| Click here for yesterday's / today's market indices
|
|
| Sarasota County tax rate to increase
|
| For the first time in a decade the county will increase its property tax rate, although most homeowners will pay just a couple of dollars more next year. Instead, the bulk of a $35 million deficit in the county budget will be filled by dipping into the ample reserves built up during the construction boom. Even if the the recession continues and property values keep falling, budget officials estimate that the remaining $100 million cash cushion can shield the county from major layoffs, spending cuts and tax increases until 2013.
|
| @ Sarasota Herald Tribune | Posted: 06/18/09 at 0201 EDST
|
| Worst could soon be over for Tampa Bay area hotels, forecast says
|
| The decline in room demand was greatest in the first quarter of 2009. Hotel room sales will continue to show year-to-year declines, the forecast said, and the numbers won't turn from red to black for most hotels until the second half of next year.
|
| @ St. Petersburg Times | Posted: 06/18/09 at 0315 EDST
|
| Florida insurance industry gets an F-
|
| Florida gets a failing grade when it comes to open market competition among insurers and over government regulation, according to a report card rating the nation’s insurance industry. The report card issued by the Competitive Institute and The Heartland Institute gave Florida an F minus, a grade that didn’t surprise local insurers and politicians who say the poor ranking points to a need for Gov. Charlie Crist to sign a bill aimed at deregulating rates. Florida House Bill 1171, presented to Crist last week for his signature, would allow insurers to use rates
|
| @ Bradenton Herald | Posted: 06/18/09 at 0320 EDST
|
| Onetime white elephant has new life in Cape Coral
|
| Once a half-built monument to the collapse of the housing market, the Concordia condominium in Cape Coral is thriving as its new owner sells units briskly at a fraction of their former price. By May 2007, half of the planned 34 buildings and 340 units had been built. But four months later Concordia hit the wall: Falling prices stalled out sales and Immokalee-based Florida Community Bank pulled the plug on developer Concordia Cape Coral LLC's credit - the bank filed a $23.4 million foreclosure action. Florida Community took the project back and, as bank President Steve Price had vowed, decided to build out Concordia on its own dime after no acceptable offers were made to buy the whole development.
|
| @ Ft. Myers News Press | Posted: 06/18/09 at 0330 EDST
|
| Illinois stops paying for indigent burials
|
| Death and taxes may be the only sure things in life, but funerals are another matter, at least for the poor. The state Department of Human Services has notified funeral directors and cemetery owners that the state will no longer pay to bury the indigent, of which there is no shortage. Each year, the department says, it pays to bury about 10,000 people at a cost of $15 million.
|
| @ Springfield Journal Register | Posted: 06/18/09 at 0345 EDST
|
| Rise in rates hammers mortgage applications
|
| U.S. mortgage applications fell for a fourth consecutive week, with overall demand plunging to its lowest level in nearly seven months, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes both purchase and refinance loans, for the week ended June 12 decreased 15.8 percent to 514.4, the lowest since the week ended November 21, 2008.
|
| @ Reuters | Posted: 06/18/09 at 0652 EDST
|
| Americans Deleveraging: One in Three Has Reduced Debt
|
| Gallup Poll trends show Americans continuing to cut back on debt. In a May 29 survey, 31% of Americans say they have decreased their total outstanding debt over the past six months -- essentially the same as the percentages who said this in April (32%) and March (34%). Only 23% of consumers increased their debt in May, also not much different from March and April.
|
| @ Gallup | Posted: 06/18/09 at 0655 EDST
|
| Rent-to-own your home: Pro and con
|
| It's tough for buyers to find financing and hard for sellers to find buyers. A solution that can work well for both is renting with an option to buy.
|
| @ CnnMoney.Com | Posted: 06/18/09 at 0419 EDST
|
|
|
| In Britain, an Aversion to Rules From Europe
|
| In many ways the dispute on this side of the Atlantic is rooted in a decades-long suspicion of any form of rule that emanates from the European Union bureaucracy, especially if those rules stanch the profit potential of Britain’s largest money maker, the financial sector rooted in The City.
|
| @ New York Times | Posted: 06/18/09 at 0646 EDST
|
| World Bank Raises 2009 China GDP Forecast, Still Wary
|
| Massive policy stimulus should enable China to keep growing at a respectable rate this year and next, but a robust recovery is unlikely given the weak global environment and softness in non-government investment, the World Bank said on Thursday. In its quarterly update on the world's third-largest economy, the bank raised its forecast for gross domestic product growth this year to 7.2 percent from the 6.5 percent projected in its previous report in March.
|
| @ CNBC | Posted: 06/18/09 at 0400 EDST
|
| U.K. Retail Sales Dropped in May for First Time in Three Months
|
| U.K. retail sales unexpectedly dropped in May for the first time in three months as rising unemployment dissuaded shoppers from buying clothes and shoes. Sales fell 0.6 percent from April, the Office for National Statistics said today in London.
|
| @ Bloomberg News | Posted: 06/18/09 at 0415 EDST
|
| -30- |
