Bank of America, the nation’s largest mortgage servicer, is offering Florida homeowners up to $20,000 to short sale their homes rather than letting them linger in foreclosure.
The limited time offer has received little promotion from the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, which sent emails to select Florida Realtors earlier this week outlining basic details of the plan. [...]

Adding green technology to a home can help homeowners save money in the long run, but some may not be able to afford the upfront investment. Several tax credits effective this year, however, can help homeowners – and buyers – save on green updates.
Here are two main tax credits available for those interested in making [...]

Sales activity and median prices for Florida’s existing home and existing condo markets rose in August, according to the latest housing data released by Florida Realtors®. Existing home sales increased 15 percent last month with a total of 16,206 homes sold statewide compared to 14,131 homes sold in August 2010, according to Florida Realtors. The [...]

The deadline for filing a petition To contest the property value on your TRIM notice is September 9th.
Here’s an informative summary of and commentary about your property taxes:
Tax Notices are Here but What do They Really Tell Us?
BRADENTON — Tax notices are here, but what do they really tell us? Every year at this time, [...]

Forbes – using Zillow data - recently created a list of “America’s Recession-Resistant Cities For Real Estate.” Florida, one of the states to suffer most from the real estate boom and bust,  contributes six cities to our list – more than any other state. Sarasota came in on #7!
Here are some excerpts from a Sarasota Herald article [...]

CoreLogic’s July Home Price Index (HPI) finds that home prices in the U.S. increased for the fourth consecutive month, inching up 0.8 percent on a month-over-month basis. On a year-over-year basis, however, national home prices, including distressed sales, declined by 5.2 percent in July 2011 compared to July 2010. Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices declined [...]

Good news for all owners of vacation homes on the island:
Visits to the Anna Maria Island/Longboat Key area showed no sign of decline in June, tourism rose 6.5 percent that month compared with June 2010, according to the latest Research Data Services monthly tourism report for the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The RDS reported [...]

Nationwide housing affordability during the second quarter of 2011 hovered for the 10th consecutive quarter near its highest level in the more than 20 years, according to National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI).
According to the HOI, families earning the national median income of $64,200 could afford 72.6 percent of all new [...]

Summertime is a popular time for people with children to move since school is out. Moving can be expensive, but the IRS offers 10 tax tips on deducting some of those expenses if your move is related to starting a new job or a new job location.

Move must be closely related to start of work [...]

From time to time the IRS releases tips designed to help people with their taxes. Some of these are quite useful.
If you have a gain from the sale of your main home, you may qualify to exclude all or part of that gain from your income. Here are ten tips from the IRS to keep [...]