The online Parade of Homes allows Florida homebuyers to view homes by neighborhood and community as well as search for specific homes. Plus, viewers can easily create a home tour route for going out to tour the homes in person after previewing them online.

Home locations include Ponte Vedra, Intracoastal West, St. Johns, Fleming Island, Clay County, Westside, Central Southside, Northside & Nassau and more. Communities include Yellow Bluff Landing, Pine Eagle Estates, Pine Ridge, Victoria Lakes, Flora Parke, The Hideaway, Greenleaf Village, Madeira, RiverTown and more. Home builders include ICI Homes, GreenPointe Homes, Lennar, D.R. Horton, Richmond American Homes, KB Home, Dream Finders Homes and Mattamy Homes.

Sponsors for the 2012 Parade of Homes include Northeast Florida Builders Association, NOCATEE, The Florida-Times Union, Jacksonville.com and The Shores Resort and Spa.

Jacksonville buyers have an amazing opportunity to see homes before they buy them with this year’s Parade of Homes online. For more Jacksonville real estate that you’ll be sure to love, be sure to visit our site.

The Jacksonville home, located at 6120 San Jose Boulevard West, has 14,000 square feet with six bedrooms, six full baths and two full baths. The home also has a spacious formal dining room, wet bar with wine cellar, media den, gourmet kitchen, butler’s pantry, library, game room, sauna, steam bath, exercise room and a lanai pool. Attached to this tree-lined river front home is a one bedroom cottage.  The home was originally listed for $10 million and can be sold prior to the auction date for a price of $5.5 million.

The St. Augustine home, located at 642 Santa Teresa Court, has over 5,000 square feet of indoor living and over 1,000 square feet of outdoor living. This custom home includes five bedrooms, six baths, two-story foyer, living and dining rooms, den/library, game room with bar, gathering room with entertainment center, three-car garage and an outside lanai pool area. This home is in the master-planned Palencia community which has a 40-acre Village Center, 33,000 square foot clubhouse, championship golf course and parks, trails and open areas. This home was originally listed for $3 million and can be bought prior to auction for $1.87 million.

Both of these homes will be auctioned off on May 24. Interested buyers can preview the Jacksonville home by appointment. The St. Augustine home is open Saturday and Sundays from 1-4 p.m. and by appointment during the week. For more information on these properties, visit AuctionJacksonville.com.

Immediately following the forum, families with children are invited to participate in fun, educational activities designed to help them learn about their health and environment. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about asthma triggers, auto emissions, climate change, energy use, lead-based paint hazards, recycling and sun safety, among other topics.

WHO:

Gwendolyn-Keyes Flemming, EPA Region 4, Regional Administrator
Ebenezer Gujjarlapudi, Director
Environment and Compliance Department, City of Jacksonville
Jon Heymann, Chief Executive Officer, Communities in Schools
Councilman John Gaffney, City of Jacksonville
Councilman Warren Jones, City of Jacksonville
Wynetta Wright, Chairwoman, Eastside Environmental Council
Jackie Lattimore, President, Destined For A Change, Inc.

WHAT:

Reclaiming a Healthy Environment forum and environmental education activities for kids

WHEN:           Saturday, October 23, 2010, 11 a.m.

WHERE:         Jacksonville’s Children Commission

1095 A. Phillip Randolph Blvd.
Jacksonville, Florida 32206

The Jacksonville Environmental Justice Showcase Community Pilot is a collaborative effort joining residents, community-based and non-profit organizations, and federal, state and local agencies to address public health and environmental concerns in Health Zone 1 (zip codes 32202, 32204, 32206, 32208, 32209, and 32254).

More information about the Jacksonville Environmental Justice Showcase pilot is available online at:

www.epa.gov/compliance/ej/grants/ej-showcase.html

Come Dressed for the Rodeo!

The purchase of a ticket enters you to win this year’s Grand Prize Giveaway, a Ski Vacation for two to Big Sky Resort, Montana. This is an all encompassing trip including  resort stay, skiing, travel and spending cash. The prize is valued at $3,500.

If you have any questions, please contact Jamie Atkins at 725-4355 or e-mail: jatkins@nefba.com

The Charity Gala benefits Builders Care, a a not for profit community based construction organization whose mission is to provide home improvements; particularly to aid our senior and disabled citizens to function safer in their own homes. Builders Care renovates homes making them more accessible including bath and kitchen modifications, wheelchair ramps, fall protection, ease of traffic flow for wheelchairs. For more information on this worthwhile cause, visit Builders Care.

If you’re looking to learn how to harness the power of online networking by posting meaningful content that will get responses, putting together a social networking strategy and schedule, sell with creativity and passion and turn obstacles into benefits then you need to be at the Super Sales Rally.

Sponsored by internet marketing firm, mRELEVANCE, this super informative, high energy event features Meredith Oliver, MIRM, MSCP and Melinda Brody, MIRM. You’re invited to join the dynamic “M & M”  team for a fun, content rich, interactive educational experience.

