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Hernando Today

Kudos To Hernando Today Reporter Mike Bates

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 6, 2008

Again, kudos to Mike Bates (The Lone Ranger) and Hernando Today.

The timing of the "House of Cards" story regarding the Hernando County real estate market (or lack thereof) was perfect. Another one of Mike's silver bullets. More than 250 foreclosures in just January alone!

This certainly has been a busy year for Mr. Bates. For his efforts to keep us informed of our county government's spending habits, he deserves the Hernando County Medal of Honor award. The information we have received this year as a result of his work has been priceless. I wish I could buy him a gold shovel for all that digging.

If he took his dependants to a county commission meeting and all but took control of the meeting, I wonder if they would give him and Hernando Today a raise and more operating expenses as they have been known to do for others.

It's not rocket science to understand the mess we're in. There are many reasons. At the beginning of the real estate "boom" the Fed had the interest rates unrealistically low. Guru Greenspan gave us the opinion that adjustable rate mortgages were nifty. Don't take my word for it. Watch MSN Money; read what columnist Bill Fleckenstein has to say. He wrote a book on Greenspan.

At any rate, too many homebuyers thought they could afford what they couldn't. Some mortgages were set up without taxes and insurance computed in. Along came the hurricanes. We are all only too aware of the nightmares after that.

What follows this mess are unrealistic property values creating a scenario where, as we have all heard, county governments reaped a windfall. And spent it. Count the vehicles they bought. Plan ahead? You must be kidding. Someone really thought this would last forever.

Add to this debacle the federal tax code. You can sell your home after, I think, two years and not pay any income taxes on up to a $200,000 profit; more is my understanding if there are two people (husband and wife). Mr. & Mrs. Home Flipper now saw an opportunity to buy and s ell (if they time it right) thinking that they could put huge amount of cash in their pockets tax free, place a minimum down on their next "home" and - you get the picture.

Problem: It didn't last. It couldn't. Some were caught with payments on more than one residence. Now the Sunshine State ranks No. 2 in foreclosures. What they succeeded in doing was running up unrealistic values that the rest of us are paying for in hiked property taxes. Thanks to this litany of wheeling and dealing, everyone who hasn't been under Save Our Homes since the beginning, business and vacant land owners, will be parading to the appraiser's office and even possibly choking the value adjustment system.

When we have seen in Hernando Today that single family residence sales numbers have fallen to less than in 1995, add to that more foreclosures, who is to say what valid data is?

One ray of sunshine is that an aide of Sen. Mike Fasano told me that the senator is working on crafting legislation to assure us that there won't be too close of a relationship between the value adjustment board and county officials. Could this possibly indicate that there could have been a conflict of interest in the past?

Much has been printed regarding the plight of homeowners and businesses. Consider if you will, those owners of vacant land (those open spaces we cherish) who have had no homestead or Save Our Homes protection. During the boom, a small vacant parcel or lot goes up from $30,000 to $80,000 because some less-than-brilliant individuals were paying that. This created an additional windfall to the county with absolutely zero additional infrastructure expense. Now that these values are falling, so will the tax revenue. And we will continue to be threatened with less services. See the picture?

Again! Thanks to Mr. Bates from a member of the "Royal Flush."

David Miesch

Brooksville

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