Auctions have become a more familiar phenomenon in the Southwest Florida housing market and the state as a whole with the cooling housing market.

Some of the trend is an outgrowth of owners who need to move properties quickly, while another driver is banks auctioning properties after foreclosure.

As traditional real estate sales came under pressure in the recent slowdown, property auctions for houses have become one way for sellers and brokers to generate both buzz and, hopefully, closings.

A few weeks ago, luxury Florida mortgage broker Sky Sotheby’s International Realty and J.P. King Auction Co. announced that they were teaming up to market luxury auctions in the Sarasota-Manatee market.

Then, Naples-based DeCaro South Auctions announced a Sarasota-based real estate real estate auction business run by former Michael Saunders’ Realtor Dudley Brown that will handle lower price-point properties one at a time.

DeCaro also has a high-end division and works as an exclusive auction division for many brokerages in Florida.

The latest local entrant in the auction game is Marsha Wolak, a licensed Florida auctioneer and member of the Florida Auctioneers Association and the National Auctioneers Association.

Wolak has held a Florida real estate broker’s license since 1994 and sold conventional real estate from 1990 to 2002, with career sales of more than $100 million. In 2002, she formed Marsha Wolak Realty and focused on real estate investing.

Then, last year - recognizing the need for auctions in the current market - she put together Marsha Wolak Auctions. The company is based in the Sarasota housing market but has satellite offices in Naples and Tampa.

The multi-tasking Wolak is a mother of two, works out, rides motorcycles, and plays golf and tennis.

Wolak’s first area “mega-auction” is scheduled at the Sarasota Hyatt on April 15 at 11 a.m. There will be more than 30 properties up for bid, including several multimillion-dollar luxury homes.

Her auctions differ from those of Sky/J.P. King.

“We do take ordinary properties,” Wolak said. But the business also takes “sellers who need to sell in this difficult time, too.”

“We also specialize in short sales, which is when the bank takes less than the [Florida mortgage] due, to close the sale in a market like this,” she added.

Wolak said that the short sale program has been marketed in recent months and well-received by area brokerage firms. She offers a Realtor referral program that pays agents 3.5 percent at closing.

In order to generate interest, Wolak has been hosting Realtor seminars as well. She held two last week, in Punta Gorda and at the Naples Board of Realtors. Another is scheduled for Wednesday at noon at Jackson’s at Harbour Island in Tampa.

SOURCE: The Herald Tribune

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 …

Two years ago, Florida real estate shot through the roof in Cape Coral.

It slowed at the end of 2005, leaving a surplus of homes on the market with reduced home prices. But despite lagging Florida mortgage demand, don’t count the city out, professionals adamantly say.

They have projects lined up that will continue making the city a vibrant place to live.

Anyone who wants to know more about this city’s future should feel free to join the Women’s Council of Realtors’ Cape Coral Chapter at its 13th Annual FutureScape presentation this week.

“This year we have more commercial developers speaking than we did last year,” said Gloria Tate, of Raso Reaty, the program coordinator.

“The retail and other businesses wouldn’t come into the city if they didn’t think the people would still come here to live.”

Last year, about 1,500 people attended to hear speakers such as Bill Clarke of real estate developer Bellagio Homes tell of his plans for Beach Street Square at Beach Parkway and Agualinda Boulevard.

That development could have a major impact on the city with 450 condos and 370,000 square feet of commercial space including offices, restaurants and other amenities.

People attending last year’s event gasped when Larry Simmons announced the demise of the Del Prado Inn. He and his partners unveiled a proposed 12-story, condo, restaurant, and office complex.

At least one project presented at a FutureScape in the past year is under construction, leading some residents to believe an upswing in Florida home mortgage demand isn’t far behind. The Shops at Surfside on Veterans Parkway and Surfside Boulevard have walls up.

Phil Deems of Phil Deems Real Estate, one of the presenters, has seven commercial real estate projects that he will discuss at the event.

“This is a good way to get our projects out there,” Deems said. “It is real estate professionals getting the projects out there to each other and the public.”

