South Florida Real Estate and...

SOPA and PIPA were dropped by Congress- at least for now and at least in their present forms.Because of all of you who called your Senators and Congressmen and Women, because of all your support in the online protests, because of you re-blogging the important information, because of you who spread the word on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus and on ActiveRain, because of you taking a stand.... we were able to get enough votes to get the two bills canceled. 

This was the largest protest in the history of the Internet. 

On January 18th over 13 Million of us- people- regular people- dialed those phones, put our fingers to those keyboards and made sure the the switchboard in Washington DC was lit up! 

This was a game changer... our VOICES made a difference on January 18th! 

Over 10,000,000 signatures

Over 3,000,000 emails sent

Over 115,000 sites participated in the strike

See for yourself here! 

But even more important than that we set an example to the world as there were over one billion people from around the world watching this go down here. 

If you ever felt like your vote did not count, that your voice is drowned out by those who have more power than you or more influence than you, if you have ever felt like there is no use to speak up anymore... just let this sink in. Let this really sink in. 

This might have just been a huge game changer in our world today for public interest and one that is not going to be taken for 'friendly' from those in power. Because we have power on the Internet and we need to keep it that way. That of course is a scary thing for the governments. Because as Thomas Jefferson said many years ago: The people have the power when government fears the people which is liberty. It is when the people fear the government there is tyranny. 

The MPAA who is the lobbying group for the movie studios who created these two bills were very shocked at this outcry and the amazing mobilizing we were able to accomplish so quickly. They were also humbled by our voices. 

Guess who is the Chairman of MPAA?? - those of you in real estate know him very well- former Senator Chris Dodd! Isn't he the one that should be in jail for mortgage fraud? He was totally shocked by our voices and how fast we were able to get this out that we are against these two bills.  He said, " This was a whole new different game all of a sudden." He said in four decades he has not seen anything as big as this was. 

Yes, it is different because now what you say on the house floor is tweeted around the world in seconds. You can no longer run around behind closed doors giving out all your favors. 

Thank you to Mozilla, ActiveRain, Google, Wikipedia, Tumblr, Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org, Reddit and so many more of you. 

And guess who also was watching this all unfold? The people of China. China was of course censoring even our tweets about the protest and policing the content very closely yet it was being watched and the message was clear. The Chinese were watching and seeing what we would do. 

Commentator Liu Qingyan said: 

"We should learn something from the way these American Internet companies protested against SOPA and PIPA. A free and democratic society depends on every one of us caring about politics and fighting for our rights. We will not achieve it by avoiding talk about politics."

Not paying your HOA Fees is the #1 Killer of Short Sales and Deed in Lieu. 

Many homeowners who are behind in their mortgage payments are also behind in their HOA fees. When we take on a short sale listing it is very important for the seller to understand the ramifications of NOT paying HOA fees. 

In the state of Florida the HOA can foreclose on you, they can lock you out of the pool and clubhouse, they can evict you after the foreclose on you and rent your condo or property out, they can deny you access through the gate. 

And the HOA can do this very fast. Many people here are being told by their agents, by their attorneys and by their friends and family members that their HOA can not foreclose because the first bank, the main lien holder, is in first position and if your bank has not foreclosed the HOA can't. Well, that is NOT TRUE. 

The HOA can foreclose on you subject to the first lien holder. They don't need your bank to foreclose on you first or at all. 

If you are planning on doing a short sale then you should do all you can to keep up with your HOA payments. If you are far behind and the HOA has their legal council contacting you- make some arrangements to pay towards the part you are behind. 

If your HOA fees get too high, your lender is not going to approve those to be paid out of the net loss they are getting at closing. 

If you want to do a deed in lieu you have to be current with your HOA fees or you have to negotiate with your lender to pay a portion of those fees for you because you must give clean title in a deed in lieu. 

Attorneys tell us that for deed in lieu- the number one killer is the homeowner being behind in their HOA payments. 

Most every attorney we know that understands the short sale process advises their clients that even if they are not making their mortgage payments they should keep current with their HOA payments. 

