The Housing Bubble

The Orlando Sentinel reports from Florida. “Overall the news for Central Florida underscored a trend that began in about 2005, when high insurance and unbridled property taxes curbed buyers’ appetite for coastal properties. ‘Coastal areas are where we’re seeing the lowest of the lows,’ said Volusia County Property Appraiser Morgan Gilreath. ‘The market extended itself out the furthest. You can only pull a rubber band so far before it snaps back.’”

“Next year, eight major condominium projects will come on line, but condo prices could suffer, Property Appraiser Bill Donegan said. ‘The condo market is one that I think that you’re going to see somewhat of a price break because so many were bought by investors,’ Donegan said. ‘People said: ‘I’ll buy it and flip it tomorrow.’ So many of them bought it and they can’t flip it.’”

“Seminole County Property Appraiser David Johnson said he has seen prices soften in new subdivisions. Particularly in new neighborhoods with prices from $350,000 to $500,000, builders are offering buyers incentives and sometimes discounting prices 20 percent.”

“Investors who purchased new houses before construction are trying to sell and recoup their money. That all forces homeowners trying to sell in those newer areas to drop their prices, he said.”

“Throughout Seminole, the demand for condominiums in the mid-$100,000s price range has dropped enough that prices are down about 10 percent, Johnson said.”

“‘We’re at the tail end of that boom period. We hear all the time that the market is down. It’s down. It’s down. And it is down as far as the number of houses that are selling and the amount of time they are on the market, but prices are not dropping on house resalesm” said Frank Royce, chief deputy in the county Property Appraiser’s Office.”

“Meanwhile, Royce estimated that the number of foreclosures quadrupled in Lake during the past year.”

The News Press. “Single-family-home permits issued in Cape Coral fell to 69, down from 77 this past month, the lowest since the same number were issued in February 1996.”

“In December 2005 at the height of the bull market that prevailed in 2004 and 2005, the median Realtor-assisted sale of an existing single-family home was $322,300, and 1,084 houses were sold that month in all of Lee County, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.”

“By May, the median price was $281,500 and only 575 houses were sold. There are about 15,000 houses for sale, about four times the number at the height of the market.”

From NBC 2. “The growing number of kitchen arsons is putting lives and homes in danger. Officials say the number of suspicious fires in Lee County has skyrocketed. Officials with the State Fire Marshal’s Office say that sometimes, homeowners purposely started their own home on fire.”

“Local firefighters say they have seen similar situations take place because the homeowner was just looking to collect the insurance money.”

“‘If I just leave something on the stove burning, say I have to go to the store, maybe I can get some money out of it,’ said Patrick Comer, of Lehigh Acres Fire.”

“So far this year, they’ve fought 18 fires and 10 of those were thought to be suspicious. ‘We got double those numbers in the first five months of the year and our population did not double,’ said Comer.”

“‘Are they behind on their mortgage payments and they’re trying to get out of a bad house deal? We’ve seen a lot of foreclosures, does that figure into it?’ said Comer.”

From Florida Today. “Anyone banking on a quick end to the slow housing market is likely to be disappointed. Housing experts say it might be months, a year, or more before sales pick up, and they’re just giving their best guess.”

“Meanwhile, buyers continue to balk at prices that don’t reflect the current economic situation. Brevard County’s 483 home sales in May were down 26 percent compared to May 2006.”

“The median price fell 16 percent to $190,400 over the same time, the Florida Association of Realtors says.”

“As Jonathan Krauser with RE/MAX Surfside Properties in Cape Canaveral says, properties must be ‘priced correctly for market conditions’ to sell.”

“Sure, it’s disappointing to sellers to know they missed the market peak. But sales go hot and cold and always have.”

The Herald Tribune . “In a bankruptcy case flanked by flying civil suits, Construction Compliance Inc. of St. Petersburg, filed its reorganization in Tampa’s federal bankruptcy court.”

“After grossing $36.4 million in 2004 and $63 million in 2005, CCI owes less than $400,000 to secured creditors but owes $10.6 million to unsecured creditors.”

“Many of those were home buyers who signed up with CCI for lot-plus-home deals in North Port. Many now have an uncompleted home that cannot be legally occupied, or nothing more than a vacant lot with a bit of site work.”

“To some degree, those home buyers already have given up hope of collecting. Within the past month, dozens of them have filed suits against the lender who forwarded money in their name to CCI for work which never got done, Bradenton-based Coast Financial Holdings Inc.”

“The bank made construction loans with a face value of $110 million to 482 customers of CCI. Roughly $66 million of that total already has disbursed to CCI.”

“For example, in one of the new suits, Michael J. and Telma L. Dorcey of Tarzana, Calif., said that they took out a loan of $228,600 from Coast to build a CCI home in North Port. Coast disbursed $83,055 to CCI, but the company did no work on the Dorceys’ lot, the suit claims.”

“So the buyers find themselves indebted to Coast Bank for a house that never got started, they allege.”

“Coast acted in collaboration with American Mortgage Link, a mortgage brokerage company, Tannenbaum alleges in the Dorcey suit.”

“AML, in turn, came up with an enticing marketing ploy: the buyer could pick up a lot and home package with the promise of no money down, and with the builder absorbing the interest on the construction loan, ‘all with the intent that the completed package would be sold at a substantial profit before the issuance of the certificate of occupancy for the home,’ the Dorceys’ suit states.”

From Multi Housing News. “Over the last 35 years, Stuart Saft, a partner at an international law firm based in New York, has prepared many condominium offering plans and dealt extensively with condo workouts.”

“In an interview with MHN, Saft recalled that this is the fourth downturn he has been through in the real estate market.”

“‘I didn’t ever expect to see it again because I thought developers would act in a businesslike fashion, lenders would be more careful and Congress would be more aware of the potential damage they can cause, like they did with the Tax Reform Act of 1986,’ he notes. ‘Real estate is cyclical–it always has been and always will be.’”

“MHN: Which markets do you think are the hardest hit right now? Saft: ‘Miami is incredibly overbuilt at the moment. People were selling on views, and views were being taken away by the next building. Properties may have to be repriced, developers may need to put in more equity and/or lenders may have to review the situation.’”

The Miami Herald. “Macy’s Florida Chairman Julie Greiner walks out the door of her downtown Miami store to find homeless people and abandoned, boarded-up buildings ‘infested with rats and mold.’”

“One of Greiner’s employees was recently attacked by a homeless man on his way to work, just outside the employee entrance to the Flagler Street store that also serves as Macy’s Florida’s corporate headquarters.”

“She took the region to task in her speech, contrasting Miami’s building boom on Biscayne Boulevard and Brickell Avenue with the ‘broken curbs, collapsed sidewalks and garbage-strewn empty lots’ a few blocks away in downtown.”

“When it comes to recruiting ‘talented people,’ Greiner says she finds they want three things: ‘good public schools, affordable housing and an acceptable amount of time commuting by car.’ ‘In baseball terms, we are zero for three,’ said Greiner.”