There promises to be a lot more news about what is out there in this part of the Southwest Florida housing market today. The 2007 presenters include, but are not limited to:

• Bellagio Homes’ Bill Clarke and his partners plan to update the crowd on their Beach Street Square at Beach Parkway and Agualinda Boulevard in southwest Cape Coral. Plans call for it to have 450 condo units and 370,000 square feet of commercial space including restaurants and a fitness club.
• Phil and Van Deems of Phil Deems Real Estate represent seven proposed mixed-use developments with office and retail space in the Cape.
• Officials with the Chamber of Commerce of Cape Coral plan to update their progress on a new building at the entrance to the Cape at the foot of the Cape Coral bridge.
• A McGarvey Development spokesperson plans to update the Mid Cape Business Park at Santa Barbara and Pine Island Road. The business park consists of 175,000 square feet of offices. Other projects could be discussed.
• Representatives of D.R. Horton, a major Florida home builder, which plans to update information on the 165-acre Bella Veda residential development at the north end of the Del Prado Boulevard extension entrance to the city.

The average price of a home in Southwest Florida has dropped between $20,000 and $65,000 over the last year. The drastic change has sellers sweating, and buyers waiting for the bottom, but when will that happen?

NBC2 investigators have exclusive information about what must happen for the market to turn around.

On a Friday morning in Fort Myers, a realty firm and auction company teamed up and unloaded once hot Cape Coral lots for half their appraised value.

“We promise our sellers to bring them buyers and we’re not getting them the results. Not only us but pretty much most of the local realtors we’re seeing the same thing. We’ve got to start thinking out of the box,” said Florida mortgage broker Jeff Miloff.

Southwest Florida’s real estate market is knee deep in a price correction because of investors.

“People didn’t go in and buy a home. They went in and bought a half dozen,” said Denny Grimes of Denny Grimes and Company.

How flooded is the market?

In Charlotte County there are almost 6,000 homes for sale. In Collier County, 11,000 homes are for sale. In the Lee County housing market there are $14,000 homes on the market.

“There are a lot of lookers and they have a lot to choose from so they can be very particular,” said Maureen Coan, a Colonial Country Club resident.

There are 112 units available in Colonial Country Club alone.

“They’ve got sellers that are willing to jump through hoops because generally speaking sellers fear tomorrow is worse than today,” said Grimes.

Will tomorrow be worse? NBC2 discovered it depends on what you own.

“The single family market is beginning to make its way back,” said Dr. Wayne Archer of the University of Florida.

Archer conducts quarterly surveys on Florida real estate. His latest study won’t be released until next month, but he shared it with us. Based on the opinions of more than 300 real estate professionals, he believes single family homes have reached bottom. Florida mortgage loan applicants should jump on them … NOW!

“I don’t think we are going to see prices declining really on the main. There are a few cities where we’ve seen a turn down in recent months. I don’t think that’s going to keep going down,” said Archer.

Archer’s survey is not as optimistic about Florida condos, expecting the worst is still yet to come.

“Condos have always been an extremely volatile market. They seem to be, that’s the market that drives in amateur investors and speculators,” said Archer.

If you’re a buyer, when do you step in for bargains?

“If you’re an end user, it’s a buyers market. As an investor it’s still, there’s still time. The correction is still going on. I need to see a greater stabilization in the market before I would enter the market on the buying side,” said Phil McCabe, owner of Inn on Fifth and McCabe’s Irish Pub.

While McCabe can afford to guess, Grimes says if you can’t afford to, don’t try. You should think of the bottom of the market as a window of opportunity, not a point a time. In other words: Florida mortgage borrowers should take advantage of this before it’s too late.

“Unless you’re a professional guesser and you can consistently get 4 or 5 numbers of 6 for a lottery ticket, don’t try to guess the bottom of the market because you won’t be able to do it,” said Grimes.

All of our experts agree both commercial and residential rental markets are extremely strong right now. They expect the rest of the market will catch up over the next few years.

Legislation to ease insurance rates and property taxes is expected to he

According to the Naples Daily News, new 2006 fourth-quarter housing market data indicated early signs of hope for the Naples-Fort Myers market.

