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WASHINGTON, D.C. --- Florida's population growth rate dropped by more than one-third last year, according to new numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau. MiamiHerald.com posts an Associated Press story with the details:
According to figures released Thursday, the state's population increased by 1.1 percent to 18.3 million. Over the previous 12-month period, the growth rate was 1.8 percent.
Looking the other way...
The Orlando Sentinel credits John Dunbar at AP for its version, which leads off with two paragraphs on Louisiana's population history before somberly inserting:
Florida was the 19th-fastest-growing state -- dropping from 2006 when it was No. 9 in the nation.
The Sentinel's version buries the money quote---from Census Bureau demographer Greg Harper---in the 11th paragraph, and without a word of followup:
"If there's one state that's a little surprising, I would say it's Florida," said [Harper].
Christina Rexroad at sptimes.com (St. Petersburg Times) took a closer look at the Census Bureau's American Community Survey and saw something more profound---a reason Florida population growth is skidding to a stop:
Florida has the largest percentage of renters spending 30 percent or more of their income on rent and utilities, according to the ...Census Bureau.
A rough formula that allocates 30 percent of the family income for housing---including insurance, utilities and taxes---is a rule of thumb planners, financial analysts and bureaucrats use to measure regional economic health.
According to the Census Bureau survey, 52 percent of Florida's 2.1-million renter households pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing, beating out also-rans California, Massachusetts, Nevada and New York.
Nationwide, only 46 percent of renters spend more than 30 percent for housing. Rexroad doesn't ask, but we will: who would want to move to the state where:
Median wages in Florida are $28,570, or about $3,000 less than the national average, according to the state Agency for Workforce Innovation. But the median price of a home, $222,100, is about $14,000 more than the national median.
On a longer-term scale, Florida also has slipped. Estimates dating back to April 2000 have Florida's population growing 14.2 percent, or 2.3 million people, to rise from 16 million people in 2000. Where it previously was the third-fastest-growing state over a seven-year span, this year Florida has slipped to seventh. Its long-term growth was eclipsed by Nevada (28.4 percent), Arizona (23.5 percent), Utah (18.5 percent), Georgia (16.6 percent), Idaho (15.9 percent) and Texas (14.6 percent).
"the bursting housing bubble squelched expansion in some of the nation's fastest-growing states..."
And Roberts focuses on another practical measure of population growth---realignment in Congressional districts after the 2010 census:
If nearly decade-long trends endure, Texas will gain as many as four Congressional seats and Florida's delegation will grow by two, while New York and Ohio will lose two seats each, said Andrew A. Beveridge of Queens College of the City University of New York.
Cox News' Marilyn Geewax at PalmBeachPost.com took a look at the latest Standard & Poore/Case Shiller Home Price Indices released Wednesday to find yet another wet blanket:
The respected measurement showed Miami surpassing Tampa as the big city where values were falling fastest in October. But the news was gloomy across the board, even in formerly healthy markets.
"No matter how you look at these data, it is obvious that the current state of the single-family housing market remains grim," said Robert Shiller, one of the economists who developed the home price report.
PalmBeachPost.com delved a little deeper:
October single-family home prices on the Treasure Coast fell to a median of $201,000 from $242,400 in October 2006, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. The 17 percent drop was the highest-percentage decline in the state. Prices for existing single-family homes in Palm Beach County were off 5 percent, down to $348,300 from $365,600 in the same month a year ago.
The Tallahassee Democrat and Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville have yet to weigh in on the issue.
LEESBURG, Fla.---Harbor Vista Condominium has opened a new model condominium overlooking Lake Harris in Leesburg and tours of the community are hosted daily.
Dean C. Price II, a principal at Global Realty, the marketing arm of Winter Park Developer Atlantic Housing Partners LLC, said 36 of the 44 condominium units under construction at Harbor Vista front on Lake Harris, one of the largest lakes in Lake County and one of the most popular locations for professional fishing tournaments in the southeast.
Price said a fishing dock with 44 boat slips is under construction now and set to open in October.
New three and four bedroom condominiums at Harbor Vista are priced from the $250's. Condominiums at Harbor Vista range in size from 1,395 square feet of living space to 1,847 square feet.
TAMPA, Fla. ---Kimball Hill Homes, which ranks as one of the largest privately-owned builders in the U.S., is building condominiums, attached villas and single family homes priced from $139,990 at Ashton Oaks, a new community located off S.R. 54 west of Eiland Rd. in Wesley Chapel in Pasco County (see map on Page 2).
Francine Miller, regional president of Kimball Hill Homes in Florida, said Kimball Hill launched a new strategy to design and build attainable homes earlier this year. Ashton Oaks is one of the home builder's first attainable communities, Miller said.
