The Housing Bubble

The North County Times reports from California. “From Valley Center to Del Mar, buyers can be picky. Most cities in North County carry hundreds of home listings for sale while barely a dozen sell each month. In Carlsbad’s 92008 ZIP code, it would take about 18 months to sell all the listed houses. Inventory numbers vary wildly across North County from a high of 26 months in Valley Center to a low of six months in Carmel Valley and Rancho Penasquitos, according to a three-month average of for-sale numbers provided by Sandicor this week.”

“Communities that have seen some of the steepest price depreciation and biggest drops in sales are in North County’s rural regions. Other than Valley Center’s leading inventory number, Ramona carries 16 months and Fallbrook has 20 months of inventory.”

“Meanwhile, only two homes have sold in Bonsall over the last three months.”

“The problem there is that owners are attached to custom-built homes and unwilling to reduce prices, said Fallbrook real estate agent Mark Fabela. ‘People are still unrealistic, and they’re still marketing their house at the high end,’ said Fabela, an agent with Coldwell Banker. ‘Until it comes down to reasonable pricing, we’re going to see that high inventory.’”

“‘Would you think (high inventory) would get people to drop the price? Yes, but I see more and more people just take (the home) off the market,’ said Anne-marie Boyer, a real estate agent based in Rancho Penasquitos. ‘They just sit on it and figure, ‘If I don’t get what I want, I’ll just keep it.’”

“Sue Landis, a real estate agent in Carlsbad, says she does not see the home price depreciation — the North County median has dropped 16 percent over the last year — ending until 2009.”

“‘Prices are not going to go up this year,’ Landis said. ‘This is not a market for unmotivated sellers. … If it’s overpriced, it’ll just sit there.’”

The Union Tribune. “In the height of the housing boom, an affiliate of San Diego developer Simplon Corp. spent about $25.5 million acquiring a full block near Petco Park, where it planned a 35-story condo tower called Cosmopolitan Square.”

“This month, the Simplon affiliate filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy – in part because of difficulties securing financing in today’s tight credit markets.”

“Simplon executives say the bankruptcy of Simplon Ballpark LLC was necessary to buy time so the company could secure new financing, including construction loans, to push the project ahead.”

“But court documents filed by the company’s largest creditor contend that Simplon Ballpark has been granted short-term extensions since its existing debt came due in May and it still has been unable to obtain financing. It defaulted on the extension agreements and filed for bankruptcy on the eve of foreclosure, the creditor contends.”

“The creditor also said in court documents that Simplon owes nearly $40 million on the property to 14 additional lenders or investors. It faces an additional $1.5 million in liens for unpaid bills to engineering, architectural and consulting firms.”

“The property was recently appraised at $26.5 million, according to the creditor, which has asked the bankruptcy court to allow it to proceed with foreclosure.”

“Simplon isn’t alone in seeing its downtown projects stumble. Several have been shelved. Atmosphere, a roughly 80-unit loft project on Fifth between Beech and Ash streets, began construction but has since stalled, leaving unsightly steel bars around the site.”

“Cosmopolitan Square originally was approved for 334 condos with ground floor retail. ‘I believe this is one of the very best undeveloped sites downtown,’ said Gary London of a San Diego real estate consulting firm. ”It is not likely to be developed by anybody for at least five or six years.’”

The Merced Sun Star. “Shares of Capital Corp of the West, the Merced-based parent company of County Bank, were hammered Wednesday following news that the company expects to post its first-ever yearly loss.”

“‘(County Bank) is still adequately capitalized, everyone’s deposits are still insured by the FDIC, we still have plenty of money,’ said bank spokesman Thomas Smith. ‘We’re not going to have the Bear Stearns thing.’”

“The company blamed its anticipated loss on ‘the rapid decline in real estate values in California’s Central Valley in the fourth quarter of 2007.’”

“The drop in real estate values means the collateral backing County Bank loans is worth less than it was when the loans were made one or two years ago. The loss isn’t tied directly to the subprime mortgage meltdown, he added, because County Bank doesn’t make many home mortgages or invest in subprime loans.”

