I was just reading around the web because loan fraud seems to be on the rise. Many lenders have basically been handing out money to borrowers and turning a blind eye towards the obvious fact that they probably did not have the ability to repay the loan or make the fully amortized payments. This has caused many people to have to seek alternative financing methods to fund real estate transactions. This includes private and hard money loans that use the equity in the property as the primary means to determine if they will lend on the property. Typical lenders base most of their decision on the credit of the borrower as well as their current and past financial history. Time will tell how all of this plays out, but it does not look good for many home owners, real estate investors and lending institutions across the country.

Real+Estate, Lending, Fraud, Loan

tags: fraud, lending, loan, real+estate

Many people think that Saltaire is a bunch of stuck up, snobby types running around in their capri pants and what not. Well, there is definitely a few of those walking around, I think that Saltaire is mostly made up of people who love nature and the ocean. While it has become much more money driven over the past 10 years, it is still the premier village on Fire Island. So, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

[tags]Fire Island, Saltaire, Snobs[/tags]

I just saw this picture and I had to laugh out loud. The image reads, “Fire Island Sounds Awful.” I think that this should have been the mantra of all of the island’s inhabitants over the past 3 decades so that we would not have the population on the island that we do now. There I said it. I think there are far too many people on Fire Island these days. Too many cars and trucks traversing the island and too much conflict between the people that now inhabit the island year-round. I don’t mean to sound like an old fogie, but you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that Fire Island has become too crowded.

Fire+Island, Fun, Crowded

tags: crowded, fire+island, fun

It seems like one of the most commonly asked questions I receive is, “where is Fire Island?” It is funny, I guess I just assume that anyone who lives in New York or has been to the Hamptons, knows where Fire Island is located. In case you don’t know, it is about 6 miles south of the southern shore of Long Island. It is a barrier beach, that at its widest point is only 1/4 of a mile wide. There you go.

Fire+Island, Suffolk+County, New+York, Beach

tags: beach, fire+island, new+york, suffolk+county

Well, here is the proof that the beaches on the western end of Fire Island are indeed huuuge. You can also see some pictures of the work being done on the Saltaire dock and rebuilding of the softball field. Here are the Fire Island pics.

Fire+Island, Pictures, Beach, Dock, Saltaire

tags: beach, dock, fire+island, pictures, saltaire

I am kind of a dork I guess. I like maps. When I see an old map, no matter what part of the country or world it depicts, I have to stop and look at it. There are some really great maps of Fire Island out there, but I have not found one on line. So, I am going to start posting them when I find them.

Fire+Island, Map, New+York

tags: fire+island, map, new+york

I just spoke with my mother, who in her ultimate wisdom, made her way out to Fire Island for the weekend. She was very excited and her brain was probably half frozen, but she was telling me how large the beaches are on the western end of the island. I don’t know that they are not just as wide everywhere else, but I only know that she said the beaches in Kismet and Saltaire were humongous. This is great news of course, but I think that people need to realize there are reasons that the beaches are very wide at this point. Clearly all of the sand mitigation that has been taking place over the past 5 years has made a differece. As winter comes and wave action picks up, the large surf “pulls” the sand off shore until smaller, more rolling waves, push the sand back in to the beach. But, this is not to say that the sand will stay there forever. There is something called the long shore transport, which is a term to describe the effect of lateral wave action on the sand. The long shore transport moves sand up or down the beach (depending on the area). This is very easy to see most days on the beach as waves do not hit the shore at a perfect 90 degree angle every time.

So, what does all of this mean? Simply that if the people of Fire Island want to have great beaches each year, then we need to continue adding more sand to the supply every year or at the very least, on a consistent basis. More about this later.

Fire+Island, Suffolk+County, New+York, Beaches, Erosion, Oceanography, Long+Shore+Transport

tags: beaches, erosion, fire+island, long+shore+transport, new+york, oceanography, suffolk+county

Well, we finally made the switch from Blogger to WordPress. For those of you with beach brain, these are both blogging platforms and one is like a Yugo and the other a Ferrari. Blogger is great because you can sign up and be blogging in about 2 minutes. WordPress is also easy to use and setup, but you have to have a fair amount of knowledge about web servers and stuff like that…which I do. So, we made the switch over because there are simply too many reasons to make the switch. This will likely mean better and more frequent updates to the Fire Island Blog in the future. So, that is a good thing, I think.

Well, if Hurricane Wilma flies true to the course that the National Weather Service is currently predicting, there could be some heavy wave action or worse in store for the southern shore of Fire Island in the next week. Fire Island’s south shore faces due South and if Wilma passes over Florida and strenghens or makes a run up the Atlantic coast, it could mean big trouble for the island. A storm has already wreaked havoc on the dunes in many communities along Fire Island this fall and a hurricane could spell big problems for homeowners and residents alike. I am sure we will all be keeping our fingers crossed that Wilma turns around and goes back where she came from.

Fire Island, Hurricane+Wilma, Wilma

tags: fire island, hurricane+wilma, wilma

I just received a few pictures via email showing a couple of pictures of the beachfront in Ocean Beach, Fire Island during a recent storm. The pictures showed one house in the surfline and another showed the stairs leading from behind the dunes to the beach in the air above ground that had been eroded away by wave action. I am not sure what the current status of the dunes in Ocean Beach are, but this is clearly a problem that will increase in years to come. As more rivers are plugged and jeddis, like those in front of Ocean Beach, cause more erosion problems up and down the beach, sand will become more and more of a scarce resource on the barrier beaches of New York and the Atlantic coastline.