Florida Leads the way in Luxury Golf Course Real Estate

UNIQUE HOMES: Stateside, Florida Leads the Way in luxury golf course real estate with 545 golf-course communities. Since 2001, 1764 new golf holes have been added, which would equal 98 new 18-hole golf courses. In 2006, 153 new holes appeared through August.

PORTABILITY PETITION (re property taxes)

TO SIGN and WHERE TO MAIL PORTABILITY PETITION (re property taxes) go to:

http://www.co.palm-beach.fl..us/papa/

and click on link to portability petition - get address to mail petition to, print it out and sign and mail it.

"The Florida Legislature could add the issue of Portability to its January special session agenda and adopt our ballot language," said Palm Beach County Property Appraiser Gary Nikolits, a member of the Board that sponsors the petition drive. "That would save us the work of gathering the nearly 750,000 signatures needed to place the issue on the ballot," he added.

MARILYN FARBER JACOBS

7th ANNUAL DOWNTOWN DELRAY BEACH ART FESTIVAL

Free Admission + Free Parking and a chance to walk off holiday calories will draw you to the Juried Outdoor Art Festival being held on Saturday, November 25th and Sunday, November 26th, 10 am – 5 pm. The work of artists from around the US will be featured and will include paintings, jewelry, photography, glass, sculpture, ceramics and more. The Festival being held in downtown Delray Beach will be in Pineapple Grove. Prices will range from $15 to $20,000. You have an opportunity to talk to the artists whose work you admire and may wish to purchase. For more information call 954-472-3755.

IMMACULATE spacious, open, light 2 bedroom 2 1/2 bath 1st floor condo in THE POLO CLUB in Boca Raton, FL US

Beautiful, spacious 1st floor condo available, built in 1999. This was a model, and still shows like one!

Enjoy being surrounded by nature... 18'x17' family room opens to patio and private garden; wide side yard offers tropical views from all windows. 16'x14' white light and bright kitchen with center island and bay window for eat-in-area opens to family room.18'x15' living room and 18'x'8 dining room area comprise a wide open great room. 2nd bedroom has foyer leading to it's own bath and big linen closet. Half bath is very pretty. Utility Room has huge storage closet next to it. 16'x14' master bedroom is large and open, with walk-in-closets. Master Bath is spacious, white, very "roomy." Walk to Community Pool, Fitness Area, Clubhouse.

The Polo Club offers a 145,000 sq ft Clubhouse with 5 dining rooms open in season, 29 tennis courts (some lit for night play), 2 championship golf courses, a 50,000 sq ft "world class" spa, many social and cultural activities, weekly movies, lectures, exercise and aerobics classes, spin bikes, a beauty parlor, resort-style pool, singles group, Children's Activity Center. LIFE IS GOOD... C'mon down.

To see this property and get a tour of The Polo Club, call Marilyn Jacobs at 561-988-0070. $540,000.

COUNTY OFFERS FREE AMPLIFIED PHONES FOR PEOPLE WITH HEARING LOSS

All Palm Beach County residents who are deaf or hard-of-hearing are offered specialized telephone equipment, at no charge, provided by the Deaf Service Center in West Palm Beach and Florida Telecommunications Relay.

According to the Deaf Center, there are more than 170,000 residents who are entitled to use this equipment and the proper training to use it. Requirements are proof of Florida residency and hearing loss.

For those with a moderate hearing loss, telephones with volume and tone control are provided, easily operated by both the hard-of-hearing individual and anyone else living in the same household. For those with a severe to profound hearing loss, and who also have intelligible speech the Center can provide a CapTel telephone which uses relay operator assistance to communicate messages. The relay operation captions everything said and it appears on the phone display screen. The telephone also has amplification, so the hard-of-hearing person can both listen to the conversation and read the captions.

A text telephone (“TTY”) is offered to deaf clients. The message is either directly typed to another TTY user, or to a person using a standard telephone through a third party relay service.

