[Homestead] ???
Leslie
cayadopi at yahoo.com
Fri Mar 6 07:37:59 EST 2009
NM, food prices climbing, but specials still around. Big ag type farmers are planting, and I hope oil prices stay low during the growing season for the sake of grocery store consumers.
One oddball thing I noticed. Went to Las Cruces NM (sort of close to El Paso, TX) last week. Stopped in Sam's Club to get some bulk supplies. Usually they have quite a bit of coffee, numerous brands, beans & ground. They had very little coffee - a number of us were wondering what was going on, since they had other items stocked where they normally have coffee.
Jobs far and few between. Hearing about cut-backs at gov't level due to revenue shortfalls. And they are always advertising job fairs in the news now... and reporting that for every one job available, hundreds to a thousand people show up (up in Alburquerque). I haven't been up to town often enough to remember what businesses were around before, but when I go I do notice more vacant / closed shops. There are some companies leaving California and coming to NM (apparently lower cost of doing business and lower tax base than CA). There was supposed to be a solar power mfg plant opening in S. NM, but when I inquired at the Job Workforce office, apparently it is on hold.
Daughter lives in Miami. The company she used to work for went bankrupt in early Dec. She finally got a new job after looking for 3 months... for a company specializing in distressed mortgages. Apparently business is booming there. Assume that will be short lived after the defaults finish up a few years 3-4 years from now.
Florida's real estate tax method thru the bubble caused some huge windfall tax receipts for Florida, (They were voting to change it when I left, so this is pre-2008.) R/E tax 3% of purchase price (FMV) is the initial assessed value, maximum increased allowed by law to assessed value of 3%. Milleage rates for local items set locally. This allowed people who buy to live in their houses for 30-40 years to keep their property tax much lower than a similar property with a more current FMV. (This method was adopted back in the 70s modeled after something similar in California.) When the boom started, a lot of people upgraded to larger homes and a lot of new homes. Their old homes were sold and re-assessed at the inflated sales price. Hence a windfall profit in much higher real estate tax to the State. Naturally, governments don't pay down debt with windfall tax receipts - they go on a spending spree and add on additional new debt. That
process is now reversing with the foreclosures, as homes are being sold at lower and lower and lower prices.... lowering the r/e tax in line with the new lower FMV/sales prices, and lowering the tax receipts.... stinging dumb government right in the arse.
--------
“All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” ~ George Orwell
Lynn Wigglesworth wrote:
> > That's interesting, Lynn. The price of food in the supermarket
here is rising higher and higher--specials are few and unimpressive.
Financially, things are tough here in Florida. They're closing schools and
laying off teachers and administrators and custodians, and that's just to
try to meet this fiscal year's education shortfall. It's the third such
cut this year for education.
>I wonder what other people are seeing. I suspect that the places that had
>the biggest 'bubbles' are the ones doing the worst now.
More information about the Homestead
mailing list