PROJECT AZZAM: Exclusive footage in Hamburg of the ultra secret 590 foot yacht; the largest yacht in the world

                       

The Mortgage Forgiveness Act's Set To Expire

Until now people whom had sold there home via short sale did not have to count the forgivable unpaid debt as income on there tax returns. This is because of the mortgage forgiveness act of 2007. This act ends on December 31st of this year. An example of what that means to you is Jeff Shingledecker. His home went on the market in April of 2012. Within 24 hours the home had a full price offer of $105,000 and currently still under contract. This left him, as with so many other Americans, with a debt of $118,000 still not paid to the lender to be forgiven. If he sold the home prior to the end of the relief act he will not owe any money on the relief of that debt. If the home sells after the relief of the debt he will owe the government $29,500 in tax's on the cancelled debt given his tax bracket. That is nearly 30 percent of the debt the government will now collect. During the firth three months alone, 6649 short sales where completed in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade counties. With home price's already rising and inventory already depleting there is no measurable way to grasp what this will do when people look at whether to do a short sale all together. Most people will consider options, including simply filing for bankruptcy and keeping the house as opposed to having to pay nearly $30,000 in a year for every $100,000 the bank forgave on a 30 year loan.

2004 Kalimna Block 42

An Australian winery Friday unveiled 12 bottles of a rare vintage for sale at  Aus$168,000 (US$170,350) each.

The wine is held in a unique hand-blown glass “ampoule” designed to provide the ideal environment for the liquor, and this is suspended inside a bespoke glass container which sits inside a wooden cabinet.

“It is our understanding this is one of the most expensive Australian wines released in this unique format,” said Penfolds spokeswoman Ildi Ireland.

But when the buyer decides to crack open the high-priced vintage, he or she will have to call out a senior member of Penfolds’ wine-making team, the only person with the correct training to uncork the prized bottle.

The wine expert will travel to wherever the customer is to remove the ampoule from its glass casing and open the bottle using a specially-designed device.

“The wine contained within the ampoule, first released in the 1950s, holds a particular significance among generations of Australian and international wine collectors,” Penfolds said in a statement.

The wine, a 2004 Kalimna Block 42 Cabernet Sauvignon, is a rare single-vineyard wine which is only released in stellar vintages.

The Block 42 vineyard, planted in the mid-1880s, is in South Australia’s Barossa Valley and Penfolds said it is thought to have some of the oldest continuously-producing Cabernet Sauvignon vines in the world.

“There is something really magical about the 2004 Block 42 Kalimna Cabernet,” said Penfolds chief winemaker Peter Gago.

“It has an ethereal dimension and a saturated blackness on the palate, it’s extraordinarily perfumed with layer upon layer of flavour.”

Four artisans were commissioned to produce the ampoule and casings which feature fixtures made from precious metals that help anchor the glass sculpture to the jarrah wood box.

Penfolds, which has been producing wines since 1844, is known for its Grange wines — Australia’s most famous.

One of the ampoules will remain at Penfolds’ Magill Estate Winery in South Australia, and one will be kept by luxury retailer DFS and feature at the Master of Spirits event in Singapore early in the New Year, Penfolds said.



   

Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami all ranked in the top 30 housing markets in The United States. The West Palm Beach/Boca Raton market lead the way with a 14.0 percent increase in home price's from one year before. Home price's rose 1.29 percent from just a month before. Listing inventory in is down 19.79 percent from the year before and down 3.22 percent from the month before.

The market in Fort Lauderdale came in directly behind Palm Beach County. While the market only rose 6.91 percent from the year prior and .06 percent from the month before, the inventory in Fort Lauderdale 28.70 percent from the year before.  

Miami’s home price rose 15.4 percent from the year prior while inventory was down 32.0 percent from the year prior. All of these are extremely strong indicators that the market has not only recovered but is going well in the other direction.