Here is a nice collection of wooden plantation shutters by Naples Plantation Shutters.

Moving home is a stressful time for anyone, especially if you have young children. The Collier County family is an upwardly mobile one, and often strives to improve their situation, including moving to different areas to improve their career or lifestyle. What follows are some tried and tested tips on minimizing the stress of moving on young children.

Moving is a busy time, so make sure you set aside to time dedicated to your children. Depending on their age, explain what’s going on and that you might be busy and distracted until it’s all over. Involve them where you can in planning, visiting the new home and choosing furniture.

If you can visit the new home, see if you can check out local parks or play areas too. Their new school or day care may let you have a look around, removing many of the unknowns from the impending changes. This will help the transition as children can be scared of the unknown. Introduce the new environment in a positive way and see if you can’t meet a couple of the local children.

If they have questions, answer them honestly and enthusiastically. Be warm and caring and get them as excited about the move as possible by painting it in a positive light and highlight benefits of the move to them.

We know that children like to feel included in everything. Why not get some special moving boxes for them and let them pack their own toys or special things? Make it a size they can carry themselves, let them decorate it and put their names on it. Build it up to be a “special” box and let them keep it with them during the move. You’ll be surprised how attached they get to them and keep them long after the move.

Saying goodbye isn’t easy for any of us, certainly not for children. Waving goodbye to everything they have ever know can be a wrench, and we want to make that process as easy as possible for them. Let them know it’s okay to feel sad, that it’s natural and that you feel sad too. Let them air their feelings and talk about it at length. Play moving games with them and get them used to having boxes around.

Once moved, try to return to the established routine as quickly as possible. It will take a while for them to get used to their new reality, but the comfort of the old routine in the new place will help them along. Talk to them about how they feel and reassure them everything’s okay. Let them keep their “special box”  if they like and give them as many opportunities to meet the local children as possible. New friends are the magic tonic to curing feelings of displacement.

Moving is going to be stressful for the parents too, but we have to suck it up and get on with it. Being strong for your children should be second nature, but make sure the stresses and strains of a move are kept as far away from the children as possible. They are amazing, adaptable creatures and will soon get used to their new reality.

If you are looking for a getaway from the dreary gray city, one of the best options to choose from is Sanibel residential real estate. Located in sunny Florida, Sanibel is an island town filled with beaches, lakes, and sun to ensure that you get both the best place to work and the best place to play. If you are planning to buy a residence in Sanibel, here are some of the important things to consider.

Options
Consider what type of residential real estate you want. There are many options to choose from to suit each homeowner’s taste. One of the most popular options is the gulf front home, where you can enjoy an excellent view of the sea and can have easy access to the beaches in the area. Canal homes are also popular for those who want to indulge in boating while enjoying the sun and surf in Sanibel. Golf homes found in the central island is also popular. For those working on a budget, however, condominiums are also available to provide accessible housing for everyone. You can also enjoy well kept subdivisions which Sanibel has plenty of. At present, there are up to 80 residential subdivisions to choose from.

Payment
With the recent economic downturn, look for the best payment options for your Sanibel residential real estate purchase. In general, look for payment plans that allow for some flexibility on your part. In general, however, there are several types of payment to consider. First is through your own hard-earned money. However, you should also check out mutual fund groups that allow you to pitch your money in for real estate investments. Finally, you can also check out private groups that also focus on real estate development and which are formed by experienced real estate entrepreneurs. These private groups, however, are mainly focused on commercial real estate, but they may also be able to assist you with residential real estate.

Broker
Equally important to ensure the best residential real estate for you are brokers. Acting as the link between you and the seller, the broker will give you better opportunities and private home viewings that are normally not available when looking for real estate alone. Make sure, however, that you are dealing with a competent real estate agent that has sufficient background training as well as an excellent track record when it comes to successfully linking homes to homeowners.

Upside potential
Finally, consider the upside potential when purchasing your residential property. The upside potential is the possibility of converting your home into commercial property. Keep in mind that you may have homes in mind for now, but with a real estate investment that has upside potential, you can easily convert your property into a commercial one in the future in order to make a bit of money

With these in mind, ending up with excellent Sanibel residential real estate is simpler and easier. It also means that ending up in a home all your own and with easy access to some of the best beaches in the country becomes much more attainable.

