Fort Lauderdale based home builder, Levitt and Sons received permission from the bankruptcy court to walk away from 4,000 residential lots that served as collateral on loans from Bank of America and KeyBank. (more…)
In his 12th year at AmSouth, Jim Schmitz held the top position of Northwest Florida executive at the mortgage lender that had the leading market share in the Pensacola area. (more…)
In another sign of the Emerald Coast’s cooling housing market, Florida mortgage foreclosures rates are up significantly throughout Okaloosa, Santa Rosa and Walton counties. (more…)
Home building posted a small gain in April in America, while permits for future construction plunged by the largest amount in 17 years, a sign the nation’s housing industry is still in a deep slump. (more…)
Florida’s largest private landowner said first-quarter profit rose more than five-fold on the strength of rural land sales in the Panhandle.
The Bay County housing market made a huge comeback in February, leading the state in percentage of sales over February of last year.
The Florida Realtors Association released February sales figures Friday, and only Panama City showed an increase in the number of single-family existing homes sold in the North Florida housing market.
The local numbers showed sales up 21 percent in Panama City, while Fort Walton Beach was down 27 percent, Pensacola was down by 19 percent and Tallahassee tumbled 20 percent.
Fort Walton Beach was the only Panhandle city with greater losses than the state average.
As far as home prices are concerned for existing property sales, home prices are down 3 percent statewide.
Down 4 percent in Ft. Walton Beach, down 9 percent in Panama City and down 2 percent in Tallahassee.
Maybe the reason Panama City enjoyed more home sales is because buyers got better deals. The median selling price was down about 9 percent from last year, and 6 percent less than the state average.
The existing condominium market in Panama City saw a major jump, percentage wise, although only talking about 20-more units than February 2006. At that time last year, Florida home mortgage rates were higher than right now.
Tallahassee also saw a large percentage jump, while the rest of the region mirrored the declining state average.
Locally, condo prices might have had something to do with the increase. The median selling price for existing condos was down 8 percent from 2006. Experts say cheaper Florida mortgage loans helped spark interest.
They also think housing prices have stabilized and that the outlook for Florida’s single-family residential housing market is brightening, with Florida mortgage costs remaining near historic lows.
In fact, one University of Florida researcher says it doesn’t look like prices are going to fall anymore. However, certain parts of the Sunshine State are very much inflated, so it remains situational.
SOURCE: WJHG-TV
A sluggish North Florida housing market has two real estate execs heading toward commercial development. And they’re using lessons from the banking industry to anticipate their next move.
Harry Trevett and Jay Mock head Trevett-Mock Inc., a real estate investment company. Some of its developments include Marsh Lakes in Fernandina Beach and Villages of Valencia in St. Johns County.
Trevett-Mock’s portfolio mix flip-flopped about two years ago:
Whereas three-quarters of the company’s business was in residential Florida real estate then, business now is 75 percent commercial development, which includes shopping centers, offices and banks.
Trevett and Mock also have a hand in community banking, and led a group of investors that bought the First Bank of Jacksonville in 2004.
The heavy regulation that comes with banking has shed serious light on upcoming changes in the Florida mortgage market.
“We’re market-driven guys,” Mock said. “We go where the market takes us.”
Trevett and Mock have grown First Bank of Jacksonville from one Mandarin spot with $22.3 million in assets to two locations (the second is in Baymeadows) with $104.3 million in assets, according to its 2006 year-end report to the FDIC.
Two more bank locations are awaiting regulatory approval, one in Lakewood near the intersection of University and San Jose boulevards and the other in Trevett-Mock’s Village Shoppes at San Pablo.
Trevett and Mock were founding members of the First National Bank of Nassau County. But although banking is an investment, real estate development is their bread-and-butter income, Mock says.
Mock, who got his start as a Florida mortgage broker, said he switched to land development because it was more lucrative than selling homes.
“Instead of doing it for people for a fee, I started doing it for myself,” said Mock, who graduated from Fernandina Beach High School in 1986.
The company’s most anticipated commercial real estate project is a 108,000-square-foot addition to Amelia Station, a shopping center in the heart of Yulee. For years, the 13-acre property has been piles of dirt.
As development of surrounding property has picked up - a new golf community and Target and Home Depot shopping centers are all nearby - Trevett and Mock hope to break ground before the end of the year.