“However, the company does lend money to developers buying land, and that land is less valuable than it was a few years ago. ‘Even though the guy is still paying his loan, by federal law, we have to downgrade the loan because the quality of collateral has gone down,’ said Smith.”

“In February 2007, Capital Corp’s chief consulting economist Tapan Munroe predicted that the Central Valley wasn’t facing a housing bust. Instead, he termed the slowdown as a ’souffle with the air slowly leaking out.’”

“Munroe and co-consultant Lon Hatamiya projected then that Merced’s home prices would drop 8.9 percent. Instead, prices in Merced plummeted 16.8 percent between December 2006 and December 2007, according to DataQuick.”

“‘Economists have a 50 percent chance of being right and a 50 percent chance of being wrong,’ Smith observed. ‘If anyone was a good soothsayer and could figure this out, they’d be rich. Obviously a lot of the forecasting was inaccurate.’”

“On Wednesday, County Bank unveiled a new ad campaign featuring the line, ‘Times are tough.’ Smith said the campaign was prompted by overall fears about a national recession, not Capital Corp’s specific problems.”

The New York Times. “They took out adjustable-rate mortgages at the peak of the housing bubble to buy homes they would otherwise not be able to afford. Or they refinanced existing mortgages to take cash out. And now, two or three years later, the day of reckoning is here.”

“These are not lower- and middle-income borrowers, but more affluent consumers with annual incomes of $100,000 or more who are increasingly being ensnared in the home mortgage crisis.”

“According to Loan Performance,, about 870,000 borrowers took jumbo ARMs — mortgages of $417,000 or more — from 2005 to 2007. In the fourth quarter of 2007, 8.10 percent were two or more payments late, it found, while 2.62 percent were in the foreclosure process and 1.35 percent had been foreclosed. All the numbers were up from the third quarter.”

“Jeffrey Conner, a San Francisco real estate lawyer, says he regularly hears from his clients ‘that lenders assured them they could always refinance.’”

“Richard Geller, founder of a for-profit venture that counsels troubled ARM borrowers, said he received calls from affluent consumers in almost every major metropolitan area.”

“Homeowners with at least 3 percent equity may qualify for refinancing through the Federal Housing Administration. ‘But if your payments are still going to be more than half your gross income, the lenders won’t do it because they figure you’re going to default later,’ Mr. Geller said. ‘It’s not rational to dedicate your life to making the next $5,000 monthly payment on an asset declining in value.’”

“In Oceanside, Calif., people paid $650,000 to $750,000 in 2003 and 2004 for row houses on Cleveland Street, said Chris McBrearty, certified mortgage planning specialist, in Carlsbad, Calif., who wrote many mortgages there.”

“When prices for the houses rose as high as $1.5 million in 2005, many of those people refinanced with ARMs to take out cash, he said.”

“But while the borrowers had the best intentions, life…changed their financial circumstances, Mr. McBrearty said. Now, with a most recent listing at $920,000, ‘nothing is selling on the street, and even for those with some equity, the products needed to refinance such large loans are not out there.’”

“One of those homeowners, a lawyer who spoke only on condition of anonymity for professional reasons, said he refinanced his mortgage with an ARM in January 2006 to take $510,000 out to invest in a hotel. ‘I planned to run the hotel with my lovely wife,’ he said.”

“Their strategy was to sell the house after a couple of years, but when they put it on the market in April 2007, there were no buyers. The lawyer, now divorced, calculated that the mortgage payments, now $6,200 a month, plus taxes consume 96 percent of his net income, which includes occasional rent from vacationers who use the house. He lives with relatives and sleeps on the floor.”

“‘I don’t regret what I did,’ he said. But a foreclosure would hurt his career and finances, he said. ‘And I was raised to pay back what I borrow.’”

“His strategy now is to sell when prices revive. But that could take time, because a bank just sold a neighbor’s foreclosed home for $850,000.”

The Associated Press. “A family of accused con artists is suspected of leading an operation that processed thousands of home loans in California during the past several years in the widespread refinancing scam.”

