The Florida economy is rosy

After a hard time during the recession where many jobs were lost, company went bankrupted and closed and the housing market staggered, are over. As stimulus measure the Sunshine State focused on it primary values – the sunshine, their housing industry and workforce - and started economic actions that are now show great success.

The counties Miami/Dade and Fort Lauderdale started expansion and updated their ports and airports to become the main hub and connection point for the worldwide and South American trade and transportation lines. Fort Lauderdale for example expanded their port capacity not only for freight but also for the cruise industry.

The Fort Lauderdale Airport Management has nearly finished its major renovation project and in fall 2014 the new extended runway was opened for the air traffic. These projects created thousands of jobs and brought the unemployment rate back to a normal level. The hospitality and housing market is back too and offers countless job opportunities to the citizens.

It is expected that this trend will last or even get better because the Panama Canal is also under expansion construction and will give a further boost to the ports and the economy in South Florida.

For further details you can reach us at info@florida-informations.com .  

Foreclosures are back to normal

Since the burst of the real estate bubble with all its impacts on the housing market, Florida is back on its normal pace. However, Florida is still at the top of all states with its foreclosure numbers. The numbers are on the lowest level since 2006 and only 2.3 % of homes that have a mortgage are in default. This is great news after the horrific years.

However, there are still 4 Florida cities at the top list of foreclosure numbers. One is close to home: Miami and the other three are in the middle region: Tampa, Orlando and Melbourne-Titusville.

Florida is still on the top when it comes to the time period of the foreclosure proceedings. It takes the banks nearly 2 ½ year to take passion of a financed property. That is bad for the banks but good for home owner because they normally stay in their home.

For more information about your opportunities you can reach us at andrea@florida-informations.com

Florida’s Economy is growing

During the recession Florida was one of the hardest hit state in the United States. The state has one of the highest unemployment rates, the housing sector was a disaster, manufacturing had decrease and the tourists and visitor numbers also went down. Based on the market down turn the retirees could not afford to come down to Florida and enjoy their retirement as they had planned before the recession. This had a negative impact especially for the southwest region of Florida which is preferred for the retirement.

This hard economic time is over and each day more than 700 people move to the Sunshine State. This number adds up to more than a quarter million a year and that gives the housing market a big boost in that area. The low rate mortgage opportunity help the new retired home owners to buy a home here in the sun.
 

This new home requests helped the housing market to improve. This economic improvement also triggered new developments in the Sarasota area and the existing home value moved into a positive direction. The economic movement assisted the job market to recover and made unemployment rate to decline. However, after the more dramatic improvement of the overall economic data, this trend will go to a slower pace in the near future.

For more information contact info@florida-informations.com


 

What gives you the best return of investment when remodeling your home?

As a home owner you are always interested to keep your home in great shape and be proud of your biggest life investment. Every time when you think about remodeling your home you should keep in mind what adds the most value to your property in case you have to sell it in the near future.

I am not talking about the necessary repairs when your window glass was broken from your playing kids or when your roof is leaking because the last storm damaged it. I am talking about the remodeling and update of your home so that the market value will increase when you decide to sell it.

In such a case you need to know what are the trends on the real estate market. What is the most interesting detail for a potential buyer in your neighborhood? What will make your home attractive to potential buyers?

Studies show that even small updates or change on the exterior will push your home value and will give you a better return of this particular investment. When the outside of your home is attractive to potential buyer than the interior will often be less important.

Start with your yard and keep it clean and nice and make the outside of your home look well maintained. In case you have outside siding that looks a little bit run down, replace it with manufactured stone veneer. This update is affordable, looks nice and clean and will pay off at the closing table.

This is only one example for an affordable home update. However, there are trendier update that will give you a good monetary return.

For more information please contact us at andrea@florida-informations.com

Living in the United States with a Green Card

Many are dreaming to come to the United States to live and to work here for various reasons. The working conditions are better than in other countries especially for women who are not appreciated as professionals and entrepreneur in their home countries.

