautifully laid 18” tiles on the floor.  Continuing in to the home you walk by the kitchen with decorative 42” wood cabinets, integrated lights and up to date energy efficient appliances.  The kitchen opens into the spacious family room and the dining room with its high window and designer light.  Walking up to the second floor where the three spacious bedrooms, media area, two bathroom and laundry are located.  You notice that all is included, paddle fans with light kits, cable connection in every room, and telephone connection in every room and so on.  These homes are really wired for the future.  Entering the bathrooms you will notice the designer ceramic bath surround with it’s built in shampoo shelf, the beautiful lights above the vanities, and 18” tiles on the floor.  It all comes together with good workmanship and tasteful decoration.  When designing the subdivision Atlantic Development Corporation was not just thinking about looks as I stated above, their thinking was about Luxury on a Budget.  This is why when designing these homes it was decided to add additional insulation in all the homes.  The ground floor of the homes has R-14.5 insulation, the second floor has R-13.5 insulation and the ceiling has R-30 insulation.  The purpose of adding the extra insulation (which is much more than building codes require) is to make sure that the electric bill will be much lower in these homes than other comparable homes.  Also Atlantic Development Corporation is installing zoned A/C in these homes, one downstairs and another one for the second floor; both are controlled by a programmable thermostat for optimal energy efficiency.  If you would like more information about this futuristic subdivision you can follow this link to www.TheReserveatHiddenLake.com or contact Petur by clicking here.  You can view a visual tour of these homes by clicking here or see a video by clicking here also you can come and view these homes in person by attending one of our open houses on Saturday and Sunday between 1pm and 4 pm.  Click here for location of the subdivision.

I have been wondering if this was the case, since it has been taking them so long to decide to make a move and a lot of them have not signed on the dotted line.  I am also wondering if the first time homebuyers are still waiting for a better deal. One of the reasons why I am thinking in this direction is that I have a listing in Sanford, which is a brand new, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, one car garage home with all tiled floors and a lot of upgrades.  This home is price extremely aggressively to sell, but only few have looked at it and no one has made an offer to purchase this home.  The strange thing about this is that the buyer of this home only has to put down approximately $2,000 more than what is traditionally put down when you rent a home and then the monthly payment would be less that what the rent is for the same model homes in the area.  But on the plus side, there is the $8,000 Tax Credit that the first time homebuyer is getting next year, which will leave the buyer with $3,000 after deducting the closing cost from the Tax Credit.  In this case we are talking about an FHA loan and that the seller will pay all closing cost except the down payment.     

I was starting to believe that there were no honest contractors left within the State of Florida that they had all been extinct like the Dinosaurs and the only contractors left were the dishonest Cockroaches.  But pleasantly I found, which I believe to be the only honest one that is left in the State or at least in Central Florida.  He seems to be the only one that really cares about doing things the right way, i.e. build by the book without cutting corners, finding the best and the lowest priced subcontractors, moving things along without delays and making sure that everyone on the job cooperates.  In addition to this I can honestly say that his manners are courteous and professional.  I do not expect to ever hear from him the words that one of his predecessor on this job said to me, when I pointed out to him that when he was asking for a change order, which was already in the contract: “ You f……, s… I will get you for this”.  After spending four years building a 1.175 Sq. Ft. heated home and being on the third contractor and finally finding an honest and hard working one, surrounded by honest and hard working subcontractors, I feel that I have to let everyone know, THAT THERE IS HOPE OUT THERE!  This is why I am listing his company’s name, the subcontractor’s names and their contact numbers:

Atlantic Development Corporation, Jeffrey Lantz, tel: 407-328-0123

Optimal Electric, Inc., Gary J. Monsees, tel: 407-323-0377

Direct Plumbing Solutions, Inc. John Ashworth, tel: 407-221-1249

Anthony’s Wallpaper and Painting, Anthony Biskner, tel: 407-221-4257

I want all to know that no one asked me to write this Blog, but I am getting tired of all the publicity that the bad guys get in the media so I wanted to let you know about the good guys.  Wouldn’t it be nice if the media would report about the honest hard working people that are out there instead of always talking about the negative ones in the news? 

It is admirable to see what the mortgage giant Freddie Mac is trying to do to soften the blow of foreclosure on owners and tenants after foreclosure.  They have launched a new program called “The REO Rental Initiative”, with the goal of soften the blow of foreclosure on owners-occupants and tenants after the foreclosure.  This program can make life much easier for the occupants of a foreclosed home, especially if there are children involved.

If the home is in safe, habitable condition and meets all local codes for rental properties, it can qualify for the program.  Then they will try to find out if the tenant or former owner qualifies for a normal lease based on what is happening in the area of the home and the finance situation of the owner or tenant, i.e. can they pay the normal lease and are they interested in renting the home on a month to month bases.  To learn more about this program CLICK HERE.  

