A Collier County attorney has questioned whether Ave Maria’s developer can qualify for a countywide program that defers impact fees to make homes in the greater Naples housing market more affordable. (more…)
Future construction in Collier County could soon be coming to a halt because of legislators who are looking at state wide property tax cuts. (more…)
The Collier County housing market is first - and Lee County is number-six - on a nationwide list of housing markets where prices are most likely to fall during the next two years. (more…)
In Collier County, commissioners have given the green light to nearly 5,500 affordable housing units since the end of 1999. But there’s a problem. (more…)
A Bonita Bay Group program that provides Lee County’s work force with affordable housing is expanding to include Collier County workers and offering more economic subsidies to entice applicants.
Townhomes priced at less than $200,000 are now for sale in the new town of Ave Maria in east Collier County, the News-Press reports.
However, the 326 affordable housing units at Pulte Homes’ Middlebrooke at Ave Maria are only being offered to buyers who meet income requirements.
A new company is offering special reduced rate property insurance coverage for some of our areas most wealthy residents. It’s called PURE - Privilege Underwriters Reciprocal Exchange.
Lately property insurance rates have skyrocketed for everyone. Therefore, PURE wants to protect jewels, cars and art from hurricanes and thieves - while at the same time lowering insurance prices for wealthy Florida mortgage loan holders.
“Everybody thought they were paying too much and they were right,” said Ross Buchmueller, President of PURE.
The company will sell property/casualty insurance for high value homes, cars, jewelry, art and personal excess liability coverage. Buchmueller says by carefully selecting and screening all potential members, the company can offer lower interest rates than their competitors.
“Pooling only those who are well protected rather than subsidizing those who aren’t as well protected - the time is right and so far so good,” he said.
PURE says with certain coverage options, homeowners will be protected from both wind and water damage. Fear of these accidents occasionally prompt individuals from staying away from Florida home loans and residences in the state.
But there is a catch in the Collier County housing market, too: To receiver insurance from PURE your home has to be worth more than $1 million and be built to the latest codes and standards.
The company will also offer personal excess liability ranging from $5 to $10 million.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
A few years ago, the Collier County housing market ranked as the second-fastest-growing county in the nation. But U.S. Census figures set for release today reveal that Collier is close to falling out of the top 100 fastest-growing counties in the country.
In fact, Collier is now the 97th fastest-growing county, based on growth from 2000 to 2006.
The county had a population of 251,377 in 2000 and that population has grown to 314,649 as of July 2006, a 25 percent increase. Between 2005 and 2006, Collier grew from 307,242 people to 314,649, a percentage increase of 2.4 percent.
Bob Murray, chairman of the economic development council of the East Naples Civic Association, expressed surprise at the numbers and lack of Florida mortgage activity recently in the area.
“Quite frankly I expected us to drop, but not all the way to 97th,” he said. “From 2000 to 2004 there was a lot of growth. In the last two years it’s really slowed down.”
Fewer people coming to Collier has created a situation in which many homes aren’t selling, Murray said.
There’s a positive to that. With Florida home prices dropping, families now are able to buy homes that couldn’t afford a home here before, Murray said.
“I’ve watched people drop $50,000 off the price of homes they are selling,” he said.
However, with so many homes up for sale, Collier could remain in a real estate slump longer than a lot of other communities.
“I have 18 units up for sale,” Murray said. “They’ve been up for sale for six to eight months. People aren’t buying because the cost is too high.”
Tammie Nemecek, president of the Economic Development Council of Collier County, said the drop in growth is occurring statewide and it is particularly noticeable among younger people.“What we’re seeing is a direct result of costs going up when it comes to housing,” Nemecek said, bu more needs to be done to encourage affordable housing, she said.
Matt Hudson, a Realtor who is also a Golden Gate fire district commissioner, said a number of factors are causing people to avoid Collier County.
“If you look at the time frame in 2004 and 2005 when we got whacked by eight hurricanes, our area was very much tainted in the minds of people who might move here,” Hudson said. “The hurricanes also created the homeowners insurance issue, which led to increased home prices. That was a pretty good one-two punch.”
Many people decided they’d rather move to Arizona after that, Hudson said.
There also has been a significant increase in the cost of construction with steel and concrete prices going up and impact fees continuing to rise, he said. Also, the rapid growth of a few years ago probably isn’t sustainable in any market, Hudson said.
“Being in the Top 10 may have hurt as much as it helped because we had to provide so much infrastructure,” Hudson said. “Where we’re at now may be more realistic. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see us back in the (top) 30s again in the next few years.”
Despite the slowdown, Hudson still expects to see people moving into the eastern part of the county in the next few years.
“Ave Maria is still being built,” he said, referring to the Catholic university and surrounding town being built in the eastern part of the county. “Until we turn off the sun, people will still want to move to [the Southwest Florida housing market].”
Chuck Mohlke, chairman of the Collier Democratic Party, cautioned against assuming the census figures are completely accurate in terms of measuring Florida home mortgage loan demand. Growth explosions in the past have surprised some people because of the difficulty of registering and counting certain minorities.
“We have categories of population that have historically been undercounted,” Mohlke said, singling out the Hispanic and Creole-speaking populations as groups that may not have been accurately counted during the 2000 census.
“If these populations were not counted properly in 2000 they are still being unaccounted for now,” Mohlke said. “It won’t be fixed until the 2010 census.”
Click here to read the rest of this Naples Daily News article.
The state of Florida has rejected a much-touted and anticipated application for a $5 million state grant to build workforce housing specifically for essential service personnel such as teachers and law enforcement officers in Collier County, the Naples Daily News reports.
Charged with choosing the grant recipients picked 11 of 33 applications from across the state to receive a portion of the $50 million set aside last legislative session to help generate more affordable housing across the state for essential workers, The Florida Housing Finance Corp. went with other applicants.
While the future of Florida housing is an issue that hits close to millions, the application being turned down has to be especially painful for Collier County, considering the law creating the fund itself was sponsored by Naples Rep. Mike Davis, who shepherded the massive bill through both houses of the Legislature.
The law was designed to give special preference to 10 high-growth, high-cost counties in Florida, which many thought made Collier a shoo-in, because with the Naples housing market and several other overvalued, expensive areas, it is the highest-cost county in the state.
But even as Florida mortgage problems mount in the area, the application was rejected because the committee didn’t agree that Collier met the $5.2 million contribution required, according to Bill Klohn, president of MDG Capital Corp., the developer of the 300-unit project.
The e-mail said the committee accepted $4.6 million in contributions but didn’t accept the $700,000 in impact fees that were to be deferred. The winning applicants had waived the impact fees, not simply deferred them. Collier County government doesn’t waive impact fees.
MDG Capital said Saturday that it intends to go ahead with the 300-unit Fountain Lakes development in East Naples.
Some 150 of the new condo units were to have been subsidized with the $5 million, bringing the prices of the units low enough for essential service workers to purchase. The other 150 were to be priced at fair market value.
The legislation called for public-private partnerships, including Naples hospitals, the Sheriff’s Office, the Collier County School District, and the city of Naples, each of which was to get 30 units.
Rising Florida mortgage loan costs have made the dream of home ownership next to impossible for many in Southwest Florida. It remains to be seen if hurdles such as this can be overcome, or if that dream will continue to die hard for millions.
