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| Sarasota's Neal Communities reports best sales pace since 2005
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| Neal Communities continues to bang the recession-ending gong, noting that the company sold 24 homes by April 24 last month and filed 22 permits in the first two months of the year. The company said its sales pace for the first quarter has been its best since 2005. Neal sold 109 homes in the first 90 days of the year.
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| @ Sarasota Herald Tribune | Posted: 05/06/09 at 0201 EDST
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| Sarasota County refuses to lower impact fees
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| Sarasota County commissioners voted Tuesday against a proposal to cut impact fees for new construction by 26 percent, expressing doubts that the reduction would help the local economy. They also approved coming up with a plan later this year that would likely raise fees in areas farther away from the urban core and cut them in places where they want to encourage growth.
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| @ Sarasota Herald Tribune | Posted: 05/06/09 at 0315 EDST
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| Obama names new consumer product safety chief
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| The president nudged aside Nancy Nord, acting chairwoman of the commission, who has been hounded by Florida politicians because of her handling of hazardous Chinese drywall imports. Florida Senator Bill Nelson demanded Nord's resignation last month, alleging neglect of duty. He and Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, accused her agency of doing too little, too late to prevent tainted drywall from causing health problems for residents of Florida and a dozen other states.
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| @ Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel | Posted: 05/06/09 at 0320 EDST
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| Nearly half of Jacksonville homeowners are "underwater"
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| Homeowners who bought in the last five years, 69 percent of those who made the purchase in 2006 and 67 percent of those who bought in 2007 are in that predicament.
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| @ Jacksonville Times Union | Posted: 05/06/09 at 0330 EDST
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| Condo foreclosure reform effort fizzles in Florida Legislature
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| Efforts to increase the amount banks must pay condo associations for units in foreclosure died in the legislative session. Many condo associations overwhelmed by foreclosures and delinquent homeowners' accounts have been struggling to provide basic services to residents because they can't collect enough money from owners, including banks.
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| @ Miami Herald | Posted: 05/06/09 at 0345 EDST
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| Freddie Pressured Over Accounting Disclosure
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| Freddie Mac's regulator pressed the company to withhold information related to the proposal from a federal filing, concerned that this seemingly arcane discussion of accounting practices could add billions of dollars to the government's cost of bailing out financial firms, two people familiar with the matter said. But the company's executives refused, the sources said. They worried that removing the information from the report to the Securities and Exchange Commission could expose them to accusations they'd hid required details from regulators.
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| @ Washington Post | Posted: 05/06/09 at 0400 EDST
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| Institute of Supply Management's Semi Annual Report
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Manufacturing Declines in 2009 Revenue to Decrease 14.7% Capital Investment to Decrease 22.7% Capacity Utilization at 67% Non-Manufacturing Also Declines in 2009 Revenue to Decrease 5.1% Capital Investment to Decrease 13.5% Capacity Utilization at 80.1%
Editor's Comment: This is a good read
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| @ Institute of Supply Management | Posted: 05/06/09 at 0415 EDST
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| The economic outlook from FED Chairman Ben Bernanke
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The housing market, which has been in decline for three years, has also shown some signs of bottoming. Sales of existing homes have been fairly stable since late last year, and sales of new homes have firmed a bit recently, though both remain at depressed levels. Although some of the boost to sales in the market for existing homes is likely coming from foreclosure-related transactions, the increased affordability of homes appears to be contributing more broadly to the steadying in the demand for housing. In particular, the average interest rate on conforming 30-year fixed-rate mortgages has dropped almost 1-3/4 percentage points since August, to about 4.8 percent. With sales of new homes up a bit and starts of single-family homes little changed from January through March, builders are seeing the backlog of unsold new homes decline--a precondition for any recovery in homebuilding.
Editor's Comment: This is a good read
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| @ Federal Reserve Bank | Posted: 05/06/09 at 0419 EDST
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| Europe March Retail Sales Drop by Record as Consumers Cut Back
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| Store revenue in the euro area fell 4.2 percent from a year earlier, the biggest drop since the data series began in 1996, after a 4 percent decline in February, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today.
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| @ Bloomberg News | Posted: 05/06/09 at 0646 EDST
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| Canadian renovation tax credit `too good to pass up'
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| The federal government will give up to $1,350 in tax credits on your 2009 tax return if you spend from $1,000 to $10,000 improving your personal residence. Only expenditures you incur between Jan. 27, 2009 and Feb. 1, 2010 will qualify for tax relief. In a survey of homeowners done in early April, 70 per cent said they intended to renovate before Feb. 1, 2010.
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| @ Toronto Star | Posted: 05/06/09 at 0652 EDST
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| Canadian manufacturers see 'signs of pickup'
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| The results are contained in the most recent monthly survey conducted by the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, which shows a "markedly more optimistic" outlook in the sector - which has shed roughly 500,000 jobs since 2002 and 110,000 this year alone. The survey indicated that a "new positive trend" emerged in April, with 63% of manufacturers stating they expect the value of new orders to either stay the same or increase over the next three months.
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| @ Financial Post - CA | Posted: 05/06/09 at 0655 EDST
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