Latest news with #PhilThompson
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Florida Condo Owners Given Unique Opportunity To ‘Swap' Their Unit for House Down Payment Amid State's ‘Condo Crisis'
Florida condo owners are battling a wave of housing issues, including rising HOA fees and skyrocketing insurance costs, with little to no relief from government officials. But Phil Thompson, owner of a luxury custom homebuilder and home-renovation company, is hoping to quell the concerns of millions of condo owners in the Sunshine State with an innovative housing solution. In a swap that seems too good to be true, Thompson is offering to take condos out of the hands of frustrated Floridians and use their value as a down payment for a home under his own company, Coral Reef General Contracting in Fort Pierce. 'As far as the rules of condos, we're entertaining every offer from sellers,' Thompson tells Despite a general shift toward single-family homes in Florida, real estate agents still have a vested interest in condos, which serve a clientele who prefer their convenience, lower maintenance, or specific lifestyles. The median list price of Florida homes in May was $439,999, and condo ownership has become less affordable, particularly for those on fixed incomes in Florida, and many are looking for a way out. In what Thompson claims is a first-of-its-kind 'condo-swap' in Florida, he says he's not worried if a condo appears battered, broken, or run down. With prior experience working with New York City's high-rises, he assures Florida owners that the sky's the limit when it comes to taking in a less-than-perfect condo. 'We'll take a look from the best to the worst conditions,' says Thompson. 'We're not adverse to taking condominiums that have structural problems. I'm not concerned with that because of my structural experience from Manhattan.' Thompson sympathizes with condo owners in Florida who are scrambling to sell their property and saw an opportunity to aid those looking to level up their housing situation. 'So we're not worried about any of these problems,' he adds. 'They're all fixable. Our main concern is to get our buyers here and take the burden off our buyers' backs and make it a nice, transparent, smooth transaction for them.' Coral Reef is offering housing options on South Hutchinson Island that range from $1,500,000 to $3,000,000—depending on the property's proximity to the coastline and other amenities. Thompson says the incentive to ditch an old condo has drummed up enough marketing by itself. Despite a small loss here and there, Thompson is satisfied with the program and its impact. 'On a case-by-case basis, I may lose a few dollars on the condo, but the fact is that we bring our buyer from a negative situation into a positive situation. And it's all about word of mouth—that's how you grow, and that's how you make it in this business,' he adds. In April, both chambers of the Florida Legislature voted unanimously to pass House Bill 913, addressing endless complaints over the rising fees for condominium owners, despite pushback from Gov. Ron DeSantis. Essentially, the bill would aid condominium associations in setting up credit lines and investing funds that would contribute to necessary building repairs instead of immediately looking to owners for the money. 'You had people that were going to be forced out of their condos potentially because of legislation that had come down the pipe,' DeSantis said during a May 20 appearance in Tampa, referencing recent safety laws, as reported by NBC Miami. Condo reform laws continue after a devastating collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside in 2021, which killed 98 people. After the incident, there was a massive effort to improve safety conditions regarding condos over 30 years of age and three stories tall. The new safety laws called for 'milestone' inspections and sought to invest in reserve funds for repairs and maintenance. Lawmakers such as state Rep. Vicki Lopez (R-Miami) have backed the bill, claiming it balances the need for structural safety with financial flexibility, particularly in the context of the rising costs of repairs and insurance for Florida condos, as reported by the Florida Phoenix. 'This incredible bill addressing the condominium crisis we have all heard about for the last year gives a lot of financial relief,' Lopez says. The bill also introduces electronic voting, making it easier for condo owners to participate in decisions, which could be DeSantis' main point of objection. Despite some reservations, Florida lawmakers are confident that the governor will sign the bill, as he's spoken about the condo issue on several occasions in the past couple of months. 'We have this condo issue, that legislation that caused these crushing assessments,' DeSantis said during a press conference in Fruitland Park. 'We know people need relief from that. We've got to do it. The Senate's got a great product that can do it.' HB 913 has been sent to the governor's desk for his signature. Once signed, the bill goes into effect on July 1. 'Captain America' Star Chris Evans Puts L.A. Home on the Market for $7 Million as He Quits California To Move Back to East Coast Inside NBC 'Nightly News' Host Lester Holt's Property Portfolio as He Steps Down After a Decade Billy Joel Relists 14-Acre Main Portion of His Long Island Estate for $29.9 Million
