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Louise Bolger

Louise Bolger

August 17, 2017
Louise Bolger is The Sun’s Real Estate columnist.
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May 29, 2018
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

Taxes and second homes

By now, every homeowner should have had time to assess their tax position based on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 effective Jan. 1. If you haven’t, you have a lot of catching up to do, especially…
May 15, 2018
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

A bridge too far?

What now? After more than two decades of discussions about the pros and cons of a tall, fixed-span bridge connecting the mainland with Anna Maria Island, we’re now getting not just one bridge, but tw…
May 8, 2018
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

A real estate plateau

There is a word that no one who follows an active real estate market wants to hear, and that word is “plateauing.” What does that mean in real estate lingo? It means leveling out rather than breaking…
May 1, 2018
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

More people and we’re still growing

We’re at the end of our winter season, and as much as I hate to say it, the traffic was worse than ever. I know everyone says the same thing every year, but they’re correct every year. It is indeed w…
April 3, 2018
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

Home interest rates rising

Easter just passed, and, hopefully, you didn’t put all your eggs in one basket. But what if the United States puts maybe not all of its eggs into one basket, but a pretty large percentage of them…
February 6, 2018
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

Million-dollar sales

House styles are not that much different than fashion styles. What’s in fashion for housing may not change every year, but it does change frequently enough that buyers need to keep their antennas up…
January 9, 2018
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

New cash for the new year

We’re 10 days into the new year, and although November seems like hundreds of miles away in our rear-view mirrors, it’s actually not. There is also an interesting trend going on all over the country…
November 7, 2017
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

Is the mortgage tax deduction doomed?

Have you heard that the Trump administration and Congress are trying to get some level of tax reform accomplished? If you haven’t, you’re either living under a rock or like a lot of Americans, you ca…
August 30, 2017
By Louise Bolger
Castles in the Sand

Commissions not always what they seem

I had a mother who would negotiate anything from a batch of tomatoes to a living room sofa. It was the culture she grew up in and a little of it frankly rubbed off on me, which on several occasions h…
August 16, 2017
By Louise Bolger

Jumbo loans, jumbo prices

In the market for a high-end property, say over $1 million? You’ll have no shortage of choices on Anna Maria Island based on my latest three-month analysis of $1 million and over properties. But befo…