Proper training and instructions on how to operate the phones are provided. Those eligible can call for an appointment at the Delray Beach office at 561-278-6444.

CALDWELL THEATRE ABOUT TO OPEN IN ITS NEW BOCA LOCATION

The opening production will be an Elvis Presley tribute called “Hunka Hunka Burning Love.” The new location of the Caldwell Theatre is just north of it’s current location nin the Levitz Plaza and it will bear the name of the late Count Adolph de Hoernle. Whose wife, the Countess, is a longtime Caldwell supporter. When Caldwell moves out of it’s current location, he plaza will be leveled in the future to provide a multi-use development of homes, commercial, retail and office space. The new Caldwell will have a 350-seat performance center in the 25,750 sq ft building. A glass façade will face Federal Highway.

EMINENT DOMAIN MAY RESULT TO CREATE DOWNTOWN BOCA “SPINE”

A pedestrian walkway is proposed from Mizner Park to Royal Palm Place and negotiations soon will begin for the purchase of land in the area, with eminent domain (“the forced taking of land”) a possible consideration. The aim is to create a path with eye-appealing amenities to draw people to see it, and to shop along the way. The Boca Raton Historical Society is trying to preserve certain sections of the city’s retail center because of the historic value. The land acquisition should end by the 3rd quarter of 2008. A bond issue will develop to cover costs, and public input will be involved Design of the spine should run from mid-2008 to the first quarter of 2 009. Construction and engineering could start in the 2nd quarter of 2009 with completion planned for the 4th quarter of 2010.

9-PASSENGER JET CHARTER ADDED AT BOCA RATON AIRPORT

Executive Jet Management added a private jet to Boca Raton which has a non-stop range of 4400 miles, and can fly Boca to Los Angeles or Miami to Brazil. The company is a leading provider of worldwide jet charter and aircraft management services which has earned the “Best Charter Service” award from Professional Pilot magazine subscribers for it’s 9th consecutive year. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of NetJets Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway company and manages aircraft in more than 60 locations throughout the country. The jet features a DVD player, two 18” video monitors, two data ports, flight phone and galley with microwave and conventional ovens. The plane is a Falcon 2000EX.

TRUTH or FICTION in the headlines?

An article in the Wall St Journal on September 12, 2006, stated that home sales have "plunged over the past year in many areas where prices had soard over the preceding five years." The full story is that prices only went down 1.7% although the number of home sales did plummet 12.6% in August 2006 vs. August 2005. More accurately, sales have EASED. Not a huge plunging change! Although not the case in 2004 and 2005, there is a slowdown in home sales during most summers in home sales in Florida!

SOME COURT DOCS GOING ONLINE Oct 17, 2006

30 years of criminal and traffic court records will begin being converted to a modernized computer system that the public will be able to access online at http://pbcountyclerk.com/.

Included will be traffic citations (which can be paid online), court dates and other information docketed in a court file, e.g., listing of filings and activity. The ability to view the individual documents in a particular case is not yet available, but is slated for the future.

From 5 pm this coming Friday until Oct. 9, court filings will be done the old-fashioned way, by hand while all the records are being transferred. The information will be entered into the new system once it is up and running.

The vendor, Affiliated Computer Systems, signed a contract in 1999 for $4.9 million to convert the civil and juvenile records, which went online in 2002. That same year, the county signed contracts totaling $6.9 million to do the same thing for criminal and traffic records.

With 7,000 hits per day, the Palm Beach County Clerk of Court's Web site -- www.pbcountyclerk.com -- already competes with the property appraiser's site as the county's busiest. That number is expected to double when criminal and traffic records are added.

NEWSPAPERS HAVE LOST MANY REAL ESTATE ADS TO THE INTERNET

Newspapers will face a huge loss of real estate ads to the Internet, according to Borrell Associates, a national consulting and research firm that tracks local internet advertising and crafts strategies for media and websites. See http://www.borrellassociates.com/product.cfm?prodID=55 .

