Florida Mortgage Rehab and Renovation

On a recent visit “home” to the New York Metropolitan Area, I enjoyed the family, my friends and the “accented English” spoken in the Big Apple!  But one thing happened to me that actually made me realize that making the move to Florida was one of the greatest decisions my husband and I have ever made.  Don’t get me wrong, I love New York, always have and always will, but I now know that just about anything you can get there, you can get here, except maybe veal cutlets!  All kidding aside, the winter spent here was the grandest winter I have ever spent.  I finally discarded the ice scraper, the can of de-freeze so the car door locks will not stick and some very scary hat that covers everything but my eyes, sort of early bank robber!  As the winter gave way to spring, we were at the beach more often, while my loved ones were enduring a never ending deluge of rain, sleet and genuinely lousy weekends!  We had a drought, but, as if on schedule, June 1st came and with it the much needed percipitation!  Now I know that the rainy season is June, July and August, we still have mostly perfect mornings, a few downpours for a short while and then back to normal.  Just enough to water the lawn and plants and not cause too much damage to plans for outdoor fun.  I realized that I have never worn a coat since I moved here.  I realized that you do not need to travel to the Caribbean or other exotic locales to find sand, surf and all things outdoor right here in Florida.  I used to enjoy the Jersey Shore on those weekends in the summer and look at the sailboats.  But, too many rainouts in the summer up north made me question why anyone would invest in boating there when they could boat here anytime in Flagler, or Volusia county or anywhere in the state.

I miss many things about New York, not the least of which is my family and real close, childhood friends but we seem to get together for more quality time now that we are here in this beautiful state than we did at “home.”  Now they come for a week or 10 days at a time.  Sometimes it would take 6 months before I would see friends 10 times!  It makes me happy to know that we can have beauty, fun, active lifestyle and lots of company here in God’s Paradise on Earth.  I hope that if you are reading this, you either live here or plan to do so in the near future.  Yes we have had a couple of hurricanes but that was rare for our part of paradise and prior to 2004, it was decades since the last hurricane.  California and the great Southwest have fires and earthquakes and unrelenting heat, the midwest is Tornado alley and the Northeast will freeze your nose til it is ready to fall off.  But this beautiful country of ours is still the greatest place on earth and I think Glen and I picked the most beautiful state in the union, Florida, a place I am happy to call home. 

Since 1984, Joanne has been a mortgage professional.  She has owned and managed her own firm and now is a Senior Loan Consultant for Advanced Mortgage Solutions of South Florida, Inc., a firm based in Boca Raton, but she writes loans all over the state of Florida.

Joanne Mathisen is the author of Gems from Jo.  To reach her for mortgage advice contact Joanne at jomathisen@aol.com or 561-578-0666.