Ashton Oaks offers, one, two and three-bedroom condominiums priced from $139,990; three-bedroom attached villas (shown above, left) priced from $169,990 with a two car garages; and three and four-bedroom single family homes (shown above, right) priced form $199,990.
Miller said one model villa home and two model single family homes are now open to the public.
Two model condominiums will open in December, Miller said.
"This is our first attainable community to offer a full product line," Miller added.
Single-family homes at Ashton Oaks range in size from 1,522 square feet of living space to 2,204 square feet.
Attached villas range in size from 1,465 square feet to 1,536 square feet.
Condominiums will range from 965 square feet to 1,325 square feet.
Page 2: Ashton Woods locator map, contacts, About Kimball Hill Homes...
TAMPA, Fla. ---Lennar will open new model town homes during November at Eiland Park Townhomes, a gated community located near S.R. 54 off Eiland Blvd. in Zephyrhills where two and three bedroom town homes are priced from the $130s.
Mark Metheny, right, president of Lennar's North Tampa division, said the new models opening in November include G.E. appliances, ceramic tile floors, window treatments and rounded corner beads.
New town homes at Eiland Park Townhomes range in size from 1,371 square feet of living space to 1,531 square feet and three distinctive floor plans are available.
Community amenities at Eiland Park Townhomes include a swimming pool and cabana, picnic area, volleyball, a playground and gazebo.
PUNTA GORDA, Fla. --- Coconut Grove architect Abe Kadushin will play a starring role at a groundbreaking ceremony this morning in Punta Gorda.
The event marks the start of construction of a $27 million Florida-style Hope VI community with 85 public housing units, 81 low-income, tax-credit apartments, and three market-value apartments. The Gulf Breeze Hope VI community will even include 'green' energy-efficient central-air heating and cooling.
Kadushin will probably keep to the background. It's his work that will star in the showcase ceremony. Kadushin is one of the leading lights of a new generation of architects and designers for whom quality homes for working families---remember those old-fashioned values America used to celebrate?---offer more rewarding challenges than adding more plinths and cornices to one more McMansion.
The housing authority will offer one-to-four-bedroom apartments, with the first floor dedicated to the elderly. The public housing units will be scattered throughout the other floors.
The apartments will be available to those who earn up to 60 percent of the local median income. The median income varies from year to year and is set according to the size of the family. The annual median income for a family of four in Charlotte County is $25,400.
Public housing rentals will be based on the individual incomes of the residents. The residents will be expected to contribute 30 percent of their income for the rent. Federal Housing and Urban Development funding pays the rest.
The residents in tax-credit units will be expected to pay their rent; however, the rent wouldn't exceed 2 to 2.5 percent of their incomes. The maximum rent is set by the IRS annually.
The Punta Gorda Housing Authority partnered with lender Primerica and developer Norstar Group, which had the good sense to commission Kadushin---a future 12 Questions subject---for the design.
PENSACOLA, Fla. --- Dan Horvath of Community Enterprise Investments Inc., in Pensacola is now selling 1,100-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bathroom homes for about $125,000.
First-time home buyers should be careful not to buy a home they can't afford, CBS News advises.
The amount lenders may let you borrow, even with tightened credit requirements, might be too much. How to tell when enough debt is enough?
In the housing boom, when credit was easy, that happened to many buyers who borrowed more than they could really afford. Now, rising delinquency rates are showing that home ownership isn't for everyone.
"Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of homeowners did get in over their heads. And they're going to have a great deal of difficulty staying above water," according to Moody's.com economist Mark Zandi.
Even though we're now in a housing slump, the median price of a house has soared 85 percent over the past decade to $221,000, while the percentage of first-time home buyers who put "no money down" to buy their homes jumped from 28 to 45 percent in just the past three years.
The good news? Prices are falling, builders are dealing, and homes are already more affordable to day than they were last year, says Zandi.
PALATKA, Fla. --- Palatka, Fla., and Putnam Co. plan to sell up to 12 publicly-owned home sites for $1 each and use $500,000 in U.S. Dept. of Agriculture grant funds to spur development of 12 new homes, half in the city and half in the county.
John Nelson, executive director of the Palatka Housing Authority, said his staff has already located four sites and are working to identify eight more to build 1,300-square-foot, three-bedroom two-bath homes.
Nelson said people need to recognize that these homes are not subsidized housing.
"This is not public housing," he said Wednesday. "The homes will cost $100,000 to $110,000 and part of that will be paid for with money from the grant."
Each family that qualifies will receive $35,000 to apply to the mortgage, and the rest will be financed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Nelson said.
