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additional info on the tax changes

The Florida Association of Realtors, who are in favor of the changes to the property tax, had a good article on the changes.
According to the writer the portabiliy would be retro active for all purchasers of homes for 2007
http://www.floridarealtors.org/NewsAndEvents/n1-110507.cfm

This would be great for those folks that had put off buying a home because they do not want to lose their saved tax benefits from staying put in a home that has gone up in value. they can take that savings to the next home

portability of Save our homes is on the ballot

The Sarasota Herald Reported that the intiative lead by Chrlie Crist has passed that would allow for the homestead exemption to increase to 50,000, (2) It would allow a florida homeower to transfer accrued SOH toa new property that could be as much s 500,000.

An example of this would be a homeowner that has bought a home for 200,000, today the accessed value is 500,000, but because the home was protected by Save our homes the homeowner is paying only on the limited value of 250,000. This is a tax savings of around 2,000 a year.
This buyer than decides to buy a 600,000 dollar home that is assessed at 530,000. The buyer can transfer 250,000 in "portable tax savings" and lower the new home's assessed value to 280,000.

This will be powerful for all the buyers who want to move up, but cannot afford the higher taxes.

Unfortunately there is no real benefit for seasonal homeowners, and rental home owners. The 10% cap seems nice, but it is unrealistic that the values of these homes will increase by that rate any time soon. Of course, anything is better than nothing.

It would have been nice if Mark Rubio's plan to eliminate property taxes, and increase the sales tax was not considered further.

broker agent of the month for october 2007

We were selected for agent of the month for the local broker agent news publication. Our recent photo.