Gulf Coast Connection  
St Petersburg, Clearwater & Tampa Real Estate Services

Like so many Americans across the nation, Julie Clark commutes to work. But she doesn't drive, walk or even take a bus or train. Instead, she flies a plane.

An unnamed buyer paid more than $90 million for a Midtown Manhattan penthouse, the highest price ever paid for a New York apartment, according to the building's developer.

Buying a home has reached its most affordable level in more than two decades.

The Basis Point is a popular mortgage and housing blog that tracks consumer critical issues and data. It is edited by Julian Hebron, a retail mortgage lender who runs the San Francisco branches of RPM Mortgage.

Buying a home just got even cheaper as interest rates on both 30-year and 15-year-fixed-rate mortgages set record lows for the third week in a row.

Foreclosure filings in April fell for the third straight month to the lowest level since July 2007.

Bank of America is offering some struggling homeowners payments of up to $30,000 if they sell their homes in a short sale and avoid ending up in foreclosure.

The percentage of borrowers who have dropped behind on their mortgage payments fell to a four-year low in the first three months of 2012, a bankers' group said Wednesday.

Laurie Goodman is an apolitical number cruncher who has spent most of her 28-year career out of the public view, studying the minutiae of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) for big investment banks. She's long been a star among Wall Street insiders, however. She holds the record for the most top rankings for fixed-in-come research from the trade bible Institutional Investor.

The film emperor may be striking back. For 25 years, filmmaker George Lucas tried to persuade his Marin County, Calif., neighbors to let him build a digital production studio on his ranch there, but the area's residents thwarted the plan.

A recent sale in New York's famed 740 Park Avenue apartment building marked the highest price ever paid for a co-op in the city's history.

One of America's most flamboyant private residences lies in the woods of northwest New Jersey. It's the personal vision of artist and craftsman Ricky Boscarino and reflects his eccentric world view.

It's hard to imagine a less enjoyable way to blow $5,000 to $15,000 (or more) than putting on a new roof.

Ricky Boscarino is a sculptor, painter and jewelry maker whose biggest art project for the past 23 years has been his home on five quiet acres.

Mortgage interest rates hit new lows this week as both the 30-year and the 15-year fixed-rates fell, according to a weekly survey by Freddie Mac. It was the second consecutive week that rates broke records.