"Toward the end of 2005, the Internet became the most-used method of selling a home -- beating out even the old-faithful yard sign," says Borrell. “The $11 billion spent on total real estate advertising stagnated, growing less than 4% over the past four years, while the available advertising inventory -- the number of existing homes for sale on the market -- rose 41 percent in the last 12 months. That metric alone is enough to stop a real estate advertising executive dead in his or her tracks."

The Newspaper Association of America reports that classified ad revenue amounted to $16.6 billion in 2004 -- down from $19.6 billion from 2000. Corrected for inflation the situation is far worse: Newspapers would have to have taken in $21.5 billion in 2005 to equal their 2000 classified revenues. See http://www.naa.org/thesource/20.asp .

Will INTEREST RATES GO FARTHER DOWN NOW???

September 18, 2006 - Says David Lereah, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, "Mortgage rates are one of the bright spots in the economy right now, with an unexpected decline recently in the 30-year fixed rate to a narrow range around six-and-a-half percent. This should encourage some of the nearly 4 million people who’ve found newly created jobs over the last two years.”

CITIZEN's DEFICIT to cost ALL FL HOMEOWNERS

CITIZEN’s DEFICIT to cost ALL FL HOMEOWNERS

A one-time charge of $20.70 for every $1000 of annual homeowner insurance premiums due for Florida homeowners with their next renewal bills, added to rate hikes that have already appeared. This is to HELP cover Citizen’s Property Insurance Corp’s $1.7-Billion deficit from 2005, to shore up the state’s home insurer of last resort and now its biggest property insurer.

This is the second time in 2 years that all Florida home insurance policyholders are being forced to bail out Citizens, which has been drained by hurricane-related claims.

Once the assessment gets the go-ahead from the state Office of Insurance Regulation, homeowner insurance companies will pay Citizens and pass the charge on to their customers when the policies are renewed.

This assessment, already approved, is expected to raise $163-MM, and combined with $715-MM in sales tax money already set aside, plus the assessment Citizens is to consider next month which is expected to raise $822-MM.

This information is from the 9-17-06 issue of the Sun-Sentinel newspaper.

BEAUTIFUL IMMACULATE CONDO FOR SALE IN POLO CLUB - Easy to take care of!

SPACIOUS, LIGHT AND BRIGHT and easy to care for!
With two spacious bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths, a large open great room for living and dining and a sizeable family room overlooking beautiful gardens in a quiet, serene spot, here is "FLORIDA LIVING" on the first floor of a 2-story condominium quad building. The white kitchen is large with many storage cabinets, light and bright, and add a wide foyer where a buffet-breakfront can do - VOILA! Great flow for entertaining! Your bedroom is also very large and overlooks the back garden. The master bath is HUGE with double sinks, separate shower and bath. This home was a model originally and still shows like a model. Come and see it... you are steps away from the community pool and clubhouse with exercise room. For more details and more photos, see home page of http://www.MarilynJacobs.com. For showing, call Marilyn Jacobs, 561-988-0070 (if you live outside of Polo Club you need gate access.) 150,000 sq ft clubhouse has resort pool, two championship golf courses, 26 tennis courts (some lit at night) with courtside seating and televised star-studded tennis matches and extensive program, 50,000 sq ft "world class spa" included with personal trainers, Pilates Room, exercise equipment galore, exercise classes.....$589,000.

POLO CLUB is a KID-FRIENDLY COMMUNITY

9-1-06: Today’s Wall St Journal has an article about the ways developers are wooing families to their properties, and the ideas may have merit everywhere.

Developers tout fancy gyms, pools just for children, water parks, fake “fossil digs”, couture designer romper rooms, playgrounds with slides and climbing equipment, “kids-only” activity rooms, child-sized “Wild West” sets with saloons and teepees, squirt-gun shootout areas, plastic monkey bars, tunnel labyrinths, and on-call “nanny” staff.

