Everyone knows that switching out your light bulbs to CFL saves money, but many people are concerned about the mercury in them.

According to John Balbus, M.D., Chief Health Officer at Environmental Defense, CFLs contain less mercury than was in the old-fashioned mercury thermometers. And even broken, he says the exposure rate is about equivalent to a "can or two" of tuna fish.

In addition, when compared to the total life cycle of incandescent bulbs, from production to the amount of energy from a coal-burning plant needed to power the bulb over its life, CFLs are responsible for far less mercury in our environment. According to Popular Mechanics:

Approximately 0.0234 mg of mercury—plus carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide—releases into the air per 1 kwh of electricity that a coal-fired power plant generates. Over the 7500-hour average range of one CFL, then, a plant will emit 13.16 mg of mercury to sustain a 75-watt incandescent bulb but only 3.51 mg of mercury to sustain a 20-watt CFL (the lightning equivalent of a 75-watt traditional bulb). Even if the mercury contained in a CFL was directly released into the atmosphere, an incandescent would still contribute 4.65 more milligrams of mercury into the environment over its lifetime.

But even if there is less mercury used in the total production, the CFLs do have a small amount mercury inside each bulb. Clearly, we want to avoid throwing spent bulbs into the regular garbage where they can easily break and end up in our landfills. Yet it can be inconvenient to collect the used bulbs for delivery to Miami-Dade’s Home Chemical disposal sites.

This is why Ikea and Home Depot have set up light bulb recycle programs in their stores. Home Depot just rolled out their program nationally last month. From their press release:

The Home Depot®, the world's largest home improvement retailer, today expanded its long-term commitment to the environment and sustainability by launching a national in-store, consumer compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb recycling program at all 1,973 The Home Depot locations. This free service is the first such offering made so widely available by a retailer in the United States and
offers customers additional options for making environmentally conscious
decisions from purchase to disposal.

IKEA, the popular home furnishings store, also offers free recycling of your spent CFLs:

Bring your used mercury containing light bulbs to the IKEA store for free
disposal. Since our CFL bulbs contain a small amount of mercury, they should
not be simply tossed out. IKEA offers the perfect solution: a ‘Free Take
Back’ program offering recycle bins in all IKEA stores. Or for lamp disposal
information for your state, please go to www.lamprecycle.org to obtain more
information.

Industries have been recycling mercury for years. Now with Home Depot and Ikea’s help, consumers can too. And we can all make the switch to Compact Fluorescent Bulbs with less worry about mercury in our environment.

30% Appreciation in South Florida Real Estate in Five Years

That is the prediction from Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors. Speaking at the 2008 Real Estate Congress & Expo in Coral Gables, Yun said

''Looking out five years from now, the Miami region is in a position to gain strongly among some of the wealthy baby boomers in the United States who are retiring."

He also commented that there is a pent up buyer demand, particularly from foreign investors, and that our region has started to stabilize. The Miami Herald published an in-depth article that I highly recommend. What I found interesting, though, were the negative comments to the article and to Lawrence Yun's forecast.

In March of this year, I attended a seminar given by Dr. Henry Fishkind. Dr. Fishkind is a well respected Florida economist who served on Governor's Bush's Council of Economic Advisors from 2001 - 2003. He too spoke about pent up buyer demand and many of the same positive indicators as Lawrence Yun. Dr. Fishkind also predicts that 2008 is the year our real estate market will bottom out. Population growth (yes, we are still growing) and other factors will deplete housing inventory over the next few years, and we will again see home values appreciating.

The bottom line, in my opinion, is that what goes down will come back up. During the boom years, I shook my head in puzzlement at the prevelant attitude that the housing appreciation was endless. Today, it appears that the same people seem to believe the depreciation will last forever, too. It won't.

I do not think that we are out of the storm just yet. Forecosure filings increased again in May. Inventory is still high. That pent up buyer demand that both economists spoke of hasn't yet flooded the market. But it will happen. The sun really will come up tomorrow.

77,000 New Foreclosures in Florida in First Quarter '08

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported last week that Florida ranked second in the country in failing loans.

And according to The Miami Herald:

In the first three months of the year, the Miami-Dade County Clerk's office
recorded 11,768 lis pendens filings, which include initial foreclosure filings
but also liens by condo and homeowner associations. It is nearly half the number
filed for the entire year in 2007. In Broward, the number was 10,797.

What this means for us is that housing inventory is going to remain high and home prices are going to continue to fall for the foreseeable future. So if you need to sell your home, don't wait! Price it ahead of the market curve and get it sold now.