“The case has brought renewed calls for tighter regulation of the troubled mortgage industry that threatens to take the U.S. economy down with it.”

“Experts said the fraud occurred in a weak regulatory environment in a business that offered huge financial incentives to brokers willing to cheat.”

“‘There’s no regulatory oversight, it’s all complaint-based,’ said Dustin Hobbs, communication director for the California Mortgage Bankers Association. ‘Like these people found out, until you file a complaint, there’s no oversight of these brokers.’”

“Prosecutors said the operation had slipped past loan officers and regulators in a booming housing market fueled by greed. ‘I haven’t seen anything this extreme ever before,’ said Christina Tusan, the California deputy attorney general assigned to the civil case in which the web of companies is being sued for more than $20 million.”

“Late Tuesday, Eric Pony, 25, and his sister, Paulette Pony, 23, surrendered to face charges including conspiracy, grand theft, forgery and elder abuse. Five other suspects were also arrested.”

“The crackdown began with Eric Pony’s company, Lifetime Financial, and spread to others, authorities said. Lifetime Financial’s main mortgage provider was New Century Mortgage Corp., which has since folded.”

“Eric Bremner, a senior investigator in the real estate fraud unit of the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, said loan documents often ran 300 pages. In many cases, problems were missed amid the rush to earn commissions for quickly approving deals. ‘Based on the volume of loans that New Century was doing at the time, it was either a combination of just missing these items or just looking the other way,’ he said.”

“After meeting with Eric Pony, Tracylyn Sharrit said she found her signature forged on loan documents and the monthly payments on her three-bedroom, 1,100-square-foot home in San Bernardino jumped from $1,070 to $1,868.”

“The money promised to her in an equity cash-out has been whittled away on lawyer fees, and her loan amount ballooned from $167,000 to more than $260,000.”

From Bloomberg. “California, the birthplace of the subprime mortgage industry, is paying the highest price of any state as the housing meltdown persists. Its gross domestic product will drop 1.5 percent in the first half of 2008, the most in the U.S., analysts at Global Insight Inc. estimate.”

“Almost half of the 25 biggest U.S. subprime lenders were based in the state, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, and almost a quarter of the country’s outstanding subprime loans were issued there, more than in any state, data from LoanPerformance show.”

“Prices that more than doubled in California from 2000 to 2005 fueled demand for nontraditional mortgages that allowed people to purchase homes, said Peter Navarro, a professor at the University of California, Irvine. Half of the 10 most expensive metropolitan areas for home prices are in California, according to data compiled by National Association of Realtors.”

“‘The high home prices here made it very difficult to get into houses unless you started doing really funky things,’ Navarro said.”

“The number of houses and condominiums sold in California plummeted 30 percent in January from a year earlier to 313,580, and the median price for an existing home dropped 22 percent to $430,370, according to the California Association of Realtors. The time it would take to deplete the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate more than doubled to almost 17 months in January from a year earlier.”

“California had 481,392 foreclosure filings on properties last year, the most of any state, said Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for RealtyTrac.”

“The area has been one of the hardest hit by the housing- market slump in Northern California. Home prices in Solano County dropped 21 percent in February from a year earlier, according to DataQuick. Almost half of the estimated 334,500 home sales in 2008 will be trustee sales, according to the Norris Group.”

“Harry Subers, a 59-year-old unemployed engineer, said he and his wife ‘paid way too much’ for their house in Ben Lomond. They did it because they love living among the redwood trees of the Santa Cruz mountains, he said.”

“After their adjustable-mortgage rate rose last year, their payments climbed 20 percent to $1,900 a month, or more than two- thirds their monthly income of $3,000. The couple put the home up for sale because they could no longer afford it, Subers said.”

“Selling turned out to be tougher than they thought since three other nearby homes have languished on the market and one hasn’t sold for three years, he said. They paid $412,000 in 2004.”

“‘Everything would have been fine if the bubble didn’t pop,’ Subers said. ‘We’re resigned to the fact that we’re going to lose the house.’