Mock says interest is high among tenants and envisions bistros, cafes and other neighborhood retailers to fill the mixed-use “village” center.
SOURCE: Florida Times-Union
Steve Liner, Business Editor of the Tallahassee Democrat, weighs in on the North Florida housing market - and the recent opinions voiced by some who suggest that owning a home is no longer a good investment.
His advice: don’t believe the doomsday predictions. Now is a great time to apply for a Florida home loan and buying real estate is still probably the best investment a person can make…
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What’s all this I hear about a housing bubble, slowdowns in the housing market and reduced investment opportunities for homeowners? The short answer: not here, not now and not for the foreseeable future.
Our residential real estate market is doing just fine, thanks.
I’ve been watching it either as [the Democrat’s] business editor or as editor of Business Matters magazine since 2003.
During all that time, the tendency has been to misbelieve our good fortune, to look for the downturn, to anticipate the worst.
When I got married nearly 25 years ago, I got a lot of advice from my new father-in-law. One in particular stands out:
“Buying a home is the best investment you can make.”
I listened. The home in which I live has nearly tripled in value, and it has been, undoubtedly, the best investment I have ever made. And, you know what? I would buy it again today without a second’s hesitation, even at triple the value!
I’ve been hearing the dire warnings about the Florida housing market, of course. But they simply don’t resonate here.
First, Tallahassee is not overbuilt or even close. We do not have a glut of empty homes in our market waiting for buyers. Last I checked, the time between offering and sales in the market segment less than $250,000 was less than 30 days.
Second, [Florida mortgage] rates are still very favorable.
Sure, they’re not at the record-low levels we’ve experienced, but they are very favorable, and in this market residential value continues to grow at a higher level than interest rates.
My reports are that money supplies for Florida mortgages remain healthy and there is no current upward pressure on interest rates.
Third, I ask you to remember that no more than two years ago the biggest residential real estate problem in Leon County was lack of inventory.
Continue reading in the Tallahassee Democrat …
The state population is predicted to double by 2060, with growth spilling into rural Northeast Florida counties. Will they be ready?
While Florida mortgage costs have become higher than many buyers can handle, there’s no doubt that the Sunshine State is - and will keep on - growing rapidly. Can its last remaining undeveloped areas handle that kind of development? Are they ready?
The businesswoman in Terri Faudree likes what she’s seeing, but the parent in her has concerns for the future. Her Macclenny eatery has picked up to the point that she’s had to extend hours.
It’s a sign of growth in rural Baker County.
But if several big-ticket developments come through, replacing wooded land off U.S. 90 with thousands of houses, her twin 15-year-old sons could find themselves wading through a flood of new students at school.
“One thing I’ve always enjoyed about being in a small town is all the teachers know your name. The kids have the opportunity to be more than a student,” Faudree said.
During the next 50 years, development could erase that small-town feel, according to a study released by growth-management group 1000 Friends of Florida. Urbanized land in Baker County is expected to increase by almost 400 percent because of spillover from a built-out Jacksonville.
The recorded population in 2005, 24,343, is expected to grow to 44,421 by 2060, but not everyone agrees with that projection.
Baker County Manager Joe Cone said he thinks the county population could easily triple within 25 years, especially given the relatively low cost of Florida home mortgage loans compared to much of the rest of the state.
In a county with a $21.8 million annual budget, virtually no sewer service, hundreds of miles of unpaved roads and a hospital with only 25 beds, the potential for an influx of new residents has everyone thinking.
“As scary as this may seem with the major changes we’re going through, if you look at it from a planning and management standpoint, it’s really an opportunity,” Cone said.
Urbanizing Florida’s open spaces and small towns is a familiar concept in the growing state.
Before James Darby moved to Flagler County and took the helm of its County Commission, he was a young man in Miami watching development poke at the Everglades. With developers eyeing the countryside he now represents, it’s important to balance economic development and environmental impact.
“As long as we try to keep a reasonable balance, I think we’ll pull it off. What the home builders understand is this makes their product better by preserving a quality of life,” he said.
That’s not always the case, said environmental writer and documentary film maker Bill Belleville. He commended Florida for developing a comprehensive growth-management plan. He just wishes everyone would stick to it.
“Unfortunately, we are a state driven by growth and development,” he said, “which means builders and Realtors and developers have a huge amount of power and they use it.”