It is unfortunate that some people always try to make money of other people hardship.  HUD and the U.S. government are franticly trying to stop these practices and guide people in the right direction.  This is why HUD has opened a page on their website which helps homeowners and guides them to HUD approved nonprofit counselors.  This is a part of Presidents Obama Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan (HASP), and has the purpose of helping you to get real results and avoid scrupulous scammers.  Here is a link to HUD’s website. 

The U.S. Treasury Department has also opened a website to assist and guide people that need to modify their mortgages and or refinance their homes.  You don’t have to be late on your mortgage to qualify for this program which is called Making Home Affordable.  They have also opened a telephone hotline: (888) 995-4673 and the website is: www.makinghomeaffordable.gov .  These websites have a lot of information and explain to homeowners how the system works and guides them in a safe way in the right direction.  If your mortgage is a burden to you, I urge you to check out these websites and wish you the best.    

I saw this article on Oregonlive.com explaining how Banner Bank in Oregon is going to offer 3.875% interest on loans for newly built homes.  There are 243 homes that are builder owned, that will qualify for these loans.  All the homes have been financed by Banner or Community Financial and are now builders inventory.  The funds come from the Governments TARP money and the bank is using the funds to ease pressure on the bank and the builders.

   The first winner is of course the home buyer, who is getting an outstanding loan with an already low priced home, which will make their life easier.

   The second winner is the builder which is getting rid of inventory that is only costing him money today and not producing any profit.

   The third winner is the bank, when the builders pay down their loans instead of going belly up.

   And the fourth winner is the government seeing TARP money do some good in the society, releasing pressure and moving the economy again.

This article which is written by Jeff Manning is an upbeat read and I recommend that you all follow this link and read it.

After reading this article I wonder, why we aren’t seeing other lending institutes doing the same thing.

Here is the link to Jeff’s article.

On March 4^th 2009 the Florida Realtors association published this article about retirement visas.  The article interested me, so I went a head and Goggled the issue and found three more articles about the issue of allowing foreign nationals to retire in the United States. 

The oldest article that I found was an interview with Tony Macaluso, a past international operations chairman of the National Association of Realtors (NAR), on Workpermit.com.  I would like to quote this sentence from the article “Whilst close neighbors such as Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, and Belize have a variety of programs designed to encourage international pensioners to settle and buy homes there, the U.S. offers no simple path for a foreign citizen to retire to destinations such as Florida or California”.  Here is a link to the article.

Then I found an article about the National Association of Realtors (NAR) stand on this issue.  Their policy is as follows: “NAR has no policy on the issue. After discussions with the NAR policy committees with jurisdiction over the issue indicated a lack of agreement as to how to precede, the NAR Leadership team directed staff to work with outside experts to measure the degree of interest among foreign citizens in a retirement visa or "silver card".  Here is a link to their article about: Retirement Visa – Issue Summary.

The third and the newest article that I found was on news-press.com, which is an interview with a German retirees and Eugene Borosch a south-west Florida businessman.  Where he states that allowing foreigners to retire in Florida could save the Florida economy.  Here is a link to that article.

After reading these articles, I feel that the Government needs to CHANGE their opinion and attitude towards foreign national retirees.  They need to allow: retirees with steady income, which would buy property in the US and pay taxes here to stay.  This would definitely help our economy and spur business, which is desperately needed here.  We also have to look at our competition as our neighboring countries like: Mexico, Panama, Belize and Costa Rica mentioning few, all welcome retirees and have opened their countries for them.  Even though I don’t think that it is the intention of the Government to send our work out of the country. “It is my belief that these restrictions on retiree immigration is doing so”.  This is why I urge Orlando Regional Realtors Association (ORRA), the Florida Association of Realtors (FAR), the National Association of Realtor (NAR) in association with home builders associations and any interested associations to act and push for reforms.       

It is amazing how inventive people and companies are.  Watching WFTV news last night I saw their article about Eagle Creek community.  The homeowners received a letter from the Management Company for the community, stating that if you don’t pay up your homeowners association fees, you will be locked out of the community.  See article HERE.  

Eagle Creek is one of the worst hit community in the Orlando area with extremely high percentage of foreclosures and prices of homes have dropped 40 to 60% from their highest level.  So it is understandable that the Homeowners Association and the Management Company wants to do something to stop this and pressure for payments.  But taking action like this and hearing this news makes me wonder and ask a lot of questions, for example:

Why this Wall Street Attitude?

Do they think they are above the law?

Aren’t any provisions in the law that they can use to collect?

Won’t this lower home value more in the subdivision?

Has the legislator failed Homeowners Associations?

Does someone that is having hardship and loosing thousands of dollars deserve this?

Than I wonder, with all these foreclosures and housing problems.  Will we see Homeowners and Condo Associations next on the court house steps?

The National Association of Home Builders has created an outstanding Home Page that explains the $8,000 tax credit for the first time homebuyer.  On that site you will find explanations about how it works, frequently asked questions, the law’s other provisions and then some outstanding resources for the first time homebuyer.  The setup of this web-site is simple and extremely easy to navigate.  If you are a first time homebuyer, I recommend strongly that you look at this web-site.  Good work NAHB.  To link to this site just click HERE .