Fort Myers, Florida

After seeing the President single out Fort Myers, Florida for its foreclosure dilemma, you might get the impression it's not an ideal place to live. However, days before the President’s trip, I also visited this southwest Florida city and my good friend, Jack Adams, who has lived there for the last 27 years. I came away with an indelible impression. We all must be out of our minds to live here when we could live there. Winter temperatures in the 60s and 70s might warm you up to this idea as a starter. Sanibel Island has upscale beaches and resorts to host you. The wide, gentle slope of Fort Myers beach offers all the man-made accoutrements of an old-fashioned beach town with waterside dining, drinking and everything else from the submerged to the sublime. Five minutes south you can literally get away from it all at Lovers Key Beach which is a state park offering nothing but unspoiled natural beauty farther than your eye can see. Nature abounds there. When boating back to port on Saturday, the dolphins (really porpoises but everyone calls the dolphins) played in the wake of the boat and were almost within reach from the transom. The nearby power plant generates a lot of warm water, and there are dozens of Manatees swimming about. Fishing is bountiful and it boasts one of the world’s best spots to fish for tarpon in the spring.
The waterways of the bays and Caloosahatchee river offer tremendous inshore vistas and boating with the Gulf of Mexico right there for offshore adventures. Every night you can go to your choice of spots to see the sunset in the West over the Gulf. Landlubbers will love the option to move from sandy beaches to sand traps with 178 golf courses within less than an hour’s drive!

A quadruple whammy has made the housing crunch a problem for the locals and an opportunity for the newcomer. The bursting economic and housing bubbles caused the biggest hits to everyone’s home equity. Mother nature also did her part with hurricane-induced insurance rates skyrocketing when they are even available. One insurance company has even tried to leave the state and withdraw home owner’s insurance entirely. Last but not least is the law of unintended consequences from the Florida lawmakers making real estate taxes for home buyers excessive compared to home values.

If your Florida property is your primiary residence, your taxes inch upward very slowly. If your Florida escape is your second home you may escape winter’s wrath but not the tax man’s, as he increases your real estate taxes very aggressively. Regardless the next purchaser of any home pays the unfair market value in taxes depressing the sale price as purchasers factor in the high taxes into what they are willing to pay per month.

While there are plenty of negatives about any local economy in this country these days, the tourism supported by flocking snow birds is still pumping money into the area even if not at the frenzied pace of years gone by. So if you are looking to retire to the sunshine state 2009 may be a great time to buy in the beautiful SouthWest Florida coast.

By Guest Blogger Jerry Cave
Publisher, Washington Home & Garden
I first met Jack Eden in 1980 when I arrived at WTOP Radio. Sadly Jack passed away January 17th in Williamsburg, Virginia after his fight with colon cancer. He was quite a character as well as a garden great. His audience was as passionate about his Sunday morning radio show “Over The Garden Fence” as he was.
I will never forget the Sunday I came in to catch up on work to find a line of Jack Eden devotees patiently waiting to receive some samples of seeds form Jack. He was perched on the steps and people would come up and he would dispense a few samples and exchange pleasantries. I thought he looked like a religious leader dispensing a blessing. It was a sight to behold. His following was very devoted. One day the manager of the now defunct Hechinger’s hardware store called up. I excitedly anticipated their interest in advertising. The manager said he only wanted to find out in advance what Jack was going to talk about on Sundays so he could stock it adequately when throngs would come in looking for it. I was awed at Jack’s power to move his audience. He went on to write for various newspapers with his column “Garden of Eden,” but I will always remember him as someone who moved people on the radio to work in their garden guided by the advice from this self-taught “garden guru.” He leaves behind his wife of 53 years, Patricia Wohlever Eden and two children and a lot of fond memories. My only question is if he is dispensing advice or getting advice for his heavenly garden?

About the Guest Blogger:
Jerry Cave is the proud father of two Eagle Scouts, Sean and Connor, and is celebrating his 25th anniversary with his lovely bride, Sheila. He enjoys hiking with Sheila, fishing with Sean, watching Connor play rugby -- and any time spent with family and friends.

When I worked at WTOP radio I remember when we decided to air traffic reports in the middle of the day because traffic was so bad. Now traffic reports air all day seven days a week. What’s more there are sites you can access on your computer or iphone that shows the traffic everywhere and the picture of the traffic from the cameras positioned at key roads. The only thing that seems to increase worse than the area’s traffic is technology’s ability for us to observe our own misery. 

I wonder if any of you have also noticed this marital phenomenon and wonder even more if anyone knows why this seems to happen. Pitchers seem to marry keepers. I am an admitted pack rat. I hate to throw things away. My wife throws some things away before she has taken the sales tag off of it. I noticed this opposite attraction with my parents and many other couples. It isn’t always true but it sure seems to happen more often than not. If any one else has noticed this among couples I would welcome your observation. If anyone knows why this happens other than the old saying that opposites attract I would appreciation the education.

The good news is that this is a great time to renovate and improve your house. Great companies are anxious to help you at a reasonable price. Some companies that literally would have been to busy to even give you an estimate at the height of the housing boom are available to do a superb job for you now and get it done faster than ever. Mortgage rates are low and people with good credit will get loans. While housing may have had some problems your home is still one of the best places to invest especially in this market that is supported by federal spending.

