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Louise Bolger

Louise Bolger

August 17, 2017
Louise Bolger is The Sun’s Real Estate columnist.
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September 13, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

Are you ready to be an island investor?

Investing in real estate can be a lifelong dream or a recurring nightmare – usually, it turns out to be both. What sounds better than owning an island home that you can rent for outlandish prices…
September 5, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

How not to derail your transaction

It’s the night before your home closing and your broker calls and says she was just notified by the lender there is a problem with the title and closing is postponed. The moving trucks on both ends o…
August 30, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

House hunting wars

On the HGTV channel’s show “House Hunters,” they make buying a home civilized and stress-free. A smiling real estate professional shows you three homes all in your price range, all in acceptable cond…
August 22, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

Buying a condo on the beach is bound to change

How many people do you know who actually hired an engineer to inspect their purchase of a condo? I don’t mean just a building inspector to make sure the appliances, plumbing and air conditioning syst…
August 15, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

Homes with docks more valuable than ever

You’ve probably read it dozens of times in real estate advertising: “Buy a home for your boat.” Homes with access to a boat dock have always been popular, but like everything else that COVID-19 has i…
August 8, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

COVID-19 has changed the meaning of home

If it’s true that everything old is new again, we may be living through the real estate version of that idiom. Small cities and small towns sprinkled over the entire United States are having a resurg…
August 1, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

Are we starting to see a normal market?

I’m starting to read in national publications that the real estate market is beginning to return to normal with more new listings hitting the market, especially in what is considered the luxury marke…
July 25, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

The always-evolving real estate market

Not everyone wants to own a home of their own. Those of us who have always owned rather than rented understand the challenges faced in ownership, whether you’re in a single-family home or a condo. I…
July 17, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

Just when you think you’ve seen it all

At the end of June, every waterfront condo owner in the state of Florida had what may have been the shock of their real estate lives. The collapse of the oceanfront Champlain Towers South in Surfside…
July 12, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

A group home by any other name

A group home is defined as a small number of unrelated people, in need of support, living together. This may be the long-established definition, but in today’s unprecedented real estate environment i…
July 3, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

East county developments will add to Island traffic

After more than 20 years of living in Florida, I no longer look for vacation destinations that involve beaches and water views. People who have lived north for most of their lives become obsessed wit…
June 27, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

Once-in-a-generation housing shortage

If you thought the national housing market was complicated, you might want to sit down, because there’s more to this story. On June 16, The National Association of Realtors (NAR) published a distu…
June 20, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

Where are the downsizers?

Long ago and far away, homeowners getting ready to retire would sell their family home to younger families looking to move up and purchase a smaller less expensive property. There was also this crazy…
June 12, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

The explosion of the millions

As we all know, the real estate market has gone from fundamentally shut down to an unparalleled explosion of demand for housing all over the country, and particularly in Florida. Buyers and real esta…
June 6, 2021
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

Privacy and low inventory

When you purchase a home, it’s inevitable that you lose some privacy. Property purchases become public record and most counties in the United States make databases of these purchases available on the…