At Home in Coral Bay, July-August 2009, from Velie Real Estate

Cube: VelieCAM P.O. BOX 670625 Coral Springs, FL 33067 Phone: (954) 263-6287 http://VelieCAM.com Eddie@VelieCAM.com

· Skill

· Care

· Honesty

· Fairness

· Professionalism

· Accountability

· Diligence

· Confidentiality

A Real Estate, Mortgage, & HOA Information Newsletter

A COMMUNITY SERVICE NEWSLETTER

At Home In Coral Bay

Editorial: Not Much Has Changed

I think you can all see that not much has changed with the CDD management. We are essentially at exactly the same place we were 2-1/2 years ago when the board changed management companies (except for the $70,000 fence the CDD proudly paid $243,000 for, the charity gift from the county for the trees on the west side, and the charity gift from Best Buy for trees on the east side). The CDD board and management decision [excuse] making appears to continue to be illogical. The CDD board is spending 1.7 million this year and dipping into reserves (according to the budget online). But what has been accomplished? Let’s take a look

· The peninsula park is still closed and has been closed since about 2003.

· The gates are still missing and have been missing since about 2003.

· The tennis courts are still not resurfaced and have never been resurfaced by the board.

· The basketball courts are still not resurfaced and have never been resurfaced by the board.

· The Docks at the clubhouse are still roped off since Wilma almost 4 years ago.

The cute little flags at the entranceway have all us of asking again, “Where are the gates?” If all of our amenities were in good condition and we had a budget surplus, one could surmise that such frivolous fluff would be fine, but given the board is already spending reserves (the equivalent of spending your savings account), it seems irresponsible.

Without more people demanding change, it will not happen. Most of the good, honorable, hard working people who bought homes in Coral Bay are stuck here upside down. For over three years this newsletter has stated the obvious. For example, in 2006, the CDD board was warned that, “it is not too late to fix things before the market goes down.” We could have literally just put the old fence back up with new posts and painted it, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars (I donated my blown down fence to a church and helped them put it up. It’s in better condition than my new fence). Now, in the middle of 2009, it is

· 23.51% Percentage of Coral Bay home in some stage of foreclosure **

· 13.06% Percentage of Carolina homes in some stage of foreclosure **

· 11.7% Carolina’s Median Sale Price Decline in the last 12 months*

· 18.8% Coral Bay’s Median Sale Price Decline in the last 12 months*

· 3.0% Turtle Run’s Median Sale Price Decline in the last 12 months*

too late. Coral Bay fares worse in nearly every category that can be measured (see the list below).

Which brings up the question, how does the CDD board measure success? My perception is that they measure it by how many higher level politicians and managers they can deceive. For example, telling the Mayor that the dumpster in the front parking lot is legal because it is there for temporary construction purposes, when it has been there for over 6 years. By any stretch of imagination six years is permanent and there will and should always be some sort of maintenance the board will and can call “construction.” It’s the same old semantics game the CDD uses to defend and justify its very existence. For example, the CDD uses the word “assessments” not taxes, “special district” not municipality, “construction” not maintenance. It is deception.

In another example, their continuous excuse, for not maintaining our amenities, while they burn through 1.7 million dollars this year is the vandalism. The report is prominent on their Web home page. When you look through it reading the notes you see a whole lot of ordinary car accidents hitting signs or adults running the gates, lawn company running over sprinkler heads, and dried up wells. When I finished deducting all of the “non-vandalism” stuff, there was only $13,963 left attributed towards vandalism. When divided by the total budget it is less that one percent (.81% of this year’s and .68% of last year’s budget).

While the Community Association Institute published an article on a community partnering with Best Buy to host a “teens night out” with cool electronic games and technology (and we have a Best Buy right across the street), our CDD board does the opposite and blames all their problems on the teens, refusing to maintain the tennis & basketball courts, then tows their cars away. Do you see the problem here? By definition this is a conflict of interest* for a board to only maintain what they personally want to instead of what is best for the entire community.

The CDD board also appears to measure their success by how much money they can get from other government bodies. This perception comes from their boasting on how much they

· 16 = # Coral Bay Active Listings ^

· 70 = Approximate number last year ^

· 32 = # of Closed Sales YTD ^

· 22 = # Coral Bay Pending Sales ^

* using the method on pg 3 ^ From the MLS

** From the Broward County Public Records — Homes with liens

Text Box: Buyers there is no need to go it alone when you can have FREE expert knowledge on call 12 hours a day 7 days per week! Velie Real Estate — (954) 263-6287

A Real Estate, Mortgage, & HOA Information Newsletter

A COMMUNITY SERVICE NEWSLETTER

At Home In Coral Bay

WHAT’S THE FIRST THING PEOPLE SEE WHEN THEY DRIVE INTO A COMMUNITY?

