Hillsborough & Manatee County Florida Real Estate

I just received another great newsletter from Lowe's on how to decorate on a dime and make your home your castle.  These are 7 easy things anyone can do to spruce up their home.You don't have to spend a fortune to make your living space a showplace. With a little creativity and a willingness to d...

I was reading a story this morning about Pirate's Cove in Bradenton closing it's doors down for good after 23 years, and thought how sad this was.  This was only one of two family fun centers that were still open in the area between Tampa and Cape Coral.  Now there is only one in Sarasota still o...

I just received a phone call from a buyer out of state that was calling about one of our listings.  Due to the price of the home, she wanted to know if it was being sold as a short-sale, and yes it is.  She explained to me that she has been working with an agent here in the area for quite some ti...

I was reading the newspaper online this morning, and was happy to see that condo sales have increased 10% from this time last year in the Bradenton-Sarasota market.It is mentioned in the above article about 3/4 of the way through the article.  Condominium results in Sarasota-Bradenton for both th...

Apparently FDOT has known since 2004 that the work that needed to be done on the Anna Maria Bridge would force it to be closed, yet failed to make this information publicly known in meetings.FDOT officials:Knew at least 3½ years ago that the project would require a lengthy closure and that they n...

Are you submitting your blog to different RSS feed sites?  If so, does it really matter to which one's you submit it to and/or how many different one's you submit it to?I ran across a website with a ton of different places you can submit your blog to for RSS feeds.Question is, do you really need ...

That's a WHOLE lot of people!!!  That's nearly double what they had from last year.  "Last year, an estimated 12,500 shoppers arrived between midnight and 6 a.m., according to mall estimates."All of the 130 stores opened up at 12:01 am on Friday, but people started to arrive at the mall about 9 p...

Is anyone using RealBird?  It says it is free, but I haven't had much time to dig into it yet to see if it really is a free service or not.It seems to be a *really* cool place to advertise your listings with interactive maps from what I saw.  "With the Publisher, you can create unlimited single p...

Yes, you read that correctly!!!  Sarasota-Bradenton home sales tops in state!!!I just read this article in the Herald Tribune and was pretty excited to see this!  I'm glad they at least posted this little bit of good information.  Not all is doom and gloom for the entire state or the entire natio...

First let me start off by saying that not all agents charge 6% commission.  Commissions are negotiable.  Some agents charge less and some charge more.  With that being said, let me share with you why many agents charge 6% commission and why most agents won't negotiate that commission down if you ...