S & J Journal

Letter to the Editor MIAMI HERALD May 9th, 2014 Coral Gables Management Should Be More Open The recent departure of our last city manager hopefully heralds the end of an autocratic style of government which minimized the flow of information and marginalized the input of citizens. While optimistically wishing that I am correct, I am concerned. In the City’s “E-News” of May 7, there is another “announcement” about expensive public art pieces being planned for the two “Segovia Circles” at Biltmore Way and Coral Way.     This is a project conjured up by the departed manager without broad-based input. In fact, it appears that someone in the city has narrowed the list of “artists” to five “semi-finalists.” This is reportedly a $1 million-plus project which has never had a public airing with the citizens who live in the area. The circle at Coral Way it the main entrance to the Greenway Drives – one of our classic historic neighborhoods bordering Granada Golf Course. One wo...

There’s no two ways about it – the last few weeks, at least by headline standards, have been a pretty rough period for the housing market. From faltering home sales to slowing home-price increases, there’s been a negative story on housing lurking around ever corner thus far in 2014. Is housing really doing that poorly, though? And are there grander trends taking place that bely the urgent tone of those headlines? Here are five things currently going on in housing that we can be proud of: 1. Home sales are finally balancing out 2. Delinquencies are way down 3. Negative equity is also way down 4. What mortgage rate increase? 5. Nowhere to go but up Read more at: http://miamiagentmagazine.com/5-good-things-happening-right-now-housing/#sthash.GbXCt3g4.dpuf

As they don their caps and gowns, college graduates this spring are finding more reason to celebrate: It's the best job market since the Great Recession. New graduates are fielding more job opportunities than last year or even last fall, college career counselors said. "Students are much more confident, much more optimistic about their opportunities for employment at graduation," said Sandra Jakubow, director of the career development center at Florida Atlantic University   in   Boca Raton . Nationally, employers say they plan to hire 8.6 percent more Class of 2014 graduates than they hired from the Class of 2013, according to a new survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. In South Florida, unemployment is the lowest in five years — 6.4 percent in the Palm Beach, Broward and   Miami -Dade metro area — and new jobs are being created across most industries.   Read more at Sun-Sentinel.com

A study released Thursday shows that almost two-thirds of Florida housing sales in the first quarter of this year were done in cash. That is the highest rate in the nation and well above the national average of 42.7%, according to the study by the research firm, RealtyTrac. More from   AP   and   McClatchy . Source:  FLORIDA TREND See also: »   More South Florida homebuyers making cash purchases »   Cash still king in Orlando housing market Image Source

New data is out on the states people want to leave, and it's tailor-made to troll all your Facebook friends from Illinois and the northeastern Amtrak corridor. Gallup asked people around the country whether they would move away from their states, given the chance. As it turns out, half of Illinois residents and 49 percent of all Connecticutians (Connecticutese? Connecticuters?) want to change states. In addition, it looks like a good chunk of the northeastern seaboard is just itching to pack up a U-Haul. Montanans, Hawaiians, and Mainers are least likely to say they'd want to leave, with fewer than one-quarter of those residents saying they'd move. Altogether, only 33 percent of all Americans surveyed said they'd leave their current states. Read more . . .

The U.S. high school graduation rate has reached 80 percent for the first time ever and is on track to reach a long-sought goal of 90 percent by 2020, according to newly released federal data and a report from a coalition of groups focused on boosting graduation rates. Education leaders hailed the ten-percent increase over the last decade as marked progress and highlighted particularly strong gains among minority students, but they also noted the disparities that exist between states and persistently lower graduation rates in the nation’s major cities. “Fundamentally, public schools were invented as tools of equity and opportunity, regardless of place of birth,” said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at an event hosted by Building a GradNation, a group of organizations dedicated to raising graduation rates. “However, today opportunity is in no way equally distributed across the country.” Read more at Governing.com . . .

More Americans signed contracts to buy homes in March, the first increase since June and a sign that the housing market might pick up after a sluggish start to the year. The National Association of Realtors said Monday that its seasonally adjusted pending home sales index rose 3.4 percent to 97.4 last month. Still, the index remains 7.9 percent below its level a year ago. Pending sales are a barometer of future purchases: A one- to two-month lag usually exists between a signed contract and a completed sale. The gain partly reflects a recovery from the harsh winter. Snowstorms and freezing temperatures kept many potential buyers away from open houses in January and February. Read more at U.S. News & World Report . . .