We are not attorneys and we are not giving you legal advice. Consult an attorney if you are behind in your HOA payments. There are options to foreclosure. 

If you or someone you know is behind in their payments consider a Florida short sale.Contact Nestor or Katerina Gasset at 561-753-0135 today for your private confidential interview to go over your short sale options. 

Florida encourages entrepreneurship and small cottage business. Florida has many benefits for healthy living for both your body and your pocketbook. 

Florida just passed a new law that allows you to cook in your home and then bring those home-baked goods to your local green markets to sell them. 

We love going to the Wellington Farmers' Market weekly to discover all the new creative innovations and baked yummy goods from local entrepreneurs and local people who are looking for additional ways to make some money during these economic times. This is the spirit of America. 

When things get tough you figure out a way to make some money to take care of yourself and your family that also adds value to the lives of others. Nothing like smelling fresh baked pies on a Saturday morning at a farmer's market near you. 

Throughout South Florida farmers' markets are all the rave. 

This new law is called the "Cottage Food Law" and it is about time we had one of those around here! 

This new food law does away with all the regulations and licensing fees that most mom and pop type start ups can not afford to pay for nor have the time to go through all the red tape just to test a new baked pie or bread on the market. 

One lady who lost her job loves to bake pies. She is 52 years old and started to bake her pies. She has over 50 different baked pies that she sells at local green markets. This is how she does what she loves to do, baking and makes some cash too. 

You can make loaf breads, pies, cakes, cookies, pastries, jams, candies, honey, jellies, dried fruits, dry herbs, teas, seasonings, homemade pasta, cereals and popcorn just to name a few of the items. 

The Cottage Business Law has restrictions. Before you start cooking in your home you need to make sure you comply with the new law. There are certain products that you can not sell such as fresh meat or fresh fish, any products containing fresh cream and the like. 

I also found out that you can not sell your goods that fall under the Cottage Business law on the internet but you can deliver in person to your customer's homes and places of business. 

Contact FreshfromFlorida.com or call 850-245-5520. There are limitations and restrictions. Of course if you want to sell products or produce products that do not fall within the Cottage Business law you can follow the licensing laws to produce those food products. 

Disclaimer: your town or city may have some additional restrictions or laws so make sure you check with them before you start baking your favorite goodies to sell. 

Just another great reason to move to the sunshine state of Florida! 

The San Francisco 49ers played an incredible game tonight. I remember the days of Jerry Rice- that gives away my age:) I remember the days my father took me to as many 49er games as he was on leave to take me to. I loved going to the stadium to watch our favorite team play. My paternal grandparents lived in San Francisco for over 50 years. I guess you know who I wanted to win tonight and go to the Super Bowl!!!

Yes, sometimes it feels that I left my heart in San Francisco....

You can move the girl from the west but you can not take the west out of the girl.... 

I think these seals at Fisherman's Wharf are sharing their opinion about their 49er's losing the big game tonight.... 

Wellington Equestrian Lifestyle- Horses Living It Up In Our Tropical Winters Here- Almost Speechless Sunday

Yes, even here in South Florida our horses need to at times be covered with a blanket to keep warm in our nippy yet wonderful evenings here. This is the life for a horse! Enjoy your winter season here in Wellington Florida where we are the host of many equestrian events. Wellington is the Equestrian capital of the world. 

Wellington Equestrian Village Gets Approved! 

This is exciting news from Wellington Planning-Zoning & Adjustment Board. The controversial Equestrian Village has been approved. Here is a photo of one of the listings we had near where the new Wellington Equestrian Village is going to be. This is just to give you an idea of what Wellington looks like near the new village location but this is not an exact placement photo. Just for example purposes. 

There was a standing room only meeting at the Village meeting regarding this new addition to Wellington. There were over six hours of discussion. 

The old Palm Beach Polo Stadium is the area of Wellington for the new Wellington Equestrian Village which most equestrian folks are in favor of. This is a 96 acre facility and the new approval will allow there to be an Equestrian Village hotel. We are so in need of a hotel in Wellington near the showgrounds. We get at least a half dozen requests a week at International Properties and Investments for short term housing for equestrians who are only coming into town for a couple of weeks. There really is no convenient place for them to stay. 

