Personally, I, as a person over 65, believe that I am better protected against getting COVID and more importantly NOT getting seriously ill or dying from it by keeping up with the COVID vaccine boosters. I based my decision on all of my research and reading about COVID and the vaccines – both pros and cons – which has included a lot of research and reading. I followed CDC advice on all COVID precautions over the past three years, and so far, I have been fortunate enough not only to NOT get COVID, but also to NOT get any kind of upper respiratory infection. This is the first years in my whole life that I did not get an upper respiratory infection at least once a year….but it is also the first time in my life that I took the precautions that I have taken over the past three years.
That is just my story…the short version.
See the article I am posting as a reference below that reports on the reasons some have for taking (or not taking) the updated COVID vaccine. Everyone must make their own decisions regarding their own health…I believe in freedom of decision making…. What I do may not be what is best for everyone. Hope my references help you if you are interested in this!
For more references on COVID and vaccinces, see my previous blog post, Update on COVID vaccines.
There were 31,216 fair-housing complaints in 2021, a 9% year-to-year increase. Most complaints cited disabled access, with race discrimination coming in at No.2 (Lenihan, 2023).
And there were probably more complaints in 2022. Unfortunately, publication of statistics will often lag a year or more.
However, on APRIL 26, 2023, in the article titled HUD to Update Disabled Access Regulationspublished on the Florida Realtors website, Kerry Smith states that “The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) says federal fair-housing regulations about access for those with disabilities should be updated – but it’s not doing so until the public weighs in.”
Comments from the public can be sent (and viewed) electronically through the www.regulations.gov website. However, it might be easier for some who are not really tech savvy to submit comments by mail to the Regulations Division, Office of General Counsel, Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 7th Street SW, Room 10276, Washington, DC 20410–0500.
If you are interested in learning more about the HUD regulations, the references below are good resources for you to read and explore. The first article I recommend that you read is Kerry Smith’s article HUD to Update Disabled Access Regulations in which all the other sources below are mentioned.
References:
THE DOMESTIC POLICY COUNCIL AND NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL. (2023, January). The White House Blueprint for a renters Bill of Rights. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/White-House-Blueprint-for-a-Renters-Bill-of-Rights.pdf
Lenihan, R. (2023, April 28). Study finds increase in fair housing complaints. Florida Realtors. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://www.floridarealtors.org/news-media/news-articles/2023/04/study-finds-increase-fair-housing-complaints
Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability: Updates to HUD’s Section 504 Regulations. Federal Register: Housing and Urban Development Dept. (2023). Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/housing-and-urban-development-department (Quotes from website: SUMMARY: This advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) seeks the public’s input on changes that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD or the Department) is considering to its implementing regulations for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504) for federally assisted and HUD conducted programs and activities. Section 504 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in all programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance and in programs and activities conducted by executive agencies. After this ANPRM is published, the Department intends to draft a Notice of a Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would propose the adoption of an updated Federal accessibility standard for purposes of compliance with HUD’s Section 504 regulations. In addition, the Department intends for this NPRM to propose revisions to HUD’s Section 504 regulations to clarify recipients’ obligations, including how to account for advances in accessible design, information and communication technology, and assistive technologies that have become available since HUD’s Section 504 regulations were originally published in 1988. DATES: Comment Due Date: July 24, 2023. Submission of Comments by Mail. Comments may be submitted by mail to the Regulations Division, Office of General Counsel, Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 7th Street SW, Room 10276, Washington, DC 20410–0500.)
Smith, K. (2023, April 26). HUD TO UPDATE disabled access regulations. Florida Realtors. Retrieved May 1, 2023, from https://www.floridarealtors.org/news-media/news-articles/2023/04/hud-update-disabled-access-regulations
On April 18, 2023, United States regulators cleared another COVID-19 booster dose for older adults and people with weakened immune systems so they can shore up protection this spring.