"They will be responsible for the difference between the cost of the house and a $35,000 soft second mortgage," he said. "And if they live in the house for five years they will not have to repay the $35,000."
The hope is that building these homes on vacant lots will bring additional revenue into county and city coffers through property taxes and also provide affordable housing, he also said.
TAMPA, Fla. --- This is how you rebuild a neighborhood with families, not facades and franchises.
The City of Tampa and Tampa's Housing and Community Development Dept. are hosting a New Single-Family Homes Showcase on Saturday, July 28, 2007 at the Ragan Park Community Center, 1200 E. Lake Ave. in Tampa.
The event is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Builders, lenders, community development organizations and city representatives will be on hand to assist buyers in qualifying for up to $60,000 in financial aid and down-payment assistance.
Florida Workforce Housing Network will be on hand to photograph the event and report on it over the weekend.
This video---hosted at YouTube---marks an important milestone in the evolution of this web site and the marketing of affordable housing in Florida. Click on the video, above, and we'll be glad to welcome your participation in this historic event.
If you'd like to email us with your name, we'll inscribe it in our Annals of History so you'll have something to show your grandkids one day.
Many thanks to Israel Segara, Contract Management Officer at the City of Tampa-Housing & Community Development's Ybor Service Center, for making this video available to our project.
He wants to turn an abandoned school building---the former Euclid Elementary School in St. Petersburg, now Euclid Center---into condominiums and town homes teachers can afford to buy. For now, the school board is listening.
"It's really a brilliant idea," says Nick Pavonetti, right, founder and managing director of PDC Affordable Housing in St. Petersburg. One of Fla.'s leading affordable housing consultants, the former banker and commercial developer would like to partner with Shea and build town homes designed to complement the two-story red brick school house built in 1925 (Meinhardt) or 1940 (Swider).
Shea, who lives across the street from the school facility, envisions nine condos in the building shell and 10-12 new town homes on the nearly two-acre site---much of which is now covered by parking lot. The project could get under way as early as next year, Shea says.
First, a community land trust
Shea told Meinhardt he wants St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership to form a community land trust and convince the school board to deed Euclid Center over. Taking land costs out of the equation---and utilizing economical construction techniques like Pavonetti's modular two-story town homes---could deliver three-bedroom homes priced as low as $170,000, within reach of a teacher's salary.
"Don Shea has done his homework," said Pavonetti. "A community land trust could assure that the homes remain affordable to the next generation of teachers."
Pinellas schools superintendent Dr. Clayton Wilcox, right, said Shea's proposal might be dicey. Not all teachers would qualify , he told Swider at the St. Pete Times, and and that could raise legal issues. But, Swider reports, Wilcox thinks they can work a deal.
Dave Metz, St. Petersburg's deputy mayor for neighborhoods, told Swider the city plans to put some of its property near Mercy Hospital into a land trust and let Habitat for Humanity and Grady Pridgen build an affordable-housing development.
TAMPA, Fla. --- Seven East Tampa community organizations will host Community Survival Day – Moving To The Next Level from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, July 28, 2007 at 18th Ave. Park (west of S.R. 41 between 18th Ave. E and 21st Ave. E).
The seven organizations---the Tampa Bay Community and Family Development Corp., Family and School Support Teams (FASST), Hillsborough Co. Health Department, Lee Davis Neighborhood Service Center, Lee Davis Advisory Board, The East Tampa Community Revitalization Committee, and the CDC of Tampa, Inc.---want to provide families, aspiring leaders, students, and community members in East Tampa and surrounding areas with information, resources and enrichment activities that will improve the availability of services and the community’s access to them.
That's a lot of people power under development.
That's a living, breathing, sweating kind of democracy under a July sun. In Florida, where we know sun. The spirits of America's Founding Fathers must be kicking up their heels with glee.
Six hundred to 1,000 participants are expected.
Conchita L. Canty-Jones of the Tampa Bay Community and Family Development Corp. (a 501(c)(3) community service organization) is looking for sponsors.
Page 2: The real meaning of democracy and sponsor opportunities, explained...
TAMPA, Fla. ---The CDC of Tampa, Inc., will host an open house Sat., July 14 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at 2907 N. 24th St. in Tampa. The reason?
"To celebrate the availability of our newly designed homes," said Ernest Coney, Jr., Chief Operations Officer at CDC of Tampa, Inc.
What CDC of Tampa is doing comes close to miraculous: a three-bedroom, two-bath single-family home a family of four can afford to buy with a household income of $41,600.
That's a couple who each earn $10 an hour. The son of pastor Ernest Coney Sr. and Chloe Coney, the U.S.F. Distinguished Citizen Award-winner who steered CDC of Tampa for a quarter-century's organization of community activists are steadily transforming East Tampa into a highly desirable community.
