The Housing Bubble

The Mercury News reports from California. “Dave Cantrell had become a community leader here, rallying his neighbors to stand up to the builder that was planning to auction off one-third of their new Paseo West subdivision at 40 percent discounts. Cantrell believed he made a difference, that maybe the auction prices wouldn’t be as low as he feared, that they would all recover. He promised to have a block party when it was all over. In the end, he couldn’t even save himself.”

“He had a job in construction management and was making $250,000 a year, plus a hefty bonus. His credit rating was in the 700s. So in 2006, he bought a $670,000 house, then spent $100,000 to add a pool and miniature golf course in the back. It seemed sensible enough at the time. He had made a tidy profit when he sold his last Anderson Home, a smaller one in the next neighborhood over.”

“‘You’re a smart man, Dave,’ the sales agent told him when he bought the house. ‘This house is grossly underpriced.’”

“Cantrell told that story twice to his neighbors gathered in his living room that night last year.”

“He attended the auction in a Pleasanton hotel ballroom last October. Bids barely hit 70 percent. While Cantrell had paid a base price of $658,500 for his house, a nearly identical one sold for $391,000. ‘I’ve lost a quarter-million dollars in value today,’ Cantrell said as he left the ballroom.”

“Some of the original owners welcomed the newcomers, relieved to have neighbors instead of empty houses next to them. But Edgardo Reyes doesn’t even want to say hello. ‘It’s a choking type of feeling. You look at your neighbor every day, and you have that resentment that they paid less,’ said Reyes. ‘We’ve been here two years, and if we can’t get it refinanced, we’ll have to let it go. We’ll just have to walk out.’”

“Rafael and Carroll Aguirre from Paola Place had sold their house in San Jose’s east foothills to move to Manteca to be closer to family. They put more than 25 percent down on a $547,000 house. They depleted their 401(k)s to spend $120,000 improving their backyard. Aguirre lost his job and, with no income for 11 months, the bill collectors started calling and he no longer could pay the mortgage. Selling the Town Car and the diamond ring barely made a dent. In July, they received a notice from the bank that they had 72 hours to leave. Their $270,000 investment was gone, and they were filing for bankruptcy.”

“On that hot summer morning…neighbor asked to dig up some of their trees and plants for her own yard. ‘They might as well have hung me up and whipped me,’ Carroll Aguirre said.”

“They moved into a rental in nearby Lathrop, a neighborhood where the lawns are brown and foreclosure signs line the sidewalk. The stress has been so great, Carroll said, that she’s daydreamed of driving herself off a cliff. ‘I don’t know why we’re still married,’ she said, wearing a house dress at the kitchen table of the rental. ‘It comes to the point that it kills the love.’”

The Press Democrat. “Tumbling home prices are drawing a growing number of investors back into Sonoma County’s battered real estate market. Today, roughly a third of all buyers are investors who don’t plan to live in the home they purchase. The market is not for everyone. Investors must have enough money to make a substantial down payment — at least 25 percent or more — and a very good credit rating to qualify for a loan.”

“But the combination of falling prices and stable rents makes this the best time to buy investment property in more than a decade, said Michael Morrongiello, who organizes investor education programs for the Bay Area Wealth Builders Association.”

“After looking at a dozen condos and houses, Santa Rosa resident Della Ramsey came back to a two-bedroom condo after a dramatic $40,000 price reduction. The lender wanted to clear the foreclosed property from its books, even if it meant selling for a significant loss. The $99,900 price was far below the $245,220 the former owner owed when the lender took back the condo in April.”

“‘I was like ‘wow.’ And then I went and looked at it and it was in very good shape. If you could do it, you had to do it,’ Ramsey said.”

“The condo will net her about $500 a month after homeowner fees, taxes and insurance, a solid return on an investment Ramsey plans to hold onto until Sonoma County’s housing market turns around. ‘With home prices going down, down, down, I was thinking, I had this money sitting in the bank not earning a whole lot of interest. And if you buy low, the market’s eventually going to go back up,’ Ramsey said.”

“Morrongiello said some investors who bought as prices soared during the housing boom that peaked three years ago got burned because they only bet on rising values. Their monthly financing costs far exceeded the amount of money they could ever hope to pocket from rents. ‘That’s what got them in trouble. They were speculating,’ he said.”

