Florida Home Loan Realtors Look Forward to Productive New Year

After a rocky year in 2006, local Realtors expect the Florida mortgage market to smooth out in 2007.

They’re seeing signs of improvement. Phone calls and showings for homes have picked up over the past two months. Pending sales improved slightly in November.

In the Naples housing market, new listings aren’t coming to market as fast as they were a few months ago. Admittedly, real estate agents and brokers are positive thinkers anyway.

“You know I’m optimistic,” said Wes Brodersen, president of EXIT Gulder Real Estate and past president of the Bonita Springs-Estero Association of Realtors. “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be in real estate.”

Realtors expect to see buyers eating into an inventory of homes that continued to grow throughout 2006. They’re looking for a return to a more normal market. In the Naples area, the year ended with more than 11,000 listings, a 16-month supply of homes, on the market. That could increase by 1,000 or more this month, with the height of season.

In Lee County, there were 13,330 single-family homes, and another 8,559 condominiums listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service last week. That works out to a more than 17-month supply of single-family homes and about a three-year supply of condos on the market.

Would-be home buyers have hesitated to make purchases for many reasons. After a record run-up in prices in 2005, rising Florida mortgage rates and skyrocketing insurance premiums made homes even less affordable in Southwest Florida in 2006.

Buyers lost confidence after investors, looking to turn a quick profit, flooded the market with listings, including apartments-turned-condo.

National and local stories about a slowdown in the real estate market had buyers running scared last year. So did headlines that Naples ranked as the most overvalued market in the country.

“There has been a lot of pent-up demand, sitting on the fence waiting to hear the market is OK,” Brodersen said. “Whenever they think the market is OK, buyers are going to move.”

Though he thinks there will be more buyers this year than last, he doesn’t expect to see a return to the buying frenzy seen in 2004 and 2005 that pushed home prices in Southwest Florida up to historic highs.

“I’m looking for a good, probably not a great, season,” Brodersen said.

He’s already noticed more Florida home mortgage activity at his office.

“We’ve got some deals,” he said. “We are putting some pendings in the drawer. With that you just hope everything goes well. Putting them in the drawer doesn’t put money in the bank. They have to close.”