Florida Mortgage Lender Exits Turbulent Market
Pretty much everyone in the Southwest Florida housing market knows of Nancy Detert - for her service on the Sarasota County School Board, her eight years as member of the Florida House of Representatives and her exciting, underdog run for Congress.
But when not drafting laws and running office, she was providing loans to corporations and homeowners through her Florida mortgage company.
Last month, Detert sold Osprey Mortgage (located in North Port) to a former employee, Kathy Campion, saying that she decided to sell her 23-year-old business because “the market is so strange right now.”
“I’ve seen buyers markets and sellers markets, high interest rates and low interest rates, but now there’s something I’ve never seen before,” Detert said.
“[Florida mortgage rates] now are as low as they ever have been, but people can’t afford to buy because they overpurchased and overfinanced during the boom, and now they’re upside down in their homes.”
Detert said she believes in Florida, and is certain the real estate market will rebound. But she warned that the next 18 months are going to be tough.
“The next step we’re all waiting for is foreclosures,” Detert said. “It will hit the banking industry hard.”
Detert said the last thing a Florida mortgage lender wants is to take possession of a house in the midst of a glut. So they will respond by coming up with new products to keep people in their homes.
“The foreclosure phase will be the final nail in the real estate coffin,” Detert said. “After that the market will turn and soon we will be back to where we were before the locusts invaded - probably by the end of 2008.”
In the meantime, the 63-year-old politician and businesswoman has plenty on her mind.
Not only is she running for the Florida Senate in 2008, but she also has taken a marketing position with Chapman & Associates, a Sarasota-based appraisal firm.
“It’s a company I used for 20 years,” Detert said. “They want me to travel from Sarasota to Naples, visit Realtors and mortgage brokers and get them to use our appraisal service.”
Detert said the commercial market is still strong, and her company is well positioned to benefit from a pending wave of taxpayers who will petition local governments to get their property tax bills reduced.
“I told my boss that the best thing to tell people if they want to protest their taxes is to bring an appraisal,” Detert said. “That will show value adjustment boards that values are falling.”
If elected to the state Senate, Detert said she will work on getting Florida a better tax system.
“I applaud the Legislature in taking on the issue that people have more government than people can afford,” Detert said.
“But they came up with the wrong solution.”
The biggest part of taxes goes to schools. But legislators were afraid to take money from schools. They put the whole burden on the counties and they never dealt with the problem of snowbirds and businesses.
“We didn’t use to care about Canadians with mansions,” Detert continued. “But now that they’re leaving, we realize they are good for the economy.”
Detert added that businesses should not be taxed according to the highest and best use of the land their businesses sit on.
“That is why we are losing every beach bar and restaurant on the barrier islands,” she said.
In the long run, Florida’s economy will have to shift from its dependence on tourism, home building and real estate by fostering other economic engines, such as medical research and high technology.
But now, government should do everything it can to stimulate Florida real estate. A great first move would be to allow homesteaded homeowners to take their tax protection with them when they move to a new home.
“Our whole economy is based on real estate,” Detert said. “We should help people buy and sell.”
SOURCE: Sarasota Herald-Tribune