The San Francisco Chronicle. “A Southern California development firm is suspending its long-anticipated plan for a major housing and retail project at the former Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. Late last week, SunCal notified the city’s Redevelopment Agency that it was suspending work after one of the project’s chief investors, Lehman Bros., declared bankruptcy.”

“SunCal spokesman Joe Aguirre said in a statement that the company was ‘unable to obtain assurances of continued funding that would allow us to move forward with confidence.’ As a result, he said, the firm could no longer guarantee it would be able to pay a number of consultants and contractors working on the job.”

“SunCal surprised just about everyone by paying more than $100 million for Oak Knoll during a hotly contested federal auction at the height of housing boom in 2005.”

The Sacramento Bee. “In the Central Valley these days, the bankruptcies and foreclosures don’t just affect individual homeowners. They swallow entire developments – and the people who conceive them. Three massive high-end projects in the San Joaquin Valley have fallen into bankruptcy proceedings in the past two years.”

“All three developments were designed to bring the luxury life to the Valley, and that’s where the problem lies. Their struggles illustrate how hard it is to transplant $800,000 homes and designer golf courses to California’s chronically depressed midsection.”

“‘The markets were so overheated they were chasing any deal,’ said Fresno real estate consultant Robin Kane. ‘Part of the problem that always hurts us in the Valley, from Bakersfield to Stockton, is your employment and per capita income (are) not rising.’”

“With the boom a faded memory, unemployment is creeping back up to the 10 percent range in much of the Valley. The real estate market is a disaster. Developers…fell in love with the area’s inexpensive land but ignored its troubling demographics. The Valley is still plagued by low incomes, a poorly educated work force and other ills. ‘We’re not another Silicon Valley,’ said Bakersfield real estate appraiser Gary Crabtree.”

“Developer SunCal Cos. of Irvine borrowed $235 million from Lehman Bros. – part of a $2.2 billion war chest Lehman handed SunCal to develop properties throughout California and Nevada. SunCal had a grand vision for Bakersfield. After buying out the original developer, it doubled the asking price for individual lots, to $115,000.”

“But once the market petered out, ‘those prices were no longer viable,’ said ex-project manager Darryl Tucker. ‘You’ve just got tumbleweeds growing, and that’s about it.’”

“It’s a similar story at Running Horse, which was going to bring prosperity to Fresno’s long-neglected west side. Homes would sell for up to $800,000. Instead, Running Horse became Fresno’s longest-running soap opera.”

“‘It would have been a big deal for Fresno,’ said Harlan Kelley Sr., 71, a west side resident who put $385,000 into the project and was among those allegedly defrauded. ‘We still got our fingers crossed that Donald Trump or someone else will come in and take over.’”

“Many of the trailblazers still live at Diablo Grande, and they wonder when things are going to improve. Darcie Nessinger lives with her parents in a home valued at $275,000. They paid $534,000 three years ago. ‘We expected the values of the houses to go up,’ said Nessinger. ‘It’s a resort area on a golf course.’”

“A quick return to 2005 pricing is unlikely, at Diablo Grande or anywhere else in the Valley. Steve Smiley, who tracks Valley trends for (a) consulting firm, said outrageous housing prices are gone for good. ‘I don’t know if pricing is ever going to come back to that $800,000 house in Manteca,’ he said. ‘In my mind, it shouldn’t.’”

The Guardian. “Victorville was a desert boomtown. Up until a year ago, it was the second-fastest growing city in the US. There are still signs of the boom everywhere. Driving into town, there are signs pointing to new developments, and as you get closer, people stand on the street corners waving signs to try to entice buyers to model homes. But now, 11% of the homes in the city are in foreclosure.”

“One realtor, who I spoke to who but would not give her name because she didn’t have clearance from her employer, said, ‘Dead grass is the give away that the bank has foreclosed.’ Just as in Riverside, some blocks have three or four foreclosures each, she said.”

“This realtor was selling homes in a new 29-house development. Some of the homes are unfinished, and I asked her if the credit freeze had cut off funding and stopped building. She said no, but they have had to cut the price of the homes by $100,000. Three-bedroom homes are selling for about $150,000 and four-bedroom homes are selling for $172,490.”

“I drove across town and found Carlos and Christy Barberena, resellers, who were about to show a home. They are selling homes, but 80% of the sales are foreclosures, Carlos said. The average selling price is $80,000, and now ‘regular folks who saved their money’ are coming back into the market. They were off to show a young couple in their 20s a house. ‘It’s great for them,’ he said.”