Daily Mail
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
There has been too much tragedy for Liverpool to endure. The overwhelming emotion in the city is simply 'not again', writes IAN HERBERT
There was an enormous silence on Tuesday after day broke on the place where all hell had let loose. The preservation of the crime scene had delayed the post-parade clean-up, so the beer cans, the wine bottles, the red confetti and the cheap little 'Champions' flags still littered the streets around the place where a vehicle was driven into Liverpool fans. Reminders of the joy that came before the horror. The desolation was more understated, yet no less vivid, out under leaden skies on Queens Drive, a few miles from the centre of town — always part of the open-top-bus parade route, where generations of people have hung out flags, posters and bunting and shinned up lampposts over the years. It was near this thoroughfare's junction with Utting Avenue that Phil Thompson jumped off Liverpool's open-top bus in May 1981 and asked the occupants of one of the nearby houses if he could avail himself of their toilet. 'Upstairs, second on the left,' came back the swift reply, though by the time Thompson had re-emerged, the bus carrying the club's European Cup-winning team was disappearing off under a railway bridge. He flagged down a passing ice cream van and asked for a lift. 'No problem, but you'll have to climb in through the hatch,' he was told. Simpler, gentler times, when the idea of a vehicle running down football supporters and the following morning's news bulletins incorporating a discussion of 'hostile vehicle mitigation' would have been utterly inconceivable. A professor of 'urban risk and resilience' suggested on the BBC on Tuesday morning that some kind of 'constantly moving' cordon might be necessary to make trophy parades safe. Who knows when Liverpool will next stage such a victory tour, but it seems reasonable to assume that such events will never be quite the same again. No more Thommo and the ice cream van. For the city awaking to the aftermath of an incident which left 65 injured and children seriously hurt, the overwhelming emotion was simply, 'Not again'. Part of Liverpool's sadness seemed to reside in the familiarity of shocking scenes at what should have been a great football occasion. Tom Sutherland, a supporter walking on Liverpool's Strand, near the scene of Monday's catastrophe, wished there had been no need for the reminder, provided by Sir Kenny Dalglish, that no one ever 'walks alone' in Liverpool. 'We're all pulling together again and everyone can take strength from that,' he tells me. 'But we've been here too often before. The morning after, the week after, the year after some terrible thing. We've had to live with too much of this.' He's talking about events at Hillsborough in April 1989, of course. Though by a grim coincidence, Monday evening's events also came ahead of Thursday's 40th anniversary of the Heysel Disaster, which killed 39 mainly Italian supporters who were in the Belgian capital to watch Juventus's European Cup final against Liverpool. The culpability of a small, violent group of Liverpool fans that night contributed substantially to the sense of this city's devastation in the aftermath. Both those tragedies are remembered at Anfield. Two red scarves were tied on Tuesday to the small beech tree at the stadium's Hillsborough memorial, where mementos have been placed also marking the 20th league title that the fans who died at Sheffield Wednesday's ground never lived to see. Plans for a new memorial to the 39 who died at Heysel have also been announced by Liverpool, to coincide with this week's anniversary. 'Yes, we at this club have known too much tragedy,' says Dave Higginson, near the spot on the stadium's 'Champions Wall' where the number of league titles now registers 20. 'Not this. Not at this time.' In nearby Coningsby Road, where a mural of Virgil van Dijk adorns a gable-end wall, a group of young people speak of Monday's celebration being something they'd waited all their lives to see. 