A Naples Mortgage company which I have used before is called My Fast Loan Closing. They are about as honest as you will find in the loan and mortgage business. In business for over 20 years right here in Naples they have a long track record of happy clients and sucess stories. I’d highly recommend giving them a call if you need a loan and steering clear of the fraudsters.

INDIANAPOLIS — Two former real estate investors have pleaded guilty to federal charges that they set up straw deals to obtain inflated mortgages on more than 100 Indianapolis houses.

Forty-four-year-old Robert A. Penn of Naples, Fla., and 45-year-old Kevin M. Lafavers of LaGrange, Ky., face sentencing at a later date. Both pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud, while Penn also admitted to money laundering conspiracy.

Both former Indianapolis residents were indicted in July on charges that from 2003 to 2005 they bought many of the homes for $120,000. Those were later seized by lenders and resold at sheriff’s sales for $3,500 to $26,000.

Under the plea, Penn admitted to fraudulently buying 136 properties for $16.6 million. Prosecutors say the fraud loss on the properties was $6.9 million.

Where Have All the Christians Gone?

The number of people who claim no religious affiliation, meanwhile, has doubled since 1990 to fifteen percent, its highest point in history.

AP

Naples Construction

Often planning departments don’t want to refuse permissions for dwellings, their interest is in maintaining the area while preserving the environment. A delicate balance has to be struck between allowing people the freedom to live, and giving nature a chance.

We are as a society becoming more environmentally aware. It used to be something other people worried about while we threw out trash without thinking and drove our nine mile-per-gallon SUV to work and on the school run. Now we are recycling, buying hybrids, or more efficient cars and looking more to green energy as a solution.

This is a significant change for us, and while things like the Kyoto treaty become more and more strict about industrial and vehicle emissions, it is something that is going to have to gain momentum. We have held ourselves apart from the world as they progressed and we stayed behind. But, as we always do, we soon catch up.

So while we may want out dream home right in the middle of the everglades, it isn’t going to happen, but there are still plenty of tracts of land that offer just as much but with much less impact on the environment.

Greenfield sites aren’t always the most responsible option. We have much less undeveloped land than we used to, and while the Naples construction market is slow right now, it isn’t always going to be. Our environment is one of the reasons people like to live and visit. The beaches, the nature reserves, trails all provide a great atmosphere and we don’t want to spoil that.

Planning departments have to mind the environment for us, because however much we might love nature, if we wanted to build all over it, some of us would. So while some builders and citizens believe planning departments are there to refuse everything they see, they are actually there to protect us from ourselves. For many of us, the wider concerns of our surroundings go out the window if they get in the way of something we want. We have a tendency to become blinkered and somehow manage to justify our actions whatever they may be. This is why we have governments and bureaucracy, checks and balances against our innate ability to be selfish.

New home building will soon pick up and land will become a premium again. While there are many efforts to regenerate brown field sites, there will always be a demand for new building plots. Even in a country as big as our, land is still a finite commodity and it will run out some day.

So while it is tempting to vent anger and frustration at a planning department for refusing permissions, there is often a very good reason for doing so. Not always of course, everyone is only human after all, but most of the time.

So next time you drive into the country, remember that it is still there because people in power protect it from us.

Naples Real Estate

From vacationers, to people who simply want a place to spend the rest of their life, one of the best things you can do is look into the many Naples houses for sale. To make the most of your hard earned money, however, there are several important tasks that you need to undertake in order to make the most of your investment.

Get a home inspection

One of the basics in purchasing real estate is by having a certified home inspector check out the property you want to purchase first. The best real estate offerings actually have their property pre-inspected before being placed in the market to ensure potential buyers of the quality of the houses. Even if this is the case, it’s still worth having your own inspection done. A house is a complex structure and most people are unable to fully assess the extent of wear and tear on a house, especially if touch up jobs has been done prior to having the lot placed on sale. There is nothing worse than finding out that the roof leaks months after your purchase, or finding out that the disposal system needs repair after you have already sealed the deal. Employing a qualified home inspector can provide the information in advance to ensure that you get the most out of your investment.