Please note that POLO CLUB offers a kiddie pool, playground with slides, "kids-only" activity room, monkey bars, climbing gyms, playhouses, and counselors with scheduled programs for a few hours a day. There is also a "teens room" with air soccer, tv, and other equipment specially for teen agers, where they can meet and play games or watch tv.

According to Packaged Facts, a New York-based consumer-research company, it costs a middle-income family $191,000 to raise a child to age 18.

Have you read about CarePages?

CarePages.com is a free secure private internet space for families and invited friends to form an online support community around a patient. This space can be used to post get-well wishes, upload photos and share info about the loved one’s illness, recovery and/or rehab. Patients can respond online, and family members can communicate with staff.

One family member is designated to be in charge of the space. CarePages currently manages over 50,000 individual CarePages communities with over 5-MM members in 190 countries around the world. Over 500 hospital and health care facilities across the US and Canada are offering their own customized versions of CarePages.

Go to www.carepages.com for a visit.

CONDO INSURANCE RATES MAY FALL

There has been a change in how association’s policies are handled by Citizens Property Insurance Company. Previously one policy would group condo buildings together, and now Citizen’s board decided they will treat the buildings separately. A stricter criteria will still apply to individual condo buildings that cost $10-MM or more to replace. This change could save associations thousands of dollars on their insurance premiums. Depending on how the associations decide to use the refunds, either homeowners could receive refunds or the funds could be held in reserve by the association. Rate reductions could be 20% to 30%, but that will still be more than associations paid to Poe Financial Group previously. Change will apply retroactively to any policies issued on or after May 15, which is when Citizens first issued condo association policies using the stricter standards. About 2000 associations are affected. It will take 60-90 days for Citizens to process the refunds.

HOA and CONDO laws

FL OFFICIALS DECIDE CONDOS MUST HAVE GENERATORS and HOAS CAN CONTINUE OPERATING WITHOUT RESERVE FUND TO PAY EMERGENCY CLEANUP AND OTHER EXPENSES
While the lack of reserves last year forced many association to impose huge special assessments on owners, the mandatory HOAs can continue operating without a reserve fund to pay emergency cleanup and other expenses.

High-rise condos must install sprinklers in hallways and lobbies by 2013, and associations must provide a generator for at least one elevator in each building by 2007 for at least 5 days after a disaster, so that the elderly and infirm residents won’t again get trapped on upper floors.

The length of time a condo owner or association can file suit against the buildrer for construction defects has been reduced from 15 years to 10 years.
State condo law is 93 pages, compared with 30 pages for the homeowner law. Governor Jeb Bush has ordered the state Department of Business & Professional Regulation to recommend by October 1st whether the state should consider combining laws for all “common interest communities,” include HOAs, condos, co-ops and timeshares.

Palm Beach County studies slightly larger cut in property taxes

A proposal to cut property taxes by 2% has been upped to a proposal to cut by 3% bby Commissioner Mary McCarty, with residents with homestead exemptions having no change in their county tax bills. The 3% tax rate cut would offset the rise in property values, with homeowners paying $4.30 for every $1000 in assessed values instead of the current $4.45.

Public hearings on the budget are set for July with voting in September. The 2006 budget was $3.9-billion; the 2007 budget calls for a $4.3-billion spending plan.
With a 21% spike in property values, about $100-million in extra revenues was created, even after McCarty’s proposed tax rate cut. Property value growth is expected to slow in 2007 due to a softened real estate market.

The Economic Council of Palm Beach County submitted a letter saying the tax rate reductions being discussed aren’t enough, considering the county has benefited from a soaring real estate market in recent years.
A 9% property tax cut was voted on for Broward County, although new projects proposed there might eat deeply into that tax cut.

20 BOCA RATON SCHOOLS RECEIVE A GRADES

Mayor Steven Abrams said, "In recruiting bio-tech companies, a great selling point is to say all our schools are A-Rated. I regularly visit city schools and regularly observe first-hand how hard our students and teachers work towards this."

20 Boca Raton public schools received A grades, one (Olympic Heights) fell one point short of an A, and none were C,D, or F. The Palm Beach County school district is the only large urban district in Florida to receive this distinction.

