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Top 10 Fastest Growing U.S.Counties

Daily Real Estate News | June 21, 2010 | Share Top 10 Fastest Growing U.S. Counties The fastest-growing counties in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, are mostly in suburban areas outside of urban centers.

The census numbers govern the distribution of more than $400 billion in federal money each year.

Where America's Money Is Moving

Surprise: America's wealthy like warm weather and low taxes. That's the takeaway from IRS data, analyzed by Forbes, on moves between counties. We looked for counties that the rich are moving to in big numbers.

Topping the list: Collier County, Fla., which includes the city of Naples. Tax returns accounting for 15,150 people showed moves to Collier County from other parts of the country in 2008, the latest year for which IRS data is available. Their average reported income: $76,161 per person--equivalent to $304,644 for a family of four. Although slightly more taxpayers moved out of Collier County than into it, the departing residents' average income came out to just $26,128 per person.

Supreme Court Rules on Beach Renourishment

Florida owns in trust for the public the land permanently submerged beneath navigable waters and the foreshore. The mean high-water line is the ordinary boundary between private beachfront, or littoralproperty, and state-owned land. Littoral owners have, inter alia, rights to have access to the water, to use the water for certain pur-poses, to have an unobstructed view of the water, and to receive ac-cretions and relictions (collectively, accretions) to the littoral prop-erty.

St. Joe annouces Relocation of Corporate Headquaters to Bay County

St. Joe headquarters to transfer to Bay County March 17, 2010 Northwest Florida Daily News

WEST BAY — The St. Joe Co. is moving its corporate headquarters — and most of the jobs associated with it — to Bay County.

The company announced plans Wednesday to move its executive offices from Jacksonville to West Bay, where St. Joe will be one of the first tenants of its own industrial park next to the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport, which is slated to open May 23.

St. Joe also will vacate offices in Tallahassee, Port St. Joe and South Walton County, consolidating operations in a 50,000-square-foot office building near the entrance to the airport. Construction will start this summer and should be done by the summer of 2011.

Destin makes Top 10 list of places to pursue hobbies (LIST)

DESTIN -- The place once known as the world's luckiest fishing village has again gained recognition for its fishing fame.

Destin is included on the Top 10 Places in the United States to Pursue Hobbies, according to hotelscombined.com. January is National Hobby Month.

"The city of Destin is a fisherman's paradise," according to the list's narrative.

Other top 10 destinations include Ponte Vedra Beach for golfing, New Orleans for cooking and Venice for collecting shark teeth.

NW FLorida Beaches make Frommer's Top 12 World Destination List!

December 07, 2009

Northwest Florida residents who want to visit one of the top tourist destinations in the world for 2010 need only to step outside.

Frommer’s Travel Guide, one of the best-selling travel guides in the world with more than 75 million books sold, recently named the Florida panhandle beaches as one of its top 12 travel destinations for next year.

Other areas that made Frommer’s list are Tunisia in North Africa; Hanoi, Vietnam; and Melbourne, Australia. The only other American locale that made the list was Hawaii’s Big Island.

Homebuilders Back to Buying Land

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 2:25 PM

By: Dan Weil

Homebuilders are snapping up land again after spending months shedding properties and suffering write-downs during the real estate bust.

The builders seek bargains in areas hit hardest by the real estate slump of the past three years, Bloomberg reports. That includes California, Florida, Arizona and Colorado.

“Like a shark has to keep swimming or it’ll die, it’s the same thing with builders,” Kathryn Boyce, regional director in Sacramento for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, a real estate research company, tells Bloomberg.

“They have to keep building or they’ll die.”

The land purchases represent another sign that the real estate market is improving.

Walton: No projects affected by height rule

June 24, 2009 10:22:00 AM By KIMBERLY WHITE / Florida Freedom Newspapers SANTA ROSA BEACH — None of the nearly 450 active development orders in Walton County will be affected if a countywide height ordinance goes into effect as expected later this summer, according to Gerry Demers, the county's director of development services.

The only project that would have been affected — a proposed 12-story condominium off Jolly Bay Road in Freeport — already has been turned down by county commissioners, who said the building's height would be incompatible with the surrounding area.

With some exceptions, the proposed ordinance would limit buildings in South Walton to 50 feet. Structures north of Choctawhatchee Bay would be capped at 50 feet in residential areas, 75 feet in commercial areas, and 100 feet in industrial zones.

History will repeat real estate resilience in Destin

July 2, 2009 - 9:52 AM Jack Simpson

The magazine ad pictured here was the beginning of my Destin experience.

The year was 1974. The ad was in Southern Scene, the in-flight magazine for Southern Airways. New Sandpiper Cove condominiums were selling for $24,500. I bought one. It changed my life forever.

Here are some of my observation of the ups, downs, whys and wherefores of the Destin real estate market since then.

We're in a slow, but definite recovery mode

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -While President Obama, Congress, and the American people debate financial regulatory reform, foreclosures continue to mount as embattled housing markets bump along the bottom.

But amid much talk about problems, many areas of the country are now experiencing rebounds, with declining foreclosures, increasing home sales and even increased average sale prices, according to ForeclosureS.com, a leading real estate information provider.

       "We're in a slow, but definite recovery mode," says Alexis McGee, foreclosure expert, educator, author, and president of ForeclosureS.com. "While foreclosures persist and unemployment still worsens, there are positives in the market that give a strong indication that housing markets have bottomed. Even some interest rate increases have failed to put a damper on prospective home buyers and investors who wisely recognize that buying a home today is more affordable than it has been in decades."