Homeownership is still the American Dream!

The American Dream!

American Housing is very involved in community projects and recently partnered up with the City of St. Petersburg, Florida and Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas County in order to build a new home and fulfill the dream of homeownership for a local family.

At a small home dedication ceremony celebrating this achievement, Clarence Scott, St. Petersburg City Council Member, welcomed many from the community, including Lee Kretzer and Carla Slicker from American Housing, to the “Presenting of the Keys” to the new owner, Mr. Jones. Ron Spoor of Habitat Pinellas opened with a prayer. “We gather to celebrate the commitment and determination of Mr. Jones and to thank all of the people who worked together to turn Mr. Jones’s dream of homeownership into reality. May this home we dedicate today become a beacon of hope for him and others. Together we pray. Amen.”

The New Home Dedication by Clarence Scott, III

American Housing Builders, Inc., through the City of St. Petersburg Neighborhood Stabilization Program, recently built this beautiful new home for Mr. Jones and his family. This achievement was celebrated at the home site on Tuesday, March 8, 2011 with members of the City of St. Petersburg City Council, members of the City’s NSP Program and members of Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas County.

At the ceremony, there were gifts for Mr. Jones and his family. A Habitat volunteer provided Mr. Jones with a “symbolic” Habitat for Humanity hammer to take care of those small jobs around the house. City of St. Petersburg Council Members Wingay Newton and Bill Dudley gave the proud new owners an American flag and Kevin Klucas gave a “Welcome” mat. David Fornek offered Mr. Jones a new Bible for him and his family.

Clarence Scott, City of St. Petersburg Council Member, then gave Mr. Jones the keys to his new home. A proud Mr. Jones then proceeded to thank the City and American Housing for helping him and his family achieve their dream of owning their own home.

Finally, the Reverend Daryl Sey from the St. John Missionary Baptist Church blessed this new home for Mr. Jones and his family.

Mr. Jones Entering His New Home

For more information on the City of St. Petersburg NSP program, you can go to their website at http://www.stpete.org/nsp/program_information.asp or call us for more information at 727-546-6611. American Housing is located at 6580 72 Avenue North in Pinellas Park, Florida.

Lots Reduced For Fast Sale!

“All offers will be considered.”

Will Sell Individually or as a Package!

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Mick McKenzie, an owner and officer of American Housing, welcomes you to their online Website.

American Housing is located Pinellas County, Florida and has been building quality homes in the Tampa Bay area for over twenty years. Mick is a third generation Home Builder, was licensed in the State of Florida in 1978, and has been Building New Homes and Room Additions for over thirty years.

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Many Tax Benefits for Homeowners!

FloridaRealtors.org is a great source to find useful information for Realtors and homebuyers alike when it comes to selling and buying and homes in Florida. They always have great articles of interest pertaining to what is happening in the Florida Real Estate market.

In a recent article, dated Feb. 9, 2011, it was noted that while renting a home may seem like a more economical way of living, in reality, renting a home offers no tax benfits to the home occupant at all. It went on to explain how buying a home today offers many tax breaks that actually help make homeownership even more affordable than ever before.

It outlines a few of the tax benefits that you can take as a homeowner, such as deducting the mortgage interest you pay on your home, deducting the property taxes you pay on your home, and if you live in your home for two of the past five years can will not have to pay income taxes on the majority of the profits you make on the sale of your home up to $250,000 for single homeowners and $500,000 for married homeowners who file jointly.

That is a whole lot of savings. Contact American Housing at 727-546-6611 for more information on the many tax advantages of home ownership.

Click here to read this entire article.

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We Are Not There Yet, But We Are Getting Closer!

American Housing has been building throughout the economic slow down and have recently seen an increase in activity. Many people have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for things to bottom out and it appears we may have finally gotten there. With that said, things are not going to change overnight, but they are getting better.

According to a recent article by the NAHB, housing will see a gradual improvement throughout 2011. New-home sales will begin following employment gains, reaching 405,000 for the year, up from an estimate of about 320,000 for 2010. Price increases are already occurring in some local areas, which will attract prospective buyers who have been procrastinating until they see prices hit bottom. The time to act may be right now.