“The annual pace of new home starts fell to a level that can allow inventory to decline — a milestone on the path to equilibrium,” said Bradley F. Hunter, who directs Metrostudy’s market research operations in Southwest Florida.

Quarterly starts in Lee County and Collier County combined fell below the level of demand (1,260 starts v. 1,963 move-ins) for the first time in two years.

Metrostudy counts home starts and move-ins by driving past each lot or home in each active Southwest Florida housing market subdivision to verify the construction status of each new home every quarter.

“The reduction in starts was the first step. Soon, inventory of both unsold homes and homes that have been sold but are still vacant will diminish,” Hunter said.

The number of resale listings is still increasing, but Metrostudy expects a peak in that supply indicator during the next few months, and not just because of the “season.”

“Many MLS listings are those of market testers — sellers who were hoping for a high bid, but who are now letting their listings expire. The reduction in this number will be a reassuring sign,” said Hunter.

Although improvement is at hand, Metrostudy’s research suggests that there will still be months of adjustment ahead despite Florida mortgage loan rates that are still hovering at or near historic lows.

Lee County recorded 852 single-family housing starts in subdivisions during the fourth quarter of 2006, a decline of 43.4 percent compared to the third quarter of 2006 and 41.8 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2005, said Hunter. The annual starts pace was 5,367 units, 23.8 percent below the pace reported in 2005.

The pace of fourth-quarter move-ins (1,255 units) fell 12.0 percent from the third quarter of 2006 and 9.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005. The annual pace of move-ins was 5,030 units, 2.5 percent below the pace reported in 2005.

The inventory of finished vacant homes in Lee County subdivisions rose to 1,607 units, a historically high 3.8 months of supply, based on the current pace of move-ins, said Hunter. At the end of the fourth quarter of 2005, there were 532 finished vacant homes, a 1.1-month supply.

As Florida mortgage costs skyrocketed for years and ultimately knocked the wind out of the market, the supply of vacant developed subdivision lots rose during the fourth quarter to 8,355 units (compared to 7,419 units at the end of the third quarter of 2006 and 6,103 units at the end of 2005).

In Collier County, single-family housing starts totaled 408 units during the fourth quarter of 2006, a decline of 43.3 percent compared to the third quarter of 2006 and 32.2 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2005. The annual housing starts rate (2,621 units) was near the 2005-2006 average.

Quarterly absorption rose 22.1 percent, with 708 move-ins during the fourth quarter of 2006, 22.0 percent higher than the third quarter of 2006, and 138.4 percent higher than the fourth quarter of 2005. The annual pace (2,297 units) was 13.8 percent lower than the pace of 2005.

As in Lee County, the quarterly pace of absorption in Collier County just surpassed the pace of new home starts, which led to a decline in housing inventory during the fourth quarter of 2006, said Hunter. There were 701 finished vacant homes in Collier subdivisions at the end of the fourth quarter of 2006, a 3.7-month supply at the current rate of move-ins.

There were 1,391 new home construction units in subdivisions at the end of 2006, a portion of which are owned by real estate investors and some of which will be added to the finished vacant inventory during the first quarter of 2007.

The supply of vacant, undeveloped lots rose to 3,750 in the fourth quarter of 2006, up from 3,120 in the third quarter of 2006 and 2,510 at the end of the fourth quarter of 2005.

It will be interesting to see if Florida home loan demand picks up by a significant margin in 2007, or if the market remains tepid from now until at least 2008. Given how volatile the Southwest Florida region is, would either surprise you at this point?

There is little doubt about the demand for real estate - and high-end retail stores - in the increasingly affluent Southwest Florida housing market.

But Benderson Development’s plan to build 1,750 new homes next to a new mall seems a bit riskier, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports. A glut of housing has other home builders scaling back, and the number of building permits has plummeted across Southwest Florida.

Benderson is counting on the project’s New Urbanist style of Florida real estate - mixing retail, residential and entertainment in a sort of self-contained city - to be as much of a hit here as it has been in other parts of the country.

