Question:  Are the tennis courts at European Village open for play?  If so, how do you go about reserving a court?

Toby Says:  The tennis courts and swimming pool are a part of the old Players Club adjacent to European Village. It was once owned by Peter Rohr, developer of European Village and intended to be an amenity available to European Village. Peter since lost the players club in foreclosure. It is currently closed and for sale.

Question:  I purchased a home in Palm Coast while I still owned another home in Florida. In December 2006 I homesteaded my Palm Coast property. I continued to own my other property but had it on the market. I closed on the other property in July 2007, not yet knowing about portability. Is there any way I can gain a portability benefit?

Toby Says:  Even though you sold your other home in 2007, you abandoned the homestead exemption on that property when you moved to Palm Coast in 2006. This excludes you from portability.

Toby Says:  As part of a deal between the developers of adjacent property and Sea Ray Boats, Roberts Road is being extended to Colbert Lane.

Question:  I'm hearing all kinds of rumors as to Ginn resorts going bust or limiting usage of facilities.  I have even been told that outside creditors are taking everything over. If you can would you inform me as to what is going on.

Toby Says:  Ginn is certainly facing cash flow problems. June 30, the company missed both principal and interest payments on two Credit Suisse credit vehicles totaling $675 million. They were granted a 30-day abatement to allow time to reorganize their debt. (see story) The cash flow issues can be noticed in some places as reduction in staff, in others through aggressive pricing of existing inventory. The picture should become clearer soon since the abatement expires in one week.

Question:  Your square foot analysis is very misleading. Shape has more to do with sf calculation than does another measure of central tendency. For example a perfectly square building with walls 50 feet each is 2,500 square feet. The same 200 LF of wall that is 1 foot wide and 99 feet long would only be 99 sf. If the cost of the walls are say $10,000 the perfectly square building would be $4.00 per square foot compared to the rectangle example which would be $101.00 per square feet. So you see the "shape" of the building plays a significant roll in the calculation of the square foot cost. Also the cuts in the walls which would not change the total square feet will increase the cost per square foot because the wall lineal feet will increase. Let's also not forget the height of the walls. When a wall increases from say 8 feet to 10 feet the average cost per square foot would increase about 25% not 20% due to the fact that the additional height contains a solid wall with no door or window openings and again this could go the other way if expensive windows are used in the home. My point? Square foot price is totally irrelevent unless you take ONE set of plans and get prices from builders. Then that square foot price is okay to use since it is based on a constant set of plans.

Toby Says:  Everything in your comment is true except the first sentence. I do not provide a square foot analysis. I only quote square foot statistics as a guide. Your analysis is aimed more toward comparable construction costs. Square foot analysis for home value comparison is flawed for many reasons:

• The underlying value of the lot is included
• Age of the home is not included
• Location is excluded
• Neither special features (pool, golf frontage, granite counters, etc.) nor deficiencies (deteriorating neighborhood, poor floor plan, etc.) are included.

Still, Zillow.com and HouseValue.com use square footage as their basis. Even a qualified analysis of property value starts with square footage, then adjusts for other factors. When making macro comparisons, median price rather than price per square foot is much more meaningful. That is why I use median in my analysis.