That said it has never been more important to make sure you take the right selection when choosing a contractor whether it is for maintenance, a touch up or a complete makeover.

1. Check out their Web site and learn about them from what they have ready to show you about themselves.
2. Be sure to verify they are licensed bonded and insured.
3. Check their references for who they have worked for but don’t stop there.
4. Check the references of their vendors to make sure they are current with them so they can get the supplies necessary.
5. Check how long they have been in business.
6. Ask them if they are in good financial shape to fulfill the contract. Pay attention to their response.
7. Talk to them be sure you are comfortable with the people who will be there during the project.
8. Ask for a realistic turn around time to get the work completed and then anticipate it taking longer. It is the nature of the business.
9. Talk to friends who have done something similar so you can know what to expect. Learn form their experience.
10. Be crystal clear with what you expect and what you want.

There is more to it than that but this is a good place to start realizing your dream to have ahappier home and making a wise investment.

The anticipation for the inauguration reminds of certain aspects of New Orleans Mardis Gras. First is that it consists of a major American city being invaded by people from around the country and a few from around the world.

It is a major challenge for police forces in general but specifically for the actual men and women in all branches of security. You know they have to be working a lot of overtime. While the money will be good they are going to be physically and mentally exhausted. The end of the event will be welcome indeed by the law enforcement community.

Crowds for both of these winter events are taxing although regardless what they say about extending the hours of local bars, I can assure form experience at both events the libations consumed will be less in D.C. than in N.O. Many natives of New Orleans leave town or lay low for the frolics of the Mardis Gras and I have heard many Washingtonians indicate that they may do the same.

There are many obvious aspects that dissimilar. Mardis Gras is 100% silly and fun while the inauguration represents America’s greatest achievement, the peaceful transition of power. And finally when both events are over there is a big mess that will get cleaned up in a hurry and we will have many more cold days of winter left with little else to look forward to until spring.

Workers need homes. The work is here, and more is on its way.

The new administration is clearly going to make the economy its highest priority, and that means money and lots of it. The stimulus will most likely be a trillion dollars, and that is just to start! There won’t be the slightest hesitation to spend whatever it will take to get the U.S. economy going again by this or any other administration. No one wants to be at the helm when the ship goes down so money will be no object, in fact money will be the object! And there are two things history tells us about money that comes out of Washington. First, is that a lot of the money never makes it out of town! Second, the people who get that money in this area need a place to live!

The stimulus is not the only thing that will make this market grow. The Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) has already leased office buildings for new workers to administer the $700 billion they’re doling out. The only other thing could make Washington grow more than the government’s efforts to restart the economy is war, and we have two of those already. WWII resulted in the destruction of German and Japanese cities, but it also resulted in the construction of much of Washington and its suburbs.

But the big number will be the economy.

The Great Depression was awful for everyone except Washington. It grew the Washington area. In fact, that’s how I got here. My grandfather could not find work in Virginia so he came to Washington where he literally made money. He printed the stuff for the Federal government. My other grandfather emigrated here from Ireland to work for the government. My wife’s grandfather moved here from Macon, Georgia to sell Pella windows for the homes of the people who worked for the government.

Speaking of money, the stuff has never been cheaper. Home loans are low and may go lower but it won’t last forever. As soon as the recovery starts, rates will have to rise and the costs to fund your dream home will become dearer for the dollar.

A decision to invest in your home in this area based on whether it’s a good economic decision comes down to three questions: How long are you going to live in it, where is your house and what else would you do with the money?

If you plan to live in your home a long time, then you will get the money back eventually, and eventually comes sooner to our area than to the rest of the country. The longer you plan to live in the house the less you have to worry about getting the money back, because you won’t decide to sell until after the real estate market has come back. This is projected to be the No. 2 real estate market in the country for 2009.

If your home is close to the city, then your house has probably still held its value very well and may be worth 80 percent, 90 percent or even 100 percent of what it was ever worth, so improvements will boost its value sooner rather than eventually. In this case your best friend is Washington’s worst nemesis, traffic. People will pay almost anything or bear almost any burden to avoid spending hours in the country’s second worst traffic.

If you are a stock market genius then you will take advantage of the stock market and put all your money there. However, since even Warren Buffet has lost billions of dollars, I am not sure how many of us are going to call ourselves stock market geniuses. Where can you get a better return than a home in the Washington area and get to live in it at the same time? Your much is more likely to get that on Scarsdale Road in Bethesda or Oxford Street in Chevy Chase or Old Dominion Drive in McLean than you are on Wall Street in New York City!

Here are some more good reasons to jump in. Many other people have jumped out! Many companies were so busy during the boom they couldn’t take your call much less take your business. Well these folks now have the time to do both as well take care of your project! The owner of the company will be even more attentive to see to a good job because every job is more precious and every referral is, too.

You will also benefit because many of the bad remodeling companies are out of the business now, so you are less likely to get involved with a less than pleasant experience as you were in the days when companies were popping up over night to take care of the over flow in demand.

So am I saying now is the best time to remodel? Yes.