'The reason so many were here was that we didn't get the chance in the Covid season,' says one of them, Liam. Down in the city, the fragments of nightmarish memory on the morning after the night before included the revving of the engine of the Ford Galaxy which was used to wreak havoc, the driver incessantly sounding the horn and the sight of a woman lodged under the vehicle as the car was being besieged. There was the frantic struggle to get out of the city on Monday night. A mass panic to get away from the scene made it difficult to reach buses, some of which were running half-empty for a time. Crowds poured up towards the Mersey Tunnel as relatives drove around trying to pick them up. Hundreds queued for ferries back to the Wirral, though that service struggled to deal with the numbers. It's a measure of the way that terror forms part of our landscape that one woman standing close to the spot where the car ran amok on Monday had also been caught up in the 2017 attack on Barcelona's Las Ramblas, when a van was driven into pedestrians. Her boyfriend, who was with her for Liverpool's parade, had himself been caught up in the Manchester Arena attack, in the same year. The forensic investigation of the vehicle is only one part of the challenge for the authorities. At an impromptu press conference for those of us standing near the crime scene at 10.30am, Liverpool Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram discussed the importance of identifying the driver of the vehicle as a white, local man to prevent others using the event to incite racial unrest. 'The police's need to do that tells us that social media is a cesspit,' said Rotheram. 'That things can run riot.' There was attempted incitement from the social media swamp, despite everyone's best efforts. Ant Middleton, a provocateur who spoke at the Reform UK party conference in 2024, tweeted in response to the Merseyside force's public statements: 'Do not believe anything that comes from police statements or the msm (mainstream media).' Such is the world we are in. For Mark Lawrenson, a five-times title winner with Liverpool, the bewildering modern scale of title celebrations, and of football support more generally, makes everything harder to manage and predict. 'When we beat Everton in the 1986 FA Cup after taking the league away from them the week before, the two teams flew back together and we did our open-top bus tours together,' Lawrenson tells me. 'We were on the first bus, the media were on the second and Everton were on the third. Imagine that today! 'We live in a strange world where there would be huge crowds for the opening of a plastic bag. I'm just pleased that I was born when I was and played when I did.' Back in those 1980s days, Liverpool would take the bus up to the old Speke Airport, to get around as many people as possible, travelling at 30mph on some stretches. 'Because not many people were watching,' Lawrenson recalls. The extraordinary contemporary scale of Liverpool FC was evident everywhere on Tuesday. In the hundreds up at the stadium and hundreds more queuing to buy merchandise from the club store in the city centre. Lawrenson hopes that the events of Monday night do not affect future celebrations of a Liverpool title, though feels that they might. 'If none of this had happened, we would probably be remembering it as the greatest bus tour ever, with 250,000 people lining the streets,' he says. 'With so many people, it only takes one guy to change the entire complexion of an event.' New details released by the police on Tuesday night suggested the authorities did all they could. Water Street, where the incident occurred, had been closed off to vehicles and was only opened to allow an ambulance to attend to an individual suffering a suspected heart attack. The man under arrest lives a football pitch's distance from Queens Drive. 'Don't regulate these events. They're safe,' says Steve, a fan at Coningsby Road. But it is hard to equate that observation with the desolation and bewilderment down on debris-strewn Water Street. The vehicle which had been the source of the horror is encased in a blue-and-white pneumatic tent, at the spot where it came to rest. Fans in Liverpool shirts look dazed. The city had hoped such moments were in its past. This will take some getting over.
Int'l Cricket Council
07-05-2025
- Sport
- Int'l Cricket Council
UAE fined for slow over-rate against Netherlands
The United Arab Emirates have been fined five per cent of their match fee for maintaining a slow over-rate against the Netherlands in the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup League 2 match played in Amstelveen on Tuesday. Phil Thompson of the Emirates ICC International Panel of Match Referees imposed the sanction after the UAE were ruled to be one over short of the target after time allowances were taken into consideration. In accordance with Article 2.22 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which relates to minimum over-rate offences, players are fined five per cent of their match fee for every over their side fails to bowl in the allotted time. The UAE captain Rahul Chopra pled guilty to the offence and accepted the proposed sanction, so there was no need for a formal hearing. On-field umpires Nitin Bathi and Roland Black leveled the charge.