The Orange County Register. “Foreclosures are selling in Orange County, just not fast enough. As a result, a growing backlog of foreclosures threatens to push home prices further down, some economists and brokers say.”

“MDA DataQuick, in a special report prepared for the Orange County Register, found that as of early September there were more than 3,300 unsold foreclosures in the county. DataQuick looked at all foreclosures for the year ended in June, and checked to see how many had resold. It found 40 percent were unsold.”

“Banks seized 1,427 houses and condos in August. Banks, and perhaps some investors, sold 862 properties that month that had been foreclosed on in the prior year. Even so, 565 bank-owned properties were added to the county’s inventory of unsold foreclosures in August.”

“Doing the same math for February, gives a net foreclosure figure of 114 properties. Clearly, the county has been adding unsold foreclosures at a faster rate each month.”

“Harry Solomon, who specializes in selling foreclosures for banks, recently checked on a foreclosure in Westminster and found a water line cut, gas disconnected, and earthquake straps removed – all to the house’s water heater. He suspects the homeowners had planned to take the heater, but ran out of time.”

“A similar visit to a house in Rancho Santa Margarita, revealed the people who rented the property from the delinquent owner had stripped it. Toilets gone. Appliances missing. Bedroom doors taken. In both cases, Solomon, suspects the residents were motivated more by anger than by value of anything taken.”

The North County Times. “Faced with a proliferation of dead lawns and weed-filled yards at foreclosed homes, city officials are hoping to use a new state law to force banks and mortgage companies to maintain the properties they take back.”

“Karl Schwarm, San Marcos’ director of housing and neighborhood services, said last week that he plans to ask the City Council this month to let the city levy fines of up to $1,000 a day against owners who fail to keep up foreclosed properties. Such fines became possible in July when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 1137 into law.”

“Maintenance often becomes an issue at a foreclosed property because many defaulting homeowners abandon their homes once they learn their lenders’ plan to take the properties. That can leave a home in maintenance limbo during the 60 to 90 days it takes to complete the foreclosure process.”

“‘Unfortunately, that’s when the grass dies and everything gets brown,’ said Schwarm. ‘During that time, the homeowner usually doesn’t care what anybody does to him because he doesn’t own the property anymore.’”

“Data from ForeclosureRadar shows the number of North County homes seized by banks and mortgage companies in August was more than double the number of foreclosures during August 2007. Lenders had started but not yet completed foreclosure proceedings on many more North County properties.”

“ZIP code maps maintained by the research firm showed the foreclosures spread throughout each city —- a trend North County city officials said they had noticed as well. ‘You really can find it in almost any neighborhood,’ said Escondido code enforcement manager Leslie Milks. ‘It’s citywide —- your higher-income areas, your lower-income areas.’”

“A resident of San Marcos’ upscale San Elijo Hills development who declined to give her name said she and her neighbors know what it’s like to watch a once-attractive property become the neighborhood eyesore after going into foreclosure. Built about two years ago, her Verzano neighborhood is filled with large, two-story homes surrounded by neatly kept yards and manicured landscaping. Recent months have seen a number of properties being foreclosed on, though, the woman said.”

“Just a couple doors down…a Weatherstone Way house taken by a bank about three months ago now has a dead lawn that stands out like an ugly brown stamp of shame among its green neighbors. ‘We wanted to water it, but the bank refused to let us,’ the woman said of herself and other nearby residents. ‘They even sent somebody out to put a lockbox on the water (system for the house). And now they won’t even contact us.’”

“A management company that represents the Verzano Homeowners Association has repeatedly tried to reach people at the bank as well, to no avail, she added. ‘I know this (foreclosure problem) is happening all over,’ the woman said. ‘But these banks, they’ve got to keep them up. You can’t let the whole neighborhood start looking bad.’”

“As housing prices soared in this decade, Robert J. Shiller, a Yale University finance and economics professor, turned his eye to the real estate market. He predicted a bubble in the making, starting in about 1998. He also predicted its bursting.”

“Q: Sacramento and California have seen huge drops in median sales prices the past year, which has stirred a jump in sales. Some say bottom is here, or on the horizon. Have you looked at the state?”

“A: I haven’t looked recently at Sacramento. But the other California markets, Los Angeles and San Diego, are down quite sharply already. They’re down 40 percent in real terms. That means they are something on the order of halfway down to pre-bubble levels. Eventually, the slowdown has to stop. I’m not really in the business of forecasting prices.”