My primary focus in my writings on this blog in broad terms is the economy. The economy includes almost everything relating to life choices, which most certainly includes choices that pertain to the physical and mental health of all living beings (people, pets, wild animals, plants, and even what is on the dirt of the land, what is below the land, and what is in the air above the land).
This article is about COVID which is a disease that has contributed to worldwide inflation. COVID is not considered to be a pandemic now, and everyone everywhere – almost in the whole world – is tired of COVID… and most are living as if it is not still with us. But, unfortunately, it is still with us! Less people are still getting it, and less people are still dying from it. But there are those among us who are still getting this very contagious disease… and there are still some who are dying from it or dying of complications from it.
And the health of populations around the world has, is, and will continue to impact the economies of the world….
From Health & Economics by Kaavat Venkat (Spring 2021)
“When we first view healthcare, we examine how the economy has benefited us. Studies show that an increase in income is correlated with better health… When new treatments come out to the public, the people who can access it first will be the people who are better off. This causes a divide between classes of people, which increases healthcare inequality, which is when one group of people in an economy is in much worse health than another group. In the United States, health inequality is heavily correlated with income inequality….”
In full disclosure, I am totally up-to-date with my COVID vaccines….I believe in them! I took my second Moderna Bivalent Covid booster shot on April 11, 2023, which was just a few days before the FDA approved the same booster to be given to those over 65 and who are immunocompromised. I took the first Moderna Bivalent Covid booster in September 2022.
So, how was I able to get the second Bivalent booster before it was actually approved for me? And why would I want to do that? Should I not listen to the FDA and CDC recommendations, when I have been adamant about following the recommendations of the FDA and CDC regarding COVID precautions since COVID became a pandemic in the United States back in early 2020? I answer those questions in this article. So continue reading….
In a country with an extremely low unemployment rate as in the United States today, there should not be so many who are homeless. So why are so many homeless?
In addition to those who are homeless today as I write, there are even many more in the United States just one step away from being homeless? Why?
And I am not even counting all of those adults in the U.S. who are living with family and friends because they can’t afford to pay for an apartment or home on their own.
Here are two videos that every American should watch… Homelessness can happen to good, successful people….. Success is just failure turned upside down…. and failure to earn enough money to have a home can happen to good people over night!
This is not the America that we should be living in! Finland does it better.
See these 2 videos.
America is failing even people who are working are homeless because the cost of rent is so high…
YouTube video: Poverty in the USA: Being Poor in the World’s Richest Country
Whether you are a landlord, a property manager, or a REALTOR®, it is important to properly word your advertising so that you are in compliance with Fair Housing Advertising laws and ethical guidelines. To be in compliance, you need to advertise the property and not describe the people you want to reside in the property.
See this Word & Phrase List. Though it is not ALL inclusive of the do’s and don’ts in wording your advertising, it certainly provides a good guideline for you to follow.
My Code of Ethics and promises I make to you…
Embodied in all I do both personally and professionally, I adhere to a code of ethics that opposes discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status sexual orientation, gender identity, and national origin. In addition to my adherence to anti-discrimination, I also promise to go ABOVE and BEYOND for you!
Based on a Global Peace Index score (with the higher the number being less safe) in 2022, the World Population Review lists the 20 most dangerous countries to visit in the world to be:
Many of these countries are on the U.S. State Department’s list of the top 19 countries that are considered to be unsafe for Americans to travel to at this time (Balevic, 2023). However, the U.S. State Department’s list of the top 19 most unsafe countries also includes Haiti, Ukraine, Iran, Burma (Myanmar), and Belarus.
In simple terms, it is NOT discriminating in the sale or rent of housing (or financing and appraisals) because of race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or national origin.
Unfortunately, it has been necessary over the years in the United States for laws to be passed at the federal level and in the states to get to where we are today in ellimination of discrimination practices in the country. I say “unfortunately” because it is a sad fact that it has been a fight since the United States became a country for diverse populations to NOT be given the same rights as White Caucasians.
