With an exchange rate of roughly $1.38 for each euro, Southwest Florida real estate looks like a relative bargain to buyers from Europe. (more…)

For-sale signs are nearly as common as mailboxes in many neighborhoods of Central Florida these days, but there is one type of real estate that buyers are snatching up at a record pace: time shares. (more…)

If the cost were more or less the same, which would you rather own: a vacation home in the hills of Tuscany, or holiday digs in Aspen, the UK, Miami and Rio de Janeiro? (more…)

Hundreds of British investors who pumped money into the Florida housing market have been caught out in its spectacular collapse. (more…)

A sharp drop in investment-home sales offset a record number of vacation-home purchases to bring down the overall share of second-home purchases in 2006, the National Association of Realtors reported Monday.

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Soaring property tax bills are making it increasingly burdensome to buy or keep a second home in Florida, raising questions about the future of a real estate niche that’s long been a mainstay of the state’s economy.

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Although a number of people from the United Kingdom have bought homes in the Central Florida housing market in recent years, the European continent is a largely unexplored market for local Realtors.

But with home sales and Florida mortgage activity slowing in the area, some are hoping second home buyers from Europe will pick up the slack.

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So what if you’re not a millionaire. You can still live like one in the Southwest Florida housing market.

Right now, you can buy a Gulf-front mansion on Bonita Beach, for a fraction of the price. Make that fraction: 1/10.

Longtime home builder and Bonita Springs resident Jeff King has started a new venture, Fractional-Homes LLC, selling vacation homes by the slice. He calls his first three-story estate on Bonita Beach “Casa Playa.”

He puts the home’s value at $5 million. But you can buy a one-tenth share of it for just $498,000. That gives the owner the right to live in the home at least five weeks out of the year.

One share of that is gone.

“There are people that can afford it, but may elect to do this because they don’t have to invest as much,” King said. “It does open it up to people who want to say they own a beach house, and they get it at a fraction of the cost.”

Since King started marketing the estate, he’s seen a lot of interest from potential Florida mortgage applicants. At times, people have lined up behind the property to pick up an information sheet.

“I know that owning a single-family home residence won’t be for everyone,” King said. “We are talking about all the people in the world and there are only nine people in this particular project that are going to get this opportunity.”

Fractional ownership has worked for private jets, yachts and luxury resort clubs - condotels developed by the likes of Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons. So why not offer an exclusive home in a prime location? The idea is spreading.

Research shows second home buyers or vacation home buyers predominantly only use them a few weeks out of the year.

“It’s a stupid thing to buy a $5 million home and let it sit empty three quarters of the year,” said Dick Ragatz, president of Ragatz Associates in Oregon, a consulting and research company.

Fractional ownership works like a timeshare, where buyers purchase the amount of time they have vacations to use, and discretionary income to spend on.

Owners will pay $12,700 annually to cover the maintenance and operating costs, including insurance and property taxes. A concierge service isn’t included, and the cost for it is based on the services requested.

That’s on top of whatever the Florida mortgage loans end up costing the individual buyers, of course.

Continue reading in the Naples Daily News …

It started with vacations. Vacations stretched into winters. Ruth and Ted Goolst of Boca Raton (pictured) were snowbirds while Ted ran his optometry practice in Newton, Mass. When Ted, 77, retired four years ago, the couple moved full-time into their condo at Whisper Walk.

“It got to be a bit of a hassle going back and forth. And it was getting too expensive to hold down two homes. It was there or here. We figured our lives would be easier here,” says Ruth, 73, who is glad the couple’s Florida mortgage enabled such an easy transaction.

According to a recent University of Florida study, almost one in four people 55 and older who moved full-time to the Sunshine State between 2000 and 2003 started out as a snowbird with just a second home in the state. In addition, 30 percent of current snowbirds said it was “likely or very likely” they would move here year-round at some point.

Florida led the country in the number of snowbirds, with about 818,000 winter residents in 2005, followed by Texas and Arizona, the study found.

