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| Florida property insurance rates likely to rise
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| Customers of the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance could face a rate increase up to 5 percent, or perhaps as high as 10 percent. Customers of private insurance companies might see as much as a 10 percent increase in their base premiums to allow the companies to recoup the cost of buying reinsurance from private sources rather than relying so much on the state catastrophe fund. Customers of some of the larger property insurance companies, like State Farm, may be offered new policies that would not be subject to most rate regulation by the state.
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| @ Sarasota Herald Tribune | Posted: 04/30/09 at 0201 EDST
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| Housing market: Is now time to buy?
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| Real estate investor Joe LaBosco could not resist recently adding a foreclosed South Daytona house to his list of about 50 residential rental properties. "It's a great time to buy. When was the last time you could buy a three-bedroom in South Daytona for $60,000 when it's assessed at $115,000?" said the owner of Joe LaBosco Jewelry and Pawn. "I was sitting on the sidelines until about six, seven months ago, but I'm buying again, thinking we are at the bottom of the market and it's a good time to buy if you have the money and credit scores."
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| @ Daytona Beach News Journal | Posted: 04/30/09 at 0315 EDST
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| Bill seeks to open agricultural trade between U.S., Cuba
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| President Obama's bid to warm up relations with Cuba gets short shrift from Raúl Castro, but some in Congress are ready to go further.
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| @ Miami Herald | Posted: 04/30/09 at 0320 EDST
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| Florida property sales tax loophole closed in House bill
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| As it stands now, the sale of a $200 million trophy property generates less in taxes than the sale of a $30,000 condo. Closing the loophole will bring in nearly $50 million a year in documentary stamp taxes, according to an analysis by the Florida Senate. At issue is a 2005 ruling by the Florida Supreme Court that allows big-money deals to escape doc stamp taxes as long as they're set up as transfers of corporate entities rather than sales of real estate. The result of that loophole? Multimillion-dollar transactions looked like bargain-basement buys. For example, the 2007 sale of the Phillips Point office towers in West Palm Beach were recorded for $10, and generated a mere 70 cents in doc stamp taxes. Without the loophole, the tax bill on that sale would have been $1.4 million.
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| @ Palm Beach Post | Posted: 04/30/09 at 0330 EDST
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| U.S. expanding foreclosure prevention plan
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| The new measures include incentives to lenders to modify second mortgages and write down balances on first mortgages that are underwater. The program would slash second-mortgage interest rates to as low as 1% for five years for some borrowers. It also seeks to revive a Federal Housing Administration effort to persuade lenders to cut loan balances enough so that borrowers again have equity in their homes.
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| @ Chicago Tribune | Posted: 04/30/09 at 0345 EDST
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| GDP decreased at an annual rate of 6.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009.
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| In the fourth quarter, real GDP decreased 6.3 percent. The decrease in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from exports, private inventory investment, equipment and software, nonresidential structures, and residential fixed investment that were partly offset by a positive contribution from personal consumption expenditures (PCE). Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.
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| @ Bureau of Economic Analysis | Posted: 04/30/09 at 0400 EDST
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| The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to lower its target for the federal funds rate 25 basis points to 2 percent.
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Fed decides on no other changes
Editor's Comment: This is an excellent read of the Fed's overview of the market. In a nutshell, it isn't pretty. A very good, and detailed read.
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| @ Federal Reserve Bank | Posted: 04/30/09 at 0415 EDST
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| The Market Composite Index, , a measure of mortgage loan application volume; was 960.6, a decrease of 18.1 percent from 1172.2 one week earlier.
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| The Refinance Index decreased 21.9 percent to 5108.2 from 6540.7 the previous week.
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| @ Mortage Bankers Association | Posted: 04/30/09 at 0419 EDST
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| Almost 80,000 Canadian jobs lost in February
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| Non-farm payrolls lost 79,600 jobs in February, with manufacturing taking the worst hit, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday. The agency said those losses continue a slump that began last October and which has cost 296,000 jobs.
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| @ Toronto Star
/a> | Posted: 04/30/09 at 0646 EDST
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| Berlin Predicts Sharp GDP Contraction for 2009
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| On Wednesday, the German government corroborated what leading economists had predicted last week -- that 2009 would see the German economy contract by a massive 6 percent. But the Economics Ministry does see a rosier 2010 than the think tanks do.
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| @ Der Spiegel | Posted: 04/30/09 at 0652 EDST
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| UK house prices fell 0.4% April
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| British house prices resumed their slide in April, data from mortgage lender Nationwide showed on today, suggesting last month's rise was no more than a blip in a downward trend. Nationwide said the average house price fell 0.4 per cent on the month, partly reversing a surprise 0.9 per cent rise in March. Prices were 15 per cent lower than a year earlier and down a fifth from peaks set in October 2007.
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| @ Irish Times | Posted: 04/30/09 at 0655 EDST
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