I still remember Florida (where I was born and raised) in the 1950s and 1960s, there were Black neighborhoods and separate White neighborhoods. As late as in the 1960s, Black people had to ride on the back of the city buses in Jacksonville, Florida….and Black people could not go into stores and restaurants there either as late as in the 1960s. That is a whole other story!
Things are so much better now because of laws and because of mandated intergration in schools that started in the late 1960s. I am 70. People who are my age and older growing up in the south did not go to integrated schools. I never had a conversation with a Black person until I started attending college in the early 1970s. Busing children had started around 1968 in Jacksonville to integrate the schools. For integration of schools to happen, busing was necessary because neighborhoods were not integrated. There were Black neighborhoods and White neighborhoods.
It has only been about 50 years that anyone at all has reached adulthood (which I define as around 18 years old) in a lot of the United States who has NOT experienced living in segregated neighborhoods and going to segregated schools. Today, there are still some neighborhoods that people will refer to by race, but today, it is against the law to prohibit anyone of any race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or national origin from living anywhere they choose to live that they can afford to live. Today MONEY is the discriminating factor that excludes people……MONEY is another story.
Personally, I believe discrimination in any format is WRONG! I have been licensed to sell real estate since July 2000. Over the years, I have refused listing properties for sellers who told me that they would not sell to anyone of a certain race…. That is a BIG red flag for me! I will not do it!
There are still people who are racist out there, and I will not work for them! It is WRONG!
So we still need the laws!
As a society, we still have work to do!
April’s FAIR HOUSING MONTH is a good time to learn about different cultures and to make friends with people who are of different races, religions, sexual orientations, national origins, and with people who have handicaps and/or disabilities.
The federal Fair Housing Act was signed into law in 1968. See the printable flyer below.
One of the places that you can still buy land that is not in a flood zone and is still under $5,000 is Interlachen, Florida. The town is centrally located in northeast Florida within a commute of 45 to 75 minutes to Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Ocala, Lake City, and Gainesville.
Like everywhere, you need to be careful about what you buy when you buy land in Interlachen by checking out the zoning rules to determine if the land is suitable for your desired use. Those parcels of land that are priced under $5,000 might not be buildable because the parcel of land is not large enough.
I have closed Kelly Property Expert, Inc., my own company where I worked full-time from 2017-2022.
I am now working under the name of Mary Kelly MBA, my new company, as a REALTOR® and a licensed real estate broker.
My new website is https://marykelly.co. However, you may have gotten here from https://kellypropertyexpert.com or https://marykellymba.com because th0se domain names get you to the same website.
Normally when mortgage interest rates go up, home prices decline. However, right now we are not seeing much movement downward in home prices. So what does this mean?
It all depends on who is answering this question.
To digress a little, a lot it depends on the location. Real estate has always been about location, location, location. That has not changed, and it will probably never change. What has been, and has always been, in the location is that a good location at any given time period may not remain a good location especially for lower priced homes. The way I describe the relationships between the locations and prices phenomena is that as locations go, what is good today might be bad tomorrow and what is bad today might become good tomorrow.
Flyer by Georgia REALTORS® may be downloaded and printed
If you are pre-approved for a mortgage when you plan to finance the purchase of a home, you have a better chance of a seller accepting an offer to buy a home. Having a pre-approval is the next best thing to coming in with a cash offer.
Contingencies are provisions that must be met for the home sale transaction to go through, or the buyer is entitled to walk away from the deal with their earnest money. Both buyers and seller should understand how contingencies work. Here are five of the most common contingencies: Home inspection, appraisal, financing, sale of current home, & title. See pdf file embedded below, which can be printed. (Published by Georgia REALTORS.)
“The report notes one of the big historical problems in Florida: In 2021, Florida had 6.91% of all U.S. insurance claims in the U.S. – but three out of four property insurance lawsuits (76%) were in Florida (from Fla. Releases County-by-County Property Ins. Report, Florida REALTORS® website at https://www.floridarealtors.org/news-media/news-articles/2023/01/fla-releases-county-county-property-ins-report?utm_campaign=1-12-23+Florida+Realtors+News&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email).”