For more information on American Housing Homes, call 727-546-6611.

Click here for full article.

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Santa quits the North Pole. Heads to Florida!

After a thousand years, Santa Clause has finally decided he has had enough of the snow, the blizzards, and the cold weather and is moving to sunny, warm Florida. Asked why he was making this sudden move, his response was “Ho, ho, holy winter white out, it was cold and snowy this past winter at the North Pole and I am getting tired of having to dig my sleigh out of the snow every time I have to run up to the 7-11 for more eggnog.” He said that he had been considering making this move ever since “grandma got run over by that reindeer.” It appears Rudolph’s nose was on the blink that particular night and it was during one of those nasty blizzards.

Mr. Clause said he will be moving his entire workshop to Florida and relocating all of his elves to the Tampa Bay area. His only comment on why he chose this particular area was “Arrr, I couldn’t help it, I just love those Buccaneers.” Asked what he will do with his flying reindeer when he moved, he said he would get back to us on that as soon as he could. “But Mr. Clause, what about the reindeer?” The concern for the reindeer was left unanswered as Mr. Clause headed out into the Gulf of Mexico on his new boat for a fun day of fishing. As he was leaving though, he did wave to those left behind on the dock and yelled “and please, you can call me Santa.”

Now, it seems Santa and Mrs. Clause love their new hometown. Reporters from all over the world converged on the Tampa Bay area in hopes of getting an exclusive scoop on why he and Mrs. Clause made this move. The problem was that every time they tried to ask him a few questions he was always on his way out the door. “Sorry, but Mrs. Clause and I are going to play a few holes of golf at Mangrove Bay,”  or “Sorry, but we are running to Tyrone Mall to do some shopping,” or “Sorry, but we are meeting friends at Outback Steak House for dinner,” or “Sorry, but we are on our way to Ruth Eckerd Hall for a concert.” Just so many things to do and so little time to do it. In fact, one day he was found sitting under a palm tree at the beach by the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, where he told paparazzi “Come on fellas, even I like to relax once in a while.”

So, once Mr. Clause, I mean Santa, had made his decision to move to Florida, he knew he had to find a builder to build him and Mrs. Clause their new dream home, along with a new workshop for his elves. So, the first thing he did was to get on the internet and start researching Florida builders. It didn’t take long before he decided on exactly which builder to use. After browsing through their website and making a few inquiries, he knew there was no real choice in the matter and that American Housing Builders was definitely the New Home builder for him. He remembered the owners of American Housing from when they were children and remembered how good and honest they were year after year. He fondly remembered how they always managed to somehow end up on the good list. Because of that, he knew they could be trusted to build him a quality new home and the perfect new workshop for his elves. In fact, they built the elves a workshop right next door to the Home Shopping Channel. Like they say in Real Estate, “It is always about location, location, location.” Santa’s final comment on choosing American Housing Builders was “they are the ones for me because I know they build quality homes and I need to know mine will still be here in another thousand years.”

So Santa and Mrs. Clause, like so many others from the cold north have done, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario and other areas of Canada, chose to pack up their bags, including his giant toy bag, and move to Florida in order to take advantage of its warm weather and sunny beaches. “No more digging out of the snow on those cold winter mornings for me” he said. So, if you are like Santa and are tired of the snow and cold weather and are considering moving to Florida, or even considering buying a second home in Florida to spend the winters,  be sure to contact American Housing Builders to be your new home builder. Santa knows American Housing Builders is a name you can trust and we know that you cannot ask for a better referral than Santa Clause himself. Ho, ho, home sweet home.

By the way, Santa says the reindeer are all living happily in a little Alaskan village where all of the townspeople are vegetarians.

