Drilling for oil ?

September 9th, 2008

    On last weeks show, I was commenting that I was opposed to any further drilling in the Gulf. One of my reasons was the potential for spills and the damage that would do to our economy. And considering any gain in fighting our “dependence” would be at least 8 years down the road and minimal at best.

   A caller corrected me in saying that spills were a very small if non existent threat.

   His call spurred me to investigate further and I’ve copied all my findings below.

   The short story is, he was correct. The “rest of the story” is, virtually the only thing that hasn’t caused the millions of gallons of fuel spilled into the gulf are oil rigs.

   I’m still opposed to drilling in the gulf, only now I won’t use that reason.

 Erick

Hurricanes Destroyed 109 Oil Platforms: US Government



“We had altogether, with both of the hurricanes, about 2,900 platforms that were in the path of the hurricanes,” Interior Secretary Gale Norton said.

Washington (AFP) Oct 04, 2005
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 109 oil platforms and five drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, but only a small portion of production will be lost for good, the US government said Tuesday. Rita accounted for most of the damage in a region that ordinarily produces nearly one-third of

US crude oil imports, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said in presenting a preliminary assessment report. Rita destroyed 63 platforms and one drilling rig when it tore through the region on September 24, she said. Katrina destroyed 46 platforms and four drilling rigs when it hit the Gulf at the end of August. Katrina also caused extensive damage to another 20 platforms and nine drilling rigs. Rita seriously damaged 30 platforms and 10 drilling rigs. “The two hurricanes coming so close together really illustrate how much of our offshore production was affected,” Norton told the CNBC network. “We had altogether, with both of the hurricanes, about 2,900 platforms that were in the path of the hurricanes,” she said. “We have no official estimate of the dollar value of the damage and the amount that it will cost to repair those facilities, but it will clearly be in the billions of dollars.” In advance of the hurricanes, crude oil production ground to a halt as Gulf sites were evacuated. A total of 342 platforms remain evacuated, roughly 40 percent of the manned sites in the Gulf, Norton said. As a result, 90 percent of crude production and 72 percent of natural gas output is paralysed, she said. But Norton also stressed that only one of the damaged platforms was built after federal construction standards were tightened in 1988. The ones that were destroyed were nearing the end of their lives. “As a result, only a very small percentage of production is expected to be permanently lost,” she said in a statement. “Despite such intense winds and powerful waves offshore, we experienced no loss of life or significant spills from any offshore well on the outer continental shelf,” Norton added.

Oil rigs’ insurers, telecoms bracing for hurricane’s test

Hurricane Gustav, projected to reach the

Gulf of Mexico by Sunday, may reveal whether insurers have done enough to limit risks of covering…By Erik HolmBloomberg NewsPREV  of  NEXT MARYALTAFFER / APAn crew member works at the Chevron Genesis oil rig platform near

New Orleans last week. Nearly 7 percent of the Gulf’s daily oil production of 1.3 million barrels has been turned off. Hurricane Gustav, projected to reach the

Gulf of Mexico by Sunday, may reveal whether insurers have done enough to limit risks of covering offshore oil rigs in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. It will also test telecommunications companies and manufacturing plants in the region.American International Group (AIG), Zurich Financial Services and Liberty Mutual were among insurers that raised prices fivefold and capped losses after the two hurricanes caused record offshore claims estimated at $8 billion in 2005.Meanwhile, Nissan North America said Friday that it’s making preparations at its

Canton, Miss., assembly plant.The plant, which is located about 210 miles north of

New Orleansand produces the Altima sedan along with pickups, minivans and sport-utility vehicles, was slightly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, company spokesman Fred Standish said.“We were down for about 2 ½ days with Katrina, then up and operating,” he said. “We learned a lot from that experience and are setting up accordingly.”Telecoms faced criticism and a regulatory push after Hurricane Katrina took out networks.Sprint Nextel spokeswoman Stephanie Vinge-Walsh said the company’s emergency response team, with trucks that can act as cell towers, was “caravaning down, military-style,” to the

Gulf

Coast on Friday.Verizon Wireless has spent $137 million in the past year on enhancing its network in the

Gulf

Coast area, including doubling its capacity at regional switching centers to handle a barrage of calls when disaster strikes.AT&T, the main landline-phone company in the region and the nation’s largest wireless carrier, has also added capacity, among a raft of preparations and upgrades to its