A report from the Alaska Journal of Commerce. “Following in the footsteps of the Seattle housing market, Alaska may soon have its very own mixed-use residential/retail structure located in the heart of Downtown Anchorage. The proposed 100,000-square-foot, 16-story Crystal Plaza development will feature 40 high-end residential units…between 2,200 and 2,500 square feet, and will cost between $1.2 million to $1.9 million.”

“‘Downtown Anchorage desperately needs downtown living. This project can not only fill that void, but really make Downtown a truly vibrant area,’ said Steve Kirshner architect/project manager for RIM Architects. ”

“The property is owned by longtime Alaskan Eunice Silberer. Silberer spends part of the year in Scottsdale, Ariz., ‘which is just booming with high-rise downtown residential projects,’ Kirshner said.”

“The goal of the project, Kirshner said, is to give the Downtown area ‘a certain level of vibrancy 24 hours a day.’”

“‘We’ve just been bombarded with response from people who want these units,’ said developer John McGrew. ‘There’s a lot of interest, and much of it is from out of state. High-end mixed-use condos have certainly become popular in Seattle and in markets like Vancouver, Wash.’”

The Kitsap Sun from Washington. “Houses are still moving in Kitsap County, albeit not at the past rapid pace. At ‘The 400′ in Bremerton, …the price on some new condominiums has been slashed by 58 percent, from $259,000 to $109,000.”

“Perhaps at the height of the housing market this 577-square-foot, one-bedroom, one-bath condo was worth $259,000 — but no more.”

“Welcome to another slumping housing market. I’m sure the current slowdown has surprised those who think most investments, including houses, only move upward in value. Sorry, that’s never been the case.”

“New industry numbers released Wednesday show more houses and condominiums are going on the market in Kitsap County, but sales are slowing. According to (the) Northwest MLS, there were 2,489 houses and condos on the market here in February, a 31 percent increase over February 2007.”

“Pending sales, meanwhile, were down 38 percent to 240 this past month over February 2007, and closed sales dropped 11 percent, to 190. The trend was reflected across the state.”

The Columbian from Washington. “Home sales in Clark County dropped to a 20-year low in February, a decline that now appears to be chipping away at the real estate community. ‘The attrition rate for Realtors is extremely high,’ said broker Randy Hunzeker.”

“‘We knew there was going to be some kind of purging,’ Hunzeker said. ‘But we still see new agents signing up every day.’”

“Prices also have softened, dropping by about 4 percent from last February’s median of $255,000 to a median selling price of $244,900 last month.”

“Sandy Hendrick, executive director of the Clark County Association of Realtors, said he was not surprised by the February figures from benchmarks, which tracks all recorded home sales in Clark County for the month.”

“‘A sale recorded at the courthouse is a trailing indicator of what is actually going on in the market,’ he said, calling late December and January extremely slow months for home sales. ‘The February closings are just confirming what was happening,’ he said.”

The Whitefish Pilot from Montana. “A slowdown in local construction and real estate sales is real, and it could be a harbinger of more serious economic problems, a Whitefish financial analyst says. Jim Stack says he sees problems already in the Flathead Valley and Whitefish housing markets.”

“‘Whitefish is sitting on a powder keg,’ he said. ‘There’s a huge number of unsold homes. The planning department was shocked at the recent drop in building permits and subdivision applications.’”

“Stack said there is currently a five-year supply of homes on the market selling for more than $500,000.”

“‘Normally, a 12-month supply is bad,’ he said. ‘This is what drives the Whitefish economy — from builders, Realtors and title companies to furniture stores.’”

“About one-sixteenth of the area’s homes are on the market, and home sales have dropped by about 32 percent in Whitefish and 24 percent in the county. ‘Prices are last to drop,’ Stack said. ‘The problem first shows up in inventory. Then builders see a slow down and Realtors see a drop in sales. Then prices fall.’”

“Stack points out that in 2000, the median price for a home in the Flathead was about 20 percent below the national median price. The numbers have flip-flopped since then — the median price in the Flathead is now about 20 percent above the national median.”