High energy and packed with ideas to boost your sales NOW, this year’s rally will unleash your inner sales rock star to ignite your personal selling power and blow past your goals. This rally is NOT a fluffy motivational speech! Expect hard hitting, practical ideas you can implement immediately to drive commission straight into your wallet. Get ready to rock your sales all year long!

Super Sales Rally Topics Include:

• Personal branding
• Creative thinking
• Entrepreneurial selling
• Negotiation skills
• Networking & prospecting
• Social media networking
• Lead follow-up
• Technology tools

The Super Sales Rally will be held from May 13 from 8 – 11:30 a.m. in conjunction with the 2010 Southern Building Show, a 3-day conference taking place May 13-15 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

The conference will feature five different tracks:

1. design and architecture
2. business operations and finance
3. sales and marketing
4. construction/building science
5. green building.

To sign up for the Super Sales Rally or learn more about the 2010 Southern Building Show, please visit the Southern Building Show Website, interact with them on Facebook or follow along on Twitter @SouthBuildShow

You might recognize Buck Belue as he is truly a sports icon – extremely accomplished in both football and baseball, helping to lead the UGA Bulldogs (Go Dawgs – sorry Gator Fans) to the 1980 National Championship while playing quarterback from 1978 – 1981 and also playing professional baseball for three years after college (among many other achievements).

There’s no question he’s an amazing leader on the field and can recognize quality when he sees it. For this reason, he turns to Atlanta Kitchen for all of his countertop needs. Atlanta Kitchen has been installing countertops here in Atlanta for over 40 years, and they use the best quality materials available. In fact, they were the first company in Atlanta to install Cambria Quartz countertops.

While many people think that granite is the best surface for countertops, Buck Belue knows better. Cambria Quartz is the finest countertop surface available. Cambria is 93% quartz, twice as strong as granite and will last far longer than other stone and laminated countertop materials. In addition, quartz requires no maintenance and is the most stain resistant countertop on the market. When it comes to design options, you have nothing to worry about as Cambria comes in 64 different colors. And, to top it all off, Cambria quartz is made in the USA, so you know you are supporting local fabricators.

Take Buck’s advice and go with the best kitchen countertop team in the Southeast – Atlanta Kitchen.

Jacksonville is one of just 10 communities selected from across the nation to receive a portion of the $1 million in funding being provided through the EPA’s EJ Showcase program. The agency is providing $100,000 per community to fund projects over the next two years to help alleviate the environmental and human health challenges they face.

As part of the press conference, EPA will sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Communities in Schools, an organization that strives to address children’s unmet needs, to work collaboratively throughout the Showcase project on improving children’s environmental health in Jacksonville’s Health Zone 1.

Attending the kick off on Friday, April 30, 2010 at 1 p.m. at the Beaver Street Enterprise Center:   Stan Meiburg, EPA Acting Regional Administrator; Kent Benjamin, Associate Director, EPA Office of Environmental Justice; Mayor John Peyton, City of Jacksonville; Greg Strong, Director, Florida Department of Environmental Protection Northeast District; Jon Heymann, Chief Executive Officer, Communities in Schools; and Representatives from Eastside Environmental Council and Destined for a Change.

Also on Friday, as part of the kick-off, EPA will host the first of a series of Community Information Exchanges from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Beaver Street Enterprise Center. EPA will provide residents with additional information about the EJ Showcase pilot and answer questions. Participants will also gain insight about the ongoing programs, resources and the efforts of federal, state and local agencies to improve human health and environmental conditions.

On Saturday, May 1, EPA and the City of Jacksonville have organized a community cleanup of the area surrounding Richard L. Brown Elementary School (1535 Milnor Street) from 8:30 to noon. The cleanup will be conducted along Deer Creek in order to bring attention to an area with suspected contamination. To sign up: www.handsonjacksonville.org or 904-630-2489.

An online presence is necessary for success in the age of technology, but what is the best way to use that presence to drive traffic and increase sales? Mitch will give you a rich foundation of knowledge on search engine optimization, because if nobody can find your blog, what’s the point?

The webinar is scheduled Thursday, April 15 from 2-3 p.m. EDT. Other presenters during the webinar include Michelle Betchner of Alliance Residential and Michael Manfred of AvalonBay Communities. The webinar is free for NAHB Multifamily members and worth 1 hour of NAHB credit. The webinar cost for all other NAHB members is $100 and $125 for non-NAHB members.

This is a webinar you won’t want to miss! Register to attend.

The World Golf Village open house will be featuring active adult homes in the Cascades neighborhood. Plan on visiting the community on Saturday, February 6th from 1 to 4 p.m. in order to participate in the Sneak Peek. Considering it is also Super Bowl weekend, you can be assured that Davidson Realty has some game-day related gifts and prizes to give away.

Anyone looking to retire to a golf front home in Florida should not miss this opportunity. St. Johns County real estate agents will be on hand to answer any question you may have, like “What exactly makes this an active adult home?” You can also get in-depth details about all of the amenities associated with the master-planned development in general as well as the specific Cascades neighborhood. Yes, the Cascades has its own long list of amenities just for neighborhood residents.

See you Saturday!