Gulf

Coast infrastructure over several years.It has replaced cables that are vulnerable to flooding with waterproof ones. Optical fiber has replaced copper wiring, which can short out when wet.Oil production haltedEnergy companies shut down more offshore production Friday.The federal Minerals Management Service, which manages offshore leases, said nearly 7 percent of the Gulf’s daily oil production of 1.3 million barrels, or 86,000, had been turned off. Nearly 2 percent of the daily natural-gas production of 7.4 billion cubic feet, or 136 million cubic feet, has been stopped.Six fixed production platforms had been shut down following evacuations. Seventeen drilling rigs, which are mobile and explore for petroleum, also had been evacuated and shut down, the MMS said.The agency said 717 staffed production platforms and 121 drilling rigs are currently operating in the Gulf.About 35,000 people work in the Gulf, staffing offshore rigs and production facilities, among other tasks, according to the MMS.The area is home to more than 5,000 oil platforms and provides one-fifth of

U.S. oil production.Insurers are betting on a better outcome this time.“We won’t know if the changes we made are valid until they’re tested by another storm,” said Christopher Pluchino, vice president at the Liberty Mutual unit that sells coverage for the platforms. “We tend to stay glued to the Weather Channel this time of year.”Katrina and Rita destroyed 113 platforms and damaged 457 pipelines, according to a 2006 report from the U.S. Minerals Management Service. They forced oil companies to redrill thousands of wells, said Frank Costa, president of AIG’s rig-insurance division.Curtailing their lossesInsurers are trying to curtail their losses this time by putting limits for the first time on how much they’ll pay out for storm damage over the course of the entire hurricane season. They’re also re-pricing coverage based on studies of what kinds of oil-drilling equipment held up best when Katrina and Rita struck.Insurers typically now limit coverage to $500 million in storm losses for all of a company’s offshore assets over the six- month season, Pluchino said. Just one of the largest platforms can cost more than $1 billion.Including expenses shouldered by the oil-drilling companies, the storms caused as much as $30 billion in damage before they ever made landfall on the

Gulf

Coast, said Paolo Bazzurro, director of engineering analysis for AIR Worldwide, the

Boston- based catastrophe modeling firm that advises insurers.With insurers paring risk in the Gulf, “the percentage that’s insured now compared to before Katrina is lower than it used to be,” Bazzurro said.Crude oil was little changed Friday amid speculation that energy producers are better prepared to face a hurricane than when Katrina struck in 2005. Oil fell 13 cents to settle at $115.46 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.“The oil and gas infrastructure around the Gulf is much more robust than it was in 2005,” said Adam Sieminski, Deutsche Bank’s chief energy economist. “Platforms have been jacked up and refineries have improved flood defenses.”Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

Hurricane Gustav: How Hurricanes Threaten Offshore Drilling and the Environment

Sunday August 31, 2008

In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 113 offshore oil and gas platforms, damaged 457 oil and gas pipelines, overturned storage tanks at onshore refineries, and spilled 9 million gallons of oil—nearly as much as the 10.8 million gallons spilled into

Prince William Sound when the Exxon Valdez hit the rocks in 1989. One platform drifted 66 nautical miles before running aground on a beach in

Alabama. (Sources:

U.S. Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service.) Add to those oil spills the “toxic gumbo” that Katrina and Rita left behind, a mixture of flooded sewers and chemical spills, and it’s not hard to see how the threats to the environment and public health quickly escalated. Based on current projections, Hurricane Gustav, which is expected to hit

New Orleans and

Southern Louisiana early Labor Day morning, could be even worse. Oil and Gas Companies Brace for Hurricane Gustav
Anticipating the potential damage, and drawing on lessons learned from the destruction caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, oil and gas company officials locked down their offshore platforms and halted production at their refineries. Unfortunately, Hurricane Gustav is on track to cut a swath through approximately 4,000 offshore oil and gas platforms in the

Gulf of Mexico and to make landfall in the heart of

Louisiana’s oil and gas industry, where many refineries and pipelines are located. Whether the advance precautions taken by oil and gas companies will be able to lessen the damage, and how much production delays and facility losses will increase oil and gas prices, remains to be seen. The Myth of Invulnerability
Ironically, one of the most persistent myths skewing the debate over whether to open U.S. coastal waters to more offshore drilling is that offshore oil platforms, along with their supporting pipelines and onshore refineries, are at no great risk from hurricanes, earthquakes, or other heavy weather and seismic events. As proof, the people who perpetuate this myth often point to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and oil and gas facilities in the

