bad news/good news

[disney junky]

Just got our preliminary tax bill for our Florida property. Bad news, lost another ton of value. Good news, tax bill went down again, but I wonder how the state can fund all it needs to fund with everyone's values declining this drastically.

 

[zalansky]

And I wonder how many more foreclosures are going to keep rolling in because people owe WAY more than what their homes are worth - and they can't afford them! We have had 4 homes foreclose on our street in the past year. And, we do not live in an expensive area. Its kind of scary really.

However, I am very happy about the property taxes going down. Much more realistic for what we get down here.

 

[disney junky]

In some ways, I wonder if this won't start the whole process over again. Ten years ago and even less, Florida real estate was pretty affordable and the taxes weren't crazy. Insurance, taxes and home prices skyrocketted and became unaffordable. I just read an article where the author suggested that inspite of being overbuilt and oversaturated, Florida is still an appealing retirement destination and with the number of boomers entering their retirement years, it's possible that Florida may again be a real value.

 

[RadioNate]

I got ours too. We are now seriously upsidedown on our house here. I think we've lost about 45% and that is real dollars for us since we bought in 2007 before the bubble burst.

So much for putting 20% down and all that.

We can afford our house, as long as DH keeps his job but I can't imagine we'll be able to sell any time soon if we had too. I know DH's company would ideally like to relocate him to another office but I'm sure they aren't because they know we'd be stuck with the house.

We were planning on 'upgrading' our house and/or putting in a pool before our oldest went to jr high but that is only 3 years away so that won't happen. Hopefully it will before he goes to HS.

But your right...my tax bill went down and is about 1/3 of what it was in Texas! I have a feeling we'll be getting a nice escrow refund.

 

[PatriciaH]

I hope it does not get as bad as Las Vegas! Time just had a cover story about real estate there. Brokers and realtors are telling their clients to buy a new, nicer, bigger home for 1/2 of what they bought their own for. Then to stop making payments on their current home! They will rent it out until the bank finally forecloses on it. It makes their credit bad but they do not care since they just got a new, nicer home. The broker in the article did it herself and also made $100,000 last year. Nice.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1915962,00.html