Benderson’s University Town Center won county approval Tuesday. Plans call for 1.7 million square feet of retail space, about 70 percent bigger than Sarasota Square Mall. There will be office buildings, parks, an internal trolley system, hotels, a movie theater, outdoor dining until 3 a.m. and the 1,750 homes. All in one place.

“There’s no doubt New Urbanism is something we’re going to see throughout Florida for years to come, but this project might be ahead of its time,” said Jack McCabe, CEO of McCabe Research & Consulting in Deerfield Beach.

Noting that the median price of homes sold in this market has fallen by 18 percent from last year, and Florida mortgage demand remains tepid in this region, McCabe said it is an optimistic endeavor to start this type of project in a declining marketplace.

While some of the housing construction can be spread out until the market rebounds, a key part of the residential project is not negotiable.

An unusual facet of Benderson’s deal with the county requires it to build 437 units of affordable housing - apartments or condos - as it builds the mall.

While the other 1,313 homes can be built later, the 437 affordable homes - defined as affordable to a family of four with an annual income of $58,400 - have to be finished by the time the mall is. This is a measure enacted as part of the region’s effort to ease the pain of exorbitant housing costs.

“It’s actually front-loaded. The development order says for every 250,000 square feet they build of the mall they have to construct 110 affordable housing units,” said Wendy Thomas, the county’s manager of community housing.

And with the cost of a Florida mortgage loan still sky-high, despite rates that have remained relatively stable, that affordable housing will likely be in demand as it is built, one Realtor predicts.

“It’s a slowing market, but it’s not a dead market,” said John Petitti, a partner at Central Park Realty, which specializes in lower-income housing.

While there are bigger long-term commitments to build affordable housing, Benderson’s plans to build the mall, and the homes, within 3 years would place it on the forefront.

County officials have struggled for several years to find ways to encourage developers to build homes affordable to teachers, firefighters and police officers, health care workers and others in the shrinking middle class.

The idea is to fill those affordable units with people who can live, work and play in the same neighborhood. The rest of the residential phase of the project will be completed over a logical period of time. But for the town center idea to work, it needs residents to attract a grocery store and other retailers.

A key to a New Urbanist town center is pedestrian traffic. Even after the shops are closed, the place would still need a few people walking around for both ambiance and safety, said Bill Spikowski, a Fort Myers planner and mixed-use zoning expert.

With a huge drop-off in the state’s formerly hot Southwest Florida housing market, Latinos are leaving the region for areas of the U.S. offering more work or taking jobs that pay less.

Construction building permits across the region were down as much as 66 percent in recent months, and with 50 percent of Southwest Florida’s construction industry staffed by Latinos, the shift is likely to have a big impact on that industry - and perhaps the region’s economy as a whole.

The impact of the housing decline goes beyond home builders, construction companies to rental managers and shops catering to Latinos.

“The majority of us here are illegal,” said Benjamin Ramirez, a 34-year-old framing subcontractor from Bradenton, who has worked in the United States illegally for about eight years. “For us, when the work is gone, it’s just no more.”

A large part of the Latino population is moving to other areas, such as Louisiana and other Gulf Coast states where residential construction is still strong. At the same time, lower-paying jobs in agriculture, food service and retail are reclaiming workers as they wait out the construction downturn.

Six weeks ago, Ramirez was called to a meeting with Lennar Homes, the big Miami-based developer and the biggest home builder in the region. Ramirez, who had subcontracted for Lennar for three years, was told there would be no more work.

Though the overall unemployment level has remained relatively unchanged in the Sunshine State, and the Southwest Florida economy appears to be going strong, unemployment claims have risen, in construction, to a new high of 63.37 percent since June.

Moreover, the rise in Florida mortgage costs and the subsequent housing market slowdown is not the only thing prompting Latino workers to leave.

Employers and workers saw unprecedented enforcement of immigration laws in 2006, with more arrests for immigration violations at job sites nationally than any other period in recent memory. Add to that new rules from Homeland Security designed to prevent employers from hiring undocumented workers.

Employers are now becoming leery.

While the construction industry sheds workers, other sectors are starting to reap the benefits from the housing market shift. State and national figures show that the drops in construction and manufacturing industries are being counterbalanced by a big run-up in food service and retail jobs. Florida’s vital agriculture sector has also benefited.