Gulf of Mexico and along the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and

Texas, claiming the 2005 storms caused no serious damage to offshore platforms, pipelines, refineries or the environment. Hurricane Ivan, wiped out a total of around 45 million barrels of

US oil output over six months.” The byproduct of that is OIL SPILLAGE. and Bush wants new drilling off

Florida, meterologists (J.Hansen) are finding there is and will be an increase in the intensity and duration of these storms, in part, because of global climate change.May 2006, the U.S. Minerals Management Service published their offshore damage assessment: 113 platforms totally destroyed, and - more importantly - 457 pipelines damaged, 101 of those major lines with 10″ or larger diameter. At least 741,000 gallons were spilled from 124 reported sources (the Coast Guard calls anything over 100,000 gallons a “major” spill). ” MMS report to follow:
“Wells and platforms were shut down before the storm, so leakage from those facilities was minimal. Pipelines were shut down too. But what the officials failed to mention is they don’t require industry to “purge” pipelines before a severe storm - so they were probably still loaded with oil, gas or liquid gas condensate. Any section of pipeline that was breached leaked all of that product into the Gulf within hours of the storm. That’s what we think accounts for the widespread slicks seen on the imagery from September 1 and 2, covering hundreds of square miles and obviously emanating from many points of origin. These slicks dispersed after several days of high winds offshore, as shown by our followup imagery taken on September 12, but a few problems remained as evidenced by ongoing leaks from wrecked platforms. ”

This report from MMS details the pipeline damage that occurred.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Hurricane Katrina -

Gulf of

Mexico Oil SpillsSpeaking of oil spills, SkyTruth images revealed significant spills covering a large area of the northern

Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. At the time, nobody was talking about what had happened to the 4,000 offshore oil platforms - and 34,000 miles of pipeline on the seafloor - when Katrina ripped through the Gulf as a Cat 5 storm, followed a few weeks later by Hurricane Rita. Attention was rightly focused on the unfolding human tragedy, as well as the 7-9 million gallons of oil spilled from damaged pipelines, refineries and storage tanks onshore.But for months after the storms, officials from government and industry repeatedly claimed that there were no “significant” spills in the Gulf. That line is still heard even now. Yet in May 2006, the

U.S. Minerals Management Service published their offshore damage assessment: 113 platforms totally destroyed, and - more importantly - 457 pipelines damaged, 101 of those major lines with 10″ or larger diameter. At least 741,000 gallons were spilled from 124 reported sources (the Coast Guard calls anything over 100,000 gallons a “major” spill).Wells and platforms were shut down before the storm, so leakage from those facilities was minimal. Pipelines were shut down too. But what the officials failed to mention is they don’t require industry to “purge” pipelines before a severe storm - so they were probably still loaded with oil, gas or liquid gas condensate. Any section of pipeline that was breached leaked all of that product into the Gulf within hours of the storm. That’s what we think accounts for the widespread slicks seen on the imagery from September 1 and 2, covering hundreds of square miles and obviously emanating from many points of origin. These slicks dispersed after several days of high winds offshore, as shown by our followup imagery taken on September 12, but a few problems remained as evidenced by ongoing leaks from wrecked platforms.More:
http://blog.skytruth.org/2007/12/hurricane-katrina-gulf…

And:

The Effects of Discharges of Drill Cuttings

If oil and gas exploration rigs and production installations are allowed to dump drilling wastes unchecked, the effects on marine life can be extensive and biologically significant. Over the past 40 years in the UK and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea, for example, about 1.3 million cubic metres of drill cuttings and associated wastes have built up on the seabed in 102 individual “cuttings piles” with an estimated mass of from 2 to 2.5 million tonnes. The largest pile contains over 66,000m3 of material and weighs about 100,000 tonnes ( For fuller details, see: Det Norske Veritas. 2000. op. cit.; and Grant, A. 2000. Toxicity and Environmental Risk Assessment of Drill Cuttings Piles.

University of

East Anglia,

Norwich). The ecological effects extend for several kilometres from some platforms and can be detected up to 10km from discharge points. These cuttings piles smother seabed life and remain toxic for many years, mainly because of the hydrocarbons they contain.