You can't call this gentrification---Coney and company aren't kicking out the poorest families. Instead, they are creating opportunities that give low-income families a solid stake in the future of their neighborhood. That's pretty powerful.
Altogether, CDC of Tampa---a NeighborWorks Charter Member---has 10 home sites in East Tampa. They should have 100.
The rendering above shows CDC of Tampa's Belmont Series single-family home, with a whopping 1,744 square feet of living space, three bedrooms, two baths, an open floor plan and full kitchen with all appliances, even a one-car garage. And it's all within easy distance of local bus routes, neighborhood schools and shopping.
Florida's 67 counties are required to inventory publicly-owned properties to see how many home sites seized for non-payment of taxes, etc., might be available for workforce housing. CDC of Tampa is showing off a model that other Florida counties might well adapt to their own needs.
MyNewFloridaHome.org is building a free online community of resources and providers---a real-time marktplace with easy-to-use, easy-to-find and up-to-the-minute news and information about affordable family homes in Florida, rental homes and apartments, condominiums, homes to share, mortgage lenders, insurance providers, cool neighborhoods, family-friendly communities and quality affordable home builders. With user-friendly links to federal, state and local buyer assistance and financial aid programs, online video tours of communities, homes and apartments, interviews with builders and developers, and new content daily. We hope you will contribute.
Coming Soon: to find an affordable home, town home, condo, or apartment to buy, rent or share anywhere in Florida, mouse-over our Florida Affordable Housing Locator Map
Four Tampa Bay-area credit unions provide affordable and attainable housing opportunities to members and potential members in partnership with community groups, developers, builders, local, state and federal government agencies. Services include homeownership and financial counseling, referrals for progressive mortgage products and construction, commercial, and single-family development loans.
TAMPA, Florida
City of Tampa Housing &
Community Development presents:
New Single-Family
Homes Showcase
Sat., July 28, 2007 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Ragan Park Community Center
1200 East Lake Ave., Tampa
Builders, lenders, non-profit agencies and city representatives will be on hand to assist buyers
LADY LAKE, Florida (Leesburg)
New Single-Family 3/2 $159,900 JG PROPERTIES, Inc.
Affordable Single-Family Homes in Lady Lake and Fruitland Park, Florida NewWorkforceHousing.com
Fla. Res. Cont. Lic. #CRC1328107
APARTMENT FOR RENT DAYTONA BEACH, Florida
Email us for details or read about us here, or
telephone 386-868-2848 Urban Revitalization
for Emerging Neighborhoods
Casa de Comienzo Fresco www.comienzo-fresco.com
ENTERPRISE, Florida (Orlando)
New 3/2 Condominiums $149,900
0% Interest down payment assistance up to $37,000 for qualified buyers Enterprise Cove www.enterprisecove.com
EAST TAMPA, Florida
$41,600 income qualifies to buy 3/2 Single-Family, 1,744 sq.ft. Read about us here and visit:
CDCofTampa.orgOCOEE, Florida (Orlando) New 2 & 3 BR Town Homes
Priced from the low $200's
PRAIRIE LAKE RESERVE
Read about us here and visit: ParkSquareHomes.com
for details or
LEESBURG, Fla.--- 
TAMPA, Fla. --- 
Ashton Oaks offers, one, two and three-bedroom condominiums priced from $139,990; three-bedroom attached villas (shown above, left) priced from $169,990 with a two car garages; and three and four-bedroom single family homes (shown above, right) priced form $199,990. 
TAMPA, Fla. --- 
Mark Metheny, right, president of Lennar's North Tampa division, said the new models opening in November include G.E. appliances, ceramic tile floors, window treatments and rounded corner beads.
PUNTA GORDA, Fla. --- Coconut Grove architect 
Kadushin will probably keep to the background. It's his work that will star in the showcase ceremony. Kadushin is one of the leading lights of a new generation of architects and designers for whom quality homes for working families---remember those old-fashioned values America used to celebrate?---offer more rewarding challenges than adding more plinths and cornices to one more McMansion.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. --- Don Shea, left, CEO of the 
He wants to turn an abandoned school building---the former Euclid Elementary School in St. Petersburg, now Euclid Center---into condominiums and town homes teachers can afford to buy. For now, the school board is listening.
So is the media. 
Pinellas schools superintendent 
TAMPA, Fla. --- Seven East Tampa community organizations will host Community Survival Day – Moving To The Next Level from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, July 28, 2007 at 18th Ave. Park (west of S.R. 41 between 18th Ave. E and 21st Ave. E).
TAMPA, Fla. ---