Get surveyed

Some of the most common real estate disputes are the result of an overlooked survey on the house. Instead of finding out after you have officially bought the property that your paid land actually encroaches on a neighbor or on state land, such as roads, have a survey done on the property that you are looking into. Make sure that you hire a certified surveyor, and that you get a report of the legal description of the property, which must be counterchecked with the pertinent public records. As laborious as this sounds, it may save you thousands of dollars in the future.

Get home insurance

Finally, after sealing the deal immediately work on getting home insurance for your new home. Among the many places where you can invest your money, Naples is one of the best with a sunny climate for most of the year and no major parasites such as termites that can threaten your investment. With home insurance, however, you can be prepared for any of the many unforeseeable events that tend to crop up in the most unlikely opportunities. When choosing the home insurance for your property, you can use the web for getting price quotes for insurance services that are within your budget. Make sure, however, that you talk to the company yourself before finalizing any agreements and make sure that insurance company can suitably answer all of your questions.

With home inspection, surveys, and home insurance, getting the best deal is as secure as it can be. Taking the time to research and check the facts in advance can save you time and money in the long run.

John Cannon has been financing big real estate loans for $25 billion-asset Capmark Finance Inc. of Horsham and its predecessors since 1985, and he’s never seen business this slow.

“There’s nothing being bought and sold,” Cannon told me by phone from the vast Virginia headquarters of government-controlled home lender Freddie Mac, one of the few outfits still pumping millions into buildings.

Capmark financed $1.5 billion in apartment deals during the first half of the year, down by half since early 2008. Almost all this year’s lending was refinancing loans, funded by Freddie and Fannie Mae, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“They’re the only viable lenders in U.S. commercial real estate right now,” and all they do is residential real estate, not offices or industry, Cannon said.

He’s seen slow markets before. The early 1990s, when the savings banks failed. But that “was a supply issue. You saw a lot of empty buildings. Now it’s a liquidity issue.” Banks aren’t lending.

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He’s hoping things have hit bottom. Fannie and Freddie tightened credit sharply last year. Lately, they aren’t requiring quite so many escrow payments, Cannon said hopefully. “Terms are getting looser. Spreads are coming down.”

It’s not that loan rates have fallen. It’s the spread between what money costs and what Fannie and Freddie charge that tells the story, according to Cannon:

Back in the mid-2000s, loans were approved at less than 1 percent above the benchmark 10-year Treasury rate. That zoomed to 3.5 to 4 percent above the benchmark during last fall’s credit crisis, after the Bush administration took control of Fannie and Freddie. Now it’s around 2 percent, Cannon says.

But banks still aren’t coming back into the market. It’s not just that they’re shy. There’s also “the disconnect between buyers’ and sellers’ expectations,” Cannon told me. “Guys bought a building five years ago for $10 million. They don’t want to sell for $8 million.”

NJ to PA

Archer Daniels Midland Co., Decatur, Ill., says it’s closing its Glassboro cocoa plant and ending jobs for 53 workers there. The work is moving to ADM’s new 500,000-square foot plant in Hazleton, says spokesman Roman Blahoski.

Bernanke or Summers?

Democrats in Congress and the Obama White House are plotting to remove Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke and replace him with Obama’s chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, at the end of his term next year, writes veteran bank analyst Richard X. Bove of Connecticut-based Rochdale Securities.

Summers is the brainy Main Line native, Harvard economist, and ex-Treasury Secretary who’s trying to re-regulate the financial institutions he helped deregulate under President Bill Clinton, setting the stage for the current mess.

Bernanke or Summers – what’s the difference? “Mr. Bernanke has demonstrated a willingness to act to defend both the economy and the financial system. Conversely, Mr. Summers has written the bulk of the proposals to regulate the financial industry,” which Bove says “would dramatically restrict fund flow to the economy” and kill the recovery like the government did when it tightened credit rules too soon in 1937. (But when’s the right time?)

Bove credits Bernanke, ex-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and FDIC chief Sheila Bair with “bold, innovative action” that salvaged the banks and prevented a full U.S. takeover. Bush and Obama at that time “did nothing.” Congress was “the proverbial deer in the headlights.”

Yet “the same people who were incapable of acting when there was a clear need for action will now make the decision as to whether the man who helped save the system should be removed.”

Bernanke is set to testify before the House banking committee next Tuesday. Expect Fed critics to ask how he’ll reverse the scary growth in the money supply without stalling the economy.

How do you measure wealth generation?