Although the discharge of cuttings contaminated with OBMs and SBMs is now effectively banned, or about to be banned, in

Western Europe, WBMs may still be discharged with cuttings and additive residues here and in most jurisdictions, including

North America, provided they are treated to prevent the formation of surface slicks from crude oil entrained in the wastes. According to the US Department of Energy, “WBMs produce short-term, minor impacts on the seabed, whereas OBM cuttings introduce long-term, more severe impacts” (Veil, J.A. et al. 1999. op. cit.). According to UKOOA (UKOOA spokesman, April 2000, pers. comm.), WBM is relatively harmless because it “contains water as its primary lubricant/coolant and no oil”. In some situations “additives may have organic properties but these are only allowed in very small quantities”. As a result, UKOOA believes there is no residual oil on the cuttings. Any salts or minerals coming from the mud are “not biologically available as they are in non organic forms coming generally from the barite used as the cutting medium”. A review of the literature suggests that WBMs may not be as benign as this suggests.

While the areas of affected seabed are much smaller where only water-based muds have been used (Grant, A. 2000. ibid.; and Olsgard, F., and Gray, J.S. 1995. A comprehensive analysis of the effects of offshore oil and gas exploration and production on the benthic communities of the Norwegian continental shelf. Marine Ecology Progress Series 122: 277-306.), the ecological effects are still significant because, as discussed above, WBM drilling wastes may contain free oil, dissolved aromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals, radionucleides (Minerals such as barite and bentonite, and some drilling chemicals, may contain minute amounts of radium. For example, in 1999 a cargo of 800 tonnes of calcium chloride powder, destined for use in

North Sea drilling muds, triggered a radioactivity detector at Shell’s

Aberdeen supply base. The material contained 1 becquerel per gram of radium226, which brought it under the control of the 1993 Radioactive Substances Act. The contamination proved to have come from Swedish phosphate ore used in the production process. The cargo was returned to

Sweden. See website: http://www.ifi.co.uk/ebnc Information for Industry (IFI). 2000. Environment Business News Briefing. 13/1/00. London.), biocides and other additives. Thus, WBM wastes can poison marine life as well as smothering it with artificial sediments or suffocating it with plumes of superfine suspended particles (Such a suspended plume is a plausible contributory cause of mass deaths of pelagic fish, such as the June 1999

Piltun

Bay incident in

Sakhalin, but more research is needed before this can be established. JWGW ). It is therefore vitally important, even when no OBMs or SBMs are used, to minimise the discharge of drilling wastes if at all possible. If this is not done, offshore oilfields will eventually face the same problems as the countries around the North Sea: how can the production platforms be removed without disturbing the cuttings piles and releasing buried toxins to the sea; how can the cuttings themselves be removed, treated and disposed of without causing further ecological disruption; and would it be better, in some circumstances, to leave them where they are and let nature take its course? To illustrate the scale of the problem in the

North Sea (an area about half the size of the

Sea of

Okhotsk), it has been estimated that removing all the cuttings could impact the ecology over an area of some 4,000 km2, if pollutants from the piles were released into the water column at a concentration of 3%. At 5ppm dilution the area of impact could be 246,000km2. The costs of removal, treatment and disposal are estimated at a minimum of

UK£384m [US$614]. Industry working groups are studying more than a dozen detailed proposals for dealing with the problem and minimising its impact (For details, see website: http://www.ukooa.co.uk/issues/index.cfm?page=drillcuttings/:

United Kingdom Offshore Operators’ Association. 1999a. Drill Cuttings Joint Industry Project. UKOOA,