Mailboxes!

Because of this it is important that every homeowner maintains them by keeping them straight, free from mildew, dirt, and peeling paint. The most abused place where the weed eater trims the grass around the bottom of the post. Some of Coral Bay’s mailboxes look like we have a beaver population living here.

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Bevel: Paint Your Mailbox with Exterior Mildew Resistant Paint ———– $10. Primer Undercoating ———–-— $5. Three year warranty*————— $5. Package Deal: PostGuard, Undercoat, Paint, Warranty*$20 / $22 *If after installation you get a letter from your association we will repaint your mail box for free! (not available unless we paint)

received from the State, FEMA, County grants, Best Buy pay offs, etc. This is not a measure of success. This is a measure of bureaucratic inefficiencies. The only advancements we have in Coral Bay are from other government bodies giving us charity.

Go to a meeting and talk to the ignorant eager beaver leading the somber kings and queens of negative politics who are stalling progress that is in the community’s best interest to appease their own ego and/or make an irrelevant point. The eager beaver is proof that enthusiasm sells (and gets votes) no matter how misled the speaker is. When a speaker really truly believes in something it is easier for them to sell an idea or product. In the case of our CDD, it is like spending years cutting through the bushes in a huge forest as the bushes keep growing up behind us faster than they can be cut away. And the entire time as the years go by, the problem is the CDD board cannot see the forest for the trees and they keep doing the barely

legal instead of doing the right thing that a reasonable person would do.

The CDD concept of community management is a miserable failure that needs to end. We need to return to the time tested Master HOA management structure that will maintain our amenities and home’s values, with reasonable costs, and reasonable systematic maintenance. And when they fail to do so, like our CDD board has, there is a simple mechanism in place to throw them out and bring about change. Then a professional management company would render advice in line with CAI’s Best Practices, maintain our amenities, our homes would be worth more (properties in HOA’s are proven to hold their value over non-HOA unless you’re in the Coral Bay CDD), your family’s net worth would be higher, there would be less homes in foreclosure, more community spirit, more community pride, less discrimination, nice looking lawns, etc, etc, etc. *(CAI, Publisher, “Conflicts of Interest: How Community Association Leaders Honor Their Duties,” By Tonia C. Sellers and Jay S. Lazega)

Foreclosures Drive Prices Down

Foreclosures drive down the value of neighboring homes an average of $7,200 per home with the total loss in property values totaling $500 billion, says a recent report from the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer advocacy group.

The study calculated that home owners who lived within 300 feet of a foreclosed residential property experienced a drop of 1.3 percent in home value; those living 300 to 500 feet of the foreclosed home see a drop in value of 0.6 percent.

Ellen Schloemer, the executive vice president of the Center for Responsible Lending, estimates that foreclosures would affect an estimated 91.5 million neighboring homes over the next four years.

“As the foreclosure crisis continues to worsen, the contagion is spreading,” Schloemer says. “You can’t just say those foreclosures are hurting someone else.” (Source; The New York Times, Bob Tedschi (06/12/2009))

A Real Estate, Mortgage, & HOA Information Newsletter

A COMMUNITY SERVICE NEWSLETTER

The Chart Above

The above chart was produced by an Excel spreadsheet tool made available to Realtors by Marketlinx through the MLS. Realtors use it to fill in a form for Fannie Mae analysis of a neighborhood.

Each neighborhood varies in regard to the average and median home values. This analysis only looks at median (half the sales above and half below the level shown) sale prices which makes it even more critical to use only on one neighborhood at a time.

Coral Bay’s “Sold Median Sales Price” appears to have leveled off. 4-6 months ago the median price was $137,655 while it was $138,000 in the last three months.

With only 3 Months of housing supply available Coral Bay’s inventory is very low. This could indicate that prices may start rising soon as well. Today there are 21 homes for sale. Last year at this time Coral Bay had about 75 homes for sale. (Analysis by Velie Real Estate, is considered accurate but not guaranteed. Copyright 2009, Velie Real Estate.)

A Real Estate, Mortgage, & HOA Information Newsletter

A COMMUNITY SERVICE NEWSLETTER

At Home In Coral Bay

Eddie~

I don't think you have much to thank me for to be quite honest with you. Any other realtor, this house would have been history. In fact I've lost patience at times along the way and I hope you'll forgive me for that. I'll personally call you once the closing is over with. The skill, patience, persistence, personal touch and professionalism you've exhibited is frankly unseen in this business when most agents are trying to make a quick buck.

I know this isn't the perfect ending I'd envisioned but I've escaped this foreclosure almost entirely because of you. Eddie Velie doesn't list homes, he makes commitment to sellers....need I say more?

I'll be in your debt for ever!

Thank you!

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