We also want Dressage to come to Wellington in a big way. We have the area to compete on the international scene of Dressage just as we do for Polo and Hunter/Jumper. Dressage high level competitors have to go all the way to Europe. If we can get them to come here to Wellington instead- it will be great for our local economy. 

This project is going to cost between $50 million and $80 million to build. It will take about two years to complete the project. Also, the hotel will have condos that you can buy and then rent out to equestrian visitors who need to stay here in Wellington longer than a couple of weeks. This project will create jobs here in Wellington and the hotel will have full time employment as well. 

Right now for short term stays, Wellington gives up about 80% of the economic impact of the equestrian industry. This money is being spent now outside of Wellington. That does not seem like a smart choice when that money can be spent right here in Wellington. 

The board ending up voting 5 to 2 in favor of the hotel and the Equestrian Village project. 

Wellington Tiger Shark Cove Park- Community Project

Many of you already know but for those of you who are new to Wellington you may not know.Wellington's Tiger Shark Cove Park right next to the Wellington Community High School on Greenview Shores Blvd in Wellington was a community project that was build in 2000. 

In 2000 the community of Wellington residents and business owners came together to build Tiger Shark Cove. This project was a huge success. We raised the money from local businesses to buy the park equipment and then the residents here all chipped in with their time and money to build the park. 

Many of the youth who helped during this project were from the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Many of these youth have since gotten married, have children of their own and many have moved away from Wellington Florida because of work or college. But their dedication to Tiger Shark Cove will not be forgotten. 

Tiger Shark Cove was build entirely by volunteers. 

Tiger Shark Cove is now in need of some updates. Local school children have been asked about what they would like to see in way of updates to the park. The updates will mostly all be build with volunteers just like before. 

When you visit Tiger Shark Cove you have the warm memories of a community coming together to build a wonderful community park for the community to enjoy. 

On Saturday January 21 at Tiger Shark Cove- the re-design and updates will be revealed from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. 

The actual work will begin on March 21 and should be finished by March 25th. Bring your kids with you and be a part of the community experience!

Tiger Shark Cove article about the building of the initial park. 

Take Action Today- 

Thank you Google for displaying this great image on your site today so that millions of people can see this: 

Please read the bills- here is the best write up on the SOPA bill that I have found and it is on Mashable: 

http://mashable.com/2012/01/17/sopa-dangerous-opinion/

Here is a list of action steps you can take today at http://americancensorship.org

This is a bipartisan bill and it has bipartisan opposition so don't be afraid to take a stand. One of the sponsors of the Bill has no clue about the internet and he even violated his own SOPA by placing an image on his website that was copyrighted so he would be classified as a felon today if SOPA is the law. 

SOPA would make FELONY criminals of you having a YouTube video singing Happy Birthday to your 2 year old child!!! 

SOPA would make ACTIVERAIN open up a whole LEGAL team department and shut your blog down just based on someone's complaint about your blog- no evidence is required and NO due process is given to you. Companies like ActiveRain would have to close their doors because they don't have the kind of money it would take to stay open. Not even Twitter and YouTube could keep their sites online. 

This has to do with you. DON'T Be someone who just does nothing. It only takes 5 minutes to call your Congressman right now to tell them that you want him or her to VOTE NO TO SOPA. 

Read Mashable's article about SOPA. It is very well written and it will send chills down your spine. 

Even worse is that with SOPA if someone complains about your site and you don't have the money to go to where they are to defend yourself they get awarded your domain name!!!! IMAGINE THAT!!! 

ALL OF US HERE ON ACTIVERAIN could be labeled as FELONY CRIMINALS just because someone posts a comment on your blog or a video on your blog with a song or a video clip from a movie, etc, etc, etc. 

Justin Beaver would be a FELONY Criminal. Remember how he was discovered? He played popular songs on YouTube and a producer discovered him. He has become famous and has made millions of dollars because of his exposure on YouTube. Well, that would not be able to happen any more. What if your son or daughter has talent and wants to get discovered????