“Q: What’s your opinion on bailing out struggling homeowners? What if it had happened earlier to stop foreclosures and spare the economy?”

A: We’ve let it get out of hand. Confidence is collapsing in this crisis. Maybe, they should have done something before this very negative view developed. I would like to see efforts to start bailing them out and put them in a new kind of contract.”

“Q: One of the very interesting parts of your book is how regulators simply could not imagine this downturn. You tell about meeting with people at Freddie Mac in October 2006. They said home prices might fall, at worst, by 13 percent.”

“A: I can tell another story. In 2003, I made an appearance at Fannie Mae. I told them I was worried about real estate risk. And I couldn’t get a response. They didn’t take me seriously. I was talking with some of their economists. I think the people there, they didn’t think there was any reason to expect a price drop, and my warnings were unheeded.”

A report from Florida Today. “According to Zillow, 46.5 percent of all homes bought in Brevard since 2003 — or about 30,000 homes — are now worth less than is owed on them, raising worries that the record-high foreclosure rate here won’t end any time soon. Local foreclosure numbers back that up. Just over 7,000 foreclosure suits were filed through the end of August, according to the Clerk of the Court. That’s up from less than 5,200 all of last year and 1,900 in 2006.”

“‘I wish I wasn’t upside-down on my house. But I am,’ said economist Sean Snaith, who bought his Orlando-area home in 2006 when he joined the University of Central Florida faculty. ‘But I’m fine. I’m not going anywhere.’”

“Others, though, feel trapped. If they were to sell, they would have to pay their lender the difference between the selling price and the amount owed. ‘The only thing keeping us here in Florida is our house,’ said Maria Acevedo of Palm Bay.”

“Acevedo and her husband moved from New Jersey to Brevard because they thought the schools would be better for their two children. After renting for a year, they bought a house in 2004 for $114,000. They later refinanced and now owe $160,000. Acevedo said she doubted she could get $80,000 for the house right now. ‘There are so many houses on the market that have been foreclosed,’ she said.’”

“Acevedo said she and her husband took pay cuts when they moved here. That was fine at first, she said, since the cost of living here was low. But as the cost of living has increased…salaries haven’t kept pace. ‘The jobs just aren’t cutting it,’ she said.”

“‘The only thing keeping us here in Florida is our house,” said Acevedo. Now Acevedo wants to move back to New Jersey, but doesn’t see it happening soon because of her house. ‘If I could, I’d leave here in a heartbeat.’”

The Palm Beach Post. “Behind on their mortgage and forced to move to Miami-Dade County for work, Reggie and Noelvis Capiro this summer petitioned their lender, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, and its servicing company to allow a short sale on their three-bedroom, three-bath house. They found a buyer who was willing to pay $400,000, about $40,000 less than they owed on the mortgage. ”

“The bank countered at $520,000, and the deal fell apart, according to the Capiros’ agent, Dave Derrenbacke. The Capiros lost the home to foreclosure in June, and the bank this month sold the house to a new buyer. The sale price this time: $360,000, according to MLS data. In the end, the bank got paid about $40,000 less than it would have had it gone through the short sale offered by the Capiros.”

“‘There’s definitely success stories out there,’ Derrenbacker said. ‘But there’s a big frustration level on everyone from sellers to buyers to the Realtors who are involved.’”

The News Press. “The relentless slide of home prices in Lee County has left almost half of recent buyers owing more on their mortgages than the home is worth — a sure-fire recipe for a new wave of foreclosures, experts say. Worst off are those who bought homes in 2006, just as the housing boom was ending: 78.5 percent of those now have home values less than the original loan amount, according to Zillow.”

“Among people who bought within the past five years, 46 percent are underwater on their mortgage in Lee, compared with 29 percent nationwide.”

“‘We are so upside down,’ said Michelle Nacua of Lehigh Acres. Nacua and her husband, Lani, bought their house in 2004 for $112,000. They refinanced twice and now owe $161,000, far more than the $114,000 the three-bedroom, two-bath house is assessed for by the county Property Appraiser’s Office. ‘It is our fault, but I hate it.’”

“Since the record high of $322,300 for the median Realtor-assisted sale of an existing single-family home in December 2005, the price has fallen 54 percent to $146,900 in August, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.”

