Facts About Affluent Homebuyers

Percent of 1st-time buyers with household incomes of $200,000 and more: 1% 
Percent of repeat buyers with household incomes of $200,000 and more: 6%
Percent of 1st-time buyers who bought homes priced $500,000 and more: 3%
Percent of repeat buyers who bought homes priced $500,000 and more: 10%

Source: 2004 NAR Profile of Home Buyers & Sellers

Do You Have Enough Insurance Coverage?

Your home consists of more than just your house. Homeowner’s insurance allows you to protect every part of your home. Home insurance coverage is an important purchase. Too little coverage could spell financial ruin for you if disaster strikes. Even if you think your coverage is adequate, it is important to keep in mind that insurers have made major changes to what risks are covered and the costs required to insure against them.

To make sure you have the right home insurance coverage at the right price, shop and compare at least once a year. If you haven’t updated your coverage recently, you could be underinsured. The costs of rebuilding your home typically increase from year to year. The amount of homeowner’s insurance coverage you have now may not cover the cost to rebuild your home at today’s prices.  If you’ve done any remodeling, replaced your roof, bought new furniture or new electronic equipment, you’ll need to update your homeowner’s insurance coverage to cover these additional items. Shop around to make sure the coverage you end up with is the best value for your home insurance dollars-and is the best coverage to protect your home and everything in it. 

If you’re looking for a wet or wild way to cool down, pack a towel and head to the water parks.

Whether you’re 5 or 50, you’ll find a fun way to stay cool.  You don’t have to be a kid to find the charm of these nautical-themed playgrounds with their tall, slippery slides, water sprays and wheels, valves and tunnels, sandy beaches and inner-tube rides on rushing “rivers.”

Some cities, including Margate (Calypso Cove) and Fort Lauderdale (Croissant Park), run smaller water playgrounds, and most cities and some county parks (Markham Park) operate public swimming pools.

Broward County parks  Paradise Cove at C.B. Smith Park, 900 N. Flamingo Road, Pembroke Pines 954-437-2650   Admission: $7 per person. After 3 p.m., $4. Features: Two water playgrounds, one for children younger than 5. Two 350-foot water slides and an inner-tube river ride.  Best for: Kids 12 and younger. “Early teens to mid-teens get bored pretty quickly,” says aquatics coordinator Sarah Maitland.  Crowds: Paradise Cove is the biggest water park in Broward, and it gets very crowded. Peak hours are weekend afternoons and weekday mornings. Be prepared to circle the parking lot. Slowest time is after 3 p.m. weekdays. “On weekends, I tell people be here around 9:30 a.m. when we open and plan to leave around lunchtime. If you come during peak hours, you’re going to do a lot of waiting,” Maitland says.
 
Paradise Cove at C.B. Smith Park, 900 N. Flamingo Road, Pembroke Pines  954-437-2650    Admission: $7 per person. After 3 p.m., $4. Features: Two water playgrounds, one for children younger than 5. Two 350-foot water slides and an inner-tube river ride.  : Kids 12 and younger. “Early teens to mid-teens get bored pretty quickly,” says aquatics coordinator Sarah Maitland.  Paradise Cove is the biggest water park in Broward, and it gets very crowded. Crowds: Peak hours are weekend afternoons and weekday mornings. Be prepared to circle the parking lot. Slowest time is after 3 p.m. weekdays. “On weekends, I tell people be here around 9:30 a.m. when we open and plan to leave around lunchtime. If you come during peak hours, you’re going to do a lot of waiting,” Maitland says.

Castaway Island at T.Y. Park, 3300 N. Park Road (west of I-95 on Sheridan Street), Hollywood 954-985-1980   Admission: $5 per person. Includes session at Castaway Island and all-day admission to Swim Lagoon. Each session is 1 hour, 50 minutes. Session hours: 9:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.   Features: Two water playgrounds (one for toddlers and preschool-age kids); seven small waterslides; sandy beach. Paddleboats at an adjacent lake are available for rental on the weekends.
Castaway Island lacks some of the bells and whistles; no towering slides or crawl tunnels here. But the two playgrounds and small beach, Swim Lagoon, are fun for younger kids. (There are plans to replace the beach with a non-traditional pool that will hold 500 people).
Family fun nights are scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday and Aug. 18. The cost is $5 per person, and includes kids’ games like slime time and relay races.   Crowds: The first or last sessions are the least crowded. We visited during the last session on a weekday and there were fewer than 20 kids. Mid-morning weekdays are busy with day campers. You can hang out at the beach all day with access to the concession/covered seating area.  Kids’ favorite: The beach, and the red slide were fun.

Splash Adventure at Quiet Waters Park, 401 S. Powerline Road, Deerfield Beach  954-360-1315    Admission: $3 per person, per session at Splash Adventure. Includes all-day admission to adjacent beach. Sessions are 1 hour, 50 minutes. Session times: 9:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.   Best for: Toddlers, preschoolers; kids younger than 12. No tall slides here.   Features: Splash Adventure is the smallest and oldest of the Broward water parks, opening in 1995. It felt less overwhelming, and is perfect for toddlers and preschoolers. Crawl tunnels, hand wheels, turn valves, water curtains and small slides charm young children.  Unique feature: A man-made sandy beach with covered picnic tables.  Splash at the Moon offers nighttime water fun and games.  Crowds: We visited Splash Adventure after 3:30 p.m. on a sunny Friday afternoon, and found less than 10 kids. The children had a blast, and parents found plenty of covered umbrellas, and didn’t have to send in a search party to find their kids.  Kids’ favorite: The slide was the biggest hit with the group of girls, ages 6 to 8, visiting that day.