“‘We’ve gone from being a good buy to being more expensive,’ he said.”

“‘Seventy percent of the new jobs in Whitefish that were created in the past 7-8 years are construction-related,’ he said. ‘If there’s a bust, there will be repercussions.’”

The Register Guard from Oregon. “The signs were even clearer in February that the Lane County real estate market is tipping toward the down side. The median price for a Lane County home fell 6 percent, compared to a year ago, to $220,000, according to the Regional MLS.”

“The number of pending sales fell or were flat in every neighborhood across Eugene and Springfield, compared to a year ago, except for the Thurston area where sales at a Hayden Homes development likely preserved this single bright spot.”

“With a surplus inventory — it would take nine months to sell the 1,925 homes on the market now — even some of the most optimistic real estate professionals don’t expect the prices now being fetched by existing homes to hold forever.”

“A lot has changed since June 2007 when Lane County witnessed its pinnacle median price of $243,300 — or 10 percent more than today’s median. ‘A year ago we had bidding wars. Today, it’s a totally different market out there,’ said broker Wendy Milbrett.”

“Builders are preparing to entice prospective buyers of new homes with bonuses such as $50,000 in cash or a BMW, said Rex Ballenger, president of the Springfield Board of Realtors. ‘You’re going to see an advertisement on that real soon,’ he said.”

“The precursors to a stronger real estate market — jobs and population growth — are looking pretty puny themselves. Lane County jobs are growing at an annual rate of 0.5 percent, said Brian Rooney, regional labor economist with the Employment Department.”

“Since home prices in California took a tumble over the past year, the stream of transplants coming with suitcases full of cash from home sales there is likely to have slowed, Rooney said.”

“Milbrett and her sellers have had to adjust. She listed a house six months ago at $209,000 and steadily dropped the price over time — to $206,000, $199,000 then $195,000. This week, she’s finally closing on that house at $190,000, she said. ‘A year ago this time (the seller) would have gotten the $209,000.’”

The Bend Bulletin. “Renaissance Ridge, a partially-developed, 210-lot subdivision in southwest Bend might be headed for foreclosure, according to documents filed with the Deschutes County Clerk’s office, but developer Randy Sebastian said he’s working hard to prevent it.”

“‘It’s not a Bend issue, not a Renaissance Homes issue; it’s a lender that wants out of the builder/developer market, and they don’t want to extend their loans,’ said Sebastian. ‘I’ve got my life savings out there.’”

“Sixty-four homes in the subdivision have been built or are under construction. Deschutes County land records — in which the subdivision is legally recorded as Aspen Rim — show that 36 homes have been purchased.”

“Homes in the development currently range from $369,000 to $590,000.”

“The development has dangled some incentives for prospective home buyers in recent months. It also shaved prices on its homes in February by 11 percent to 20 percent, according to The Bulletin’s archives.”

“Renaissance Ridge homeowner Bill Ormsby, a Southern California retiree who has lived in the development for a year, said he has wondered about the profusion of empty lots in the development but said he feels confident he and his wife won’t be leaving.”

“‘We’re gonna stay put,’ said Ormsby. ‘It shouldn’t affect us too much.’”

“Elsewhere in Bend, Buena Vista Custom Homes has rented 18 of the 29 homes in its Forum Meadows development since efforts to sell the homes in mid-December at auction failed to produce a single sale, said Mike Higgins, a spokesman for the Lake Oswego-based builder.”

“‘It was done in a loss position, but it was better than the alternative,’ Higgins said. ‘If we can’t sell them, we’ve got to do something. We looked to auction the homes, but it didn’t work. Builders right now are just trying to make the mess go away.’”

“Homebuyers and builders have moved from overconfidence to fear of a sluggish market that won’t recover, said Peter Storton, the owner and broker of RE/MAX Town & Country Realty in Sisters.”

“‘The next 12 to 18 months will be a reverse of what we have seen,’ Storton said. ‘We have to hang on to the customers that we have and convince people that it’s a good time to buy.’”