CANADIAN REALTORS

American Housing Builders has an ongoing Referral program: 1% of the sale price for all home referrals that result in the purchase of a New or Refurbished American Housing home for Canadian, out of state and foreign Realtors. For more information on this program, please contact Lee Kretzer, an owner of American Housing Builders, at 727-546-6611 or email him at Lee@Amhousing.com

Home Town Heroes Program

American Housing Builders, Inc. is very aware of the many sacrifices the heroes of the Tampa Bay area make for their communities. These heroes include teachers, hospital workers, policemen, firemen and military personnel. We are proud of what these people do for the community and are very happy to be able to try and assist them in any way we can in helping them obtain the American Dream of owning their own home.

For more information, call American Housing at 727-546-6611.

Interest rates are down and homebuilders are willing to make concessions. Remodelers are not working to capacity at all times and may be able to give you a better deal. Everything else being equal, this would appear to be a great time to get a new construction or remodeling construction loan.

Currently there are a lot of competition for the refinancing of mortgages and buyers of new homes that meet the requirements of a loan. With mortgage interest rates well below the rate of primary interest, it is time for a mortgager writing of terms or of putting in place a mortgage on a new purchase. Each mortgage lender or broker can demonstrate substantial savings to be kept going in that direction.

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Building a custom home or remodeling in the Tampa Bay area? Don’t forget to design the laundry room. While the laundry room is often ignored in design, making your space more efficient and attractive can make your laundry experience a lot more pleasant.

Typically, the laundry room is made to look overly institutional, completely lacking design. Add a little pleasure to the unexciting task of laundry by giving your laundry room a theme. Art objects while normally disregarded for the laundry room can help support your custom selected theme. When choosing a décor make sure it will help give your laundry design a clean style to it.

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In uncertain times, bargains are everywhere, and so are the opportunities to make big mistakes. The following articles stresses sticking with the tried-and-true in order to maximize your housing dollar investment.

Affordable New Home Construction Tip #3: Keep Your Home in Shape
Those “interesting” home shapes you may have seen while you were on vacation make for a great conversation starter, but are enough to break any construction budget fast. Complicated is interesting – but simple is affordable. This doesn’t mean you need to have a cookie-cutter home, by any means. But stick to traditional home styles to stretch your home building dollar the farthest.

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Whether you are located in the Tampa Bay area, or any of the counties of Pinellas, Hillsborough or Manatee, homeowners just like you are becoming more attracted to the prospect of renovating or remodeling their homes using green building principles to make them more energy-efficient and less expensive to maintain. What seems to be a fad during the early 1990′s has now become a necessary undertaking that even the US and state government will provide tax breaks to homeowners converting to green homes.

In its most recent incarnation, the buzzword that has gained much popularity and familiarity in the home building and construction industries is the term Green Building. Contrary to what others may reckon, the concept of green building is not entirely new and has been around since the early 1970s after a group of custom home builders and building designers formed an alliance focusing on energy and resources conservation in the building and construction industry.

Since then, the growing global concerns for slowly depleting resources and increasing environmental issues have triggered the world to focus once more on these green building initiatives. The trend continues to build up as more and more homeowners and investors are trying to incorporate green building elements into their projects. Contractors are now becoming Green Custom Home Builders while realtors are slowly changing the way they call themselves to Designated Green Agents.

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Tt’s not the big things in life that get to you and your house, it’s all the little things. Most homes in the Pinellas, Manatee, and Hillsborough County areas will never be damaged by the “big weather” that occasionally blows through the Gulf Coast region of Florida. But all of our structures are vulnerable to the little guys: molds, fungi, and insects. When building or remodeling, these little things need to be planned for.

The use of efficient and ‘locally appropriate’ climate controls systems are important for not only comfort, but for the ’war against mold’. To those ends, correctly designed mechanical systems keep moisture down and comfort up in our warm,moist climate. Higher ceilings are energy efficient in that cool air stays low. Fans are fairly common in Tampaarchitecture. Air movement makes a slightly higher thermostat setting very tolerable. Use of traditional skylights and ’solatube’ skylights can help reduce lighting costs and make the living spaces more pleasant. Passive solar techniques, when possible, can give a great ‘leg up’ on reducing home energy costs.

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