“Having lost a lot of labor to construction, we are finally getting that back,” said Mike Sparks, a spokesman for Florida Citrus Mutual.

A massive drop in the number of building permits in the Southwest Florida housing market is providing the most disturbing evidence yet for one of the state’s all-important industries.

According to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, builders will face tough times in the year ahead. But it is not just the housing industry that is going to suffer, economists and home builders say.

A massive drop in new construction will mean continued layoffs in the building trades and might even push the economy into recession.

A Herald-Tribune analysis of U.S. Census data shows that home builders only got 426 permits in the unincorporated parts of Manatee County, Sarasota County and Charlotte County during October. That is a whopping 66 percent decline from the 1,239 during the same month in 2005.

Many in the building trades have talked about the recent slowdown as a return to the pre-boom days, but in Sarasota and Manatee counties, the permitting rate during October was half that of the same month five years ago.

“It will be very difficult for small builders to ride this out,” said Jay Brady, executive director of the Gulf Coast Builders Exchange. “It will be difficult for the large ones, too, but they have the capital to survive big swings. Those companies that don’t have the capital will go out of business before all this is over.”

The driving force is the tremendous number of homes already built in the region. They were constructed under the apparent notion that the boom of 2004-05 would never stop. But Florida mortgage demand has fallen off en masse, and has left Southwest Florida with - by some experts’ estimation - an oversupply of perhaps several thousand new homes.

The impact of the downturn in the housing sector is by no means limited to this region. From coast to coast, home builders are recoiling from the speculative madness of the past three years and are drastically cutting production and expenses.

While economists say the pullback in housing starts and building permits is just what is needed to bring the supply of new homes back in line with demand, some worry that the contraction of the housing sector will cause a dramatic slowdown in the economy.

The housing sector played an unusually important role in bolstering the U.S. economy during the past few years, and now that the sector is in free-fall, the economy as a whole may follow, Kasriel said.

Most economists contacted by the Herald-Tribune do not believe a recession - if one comes at all - will last long, especially in Florida. They predict that the overriding demographic trend of retiring baby boomers will spur population growth help the state’s housing market rebound quickly.

But there is no disputing that the current problems in the housing industry stem from the excesses of the past few years — a time when Florida home mortgage loan rates were near historic lows and speculative fervor reigned.

Looking to take advantage of the sharp rise in home prices, investors plunged into the market for new construction, placing orders for homes in the hope that they would be able to resell them at a significant profit after receiving the title.

Builders themselves contributed to the madness by building “spec” homes ahead of demand. In the summer of 2005, the bubble burst. Speculators started dumping properties on the market, and inventories of unsold homes began to rise.

The first significant drop in Southwest Florida building permits occurred in March, with a 30 percent reduction in Sarasota and 40 percent reduction in Manatee from the same month a year earlier. Since then, the decline in permits has become more severe. Charlotte County did not experience the same trend until September, when building permits fell by 25 percent.

In turn, builders and suppliers have been cutting staff and expenses.

“If sales are down 50 percent, you can pretty much bet that companies will reduce overhead by something similar,” said Larry Kemick, an Ellenton-based home builder who has cut his staff from 14 to eight people during the past year. “I know for a fact that other companies in the area are cutting employment significantly.”

Some economists and home builders believe the bottom of the market already has been reached in terms of production and prices of new homes, and that building activity will pick up again in the months ahead as people realize that now is the time to buy.

But most experts contacted by the Herald-Tribune expect tough times to last at least six months, even as Florida home mortgage rates remain low, as the rate of appreciation has just exceeded what people earn by too much. As a result, the industry will not fully recover until 2008.

The impact of home prices is greater than you think.

Social service agencies in some counties say a Southwest Florida housing market that’s pricing more families out of their homes is leaving them struggling to keep up with all the people who need help.

The closing of a Sarasota soup kitchen, a newly-instituted crackdown on the homeless in Manatee County and Sarasota County, and a supermarket chain’s decision to limit outdated food items given to charity also are threatening local agencies as the holiday season nears.

