Florida Facts

  I bring to you a couple of statistics concerning life in the 3rd-world state of Florida.

   While consumer confidence rose sharply in most of the United States this month, it was not so great in Florida, remaining at the same level as last month.

    The Conference Board’s Index rose up 56 from a previous reading of 409 in October. This was the biggest monthly gain since April of 2003.

   Florida uses a different confidence index ( naturally ) which stayed stuck at 65 in November, barely above the record low  according to a phone survey done monthly  by the University of Florida. The record low ( 59 ) was set back in June of 2008.

    On an even sadder note:

    47% of Tampa Bay homes are underwater with their mortgages as of the end of September. Your mortgage is labeled as being underwater when you owe more on it than the home is worth.

   That 47% comes out to some 311,511 homes being not worth the prices paid for them.          Source

   The really sad part is that many of these homeowners would not be in this predicament if they had used some common sense ( lacking in Florida ) and had not gotten greedy in the first place. Many of the owners bought their homes for the express purpose of selling later on after the value had doubled or even tripled in a few cases. Borrowing against the home as the value rose put many people on the chopping block when the bubble burst, and they now cry about having to make payments on a product that has become somewhat worthless.

    Greed will screw you over at every chance that it gets to do so. Have you homeowners learned anything?

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