London). On top of these ecological, technical and economic challenges, the industry faces the potentially enormous financial cost of unquantified legal liabilities (for example: what price might the fishing industry’s lawyers place on the semi-permanent loss of formerly valuable fishing grounds or the contamination of remaining fish stocks by pollutants from the cuttings piles?) Knowing what we know now, clearly it is in no-one’s interests - not the local people’s, not their government’s and not the oil companies’ - to allow a North Sea scenario to develop in newly developing offshore oil and gas fields such as the Sakhalin Shelf.After reviewing the literature on drill cuttings, Patin (1999. op. cit.) wrote: …cuttings discharges from offshore oil activities can cause effects that are more hazardous due to cutting contamination by oil and toxic components of drilling muds. Even after separation and cleaning in special units, drilling cuttings still contain a wide array of organic and inorganic traces especially when oil-based fluids are used. Drilling cuttings usually go overboard the offshore oil platforms in thousands and tens of thousands of tons. Hundreds of tons of oil and dozens of tons of chemical for each drilled well can enter the marine environment with these discharges. This raises serious concerns about the possible eco-toxicological disturbances in areas of offshore production……obviously, the composition of cuttings will vary a lot even when drilling a single well, which might explain the absence of any generalized information about this issue…Most researchers believe that the main toxic agents in drilling cuttings are oil and oil products. These accumulate in the solid phase of drilling cuttings when crude oil and drilling fluids contact cuttings during oil extraction. According to some national and international standards [GESAMP, 1993], the permissible content of oil in discharged drilling cuttings should not exceed 100g/kg. Even if this requirement were observed during actual industrial operations, this concentration is much higher (100-1,000 times) than the thresholds of acute and sublethal toxic effects of oil-polluted bottom sediments…Toxicological data on produced drilling cuttings (before their discharge) are not available except some mention of low toxicity of the particles of these cuttings, suspended in the water, in concentrations of about 500mg/l… The attention of researches has been concentrated on assessing the ecological effects of oil-containing drilling cuttings after they are discharged and distributed in bottom sediments around the offshore oil platforms. Here, the levels of oil pollution are hundreds and thousands of times higher than any background characteristics. These levels can cause obvious disturbances in the structure and functions of benthic communities up to 10km away from the place of discharge…A recent literature review by Norwegian scientists (Det Norske Veritas. 2000. Technical Report - Drill Cuttings Joint Industry Project. Phase I Summary Report. Revision 2: 20th January 2000. DNV doc. order No. 29003500.

Oslo) underlined the dangers of allowing cuttings piles to develop, even if they contain mainly WBM wastes: “Higher concentrations of heavy metals such as chromium, copper, nickel, lead, zinc, barium and hydrocarbons were observed in association with the cuttings than those seen in natural

North Sea sediments,” they reported. In contrast to Neff’s earlier findings (Neff, J. M., Hillman, R. E. and Waugh, J. J. 1989. Bioaccumulation of Trace Metals -from Drilling Mud Barite by Benthic Marine Animals. In Engelhardt, F. R. et al. (eds). 1989. Drilling Wastes. pp. 461-480. Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd, Barking, England) that there was little evidence of bioaccumulation of heavy metals from drilling wastes, the Norwegians described “biogeochemical pathways such as adsorption and desorption, particularly from oxyhydroxides of iron and manganese and adsorption into organic matter of the assimilation into the gut of benthic infauna”. This view is backed by other studies, one of which (Grant, A. 2000. Toxicity and Environmental Risk Assessment of Drill Cuttings Piles. University of East Anglia, Norwich) said: “…these [heavy] metals will be rendered largely immobile by the formation of insoluble metal sulfides in the anoxic conditions that prevail within [cuttings] piles ( Di Toro, D. M., Mahony, J. D., Hansen, D. J., Scott, K. J., Hicks, M. B., Mayr, S. M. and Redmond, M. S. 1990. Toxicity of Cadmium in Sediments - the Role of Acid Volatile Sulfide. Environ. Toxicol. Chem 9:1487-1502. and Di Toro, D. M., Mahony, J. D., Hansen, D. J., Scott, K. J., Carlson, A. R. and Ankley, G. T. 1992. Acid Volatile Sulfide Predicts the Acute Toxicity of Cadmium and Nickel in Sediments. Environmental Science Technology 26:96-101).”While not denying Patin’s warnings about hydrocarbon pollution of the seafloor, the Norwegian research did, however, point out that once hydrocarbons are buried in seabed sediments, whether they originate in WBM cuttings or OBM cuttings, not much happens to them if left undisturbed: “Hydrocarbons within the [cuttings] piles remain relatively unchanged with time as a result of depleted oxygen, low ambient temperature, type of drilling fluids used and lack of significant bio-turbation. They do not leach out in any substantial quantities over time but will stay bound to the sediment particles trapped within pore water and degrade slowly.” Another recent study of cuttings piles around the North-West Hutton oilfield between Shetland and

Norway (Ibid) found widely varying pollutant thresholds at which ecological effects occurred and concluded: More fundamentally, there is no agreement on which components of the drill cuttings are responsible for the environmental effects. As in some cases, effects have been observed at very low hydrocarbon levels, some authors have suggested that it is not plausible that effects are due to hydrocarbons. (1. Davies, J.M., and

Kingston, P. F. 1992. Sources of Environmental Disturbance Associated with Offshore Oil and Gas Developments. In

Cairns, W. J. (ed.). 1992.