“Even those who have been dutifully paying their mortgages are faced with the fear of foreclosures. ‘The third wave is coming from people who are underwater who are suffering disruptions to income,’ said Chris Lafakis, Florida analyst for Moody’s Economy.com.”

“Fort Myers attorney Kevin Jursinski agreed. ‘My clients are not subprime buyers; they’re people who’ve invested and can’t afford to pay,’ said Jursinski. For example, he said, ‘If I have a house I paid $400,000 for a few years ago with a $350,000 mortgage and I can buy a (bank-owned foreclosure) for $300,000 or $250,000, I’m going to do that,’ he said. ‘I’m gone.’”

“Jim Luccisano is the founder and president of Edison Financial Services, a financial services, mortgage, insurance and real estate firm in south Fort Myers. Q: The long-term prospects for Lee County’s real estate market?”

“A: Long term, I think they’re great. The boomers will come. Remember, ‘if you build it they will come’? Well, we’ve built it! Unfortunately, we built too much, too fast.”

“Once the uncertainty of the current markets settle, the retirees will put their homes up north on the market and we’ll get our share buying here. It will start in those cities that have not been hit as hard by the downturn, cities where the economies have not been devastated. Our snowbird friends are already looking around. A condo that was appraised at $325,000 in 2005 recently sold for $130,000.”

The Herald Tribune. “Like so many other high-flying companies in Southwest Florida, Century Bank’s success was linked to the unprecedented real estate boom. When that boom turned to bust, Century suffered the consequences. ‘I’ve been in banking 36 years and I’ve never seen a recession come on this fast and I’ve never seen property values depreciate as much as they have,’ said John O’Neill, Century’s CEO.”

“The biggest problem Century has had, O’Neill said, is with its portfolio of home equity or second loans. With real estate values down by 20 to 30 percent across the region, there was not enough collateral left in the properties for both first mortgage lenders and home equity lenders to be paid off.”

“O’Neill said his bank has also been burned by loans made to borrowers that were secured against building lots mainly in Lee County. Lots that were selling there for as much as $60,000 during the boom are selling for only $10,000 today, O’Neill said.”

The Tampa Tribune. “Bay area housing prices continue to fall, largely because a big chunk of the homes selling are sharply discounted properties in distress, a new report shows. Of homes that sold in Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties in September, 28 percent were either bank-owned or preforeclosure properties that sold for less than the troubled borrower owed on the mortgage. That’s up from a mere 0.2 percent during the same month in 2005…according to a real estate consulting firm and brokerage.”

“‘The distressed properties really weigh down the market,’ said Peter Murphy, a consultant with the company.”

“That’s because troubled real estate sells for far less than homes in which the seller isn’t under pressure. In the three-county area, nondistressed property averaged $126 per square foot. Compare that with $78 a square foot for bank-owned homes. In 2005, in the midst of the housing boom, nondistressed sales averaged $165 a square foot.”

The St Petersburg Times. “How terrible is the tug? According to (a) Tampa real estate consultant, banked-owned properties in September sold for only 62 percent of what nondistressed properties sold for. Distressed sales help explain the duration of the housing slump. More than 600 such properties were sold in the bay area in September alone. It helps explain why a typical house that fetched $215,000 a year ago now goes for about $170,000.”

“John McCain may be the Republican presidential candidate, but his proposal that the federal government buy and restructure $300 billion in troubled mortgages was a page ripped directly from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal playbook.”

“‘Is it expensive? Yes,’ McCain said. ‘But we all know, my friends, until we stabilize home values in America, we’re never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy.’”

“Some worry such a plan creates an incentive for more people to default on their loans to get to refinance for less. That’s a chance worth taking to stem foreclosures, said Michael Slotkin, an economics professor at Florida Tech. ‘We need to save a generation of homebuyers. If you lose a couple of million buyers, you won’t have them back for years.’”

The West Orlando News. “Pending home sales have risen seven percent in some parts of Florida. The increase is being attributed to falling home prices. The increase in the housing market is bittersweet and things in Florida could get worse before they get better. Florida’s unemployment rate is at a 13 year high and exceeds the national average.”

“Governor Charlie Crist spent an hour meeting with Florida bankers. Afterward we asked if Florida is in a recession. ‘The economy’s tough. I don’t know what you technically call it. You know it’s a difficult challenging situation and there’s no question about it.’”

“Crist says the best thing Floridians can do in these tough times is to keep spending.”