The combination of lawsuits, hurricanes, and the rising prices of homes over the past couple of years is a perfect storm for higher property insurance rates in Florida. That is what happened back in 2005-2006 as Florida was plagued with hurricanes and rising home prices, and both the hurricanes and rising prices of 2022 make for a much worse financial burden on Florida insurance companies now.
Insurance companies are not in business to lose money; they are in business to make a profit. So they must pass on the cost of doing business to the consumer – or to the government for bail outs which will actually in the long run be a cost to the consumer in the form of higher taxes. I could be wrong, but historically, that is what happens…..
Florida’s real estate market is certainly a state to watch in 2023-2024!
I compiled this report from information taken taken from qpublic.net, which is where Ware County Property Appraiser posts all of Ware County, Georgia, property sales information for public viewing. The file embedded below (which you can download) shows only the homes on land properties that were sold in Ware County in 2022. It does not include sales of land only and commercial property.
If you would like more information on any property sales in Ware County, Georgia, or the surrounding areas in Georgia, just ask. I can be reached via the Contact page on this website.
Mary Kelly, MBA Licensed Real Estate Broker (Florida & Georgia) Real Estate Sales & Research Consultant KELLY PROPERTY EXPERT, INC.
See the video: Foreclosure WAVE in Florida Getting BAD
I have been saying over the past year (in 2022) that I was feeling like I was back in 2005 selling real estate. Back then, prices were going up by the week in Florida, and there were more buyers than there were properties on the market for sale.
COVID is still alive and well! And unfortunately, too many people are still not seriously taking precautions in this pandemic which has NEVER gone away.
We are one world today! No country can live as an island, and I do not believe the day will come that any one country will survive without other countries. COVID is surging in China, and it is said that nearly 5,000 people are dying every day there right now. The emergency rooms are filled. This is going to hurt our economy in the U.S. and in other nations. And no one should fool themselves and think COVID cases are not going to rise here in the U.S. and in other nations. More people will be dying of COVID!
Everyone around the world needs to take more precautions…. I am saying this knowing that some countries may not be able to take more precautions because vaccines, protective equipment, and even food and medicine are not easily available….But in the United States of America, there are no valid excuses for people here not taking precautions!
Dr. Roger Seheult, MD of MedCram, can explain this better to you than I can. In this video, he examines the BF.7 COVID surge in China.
See all Dr. Seheult’s videos at: https://www.medcram.com (This video was recorded on December 27, 2022) Roger Seheult, MD is the co-founder and lead professor at https://www.medcram.com He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine and an Associate Professor at the University of California, Riverside School of Medicine.
What Does the U.S. 2023 Appropriations Bill Do for RE?
By Kerry Smith
The $1.7T spending bill that funds the federal government through Sept. covers a number of RE priorities, such as buyer assistance, fair housing and flood insurance.
Fake Sellers, Fake Landlords: What’s Real Anymore?
By Meredith Caruso
“The advice for anyone you meet in real estate? Trust but verify – which means don’t fully trust anyone who isn’t your mother. Scammers continually find new ways to separate you, your buyer or your seller from their money.”
If you are thinking of selling your home, you really need to read this article…. and think about it before you decide you decide to put yourself out there to go it alone without the help of a REALTOR®.
I am a full-service REALTOR®, but I also provide consulting services to sellers who want to sell BUY OWNER and to buyers who are interested in buying a home listed for sale BUY OWNER. Call me at 912.387.9922, and please leave a message if your call goes into my message center for screening (out spam) so I can return your call.
Mary Kelly, MBA – Licensed in Florida & Georgia Real Estate Sales & Research/Writing Consultant KELLY PROPERTY EXPERT, INC. Waycross, Georgia