Oregon Public Broadcasting. “Bend is $20 million in the red. For years, the city relied on huge increases in building permits and fees to pay its bills, but now, Bend’s housing market is collapsing. And one local journalist is questioning whether the hometown newspaper was too much of a booster. Ethan Lindsey reports.”

“David Fisher covered the industry for the Bend Bulletin as it went from boom to bust.”

“David Fisher: ‘…you gotta realize that every editor in a market like this, is well aware that real estate and development is the 800 pound gorilla. A great deal of the newspaper’s wealth flows from the health of the real estate and development industry. And in the past year that has started, first slowly, and now more rapidly, to go away.’”

“Industry leaders wanted to change peoples’ perceptions, so at an annual real estate summit last month, they rolled out a turnaround ad campaign.”

“Tim Knopp, executive VP of the Central Oregon Builders’ Association: ‘Day after day, if people are reading negative national stories, it makes them think maybe this isn’t a good time to buy, maybe I should wait. And in 30 years, this is the best buyer’s market I’ve seen.’”

“John Costa is the editor-in-chief of the Bulletin. Costa points to positive and negative real estate stories the newspaper has run before, during, and after the housing bubble.”

“Central Oregon clearly relies on real estate development. Oregon job statistics show real estate and construction employment made up 17 percent of local jobs last year. That’s noticeably higher than the state average.”

“Real estate and construction are two of the biggest advertisers in Bend says builders’ association executive Tim Knopp. Tim Knopp: ‘We want to make sure that the media knows that if things are going bad for the entire industry, its going to affect them as well. And it has. We just need balance. We’d have discussions with any media outlet about that and I think they want to do that.’”

The Sun Sentinel reports from Florida. “For perhaps the first time in its history, Broward County lost population — 13,154 more people left than arrived during the past year, according to U.S. census estimates released today. In the past two years, 55,808 more residents left the county than moved in from other states. ‘It’s very clear that growth has slowed down substantially,’ said Stan Smith, director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida. ‘It’s partly due to the economic slowdown and the slowdown in job creation and the housing problems Florida has been facing.’”

“Anneke Reinhardt, of Hollywood, is among those trying to flee. Her three-bedroom home with a pool in the Lakes area has been on the market since last year, and the divorced senior citizen is shopping for a home in Knoxville, Tenn.”

“‘It is getting too expensive for me to live here and I don’t have a nest egg,’ said Reinhardt, who has lived in Broward for 30 years and works at a lighting factory. ‘I feel I’m crazy staying here when the cost of living is so much less somewhere else.’”

“‘This a real alarm,’ said William Frey, a demographer with a Washington public policy think tank. ‘In a way Broward is a bellwether for the rest of the country, and if Broward is losing people, which in itself is so surprising, that shows how Florida, especially, is hard hit by this housing crunch.’”

“Nine other Florida counties lost population. Pinellas County near Tampa dropped by 5,456 and Monroe County lost 1,174. Others that dropped by a few hundred to 1,500 people were Bay, Charlotte, Escambia, Franklin, Glades, Jefferson and Okaloosa counties.”

“Semore Borker says it’s pretty obvious why population growth has stagnated. ‘I have found that Florida and Palm Beach and Martin counties are no longer a retiree’s paradise because of the expenses,’ said Borker, who has his home west of Boynton Beach for sale and is hoping to move to South Carolina once he sells.”

“Borker, a transplant from New Jersey, said his yearly expenses would be cut nearly in half when he makes the move. He would still live in a community with a pool, tennis courts and all of the amenities he enjoys here — for half the price.”

“‘I’m 80 years old, I have no pension and only a little bit of investments,’ he said. ‘I could downsize but that’s not going to cut it for me.’”

“A total of 11,186 people left Palm Beach County from 2005 to 2007 for other places in the U.S., the report shows. If it weren’t for births and foreign migration, the county’s population growth would likely be in the negative.”

The Boca Raton News. “‘If you don’t have to sell your house, don’t,’ a real estate expert told an audience of consumers and Realtors® in Boca Raton this past weekend.”