Flagler and Baker counties are among eight rural areas identified by the 1000 Friends of Florida study as projected to undergo the greatest change by 2060.
The study projects a state population burst of 18 million people - doubling the number of residents here now, at the rate of more than 900 a day - as development swallows 7 million acres, or about one-third, of Florida’s farms and open land. Almost 11 million acres of conservation lands would remain protected.
The North Florida housing market is projected to more than double, going from 1.5 million to 3.5 million. Duval County is expected to run out of building space after 2040, and that will send droves flocking to Nassau, Clay, St. Johns and Baker counties, the study says.
Charles Pattison, 1000 Friends of Florida’s president, said his group commissioned the study as a wake-up call to state and local leaders.
“It’s like this was the U.S. in 1830 and people were thinking we’d never get enough people to fill this country,” Pattison said. “We think it can show people you can have growth and do it responsibly.”
Selling a home in the North Florida housing market used to be all about location and price.
But these days, it’s a buyer’s market in the Pensacola Bay area, and home builders and sellers increasingly have to sweeten the deal with a variety of incentives and freebies to get properties sold.
They include everything from paying the first year’s Florida home loan payments or homeowners insurance, to free carpeting, landscaping and bonuses for real estate agents.
Some, like Carolyn and Carl McCray, have turned to professional help in “staging” their house for sale, according to the Pensacola News-Journal.
When the Milton couple put their home on the market last summer, they could not have chosen a worse time. The area’s housing market was flooded with a record number of homes for sale - more than 6,800.
Asking prices for single-family homes had peaked, buyers were scarce and Florida was just entering a crippling, wind insurance crisis. Then came notices of huge property tax increases.
But the couple soon discovered they had a bigger problem: clutter.
When their house continued to languish on the market, the McCrays turned to Laura Tkach, a Realtor with Keller Williams in Pensacola, who recently had completed a detailed, accredited course in house staging, and offered her expertise - at no charge - on top of traditional real estate services.
“It involved removing a lot of furniture, getting clutter off the counters, painting, small repairs, rearranging furniture and getting a lot of things off the walls,” said Tkach of the makeover process.
Was it worth it? The results indicate so.
“Within three days after the sign went up, the first person who walked in bought the house. We had a contract five days later,” McCray said. “It’s all about how your home shows. It actually changed the way we decorated our new house.”
While not every home for sale needs such an extensive makeover, Tkach’s staging service is an example of how creative Realtors and home builders have become in the face of a tough market.
Duncan Hudnall, regional manager for Pensacola-based Adams Homes, said that his company is offering certain buyer incentives and working with Florida mortgage lenders to make it easier for people to buy a new home.
“We’re not giving away a new Mercedes or anything like that. But as the housing market took a downturn, we did some work with a couple of Florida home mortgage lenders to bring down loan costs and offer incentives, such as no payments for six months,” he said.
Hudnall said that the company is offering free wind insurance for the first year to some buyers troubled by high costs. Those kind of incentives, and the welcomed leveling of home building costs, appears to be working.
“As we move into 2007, the situation is actually quite a bit rosier. Home builders are willing to take less profit to move a house,” Hudnall said.
Doug Gooch, newly installed president of the Pensacola Association of Realtors, said his group is working to get the word out to Realtors and buyers about the array of state and federal lending programs, especially for first-time home buyers.
Meanwhile, Robin Boyd, vice president of sales for Arthur Rutenberg Homes, said their home building business is good and getting better.
“We’ve had more action in the last six weeks than in the past six months. Our business looks solid through 2008,” Boyd said.
Boyd said her company is offering incentives such as price reductions to customers who agree to start construction on their home, based on a predetermined schedule - or “slot” - determined by Rutenberg’s construction planners.
Veteran Pensacola Realtor Jim Pennington also is optimistic the market is on the rebound.
“What I’m hearing is buyers saying they can afford $1,000 a month Florida mortgage, but when you add $300-400 a month of taxes and insurance, they can’t handle it. Obviously something has to be done about the rates. But I just don’t know if there is a silver bullet to force rates down,” he said.
Pennington says he always encourages his clients to vigorously shop around the state’s homeowner’s insurance market the same way they would homes.
“There are a lot of insurers in Florida, and it is possible to find insurance if you look hard enough,” he said.