“There is enough wealth in those counties to keep these agencies alive,” said Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. “This just should not be happening.”

Part of the problem, according to Ana Romilo of the Charlotte County Homeless Coalition, is the rising price of… just about everything.

Not just the prices of the homes themselves, but the energy costs that you can’t avoid paying, along with property taxes and homeowner’s insurance.

The problems of the region are extending beyond rising Florida mortgage costs for thousands. Many social service groups are finding children and families, or the working poor, on their doorsteps in need of a break.

“Everything is so expensive. The rent is up, taxes are up, insurance is up. What are these people to do?” Romilo asked.

Hopefully, there will be greater progress made in the integral area of affordable housing, as well as adequate funding for groups that help the less fortunate.

From the South Florida housing market all the way to San Francisco, a lot of people have been feeling the housing price squeeze.

And it hurts.

While many cities and counties, including Palm Beach County, are adopting policies requiring developers to build more affordable homes, a growing number of communities also are looking toward an innovative tool to create affordable housing on a large scale:

The community land trust.

There are 30 land trusts in Florida either formed or under discussion, says Jamie Ross, affordable housing director for public interest firm 1000 Friends of Florida and president of the Florida Housing Institute. Several of the trusts are in Palm Beach County.

“That’s a huge number when you look at other states,” Ross said.

In Palm Beach County, property values have jumped by nearly $104 billion during the past decade. In Lake Worth, they jumped 32 percent last year alone. That makes for a severe affordable housing crunch.

With those kinds of numbers, Adopt-A-Family of the Palm Beaches decided to start a land trust and on Friday unveiled its latest project, a nine-unit complex of affordable rentals in Lake Worth. The 23-year-old non-profit helps the working poor, homeless and those on the brink of homelessness.

“Our program has always focused on the whole family. How do you not just focus on paying the rent this month, but what is the real underlying problem,” said Wendy Tippett, the agency’s chief executive.

“We began to look at different models and where we go next. How do we get families into permanent housing?” said Tippett, who looked at models in Burlington, Vt., home to the nation’s first community land trust, as well as one in the Florida Keys and Portland, Ore.

The concept is fairly simple.

The idea is to create a permanent stock of affordable housing in fast-appreciating areas. The trust purchases the land and then provides buyers with a 99-year lease on the house. The buyer has to qualify only for the cost of the home, not the land, which remains in the trust. By taking the land out of the equation, the price is significantly reduced and a Florida mortgage becomes attainable.

If the homeowner decides to sell, there is a limit to the amount of profit that can be made. For Adopt-A-Family it’s 5 percent above the sale price for the first five years, capping out at 25 percent. Adopt-A-Family has right of first refusal to buy back the house.

For the home buyer, it’s a wealth-building tool. Tippett said most families walk away with between $17,000-20,000 in their pocket, which they can put toward the purchase of another a home in the form of a down payment on a Florida home mortgage. This is an investment that will pay off over time.

“It was important to me that a home could not be sold for market value and that it remained affordable in perpetuity. That’s what this does, it locks folks in,” Tippet said.
To fund the trust, Adopt-A-Family needs $1.9 million. Its “Hope Begins With a Home” capital campaign got a jump start from philanthropists Tim and Jayne Donahue, who provided a $100,000 challenge grant toward the goal. Tim Donahue is outgoing chairman of the board of Sprint Nextel Corp.

To be eligible families have to earn less than $60,000 a year. Adopt-A-Family is working with the Family Empowerment Coalition - a group of 13 not-for-profits whose goal is to provide services that promote family stability and self-sufficiency - to select eligible families.

The organization is focusing on Lake Worth because its community resource center is located there, allowing families to receive much-needed support services. The agency has found that for those who receive such services, the foreclosure rates are less than 1 percent.

For those who don’t, it jumps to as high as 10 percent.

While progress is slow, it seems PBC is on the right track with the concept of trusts. No matter what happens with the real estate market, history has shown that community land trusts will remain a viable way to provide affordable housing, Ross said.

“Even if the market were to completely flatten out. We have already got the massive gap between what people earn and what they can buy,” Ross said.