Snowbirds add billions of dollars to the economy. While the Palm Beach housing market does not break out snowbirds specifically, the Tourist Development Council said seasonal visitors and tourists boost the economy by about $1.6 billion per year. In Broward County, they spend an estimated $800 million between Thanksgiving and Easter, tourist officials said.

However, with spiraling property taxes and the threat of hurricanes, Florida “is facing more competition from other states that are becoming attractive to seniors,” such as Georgia and the Carolinas, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

In the South Florida housing market, real estate agents say high property taxes and insurance are forcing out some snowbirds who can’t claim the homestead exemption.

“A number of snowbird owners are deciding to get out. Others are making inquiries about renting. The real estate taxes are enormous. They’re really getting whacked,” said Alan Oshins, owner of West Broward Real Estate.

That is especially true for Canadians, who make up 8 percent of Florida’s snowbirds.

“The dream of retiring to Florida for six months a year is being priced out of their grasp,” says Lawrence Barker, executive director of the Canadian Snowbird Association in Toronto, Ontario. “They are leaving. Not a mass exodus, but it is happening. The property tax has really hit, this year in particular.”

While taxes may be going up, snowbirds from places like Boston and New York say a Florida mortgage loan is still a bargain, researchers say.

“You have to compare Florida with everywhere else,” said Stanley Smith, director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research, who co-wrote the UF study. “Are the taxes here rising more rapidly than other locations?

“The cost of living is only one of many things people look at,” he added. “There are still a lot of things like climate, amenities and connections people already have in the state that will continue to attract people to Florida.”

Harold and Belle Neuhut were snowbirds for 10 years, traveling back and forth between South Florida and their home on Long Island, N.Y.

Finally, tired of juggling two homes, the couple five years ago decided to live full-time in their lakefront condo in Pembroke Pines.

“We had years of snow. It was enough for both of us,” said Harold Neuhut, a retiree in his 80s. In addition to the warm weather, the couple thinks Florida’s cost of living is a bargain compared to New York, and there’s no state income tax.

“We’d recommend Florida for everyone,” Neuhut said.

It’s no secret that Florida has a wellspring of second homes owned by the wealthy.

Now, that market niche is about to get bigger, says a new survey by Stirling Sotheby’s International Realty and Architecture Digest.

Their findings: More than one-third - 36 percent - of 3,000 magazine readers polled for the survey say they are seriously considering a second home purchase within the next two years. These individuals are not the type to need a bad credit Florida home loan, either.

In addition, 35 percent of those who already own a second home plan to buy a third residence during the next two years. Moreover, about 49 percent of those who already own three homes expect to buy yet another during the next two years. Lowered Florida mortgage rates are simply making it easier for these rich people to increase their residences.

It’s a phenomenon with which Roger Soderstrom, founder and owner of Orlando-based Stirling Sotheby’s International Realty, is quite familiar.

In fact, his firm continues to see a great deal of interest in the Central Florida housing market from all over the world - but especially from buyers in the northeast United States.

“Orlando is one of the stronger markets with the flow of people coming in here for second and third homes,” says Soderstrom, who currently has clients in such places as the United Kingdom and Switzerland. “Everyone has a desire for Florida.”

Wanted: Waterfront property

For luxury homeowners, the dip in the housing market during the past year has proven to be just a speed bump, and many have been in a wait-and-see mode before making a second-home purchase, Soderstrom notes.

The pre-purchase pause hasn’t stopped the housing market - it’s simply created a pent-up Florida mortgage demand that’s finally reaching the tipping point. “Properties in top condition in a good location and priced well are selling,” says Soderstrom.

When luxury home purchasers do buy, the survey notes that 75 percent want oceanfront or waterfront property, 48 percent want to be on or near a golf course, while 34 percent want an in-home fitness center and 32 percent desire a media room.

It takes several million dollars to buy into a starter second home in this sector, says Suzi Karr, owner of Suzi Karr Realty in Windermere.