March 2009

I read with great interest the other day an article in the Naples Daily News that talked about a specific Naples builder who was offering buyer protection that would protect the purchaser against any loss during a market downturn. The plan is known as new home price protection and has recently been offered nationwide by a company out of Texas called EquityLock Financial.

The plan is structured as a contract, not as an insurance plan and is tied to a local market index. Should the index drop at the point of a sale, EquityLock will pay the percentage that the index has dropped despite whether the sale shows a profit or loss.

The plan is offered to not only developers and builders, but to average homeowners as well. The cost is between 2% to 3% of the…

The other day I read a wonderful article in the Naples Daily News titled Still In The Family. It was about the history of the Naples Zoo, formerly called Caribbean Gardens, and how far it had come since the early days of when Dr. Henry Nehrling, one of Florida's premier botanists, founded Caribbean Gardens in 1919 as a botanical garden. In 1954   margarine magnet, Julius Fleishman, began the rescue and expansion of the gardens and in 1969 animals were first introduced by the current zoo Director David Tetzlaff's parents, "Jungle Larry" and "Safari Jane" Tetzlaff. That was actually the beginning of the zoo as we know it today and when you look at how far it has come from those humble beginnings, it is truly amazing.

I am a member of the zoo and one of…