Editorial: Draw Your Own Southwest Florida Housing Market Conclusions
Regarding Saturday’s front-page story in the Naples Daily News, a reader and local resident warns that the media is opting for sensationalism over reporting and perhaps making the Southwest Florida housing market worse as a result.
The front-page sub-headline warns us that “the SW Florida housing market won’t get better any time soon” with the market “severely depressed in the foreseeable future” with this area’s home sales down by “70 percent since the same time last year.”
But did the paper properly explain the context of the “70 percent” remark, or provide readily available countervailing data?
Then, in an obvious attempt to add hype to the piece, the article states that “Southwest Florida has some of the most difficult market conditions in the country,” according to Meritage CEO Steven J. Hilton, who also says “the market is bloated with inventory and there’s no demand.”
Perhaps prospective applicants for Florida mortgages would be better off taking their own temperature, so to speak, than citing this gentleman.
After all, why should anyone today believe anything regarding projections and/or forecasts told to us by the top brass at Meritage?
Aren’t they the same top officials who told the Daily News in 2005 that they hoped to double their staff amid a booming Naples housing market and grow annual sales to more than $1 billion a year in Southwest Florida?
As Florida real estate has tanked, their projections and forecasts have shown themselves to be no more valid than those of TV meteorologists who are great at explaining why we had rain and wind yesterday but inept at telling us what we’ll have the day after tomorrow.
Perhaps it should suffice to say that in 2005 the Meritage stock was at $89 and it is now (last Friday) at $26.75. This sterling performance came under the stewardship of the very same people who now bemoan the state of “the Florida housing market” yet who were incapable of foreseeing the downturn that took place.
A downturn, one could argue with a level of confidence, that was inexorably exacerbated by their very own “bloating” of the marketplace.
Perhaps the Daily News should ask better questions. And perhaps Florida home mortgage seekers should draw their own conclusions.
