UF Survey on Real Estate

[John R]

I have some friends who work at HSBC, and I am going to see if I can get some information from them regarding where the largest defaults are occurring. I would be willing to bet in the Florida market it will be the Miami -dade area as opposed to the sowal/destin.

or possibly orlando. it was amazing to see, while i down there last week, signs at intersections offering "must sell this week"... this was in the windermere area.

 

[Bobby J]

Here is an article fresh from MSN.com. This is the type of stuff I am always talking about that people get their info from.... This stuff does not effect our market but put more "fear" and doubt in buyers.



link to article

 

[Indigo Jill]

Really hard to get a read on it. Often in the real estate section people post comments that seem across the board. It is almost as if they get their info from MSN.com. In some areas the market was way under value and it will go only go back to 2005. In some cases it was already too high so it may go back to 2003. It is impossible to get an exact read on an entire market. I know we are selling Real Estate. I know it will be better then 2006. I know it is not as bad as many of these boards portray. The season is just starting and their are allot of folks in town wanting buy Real estate in SoWAL. Price it right and they will come.

:clap_1: I have heard from several Realtor friends they are busy right now - let's hope that translates into sales!! Good to hear you are seeing a pick up in your business and are having a good year so far, too, Bobby!

As far as the issue of not being able to find service labor due to the fact we don't have affordable housing ... Sowal is NOT unique in this dilemma and, compared to many other resort areas around the country, this is a new phenomenon for us. As such, the area is still in the preliminary stages of looking at the problem and, hopefully, will at some point rally together to find viable solutions. We need to look to those resorts that have been dealing with this for a long time for input and feedback.

This is our new reality, folks, and I personally don't think it will ever change. It will always be a core issue so instead of boo hooing about it, we need to start a dialogue of how we can accomodate the change and work with it. If we don't, the integrity of small business ownership is threatened (actually, I think that is already the case with the insane commmercial lease prices and insurance prices here - anyone notice how many "FOR RENT" signs there are around Sowal!) and those that "make it" here will be those with deep pockets.