To make this dream a reality you have to know the available visa options that allows you to stay legally in United States for a longer period of time than the 90 days that are covered under the Waiver Visa Program.

In case that you have already an employment offer from a United States Company – and there are many companies hiring well educated individuals – your way is easier to a Green Card than without a job offer. Your employer will help you with this visa process.

In case that you are an entrepreneur you have the choice among several visa categories that provides you with the opportunity to do business in the United States and awards you the Green Card in the long run. You have to invest a substantial amount of money into your business in the United States and your company has to employ several American Citizens.

The easiest and quickest way to get the Green Card is the EB-5 Visa. This visa grants you nearly immediately the Green Card. However, the hardest part is the monetary requirement. Your investment must be at least $500,000.00 and produce at least 10 new full-time jobs. When you are not comfortable to invest in your own business, there are also government project available in which you can invest and that qualify for your Green Card.

For more information on the topic please contact us at

info@florida-informations.com.

Fort Lauderdale Airport is getting a big facelift

The international airport in Fort Lauderdale on its way to become a real competition for Miami – the biggest airport in South-Florida.

A few year ago, Broward County started their update and expansion of the Fort Lauderdale airport FLL. The runways on the airport was not long enough for the bigger airlines from overseas and therefore the incoming foreigners often had to make a stop in one of the bigger airports like Atlanta or New York to change to a smaller aircraft.

The airport expansion was very controversial because of the noise level that comes with it. However, the Broward County help the homeowners nearby to get noise protection at their houses.

On September 18, the new runway opened and marked the completion of the major improvement part of the project. With this new runway, many new air carriers can use this airport. The runway that was expended to the east above the Federal Highway (US 1) is capable to handle aircrafts like the 747.

This runway expansion brought already new airlines with direct connections from Europe and there are more to come. The costs for the aircraft service and turn around are much cheaper than in Miami and that is a big benefit for the airlines.

On my event yesterday, I already heard many comments from very satisfied customer. It is not only the service at the airport but also the less jammed roads to and from the airport.

The face-lift is not yet finished. The next portion is the renovation and the remodeling of the existing airport facilities and the construction of a new concourse to handle the growing passenger numbers.

I am very excited to see the finished result. For my trip to Europe, I will certainly use this airport.


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Now Miami has its own Wall of Berlin

You don’t believe it? It is true. Today Miami got its own piece of the Wall of Berlin at their Miami Dade College  Wolfson Campus. Now Miami is one of the many cities that got their own piece of the most dangerous wall in the world. The state of Germany gifted the piece and it was presented in an official act from the Consul General of Germany in Miami.

The death wall that separated the City of Berlin into two parts felt exactly 25 years ago. The wall was built in 1961 to protect the eastern German citizens for the evil of the western world. However, the real reason was to prevent East-Germans from escaping into the western part of Berlin and into West Germany.

The wall went right through the Downtown area of Berlin and enclosed the complete western part of the city. The western part of the City were the areas of the allies United States, British and France and the eastern part of the city was the Soviet part. The Americans were the strongest partners during that hard time. They always protected the city and without their help, the history of Germany would have been a different one.

In 1961, the dividing wall was started as a normal stone brick wall and was reinforced over the years. During the worst times and I know it from my own experience the wall had a several meters wide mine fields. The officers with dogs controlled the border with that death corridor and right on, the other side of the wall was a vital and strong city that never gave up the hope for the reunion.

Then on November 9 1989 it happens – this deadliest wall of all broke down and people from both sides of the wall climbed onto the top of wall and started to demolish it. It was over!

Today you only see some monumental ruins in heart of Berlin and the rest of the wall was exported all over the world as a reminder:

A wall can separate people but when they poke long enough into the wall, it will get weak and break.

Normally I wish sunny greeting from Florida but today it was raining like in Germany in November but it was 20 degrees warmer.

The human German Flag

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