Santa Rosa Beach made Travel+Leisure’s Best Little Beach Towns!!!!
Santa Rosa Beach, FL
This northwestern Florida beach town was once a turpentine mecca, back when you needed the distilled sap to build ships. Today, it prides itself on its hiking and biking trails, as well as its Caribbean-style artists’ colony.
Stay: Architect David Rockwell designed the airy-looking WaterColor Inn & Resort, where you get free use of bicycles, fishing gear, and kayaks that you can paddle around its on-site dune lake.
Eat: Stop in for a cappuccino, ice cream, an “outrageous cinnamon roll,” or even just a beer at Miss Lucille’s Gossip Parlor. If you don’t have anything to
pass along to Miss Lucille herself, you can just watch the beachgoers stroll by, or check your e-mail on one of her co
ffeehouse’s computers. —Katrina Brown Hunt
America’s Best Little Beach Towns
I finally got the new blog up and don’t ya know, the oil has stopped leaking, 
This is TRUE!!
Check out this video I just posted to my new blog: Oil Spill Updates in Destin. For updates you can subscribe either via RSS feeder or email. I’m certainly going to continue to monitor the situation.
The relief wells are supposedly ahead of schedule, so we will see about that. This is at least a small victory, and one we can be happy about!
Congress has announced they have passed a bill extending the $8,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit closing deadline to September 30, 2010. This extension only applies to transactions executed by April 30, 2010, and have not yet closed. The President still needs to sign the bill. For additional information on the tax credit deadline, click HERE.
Additionally, Congress has extended the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) through September 30th. The bill is retroactive and will cover the lapse period from June 1, 2010, to the date the law is enacted. Why is this important? If you are purchasing a property, in a designated flood zone, and you are obtaining a mortgage, you won’t be able to close without a flood insurance policy. This is the 4th extension Congress has approved since the debate continues over how to pay for the debt from the 2005 hurricane season. Click HERE for additional information.
Insurance can be tricky and overwhelming if you don’t know what to ask your insurance agent. This 2-page brochure has some questions you can ask your insurance agent and also some basic information on flood insurance.
Last week CitiMortgage announced they would suspend foreclosures (primary residences) to help distressed homeowners in the Gulf of Mexico region. Borrowers with first mortgage loans owned by CitiMortgage and who meet certain other criteria will not be subject to foreclosure sales or foreclosure notifications. According to CitiMortgage, borrowers occupying residences in zip codes within approximately 25 miles of affected coastal areas will be eligible for the program. The suspension is effective from June 17 thru September 17.
This is good news for short sale sellers as they will have more time to get their property sold. Make sure you are priced “aggressively” based on other sales in your area. No amount of marketing will sell an overpriced property.
I applaud CitiMortgage for really “stepping up to the plate” and taking action. Hopefully, others will follow.
Miramar Beach, FL (June 14, 2010) –
BP Storage Tank from Deepwater Horizon
A shiny, metal marine storage tank washed ashore over the weekend on Miramar Beach. It’s believed the tank is from the April Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. The tank is intact, and there does not appear to be any oil leaking from it.
A similar tank washed ashore on the west end of Panama City Beach on Saturday. Officials there estimated the tank to be in excess of five-thousand pounds with a green and white placard which reads BP “Horiz”. That’s short for Horizon. It was removed by containment crews with a tractor and loaded on a trailer and hauled off.
This morning a crew hired by BP will also remove the tank off Miramar Beach. Walton County Sheriff’s Office Emergency Operations officials say it will be transported to New Orleans where the investigation of the oil rig explosion is taking place.
I’ve added a page to my blog for the BP oil spill updates. The media isn’t helping our area. As of today, June 7, 2010, there is NO oil on our beach. Here’s a photo I took about 7pm on the beach in Santa Rosa Beach.
Santa Rosa Beach - June 7, 2010
Am I concerned about the oil? Am I scared, mad, outraged, emotionally drained…you bet. In the beginning, my husband and I were watching updates every night. Praying and hoping the oil would be stopped. About 2 weeks ago, I couldn’t take it anymore….the anger, frustration and emotions got the best of me. The other day I looked at CNN.com and the picture on the home page was of 2 birds, (who had just been rescued), sitting in a basket struggling to breath because of being totally covered in oil. That same night I turned on Anderson Cooper, (AC360), and the same photo was on the screen. I just started to cry.
I have been and continue to follow the updates. I’ll keep posting beach pictures and videos of our beaches. Destin will recover and this too shall pass.
Click HERE to go to the BP Oil Spill page.
We need to remember with sincere respect those who paid the price for our freedoms; we need to keep in sacred remembrance those who died serving their country. We need to never let them be forgotten. And thank you to all those soldiers who continue to fight for our freedom.
To help re-educate and remind Americans of the
true meaning of Memorial Day, the “National Momentof Remembrance”
resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks
that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans “To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to ‘Taps.”
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