Charles Faircloth Estate to be sold in Auction Friday 3/14/2008

image sourced from roebuckauctions.com

On Friday, the estate of the late Charles Faircloth will be sold at auction at the Bay Point Marriott in Panama City Beach. Roebuck Auctions is holding the auction of more than 150 properties including anything from an 8+ acre beach-front tract to single family homes and one-off condos in occupied buildings/resorts.

It is estimated that the value of his estate is around $250 million.

Click the “more” link for info on the big tracts, details of when the auction is and who to contact if interested.

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Big Spring Break Week

In addition to hosting 6 college spring breakers at my home (friends of my wife), the rest of Panama City has seen a huge influx of kids this week. I think this week is the second largest week we’ll see with next week being the largest. If anyone has any idea of approximately how many people are expected to be here this week, please chime in.

In addition to Wal-Mart being completely packed all the time, the roads are getting clogged and people can be found walking around everywhere. I hope they are nicer to our properties this year than they were last year.

Click the “more” link for a total list of the schools here this week.

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Jobs slashed, will the Fed cut rates again?

As if January wasn’t bad enough with 22,000 job cuts, the February report showed job cuts of 63,000 marking two months in a row in declines. Most of the big cuts came from construction , manufacturing, retailing , financial services and a variety of professional and business services.

With a total of $160 billion short-term loans provided to banks since December, the Federal Reserve announced that it will increase the amount of loans it will make this month to $100 billion.

In response, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated that he is prepared to lower interest rates at their next meeting to help continue to give the economy a boost. Some economists are estimating a .75% cut.

Click the “more” link for the entire article.

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Is MTV Complying With the 2008 Spring Break Marketing Plan?

I just became aware of some additional information that I didn’t know when I wrote “A Review of the 2008 TDC/CVB Spring Break Marketing Plan” last week (see post). In addition to my original concerns, I now have doubt as to whether MTV is complying with the terms of the $200,000 contract with the TDC/CVB.

When the Plan was originally proposed to the TDC/CVB, it was explained that the MTV Networks were now going to mainly cover Spring Break via their mtvU network, not their flagship MTV channel as in years past. This explanation was consistent with the written proposal presented to the CVB Marketing Committee on October 3, 2007:

* “mtvU is the hub for everything and anything that represents Spring Break”
* “. . .and where we go, we bring our big brothers, MTV and MTV2.”

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2007 Panama City Beach Condo Market

Sam Portmans from CondoSaleTrends.com regularly releases reports on the condo market and updates on what the buying, selling, pricing trends are.

I hadn’t seen one in a while, but he just sent me his annual report of 2007. I must warn you, it seems sort of doomy-gloomy, but the report is based on sales facts, not opinions. A friend of mine always says, “We are where we are”, and that couldn’t be more true in this case. It is no secret the real estate market is hurting right now. All of us in the real estate business are dreaming of days where we aren’t living paycheck to paycheck.

These are the facts, click the “more” link for the entire report.

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Pier Park – Margaritaville Grand Opening in Panama City Beach (video)

Today was the grand opening of Margaritaville in Pier Park in Panama City Beach. This location is the only one in the Panhandle and has been highly anticipated, I can’t wait to eat there. Inside, there is a boat with fake scuba tanks lining the railings (like you’d see on a dive boat), a plane hanging from the ceiling, huge sails hanging from the walls with Jimmy Buffett concerts projected on them and flat screen TV’s all over with more Jimmy Buffett.

Click the “more” link for the video, and more pictures.

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New developments on Thomas Drive

I don’t drive down Thomas Drive very often, but when I did the other day I was quite pleasantly surprised to find a new development area has been moving along quickly.

Directly across from the Navy base a new development named Coastal Palms has all-of-a-sudden come to life. The developer built a La Quinta Inn that opened I think last year, but it may have been open longer. Various out-parcels have been sold and a Brewster’s Ice Cream and Burger King have recently opened.

Click the “more” link for more pictures.

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Spring Break is here and the beaches are filling up

I can’t believe it is already March in 2008 already! Spring Break is here, and the beach is coming to life. I said this last year and I’ll say it again. I don’t like many of the things that come with spring break, but I do love it when our area comes alive.

My mother-in-law owns a rental business and I was told that this week isn’t quite as busy as next week, but most of their rentable units are occupied.

It is supposed to cool off a little as the week goes on, but all-in-all, we should have pretty good weather.

Click the “more” link for a list of schools in town this week.

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The Fed reports that more needs to be done about foreclosures

 

With foreclosures on the rise and market instability increasing, The Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke urged lenders Tuesday to help distressed owners by lowering mortgage amounts.  He warned that foreclosures and late house payments are likely to rise a while longer, even with the efforts of industry and the government to curb a recession. Many lenders have increased their loss-mitigation options and grown more willing to work with owners in threat of default.

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