No Sales Tax On Back-To-School Supplies 

The state will continue a back-to-school tradition with a sales-tax holiday that is expected to save Floridians about $39 million. More than 100 items, from books to shoes, will qualify for the savings through July 30. 

Back-to-school items purchased from July 23 through July 30 are exempt from state or local taxes. For $50 or less: some of the items include: Baby clothes, Backpacks, book bags, Handbags, purses, wallets, belts, Jeans, pants, shorts,, Skirts, dresses, Shirts, blouses, Socks, Shoes, Underclothes, lingerie, Uniforms (work, school, and athletic, excluding pads).  For $10 or less: Calculators, Notebooks, Computer disks, CDs, Crayons, Erasers, Glue, paste, Paper, Pencils, pens, Rulers, and Scissors. 

ACE Educational Supplies, the family-owned educational, arts and crafts superstore has been in business for 32 years, drawing teachers and parents from across South Florida to its stores in Davie and Margate. “We’ve got [the tax holiday preparations] down to a science now,” said advertising manager, Arlene Staropoli, noting the retailer has a large inventory in its warehouse and staffs extra clerks and customer service attendants. “It’s like Christmas,” said Staropoli, for. “It’s our busiest time of year.” 

Nationally, families with school-age children will be spending more on back-to-school shopping than last year, with the average family spending $527.08, compared with $443.77 in 2005, according to the National Retail Federation’s back-to-school survey, which was released this week. Total spending is forecast to rise to $17.6 billion, from $13.4 billion last year, the survey said. 

A pool at the Dan Marino Center, a branch of the Miami Children’s Hospital, will be built by May 2007 to provide aqua therapy and swimming classes for children with special needs.  The center also is conducting an unrelated expansion of a second-floor wing.
 
Govenor Jeb Bush approved $535,000 for the nonprofit Dan Marino Foundation in June when he signed the state budget. The foundation is turning over $320,000 for the pool and most of the rest to help swim instructors better work with the children.
 
The Marino center, at 2900 S. Commerce Parkway in Weston, serves children with a variety of special needs, more than half of whom have some degree of autism.  About half of the more than 20,000 children the center treats a year are from Weston, Miramar, Pembroke Pines, Cooper City, Sunrise, Davie or Southwest Ranches.
 
Children with autism have an infatuation with water, said Denise Karp of Coral Springs, who moderates a message board called Denise’s List for parents of autistic children. Therapists at the Dan Marino Center report that children with autism will push farther in their exercises if they are performed in water.
 
But it also can be a dangerous attraction: Some will disregard safety to jump into a pool and often are referred to as “elopers” or “runners.”  “They’re attracted to water like magnets and they have no sense of fear or danger,” said state Representative Susan Goldstein, R-Weston, who sponsored the bill to direct state money to the center.
 
The pool will be 20 feet by 30 feet, a little bit bigger than a backyard pool, and the water will be at 93 degrees, Rego said. Public pools for swimmers are about 80 degrees, and most pools designed for lessons are at least 84 degrees.
 
Former Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, who has a son with a mild form of autism, donated money and created a partnership with Miami Children’s Hospital to open the center in 1998.

Hollywood ’s Planning & Zoning Board OKs denser zoning near Tri-Rail with 1,600 homes & hotel.

A controversial plan to build a “village” in one of the city’s busiest areas received a preliminary, yet critical, boost this week by Hollywood ’s Planning and Zoning Board.  This represents a new type of zoning aimed to incorporate public transportation with residential communities and it allows developers to build more housing units per acre.  The zoning change process could take up to a year.  The project, which reaches from Sheridan Street south to Taft Street and is squeezed between Interstate 95 and the CSX railroad tracks, would be built in stages and could take a decade to complete.
 
A group of Miami-based developers, have proposed a community with 1,600 residential units in high-rises and townhouses, a 150-room hotel and 300,000 square feet of office and retail space.  It will sit on 40 acres by the Sheridan Street Tri-Rail station in Hollywood FL.
 
One of the buildings would be 15 stories, rivaling the nearby “Hollywood” water tower next to the highway. The development would incorporate the Tri-Rail station as a central component.
 
The $500 million project, called Sheridan Stationside Village, would eliminate the nearby Okomo trailer park, forcing out about 190 families.  Residents have expressed concerns that the massive development could further aggravate traffic and school crowding, the fate of native Live Oak trees in the area and about stress to the water and sewer systems. Current residents said they doubt the new arrivals would ditch their cars.
 
The Broward County School Board opposes the plans stating the development could add 119 students to the area, including an estimated 72 students to the critically crowded Oakridge Elementary School.  The developers are willing to work with the school system to lessen the impact, including the possibility of building a school within the development.
 
City planners also would like to see shorter buildings, more commercial and office space and even a police or fire station.  Click here to see more information about the City of Hollywood, Florida and Real estate.

The South Florida Water Management District recently gave the city a $1 million boost to upgrade its two oldest water pump stations.  Built in the 1970s, the city’s two pumps are functional but have deteriorated.
 
The South Florida Water Management District oversees the water resources in Florida’s southern half, consisting of 16 counties from Orlando to the Keys.  The District is giving out $26 million for community projects this year.
 
State Representative, Franklin Sands and state Senator Nan Rich worked with the district to help secure funds through the state Legislature for the Bonaventure Development District’s two stations, which control storm water and avoid flooding to that area of Weston.  Weston is the sole recipient in Broward County, according to the water management district.