North Sea Oil and the Environment. Elsevier Applied Science.

London. 2.

Kingston, P. F. 1992. Field Effects of Platform Discharges on Benthic Macrofauna, Proceedings of the Royal Society of

London B316:545-565.

London. ) Concentrations of hydrocarbons are usually correlated with concentrations of a number of metals and with sediment grain size and organic carbon content. Measures of environmental effect may be more strongly correlated with these other environmental variables than they are with hydrocarbon concentration (Olsgard, F., and Gray, J.S. 1995. op. cit.… This uncertainty over what is responsible for observed ecological effects clearly causes some fundamental difficulties in determining dose-effect relationships. The indisputable fact remains, however, that the precautionary principle strongly suggests minimising all discharges from oil and gas production platforms. Go to Previous Page: Environmental Effects of Discharges of Drilling Additives continuedGo to Next Page: Environmental Effects of Discharges of Produced Water

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House of Representatives “Priorities” links

February 29th, 2008

Steve Gelber Priorities for upcoming session

Marco Rubio Priorities for upcoming session

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Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission

February 9th, 2008

http://www.floridatbrc.org/

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Web sites mentioned on show of 02/02/08

February 2nd, 2008

Forms and information relating to Portability;

http://dor.myflorida.com/dor/property/sb4d.html

Local Governments taxes and expenditures;

http://www.myfloridacfo.com/

Link to reports is on right side of page. 

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Address to petition to cut property taxes

January 11th, 2008

http://www.cutpropertytaxesnow.com/

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Pamphlets published by the National Assoc. of Realtors

August 23rd, 2007

Traditional Mortgages

Speciality Mortgages

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Are we there yet ?

August 21st, 2007

Are we there yet?

             My great fear in endorsing the fact that I’m certain it’s not only a good time to buy, but a great time is that I be pigeonholed as one of those “buy now, buy now” Realtors.

            Please take my word, I’m not a buy now, buy now, kind of guy and it doesn’t sit well with me that now there are so many experts touting their ability to read the market. Where were they 2 years ago when we needed them?

            I am on the record, as warning Buyers and Sellers on my radio show in the fall of 2005 to be very careful of the future market and watchful of what happens during that upcoming season. (it would have been premature to declare the market dying before then, as there are 2 markets here) I was proven correct.

            The 1st thing everyone needs to know is that there will never be an “official announcement” that notifies everyone that the market has reached bottom. All anyone can do is look for signs. Numbers and statistics will only tell you after the fact. The challenge to delivering accuracy is successfully reading those signs and then sticking your neck out and actually saying it, in an effort that information might prove useful to the consumer in the here and now.

            2nd. I’m not talking about the whole country or even the whole state. I’m talking about our area. Real estate is local. But like the stock market, when the market gets a downward run it takes the good stocks with it, as well as the bad.

The good stocks however, recover. Which is exactly why this area is one of the only areas in the state showing positive numbers.

On the stock market they call it “underlying value”. Our underlying value is; great weather and under a 30 minute drive from everywhere to the finest fishing, boating and beaches in the world, in the greatest country in the world. And if you want to, you can live here for under 100k. Find that anywhere else on the planet.

Surprisingly the numbers are saying the same thing, since March, sales numbers have increased every month, save one, over last years numbers.

You can get a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage, block, in ground pool home in

North

Port for under 200k. There are more than a dozen as a matter of fact. You don’t want to be in North Port? Let me guess, you want to have all that AND be on the beach for under 200k. Those days were gone before the run up.

We all need to adjust our “price think”. This areas been undervalued for so long we 

all think the new prices are high.

            Another reason;

Charlotte County Commissioners made a new proposal to the Kitson group wanting more money. If this politically beat up group is willing to stick its neck out again for more money, they must be pretty certain the market has turned. 

So now you’re wondering, “ if it reached bottom months ago, why does the median price keep dropping?”

