Resources
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."
May housing construction jumps by 17.2 percent 06.16.09
WASHINGTON – Construction of new homes jumped in May by the largest amount in three months, an encouraging sign that the nation's deep housing recession was beginning to bottom out.
The Commerce Department said Tuesday that construction of new homes and apartments jumped 17.2 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 532,000 units. That was better than the 500,000-unit pace that economists had expected and came after construction fell in April to a record low of 454,000 units.
In another encouraging sign, applications for building permits, seen as a good indicator of future activity, rose 4 percent in May to an annual rate of 518,000 units.
'Wheel of Fortune' lands on Sandestin (update)
'Wheel of Fortune' lands on Sandestin (update) February 4, 2009 - 1:15 PM Robbyn Brooks, Florida Freedom Newspapers
SANDESTIN - Wheel of Fortune prize winners have jumped up and down on the small screen after hearing they're going to Rome, London and Egypt. Now one of the famed destination spots on the big wheel will be Sandestin.
"This is the second time in three months we have been on ‘Wheel' and we are hoping for another spot later in the spring," said Mike Stenson, Business Development Manager for the Northwest Florida Regional Airport.