“On the ninth floor of an office building on Cypress Street last week, Brad Robinson looked out across a sea of vacant desks and a deserted fish bowl and framed ads talking about company trust. Only he was left, the last man standing in Suite 950-A, once home to a thriving commercial real estate lending division of Washington Mutual. Now, it’s just another wasteland after the largest bank failure in American history.”

“‘There was a person there,’ Robinson said. ‘Person there. Three or four there. Person there. Person there.’”

“But in an industry full of panic, Robinson, a former senior loan consultant who made $200,000 last year, managed calm. True, he never expected WaMu to sink like Enron, and he lost company stock once worth as much as $75,000. To Robinson, WaMu’s future seemed as safe as a savings account. It had a long, storied history, having given out the first home loan ever in 1890 and more than $150-billion in home loans in 2006.”

“He only recently sold his Jetta after years of ribbing from colleagues and bosses over driving something that didn’t match his moneyed line of work. He saw no reason to get rid of it since it ran great and attracted little attention when he visited properties in rough neighborhoods. He parked it out of sight and arrived early if he had to meet clients.’

“But eventually he caved and bought a metallic gray BMW 335 coupe two years ago.”

“‘You take the good with the bad,’ he said, squeezing a pink piggy bank-shaped stress reliever between his palms sitting behind the office desk he was cleaning out.”

The Miami Herald. “Maria Osorio, 62, of Sunrise, never meant to run up her credit cards the way she did. But the companies sent them so freely. And they were so easy to use. First it was gifts and big items. Then it was gasoline, and that tasty baked chicken at the Golden Corral restaurant, then even groceries.”

“Suddenly the charges on her eight credit cards totaled $14,000. And she couldn’t always pay the monthly minimums. ‘The interest rates were killing me,’ she said. ‘If I sent in $100, only $20 of it was going to the principal. The pressure was building. I started getting the calls.”’

“She was far from alone. Since 2003, Americans have increased their credit card debt by an astounding $200 billion, to a record total of almost $1 trillion, the Federal Reserve says.”

“”People are overextended, losing jobs, losing homes, losing 401(k)s,’ says Meg Green, a North Miami certified financial planner. ‘There’s no place to go but credit cards, and they’re maxed out.’”

“Unfortunately, the economic crisis comes at a time when American consumers have been living beyond their means for decades. By 2007, personal consumption had reached $10 trillion a year. While housing values were booming, they financed purchases with home equity loans.”

”’From 2001 to 2006 homeowners cashed out $1.2 trillion in home equity, to cope with mounting debt and basic living expenses,’ says José Garcia, of the Demos financial consulting firm.”

“Some who approach April Lewis-Parks, director of Consolidated Credit Counseling Services’ Broward office, have so much debt and so little income that she can’t help them. ‘There’s a pool of people who have lost their jobs, and their income is cut and they just don’t have the money even for lower payments. I think a lot of them will just default,’ she says.”

“Green, the financial planner, is no fan of the way credit card companies treat customers. But she blames credit card users as well: ‘Why were people spending money they didn’t have in the first place? Where is it written that you can forget the difference between want and need?”’

The Naples News. “The Collier County Building Industry Association won’t let a tough economy rain on its parade. The Parade of Homes will go on. But not this fall. Originally planned for later this month, the scattered-site parade has been rescheduled for March in hopes of drawing more interest from local builders, who have been slow to sign up as they struggle through one of the worst housing slumps in decades.”

‘Only 13 entries were received — not enough to make a fall parade worthwhile. Typically, there are 30 or more homes displayed. New-home construction has slowed to a crawl in Collier County. In August, permits were down 23 percent for single-family homes, compared to a year ago. Multi-family permits were off 81 percent, according to a monthly report by Naples-based The Bidder’s Broker.”

“For many years, the association has done two parades annually: one at a single site and the other at multiple locations. In 2007, there wasn’t a multi-site parade. ‘That is when things really started to adjust,’ said Brenda Talbert, the building association’s executive VP, in a letter to the media and marketing partners.”

“Custom Construction Associates, a family-owned builder of multimillion-dollar homes on Marco Island, signed up for the parade this month too. But Lynn Lilly, an office manager, said she understood the decision to postpone it. ‘Last year was a little off,’ she said. ‘But it has been tremendously off this summer.’”

“Many builders are ‘absolutely pulling in and not expending any more resources than they have to,’ as they fight for survival, while others are going out of business or bankrupt, ‘losing everything they ever worked for,’ Talbert said.”

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