Daily Record
02-05-2025
- Daily Record
Mum tells of horror moment toddler prised from jaws of American bulldog during terrifying attack
The brutal attack, which in the back garden of their home, left the youngster and a two-year-old seriously injured in hospital. A mum has told of the horrifying moment her three-year-old son had to be prised from the jaws of an American bulldog. The brutal attack, which in the back garden of their home on Johnson Avenue in Prescot, Merseyside, left the youngster and a two-year-old seriously injured in hospital. The six-month-old animal, named Oakley, suddenly mauled the boys at around 4pm on Thursday. As reported by the Mirror, the mum, who has not been named, said "we're not coping" as she explained her son had been asking about the family dog who was taken away to be put down. She said she was "so thankful" to neighbours who helped to save them, adding the boys are now being treated for puncture wounds and lacerations to their arms and legs - and are having to undergo surgery to stitch up their wounds. The mum told the BBC that the boys are expected to make a "full recovery" and have been their "normal cheeky selves" in hospital. The children are believed to have been playing in the garden when Oakley unexpectedly grabbed the older boy. The adults then had to prise the dog's jaws open to release the three-year-old, when the bulldog quickly grabbed the younger boy before being dragged away. A neighbour - who declined to be named - said: 'I heard screaming and I saw this little boy coming down the path. His leg had been chewed to pieces. I grabbed him and cradled him while I called an ambulance. I held onto him until the ambulance arrived.' The mum thanked the neighbour who intervened, saying if it were not for her "I might not have a son". She added that the older boy had been asking about Oakley, who was taken away by police to be put down. "We're not coping," she said. "Not only are we dealing with the two kids, we're also grieving for the family dog." She said, however, that the children were well in the aftermath of the horror attack. "They're still the same kids, they're still their same cheeky, attitude-y little selves," she said. "The way they are in themselves, you wouldn't know anything had happened, but of course it has." Chief Inspector Phil Thompson, from Merseyside Police, branded the attack a "shocking incident". He said: "We are in the very early stages of investigating this incident and the dog has been seized at the home, he said. Enquiries are ongoing to establish the breed of the dog and identify the owner."
Daily Mirror
02-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
Prescot dog attack: Mum's horror after toddler prised from jaws – 'we're not coping'
A six-month-old American Bulldog named Oakley suddenly launched an attack on two toddlers in the back garden of their home on Johnson Avenue, Prescot, on Thursday A mum has told of the horrifying moment her three-year-old son had to be prised from the jaws of an American bulldog during a brutal attack that left the youngster and a two-year-old seriously injured in hospital. "We're not coping", she said, as she explained her son had been asking about the family dog who was taken away to be put down. The six-month-old animal, named Oakley, suddenly mauled the boys in the back garden of their home on Johnson Avenue, Prescot, at around 4pm on Thursday. The dog had been living with the family since it was around eight or nine weeks old, and had reportedly never shown any signs of aggression before Thursday's attack. The mum said she was "so thankful" to neighbours who helped to save them, adding the boys are now being treated for puncture wounds and lacerations to their arms and legs - and are having to undergo surgery to stitch up their wounds. She told the BBC that the boys are expected to make a "full recovery" and have been their "normal cheeky selves" in hospital. The children are believed to have been playing in the garden when Oakley unexpectedly grabbed the older boy. The adults then had to prise the dog's jaws open to release the three-year-old, when the bulldog quickly grabbed the younger boy before being dragged away. A neighbour - who declined to be named - said: 'I heard screaming and I saw this little boy coming down the path. His leg had been chewed to pieces. I grabbed him and cradled him while I called an ambulance. I held onto him until the ambulance arrived.' The mum thanked the neighbour who intervened, saying if it were not for her "I might not have a son". She added that the older boy had been asking about Oakley, who was taken away by police to be put down. "We're not coping," she said. "Not only are we dealing with the two kids, we're also grieving for the family dog." But she said the children were well in the aftermath of the horror attack. "They're still the same kids, they're still their same cheeky, attitude-y little selves," she said. "The way they are in themselves, you wouldn't know anything had happened, but of course it has." Chief Inspector Phil Thompson, from Merseyside Police, branded the attack a "shocking incident". He said: "We are in the very early stages of investigating this incident and the dog has been seized at the home, he said. Enquiries are ongoing to establish the breed of the dog and identify the owner."