“‘We have a large overhang of inventory,’ said John Tuccillo of John Tuccillo and Associates, ‘and overbuilding of new homes.’”

“He also faulted Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae – programs designed to put people into homes. ‘They went a little overboard – by pushing people [from smaller homes] into larger homes.’”

“Would-be homebuyers were wooed with zero down payment loans, interest-only loans and something he called an ‘option ARM’ where buyers could ‘pay what they want. We’ll just tag the rest onto the principal.’ ‘Easy credit,’ he said, ‘got a lot of people in trouble.’”

“‘What’s keeping South Florida in the real estate doldrums? Foreclosures, unsold new homes and the slow economy,’ said Tuccillo.”

“He even offered up the ‘R’ word, saying people feel they are in a recession. Tuccillo predicted it will be ‘relatively mild and relatively short. The only way we could screw it up is to attempt to avoid it.’”

“Tuccillo isn’t keen on the $160 billion ‘Economic Stimulus Package,’ saying it will stall economic recovery and feed inflation. ‘There are three things people will do with the checks: save them, pay debt or go out and buy things and increase the number of jobs – in China!’”

“He said he would rather see the United States invest the $160 billion ‘in a program to repair and replace roads and tunnels. There would be more jobs.’ Tuccillo criticized the proposal as something that was ‘put together by a bunch of people who don’t have a clue.’”

“The hat trick that will pull South Florida from the dumper, he said, is ‘population growth, falling home prices and a better economy.’”

“The first person to put a down payment on a house was Cindy Lee Dickson of Fort Myers. When she woke up Wednesday morning, she had no idea she was going to buy. Then she saw the prices at Coral Lakes: single-family homes at $133,000 and town houses at $86,000.”

“‘We had thought about it and said no,’ Dickson said. ‘But I think the price I saw today convinced me to buy. I think it’s a wonderful investment.’”

The St Petersburg Times. “Nohl Crest Homes, the Tampa Bay area semicustom home builder founded in 1985, is close to going out of business. Sales are only a fifth of what they were two years ago, and the Oldsmar-based builder has laid off 90 percent of its employees.”

“With banks pressing it to repay loans on some of its 100 building lots, the company likely won’t survive the year, Nohl Crest co-founder and president Kenneth Emery said Wednesday.”

“‘Will we be here a year from today? I don’t think so. That’s not going to happen,’ Emery said.”

“‘We can’t sell homes for $500,000, $600,000 and $700,000,’ Emery said. ‘People just don’t qualify for those sorts of homes anymore.’”

“Nohl Crest is the third locally active builder to declare bankruptcy or signal its anticipated closing. Levitt & Sons filed for Chapter 11 in November. Tousa filed in January. Nohl Crest isn’t publicly traded like the others.”

“‘They are a private company, so they don’t have the deep pockets like a national builder does,’ Tampa Bay area housing consultant Marvin Rose said. ‘When they lose money, it comes out of the owners’ pockets.’”

The Bradenton Herald. “There is quality product out there selling for under $100 a square foot, said May Aston, sales associate with Re/Max Alliance Group and immediate past president of the Manatee Association of Realtors.”

“‘It was $200 a square foot at the height,’ Aston said.”

“‘We’re kind of having a half price sale,’ said Patrick McGuire of Coldwell Banker in Lakewood Ranch. McGuire recently worked on a sale where a home that would have sold for $1.2 million during the height of the market sold for $600,000.”

“‘The upper-end homes have really fallen down,’ McGuire said.”

“‘Some are getting good enough deals that they are fixing them up and putting them back on the market,’ Aston said. Others are renting the properties or just holding onto them until market conditions improve.”

“‘They know the market is going to change again, we just don’t know when,’ Aston said.”

“Due to the large number of short sales and foreclosures, Aston and other agents have turned a large portion of their business to focusing on such sales but have noticed an increase in more traditional sales as well.”

“‘People are buying now because even if it’s not the bottom of the market they are realizing they might not be able to afford it if they wait,’ McGuire said.”

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