Affordability Is Its Own Driving Force
The News Press reports from Florida. “Duane Clairmore’s divorce, along with his sagging home value, has put him in a bind. The value of the two-bedroom, two-bath house in south Fort Myers is teetering close to what he owes on it. With real estate fees and closing costs, Clairmore may end up losing the $75,000 down payment he put up in 2005 and walking away without a house or money for a future residence. ‘I’ve had three lookers in the last year,’ he said.”
“‘I don’t see people fighting over homes like they used to - if you have to sell a house or if you’re going through a divorce, you have to accept reality,’ said Brett Ellis, real estate agent in Fort Myers. ‘The market doesn’t care what your situation is. We tell them what it’s worth and they have an awakening,” he said. “Not only is it not worth fighting over, but (they) owe $100,000 on it and (their) credit is mashed. It is one less thing to fight about.’”
“‘The house is no longer considered an asset,’ said Fort Myers family law mediator and matrimonial attorney Robert Schwartz. “It’s considered a liability in many situations - the house has become a white elephant; it’s become a burden.’”
“Clairmore waits for house sales to rise and prices to go up so he can move on with his life. ‘I could stay here until the market turns around,’ he said. ‘We’re kind of stuck.’”
“Commercial building in Lee County is grinding almost to a halt as existing projects finish up and cash-strapped developers don’t start new ones, according to statistics released Monday. And experts say it’s only going to get worse. Meanwhile, residential work also is slow with Cape Coral reporting only seven single-family home permits pulled in January, matching the previous record low of September 2008.”
“In the unincorporated county, a record low of 13 single-family permits were pulled. That was a new low, beating the old one of 14 set in November 2008. No single-family permits were recorded in Fort Myers Beach or Sanibel. ‘I’m pretty much an optimist,’ said commercial real estate broker Robert Wagner. ‘If you tell me the sky’s going to fall, I’ll say it’s going to miss me. But right now the arteries have been cut and there’s blood gushing everywhere. It’s got to heal itself and there’s nothing to do about it. Nature’s got to run its course.’”
The Sun Sentinel. “Diela Narrabe may be forced to leave her Deerfield Beach condo next month. Narrabe is one of 28 unit owners — out of 168 — in the Deerfield Palms condo association who still pay their monthly maintenance fees, which are used to pay the community’s water bill.”
“Residents owe the city $90,000. If they don’t pay $12,929 by the first week of March, the city is threatening to turn off the water. Because the community has master meters rather than individual unit gauges, the city can’t separate owners who are current on their bills from delinquent customers. If the water goes away, so will Narrabe…who says she could not afford both her mortgage and rent on another place.”
“‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘If they evict us, that’s my big problem. If I was by myself, that’s another thing. But my two little daughters? We can’t live without water.’”
The Palm Beach Post. “Stuart developer Jim Ladd has sold the remaining condos at his Outrigger Harbour development in Jensen Beach - for about half the original asking price on the never-lived-in luxury units. In January, Ladd bought one of the units at the project, and one of his partners in the development bought two. Ladd said he’s thinking about living there. Or he might just hold it as an investment.”
“”The market is the market,’ Ladd said last week. ‘We certainly didn’t meet our expectations.’”
The Herald Tribune. “Lennar Corp. has filed a major lawsuit against a lengthy list of manufacturers, suppliers and installers whose products or services were used by the company in the construction of its homes carrying Chinese drywall. Gases being emitted from the Chinese-made drywall have been tied to corrosion eating away at the guts of people’s homes.”
“Lennar has said it so far has identified at least 80 Southwest Florida homes that have defective Chinese drywall, and the company is investigating another 40. At least two Lennar homes in Miami-Dade also are known to be affected. A Herald-Tribune analysis of shipping records found that the amount of Chinese-manufactured drywall imported into the United States since 2006 was potentially enough to build more than 60,000 homes nationwide. Shipments landing at Florida ports alone contained enough material to build 36,000 homes.”
The St Petersburg Times. “Craig Beggins runs the largest Century 21 real estate agency in north-central Florida. He’s absorbed a number of hard lessons. He recently shared some of those with the Times. Q: What’s the word on the home sales front these days?”
“A: I don’t want to sound like one of those real estate brokers desperate to stir up sales. But we are selling stuff, and the glut of inventory homes is receding…Houses that sold for $250,000 are going for $130,000. Everyone talked about a perfect storm. Right now there’s a perfect calm: low interest rates, a tremendous supply and low prices. If now’s not the time to buy, when is it going to be?”
“Q: What’s a real estate agent got to know these days? A: The first thing you need is patience. Buyers are afraid to buy. Every seller thinks his house is worth more than it is. I met with every agent. Everybody had a ton of listings. I said, ‘How many do you think will sell?’ They said, ‘30 percent maybe.’ I said, ‘Guys, let’s stop it.’ We can’t take such listings when 70 percent don’t sell. I actually applaud my agents who don’t take overpriced listings.”