Thousands and thousands of online businesses are voicing their opinion to congress. Tell Congress to stay off of the internet. It is as though no matter how loud we all shout- they are plugging their ears but we must NOT stop sending our message.

Think of the vast implications of this bill. Call your congressman or woman today, right now. Please help us stop SOPA. 

Wellington Colts Travel Team Wins Lake Worth Spring Bash Tournament

We had two full days of competition this weekend in the eastern Lake Worth baseball fields. Lake Worth hosted a Baseball Travel Team tournament. This is a pre-season tournament. 

Our team did fabulous and we won the championship! The parents were all so supportive of their sons. We all spent the entire day on Saturday and Sunday playing seeding games and then the play off game and then the Championship game. 

Tristan played short stop second to none. He made some play book perfect plays in his position. He also played third base and played 2 innings as Pitcher. He knows how to "pick off" the players stealing bases and got three outs in a row through strike outs and pick offs. It was so much fun to watch. He was on his game this weekend, no doubt about that from anyone! 

They also met Jordan Schafer and got his autograph on their baseball hats. 

It was so cute too because at the end of the tournament when the Wellington Colts won the championship game some of the kids were "Tebowing". I am so happy that kids today have a great role model like Tim Tebow in sports. 

SOPA- Why ActiveRain- Wordpress- Zillow- Wikipedia and Every Other Platform Needs To Say NO to SOPA!  This just in from GOOGLE: 

Join all of us for the SOPA BlackOut Day Tomorrow Wednesday January 18, 2012.

Reddit.com just announced that they will also be blacking out tomorrow. If you want to join the strike by blacking out your site tomorrow you can register for the black out here: 

http://americancensorship.org/

So is Wikipedia and many other sites. Wikipedia will shut down their English version for 24 hours starting tomorrow. Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia said that these bills will endanger free speech and create internet censorship like we have never seen before. 

Google will be lodging their official protest against SOPA tomorrow on their homepage. Twitter and Facebook are joining in on the protest by trying to pass the word to stop SOPA. Google.inc will place a link on January 18th on its' home page to protest both of the anti-piracy measures in the house and senate. 

Google has measures in place to combat copyright infringement. Last year alone they took down 5 Million websites that were violating copyrights. Not only that, but we each have protections in the copyright laws. 

If you notice when you go to your sites on Wordpress, you will see a STOP SOPA banner across the right side of your site in the upper corner. 

They will tell you that SOPA- which stands for Stop Online Piracy Act is to stop online piracy. But that is not what this bill will do. This bill is being pushed and driven by lobbyists and the Hollywood elite. The unintended consequences will be beyond what we can imagine. 

This bill will hurt bloggers, site owners, ActiveRain and all other sites that allow content on their sites. This bill is only for big corporations and the Hollywood movie producers who do NOT want to go through due process of the law. This bill can literrally get entire networks like Wordpress.Org shut down ONLY on an allegation! 

Just imagine what your competition can do to you!!!! 

The damage just to the infrastructure of the internet will be so huge that the censorship issue in this bill will be meaningless. 

What is worse than all of this, you have congressmen and women who are admitting on recordings that they do not understand the internet. You can hear them saying things like, "pass the bill then we will worry about what is in it." 

Google executives and programmers tried to get a hearing on this only to be called "computer nerds and geeks" and were not even given the time of day to explain the repurcussions of this bill. These politicians were saying they would not understand what they would say anyways, so what is the point? Well, heck, don't pass things you don't understand!!!!!!!!!!

The Senate Bill is S.968 and the House Bill is H.R. 3261. 

Contact your Senators and Congresspersons tomorrow to tell them to say NO To SOPA and PIPA. Make those phones on Capital Hill ring, ring, ring! 

You can get a complete list of action steps you can take right now and tomorrow athttp://americancensorship.org including: 

• Write to your congressman
• Join the Webstrike and black out tomorrow
• Sign the Petition to the State Department 
• Lobby Congress
• Add the "Stop Censorship" black strip across your banner on your website

Join us now to STOP SOPA.