The answer is for 2 reasons;

First, as I said above, there is no official announcement that’s declaring, “We’re arrived at the bottom” any more than there was an announcement a couple of years ago that the market had peaked. The result was, prices kept going up and people kept buying after the peak.

            The opposite is true now, prices keep going down even after the bottom has been reached.

Aggravating this price decline is the fact of, who is selling. People in fear of foreclosure who have to sell, investors willing to get out at any loss and the fact that these people are forced to price even more aggressively to stand out to a smaller pool of buyers. These are the homes actually selling.

What I’m seeing in the market is a ready, but confused pool of buyers sitting and waiting for confirmation that it is not a bad time to buy. Confused by the mixed signals and numbers the media is constantly throwing out and a mis perception of where prices are actually at.

The people buying are the people that are actually out there shopping, seeing the value, firsthand.

 

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A sunbmission to the Sun Herald

August 20th, 2007

Rick and Mary Clark

 

            One of my first sales was to Rick and Mary Clark, I’d picked them up on floor time, or opportunity time as it’s called in the business. Basically, agents sign up for floor time hoping to convert those calls from buyers inquiring about property ads. When you see those signs in front of Realty Offices that say, Agent on Duty, that’s an agent doing floor time           

Rick called in on a mini farm; a 5 acre property with a house. That particular one didn’t meet his location criteria so I offered to send him all the listings that did. His criteria: 5+ acres, a house, under $75,000. Needless to say, there wasn’t much that came up, but if you’re willing to drive far enough out into the country, there were a few.

            I followed up a few days later and Rick told me that he wasn’t interested in any of them. I promised to send new listings as they came on market and hung up.

            After a few months of sending listings religiously, Rick called me; there was one he wanted to see.

            My first meeting with Rick, he walked right by me to the house, no smile no handshake. He had coal black hair, an overgrown beard, was a little hunched over and wearing an army jacket. He looked to be somewhere in his forties. Mary was following him, Frail looking, she smiled shyly, slightly shaking her head looking in Ricks direction as to apologize for his coldness.

Rick pushed the door open (the house wasn’t habitable) and we all walked in. After a minute, Rick turned around, mumbled something about it not working and headed back to his truck. Mary following Rick, me following Mary telling them I’ll keep sending listings as they come up. Mary whispered a thank you as they drove away.

This pattern continued for a few more months, Rick just as cold as always, Mary quietly apologizing, until finally, there was one that would work. It didn’t look any different to me than any of the others, but I wasn’t buying it either. We wrote the offer for $70,000 and it was accepted.

I met the appraiser at the house and explained the situation to him. He later he called me to tell me the property didn’t appraise. The land did, but for a residential loan the home had to be 20% of the value. I asked him if it would be possible for him to hold the appraisal, giving Rick a chance to work on the property to bring the value up. He agreed, Rick worked on the property and it closed.

I made $1050 minus time and expenses.

 

The situation I’d explained to the appraiser was that along the way, Mary had told me Rick was a Viet Nam Vet and had been in counseling ever since. Rick had said Mary was sick, I later found out she was fighting cancer. They’d been married 10 years and were renting a run down trailer.

After the closing was the first time Rick looked me square in the eyes, the first time I saw him smile.

About a month later I stopped by the house. Mary answered the door, grabbed my arm, smiling wide and said, “come in, Ricks in the back, he’ll want to show you what he’s done.” I walked around back and Rick saw me, stuck out his hand to shake mine and gave me the tour. I swear, he was standing taller and proud.

 

The point of this story is that, Realtors are an easy target of ridicule.

 

The next time you drive by “ragtag” house with a Realtor sign in the front yard and wonder “who would buy that?” know that a Rick and Mary Clark probably will. And also know that the Realtors that sell it to them, when it’s all said and done, are going to make about $2 an hour.

 

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An excellent article appearing in the Sun Herald 6/17/07

June 22nd, 2007

Written by Brett Slattery regarding Property Taxes

http://www.sunonline.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=U0NFLzIwMDcvMDYvMTcjQXIwMDQwMA==&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

Posted in Taxes | No Comments »

What are your savings ?

June 16th, 2007

Posted in the Saturday, june 16, Herald tribune

www.heraldtribune.com/calculatetaxes 

Posted in Politics, Taxes, Real Estate | No Comments »

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