“Q: When will the market make a full recovery? A: I’m telling everyone three to five years from now. We are going to have more foreclosures on the market, which will suppress price increases. All the mortgage resets haven’t happened yet. If employment keeps going down, it’s going to proliferate into something bad for real estate.”
The Miami Herald. “A sign of the tough economic times was on display Monday morning at the Miami government administration building on Southwest Second Avenue. More than 1,000 people were standing in line to obtain job applications for just 35 positions as firefighters.”
“On Monday morning, canvas tents filled the large lawn beside the building. Every few feet, there was an empty cooler or box of pizza. The line of men and women stretched around the building. Expecting a long line, Lester Easley, Cesar Lopez and others camped out in front of the building over the weekend, braving a three-day cold front and Sunday night rain.”
“Easley…said city officials should have been better prepared to manage the crowd that appeared. Several hundred people had unfairly pushed their way ahead of them Monday morning, according to paramedic Jose Janvion. ‘I slept here, damn it,’ he said. ‘People just got here at 8 a.m. and skipped us.”’
The LA Times. “Reporting from Cape Coral, Fla. — Jim Burch is a proud man from a proud town. ‘It breaks my heart to say we need help,’ he says. But when the Florida housing market collapsed, this sprawling city on Florida’s southwest coast tumbled with it. Unemployment has risen to over 10%. A nice home near the water goes for just over $100,000 — 70% less than a few years ago. On Friday, the county government laid off 19 workers because money is no longer flowing in from construction permits.”
The Associated Press. “They started lining up at the ‘Faith Cafe’ before lunchtime — the unemployed and the homeless, the hungry and the hopeless. They were just two miles from Raymond James Stadium, where workers were putting the finishing touches on the site of America’s biggest party, the Super Bowl.”
“Come nightfall, they’ll spread out in search of a park bench or a patch of grass, some place to sleep away another lost day. This week they’ve tried to make their voices heard in a city throwing a big party they’re not invited to, complete with stretch limousines, steak-and-lobster dinners, high-rise hotel suites and a $1,000-a ticket football game on Sunday.”
“‘It only means they’re sending a bunch of people down here on vacation and giving tax breaks to come down here and do business,’ said 53-year-old David Hall, who works in construction but has been out of a job since his car was impounded a couple of weeks ago. ‘It’s rough out there,’ said Hall, who said he once owned a home but now lives in a pop-up camper. ‘I’ve never seen it this bad.’”
From TC Palm. “Now that the median price of a single-family home in Martin and St. Lucie counties has dropped 50 percent from the market peak, there’s a growing consensus that prices have finished falling.”
“‘I can’t guarantee you that it’s at the bottom. But it’s so close that I don’t think it even matters any more,’ said Ed Farah of Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate Laviano & Associates in Port St. Lucie. ‘I don’t know how people can go wrong when they’re buying a 2,100-square-foot home that’s 3 years old, in immaculate condition, for $50 a square foot.’”
“In Port St. Lucie, though, the emerging evidence suggests the housing market finally has found a floor. Area Realtors say they’re seeing multiple offers for foreclosed homes, so long as the houses are in good condition and the lender posts a rock-bottom listing price. ‘Everybody wants a steal. They don’t want a deal; they want a steal,’ said Craig Wallengren of All Florida GMAC Real Estate in Port St. Lucie.”
The Naples News. “Foreclosures are falling. In January, new filings decreased to 2,074, down from 2,201 in December in Lee County. Filings dropped to 1,647 in November before spiking back up again. New filings bounced up and down last year, hitting a record of 2,603 in October. ‘It’s one of those bell curves that is trying to go down,’ said Charlie Green, the county’s Clerk of Courts.”
“Jeff Tumbarello, the association’s director, said he’s not ready to call the drop last month a trend. He said too many banks aren’t taking action on foreclosures so it’s hard to know how many of them are still out there. ‘Basically, in my opinion, you have a lot of institutions that are just froze up and in survival mode and they are just doing as little as they can,’ Tumbarello said.”
“He said a recent review of the balance sheets of the top four banks was ‘quite scary,’ based on what is shown as assets, particularly in this market. Lenders on average are losing 70 percent on the principal balance loaned on each foreclosure sold.”
“In the report, Tumbarello noted there have been fewer filings by condominium associations, which he believes is due to the lack of money and ability to do anything with the property. With prices continuing to fall, sales in Lee County were up 100 percent in January, over the same month last year, Tumbarello said. The inventory of homes has fallen by nearly 1,000 in the last 60 days.”
“‘Affordability is its own driving force — the better it gets, the better it gets,’ he said.”
