Enterprise Title of Tampa Bay Blog

The Citrus Tour Finis!

2010-05-18T08:04:00.000-07:00

Finished and relaxing after a finish line Bubba burger. This is Kat, who I hesitate to call a new rider --she's really strong and even took a spill on some railroad tracks but soldiered on. At the finish, you ride up the approach to Bok Tower and there's a gauntlet of people cheering and a big BBQ tent and all the burgers you can eat.

The Citrus Tour Day Two

2010-05-18T08:03:00.001-07:00

Day Two --Lunch! If you look on the right you can see the line for the lunch tent which is beyond the tent you see in the immediate foreground. Also, if you look carefully you can see that the tents are on a little lake. In the background on the left is my riding buddy, Bob, who I usually end up drafting off of.

2010-05-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

Day Two, Mile 30 -- feeling **strong**

2010-05-18T07:59:00.000-07:00

Day One ride finish at the Royal Caribe, Orlando -- 100 miles done, 50 to go in the morning.

The Citrus Tour Photos

2010-05-18T07:55:00.001-07:00

Saturday, Day One at Mile 50, looking for some shade.

The Citrus Tour Photos

2010-05-18T06:51:00.000-07:00

Start of the MS 150, 7ish on Saturday, May 15, 2010 --- fresh and ready to ride.

MS 150 The Citrus Tour is this weekend, May 15th & 16th

2010-05-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

This weekend I'll be cycling in The Citrus Tour from Bok Tower down 100 miles of country roads and ending at Sea World in Orlando to raise money for the National MS Society. On Sunday the return route is a little bit more direct, so after only 50 miles we'll be back at Bok Tower in Lake Wales. I did this ride last year and it was a lot of fun with great people and great scenery for a very worthy cause. If you'd like to donate, please click here and follow this blog for ride news and photos.

Test yourself and take the new GFE quiz!

2010-02-05T11:34:00.001-08:00

For my seminar attendees -- click on GFE and take my new FB quiz.

The new RESPA rule!

2010-01-27T14:16:00.000-08:00

The rule has some sweeping changes - formerly the trend was towards itemization of each and every cost and the pendulum has come back to fewer numbers on the HUD with some hard and fast guarantees for origination charges and tolerances for categories of other charges when using lender recommended/approved providers.

Today, I and Ken Ynes with Diversified Mortgage did another seminar on the new forms (GFE & HUD), understanding them and helping customers best use them to shop for a loan. I didn't see many eyes glaze over so that in itself was reward enough and I'll assume we did a decent job.

The subject is complicated enough though to leave some interpretation on things like whether a lender requires a survey or the title company requires the survey. The lender requires certain title coverage that can't be given by the title company without a survey, so where does the survey charge really belong? In the 800 section for lender required charges or in the 1100 section for title required charges?

The same sort of gray area exists for fees customarily paid by Seller but included in the GFE categories. If a seller pays for owners title insurance and owners title insurance is a GFE #5 charge shouldn't the cost be disclosed on the GFE and the charge appear on the Buyer side on the HUD? (with a corresponding credit on p. 1 of the HUD) Well the RESPA FAQ says the following: "Q" If at the time a GFE is issued it is known that the seller will pay settlement charges typically paid by the borrower, how are the charges disclosed on the GFE? A: All charges typically paid by the borrower must be disclosed on the GFE regardless of whether the charges will be paid for by the borrower, the seller, or other party." Since owners title wouldn't by typically paid by the borrower in this situation its not a GFE #5.

However, the rule also states "...regardless of whether the borrower chooses to purchase a basic or enhanced owner's title insurance policy, the premium must be listed in the borrower's column on Line 1103."

It will be interesting to see how these issues shake out.

The new server is up and running!

2009-12-01T08:29:00.000-08:00

Me and the IT guy spent the holiday doing a migration to our new server and also initializing an email address change. For now, emails to our old email address are being forwarded and we're spreading the new email through responses to those emails. The website address for the company hasn't changed and we don't plan to change it. We're undergoing some major website renovations but those things should be barely noticeable until publication. Thanks for your patience! These changes will increase our efficiency and stability of the system.

Seagull Century-Tuneup Ride 10/09/09

2009-10-09T19:25:00.001-07:00

We took a short ride out to Assateague Island and visited with the wild horses -- they're pretty tame for being wild and totally unconcerned with traffic and/or people.

Quite windy on the beach - enough that the blowing sand stung our legs but the wind was at our back on the way back to the house and got up to 29 mph cruising along.

All done at 1:40 pm -- best time for me - five hours and fifteen minutes ride time. It started out rainy, was perfect for a while and ended windy.

Cycling-Seagull Century-10/08/09

2009-10-09T04:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a few photos of Travel Day, airport, lunch, dinner, etc.

Cycling Stuff

2009-10-01T02:16:00.000-07:00

I'll be out next Thursday through the following Monday (10/8 thru 10/12) for the Seagull Century - a 100 mile bike ride that starts out in Salisbury, MD. I'm totally unfamiliar with the area but the route will take us onto Assateague Island - at right are a couple photos from the ride website. The ride benefits Habitat for Humanity, Salisbury University and many local Maryland charities.

Look for lots of photos and some interesting stories on my return. Here's a link to the route for all you Marylanders http://www.seagullcentury.org/template/AssateagueCenturyDirections09.pdf

Our group will be representing Florida so naturally we are going with the whole citrus theme -- people generally can figure out where we're from based on the jersey, although there was that one person in Tahoe who thought the flamingos on our helmets were pink chickens. See our cool Florida jerseys that we reprised from the last Tahoe ride.

Departure Day 10/08/09

!! Facebook !!

2009-09-17T04:40:00.000-07:00

Remember the seminars I did on social media for real estate marketing in May when we were all so incredulous about FB growing from 40 million users in October, 2008 to 200 million in May, 2009 --- now FB has 300 million users. Wow. By the way --- visit me on FB any time :-) http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tampa-FL/Enterprise-Title-of-Tampa-Bay-Inc/72315284227

Ordering surveys

2009-09-12T04:17:00.000-07:00

We've always (well only for the past 21 years) ordered surveys on behalf of our buyers based on verbal assurances about the certainty of closing from their loan officer - basically whether the buyer would be approved and whether the appraisal would come in at contract price. Now we're getting some criticism about waiting until the appraisal is done - should we have the buyers pay up front for the survey or just quit ordering surveys altogether? Let me know what you think?