Grades are abased mainly on how well students perform on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment test (FCAT).

It's a privilege to live in the POLO CLUB...

Many members here at Polo Club feel lucky INDEED! to be living in this beautifully landscaped and socially active membership-owned golf and country club. There are over 1700 units, within 23 communities each with their own disctinctive architecture, and a little more than half the residents are part-time, joining us in winter and then returning to their homes up north and out west, and in other countries such as England, for the summers.

There are 18 Club Communities with different interests, including, Social and Cultural who plan such interesting and entertaining events (we're anticipating a wonderful night of laughs ahead with Joan Rivers), Security, Polo Solos for singles, and Community Relations. The 150,000 sq ft clubhouse has a wonderful spa - have had massages there, had my hair done in the beauty salon, attended exercise classes... enjoyed the large whirlpool, sauna and steam room in the ladies area... what could be bad??? The Card Rooms are very busy and lessons in bridge, canasta, etc. are available. There is a Children's Activity Center for those age 2-8, and a Teens Room with games such as air hockey, a tv, ping pong and areas in which to sit and chat. With 5 restauranats open in season, and a weekly move all year round... you can be endlessly busy, or just sit in your yard, perhaps by your pool, take in the sun and just enjoy. Been there, done that, and "it's heaven!"

Two 18-hole championship golf courses are well-used by members. There are 20+ tennis courts, some lighted for night play. We held the popular Andy Roddick Tournament here in December, and the Girls USTA holds competition here on our Polo Tennis Courts.

We are near stores, supermarkets, and several airports.

Want to know more about Polo Club? This is the place to ask, or just email me at mjacobs240 @aol.com.

MARILYN FARBER JACOBS

CRYSTAL BAY Polo Club courtyard pool home UNDER CONTRACT IN ONE DAY!

This lovely home has 4 bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths, a freeform pool and large courtyard, guest house with 1 bedroom, 1 bath.

Gourmet kitchen with granite countertops, wood cabinets. Family room opens into kitchen.

Pretty moldings on walls, crown moldings throughout... but needs a little TLC... some finishing touches.

low low price of $699,000!

SOLD SAME DAY AS LISTED

This lovely golf villa in Ville de Capri was sold by Marilyn Jacobs the same day it was listed. It has 2 bedrooms, 2 baths and is being expanded. Lake view in back.

Large great room, 1-car garage, pretty gardens.

Happy new buyers!

Why to Purchase a Home in Polo Club in Boca Raton

The Polo Club in Boca Raton is an equity gated golfing community with over 1700 units within 23 distinctive communities, priced from the "high $300,000's" into the multi-millions of dollars.

The 150,000 sq ft clubhouse, new and largest in the area, offers two championship golf courses. The social and competitive programs contain something for everyone:

• 29 clay courts (11 are lighted) and fully stocked golf and tennis pro shops
• a "world class" 50,ooo sq ft state-of-the-art spa which includes fitness, spin-bike and water aerobics classes, personal trainers, beauty salon, massages, and exercise machines
• 5 dining rooms open in season
• meeting rooms with a variety of year-around programs
• card rooms
• day and evening trips to shows and other events
• 3 entrances with 24/7 manned gates and security patrols
• community participation available through 18 Club Committees and 23 HOAs as well as the Board of Governors

Investors take note: Properties can be rented out twice a year for a minimum of 30 days a year; renter pays a stipend to the club.

Some of the communities have satellite pools.

This is COUNTRY CLUB LIVING at it's best!

Email Marilyn Farber Jacobs, Realtor (Lang Realty) at MarilynFJacobs@aol.com or call 561-988-0070 to find out what properties are available. Marilyn is a full-time resident of the Polo Club, and an experienced, knowledgeable real estate agent who says:

My COMMITMENT + MY DISCRETION + MY INTEGRITY + MY SERVICE

= the RESULTS that you EXPECT!