1) Average annual gains?

2) Gains relative to an underlying index (the S&P 500)?

3) Gains relative to inflation?

Of these three, the last is the only real means of gauging wealth creation or destruction. Commentators have been going bananas over the fact that stocks are up 20%+ since their bottom of 666. No one mentions that this rally may actually be induced by the Federal Reserve pumping trillions of dollars into the financial system.

Similarly, no one mentions that adjusted for inflation, stocks are still WAY down from their peak during the Tech bubble.

As you can see, stocks entered a bear market in earnest following the Tech Crash. Yes, in number or nominal terms, the Dow has risen. But you have to remember the dollar lost roughly a third of its value from 2001 to today. Measuring stocks or anything in dollars between now and then was like measuring with a ruler that was continually shrinking.

Also, bear in mind that the above chart is using the Government’s phony measure of inflation: the Consumer Price Index [CPI] which DOESN’T include food or energy prices. Using accurate inflationary data, stocks are down even more in real terms.

My main point is this: inflation is an ever-present reality in the post WWII era. Investors need to be protecting themselves from this beast at all costs. You can do this by:

• Buying gold
• Buying commodities or real assets
• Buying companies that can offset inflationary costs by raising the price of their products
  

I suggest having some money in all three. It’s the only certain way to protect your wealth from inflation. The Feds are cooking up an inflationary storm of epic proportions, pumping TRILLIONS of dollars into the financial system. Stocks may rally like a rocket-ship from here. But in real terms they’re still tanking.

After all, if the Dow hits 30,000, but you’re celebrating by drinking a $150.00 coke… are you really any richer?

The troubled US insurance giant has bowed to demands to restructure its bonus payments to its employees.

Top level bonuses to its executive staff are to be dramatically cut this year according to a letter sent by Edward Liddy, AIG’s Chairman to the US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

The letter confirmed that 2008 bonuses would be paid because the company had no choice.  These were legally binding payouts, which were being honored despite being bailed out by the taxpayer.

It is still believed to be the biggest-ever government rescue of a US company.  American International Group (AIG) plays a key role in insuring risk for financial institutions around the world and was seen to be too important to fail.

In the letter, Mr Liddy said he had come under pressure from the Treasury to reduce the firm’s bonus payments.  He said bonuses agreed to in 2008, before the firm’s problems became known, could not legally be blocked.

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“Under the current circumstances, I do not like these arrangements and find it distasteful and difficult to recommend to you that we must proceed with them.” Said Liddy in his letter.

AIG had promised to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to staff for the year 2008.

AIG would do its best to cut bonuses by at least 30% in 2009, Mr Liddy wrote to Mr Geithner.

Additionally US President Barack Obama’s top economic adviser has said “outrageous” conduct at AIG as the bailed-out insurance giant prepared to hand out millions in bonuses to top executives.

Lawrence Summers, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, has said the Obama administration had “scaled back” the bonuses but said its hands were tied by contract law in how far it could go.

“There are a lot of terrible things that have happened in the last 18 months, but what’s happened at AIG is the most outrageous, what that company did,” he said on US television.

But Mr Summers added: “We are a country of law. There are contracts. The government cannot just abrogate contracts.

“Every legal step possible to limit those bonuses is being taken by (Treasury) Secretary (Timothy) Geithner and by the Federal Reserve system. And they have, as a result of Secretary Geithner’s efforts, been scaled back.”

A white paper prepared by the company says that AIG is contractually obligated to pay a total of about $165 million of previously awarded “retention pay” to employees in this unit by March 15. The document says that another $55 million in retention pay has already been distributed to about 400 AIG Financial Products employees.

Mr Liddy has reportedly told Mr Geithner the bonuses cannot be cancelled due to a risk of lawsuits for breach of employment contracts, and AIG risks an exodus of senior employees if it does not pay out bonuses.

Mr Summers appeared to lend some credence to that argument.  “There is one other reality we have to recognize, which is that these companies have to be enabled to function, if the government is going to maximize the prospect of getting its money back.”

Massive losses at the division in London have forced the US government to pump about $150 billion into crippled AIG, and it is planning another emergency injection of $30 billion.

Condemnation of the planned bonuses came from both sides of politics.  “It is an outrageous situation,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said, while accusing the Obama administration of dodging culpability.