The Housing Bubble

The Gainesville Sun reports from Florida. “Jennifer Beguiristain plans to be in Gainesville at least three more years to work on a master’s degree in speech pathology, so she traded in her $700-a-month apartment for a $988 mortgage payment and arranged to rent out two rooms for $400 each. The 27-year-old recently closed on the four-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot house in northwestern Gainesville for $139,000 with a 5 percent down payment. ‘I just feel like, renting, you’re throwing money out of the window,’ she said.”

“If she gets a job out of the area when she is done with graduate school, Beguiristain likes her chances to make money on the property. ‘The good thing about a house in that area is I do have the option to sell or rent it since it’s near Santa Fe (College) and the values are going up, so I think it was a very good investment,’ she said.”

“Matt and Hallie Johnson recently bought a three-bedroom, 1.5-bath home in Micanopy on a USDA loan with 100 percent financing after Hallie was accepted into the UF veterinary school. The Johnsons were paying $700 a month for a condo and wanted instead to put that money toward a $810 mortgage payment. ‘When you’re paying rent, you don’t have to worry about lawns, so we really didn’t have any financial burden in terms of taking care of the place, but I knew that home equity and being able to purchase our first home would allow us to put that monthly income of rent toward something that might actually make us some money in the future,’ Matt Johnson said.”

The Sun Sentinel. “More than 4,000 coastal condo units are coming to Broward County as developers trying to capitalize on an upbeat housing market. The number of units completed, under construction or planned has nearly doubled over the past year, according to the database created by the CondoVultures consulting firm in Bal Harbour. Some analysts wonder whether that’s even enough to satisfy demand from wealthy empty-nesters, retirees from the Northeast and opportunistic foreign investors.”

“‘People don’t want the hassle of mowing the lawn or maintaining the roof,’ said Dennis Eisinger, co-developer of a handful of boutique condos in Las Olas Isles, east of downtown. ‘And right now it makes much more sense to buy than rent.’”

“To be sure, Broward is no Miami-Dade County, where more than 27,000 units are completed or in the pipeline, prompting some market watchers to wonder whether Miami-Dade is destined for another downturn like the one that devastated the area from 2006 through 2011.”

The News Press. “Two of Southwest Florida’s biggest builders say condo skyscrapers could rise again here as the economy improves and inventory tightens. But it’s not clear that potential buyers are ready to shell out for the high life in Southwest Florida at the prices they’d have to pay, some say. ‘The problem is the new condos being built in Florida have primarily been contracted by high-end investors, who are predominantly interested in south Florida although there are some in Sarasota and Orlando,’ said Jack McCabe, a Deerfield Beach-based real estate consultant. ‘One of the worries I’ve heard is that the target pool of potential buyers is really retiring baby boomers,’ he said. ‘That west coast area between Fort Myers and Port Charlotte doesn’t have the attraction for major builders.’”

“The towers in downtown Fort Myers were conceived mainly during the last days of the real estate frenzy that gripped Lee County in 2004 and 2005. Some never got off the ground when the market crashed in early 2006, and even builders who managed to complete a project often were deserted by buyers who walked away from their deposits as prices plunged. Where demand is strong, builders are putting up a lot of towers, McCabe said, noting that statewide there are 227 new condo projects with almost 40,000 units announced or under construction. Most of those are in south Florida, he said.”

“As the towers return, the question arises whether coming years will see a repeat of the first decade of the century, when a frenzy of high-rise activity led to a crash in 2006. ‘I definitely think it’s going to happen in south Florida, maybe in Sarasota,’ McCabe said. ‘The people here can’t afford them. Builders are relying on out-of-state and out-of-country buyers.’”

The Orlando Sentinel. “The once-sizzling home-sales market has cooled off this summer in the Orlando area as sellers face increasing competition and buyers no longer have to wait in line with investors to buy houses. The number of listings has ballooned. In June 2013, about 7,600 houses were listed in the core Orlando market, which primarily covers Orange and Seminole counties. It’s still considered a seller’s market, but last month the area had more than 11,500 listings, according to the Orlando Regional Realtor Association.”

“One shift that has just started in Orlando could help determine future prices: Investment groups are bundling the single-family homes they own and trying to sell them in bulk. At least some of those groups are trying to sell to other real-estate companies that want homes for rental income. Last week, for example, a Naples-based group offered a portfolio of 43 houses in Orlando, Deltona, DeLand, Daytona Beach, Mount Dora, Sanford and Apopka for a total price of $3.1 million.”

“The prospect of investors selling off properties and lenders auctioning off their foreclosures could further increase the supply of home listings and reduce prices. ‘When there’s too much inventory on the market, there’s a dark cloud in the distance,’ said Orlando resident Justin Stamper, who has bought and sold about 90 foreclosed homes since the recession for Investment Homes Direct. ‘If the [investor groups] do unload their inventory, prices are going to go down. If they don’t, then prices will rise steadily.’”

The Palm Beach Post. “Aging foreclosures continue to linger in Florida’s court system with 33 percent of Palm Beach County’s backlogged cases at least two years old. According to new data from the Florida State Courts Administrator, the 15th circuit has 15,195 foreclosure cases pending, with 5,005 topping the 730-day mark. Statewide, 55,798 foreclosures are two years old or older. The total number of pending cases statewide is 185,823.”

“While new foreclosure files have fallen to levels more common pre-real estate crash, some foreclosure defense attorneys wonder whether there won’t be an uptick soon. Wellington attorney Malcolm Harrison said banks are struggling to adjust to new regulations issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. ‘I have met with clients who have not made payments in over two years and who still have not received foreclosure papers,’ Harrison said. ‘The cases will eventually be opened against them but only when the old cases are resolved and the banks know how to comply with the new regulations.’”