BarbaraJo's Blog - Clearwater and Pinellas County Florida Real Estate -

Crystal Beach Florida is fabulous indeed and not just because I live there! This wonderful community located directly on the Gulf of Mexico in north Pinellas County has no traffic lights, congestion or mail delivery! Yes, I did say no mail delivery! There are NO mailboxes in front of any of the homes in Crystal Beach! Every household has a PO Box in our little post office where we go to get our mail!!!

But don't underestimate Crystal Beach! We have some fantastic homes here too! Like this on:

Located at 511 North Mayo Street, this wonderful Key West style home has 3,444 sq ft. With 5 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms on three floors, this lovely home has a Gulf front view and a great spa and pool where you can lounge around all day!

If you would like more information on this home, which is currently on the market for $2,300,000. just give me a call at 727-512-0910! I would love to show it to you!!!

Or, if you prefer something like this one:

Located at 1050 Point Seaside in Crystal Beach, this home is 5,004 sq ft and has 4 bedrooms with 5.5 bathrooms. Built in 1992, this home boasts wood flooring, a wrought iron staircase and a chef kitchen to die for!!! This is listed in the MLS for $1,785,000.

If you would like more information on fabulous Crystal Beach Florida, give me a call today at 727-512-0910! Crystal Beach is one of the best kept secrets in the area! Just across Alt 19 from Palm Harbor and a little north of Clearwater, you are minutes from schools, stores and shopping and yet in a little bit of paradise!!!

Crystal Beach, Florida, is indeed a great place to live! Ron and I moved into our new place about 2 months ago and have everything unpacked and hung up already. Living only 2 blocks from the Gulf of Mexico sure has its advantages. Want to take an evening stroll? What could be more inviting than this scene?

Shade trees and benches so you have a place to sit and contemplate life (or your naval) and appreciate the fact that we live in Paradise.

Crystal Beach is a unique place. There is NO home mail delivery! Everyone has a PO Box and picks the mail up at our little post office. The hours there are also unique: 10-12 and 2-4 Monday through Friday. There is morning mail delivery to the boxes on Saturday, but the counter is closed if you want to mail something.

A wonderful, laid back community of artists, musicians, small business owners and people who know to appreciate the little things in life. There are no restaurants or stores, but as small as this community is, you are only a few blocks from Palm Harbor and Ozona, which have a wide selection of shops, restaurants and anything else you could possibly need.

Crystal Beach, our home in the Florida Sun!!!!

Well, it has finally happened!!! Way back in February I wrote a contract on a REO property. Last week it closed! It was a fight to the finish!

The entire thing was being handled by a group of attorneys in Ft Lauderdale. The condo involved is here in Clearwater, the listing agent lives in Tallahassee and the bank that held everything was in Utah.........do you see where I am going with this???

It was a MESS - people not responding for weeks to requests for information, a large law firm with too many people working on the file and nobody telling the rest of the group what they were doing.

The fact what the buyer was up in Canada was the EASY part - he at least responded to e-mails and phone calls!

After 3 closing extensions, none of them due to anything the buyer did, we finally got to closing day. The buyer (paying CASH) wired the funds down to Ft Lauderdale - the attorney's office e-mails me 5 days later that they are waiting for funding - even though the same day as the funds were wired another person in the same attorney's office had e-mailed me that the funds were there!!!! HELLO - Does Peter Know What Paul Is Doing????

I worked harder on this one than I have ever had to work on a closing before! It wasn't a multimillion dollar deal, but I do have a young couple from Ontario that are pleased to now own a vacation condo in Clearwater.

As far as REOs - - - I don't know if I will EVER write another REO contract - - - they are a royal pain!!!

There is nothing as beautiful as the assortment of sea birds we have here in the state. Combine that with our mangroves that have their roots in the salt water and you have a true tropical paradise.

This is just a typical day in Florida with a beautiful egret sitting in a mangrove watching the water for fish.

They watch, wait and swoop down for dinner!!! And if you are here to catch bait fish, they fly over and attempt to steal fish from you.

Just another day in paradise!!! This is all salt water that you are viewing here!!!

While out fishing last weekend I got a photo of this Great Blue Heron after it decided to steal a mullet from the bucket we had them in.

Ron always uses a cast net to get our bait fish and he also managed to get about a dozen mullet in his net - they are great smoked or blackened!!!

I was over getting something from the SUV so he simply put them in an open bucket since we did not think the Heron would take something this large ! While he did steal the fish, I ran after him and he dropped it - so I got it back again!!!!

The mullet dinner was GREAT!!!!!