Census details North Port housing excess [South Florida]

Census details North Port housing excess [South Florida]

Only five cities in the nation built housing at a faster rate than North Port since 2005, according to new U.S. Census data showing just how overheated the city’s housing boom was.

In fact, North Port added more housing in the past eight years than in the 40 after its inception in 1959.

North Port’s fevered participation in the building boom means it will take Sarasota County’s largest municipality longer to recover from the recession than other areas.

University of Central Florida economic expert Sean Snaith calls places like North Port “pockets of pain around the state,” because of their heavy dependence on the building and real estate industries.

Siesta Key resort operator goes after lender | HeraldTribune.com | Southwest Florida’s Information Leader

Siesta Key resort operator goes after lender

Like practically every major real estate investor in the region, Richard Dear is reeling from the multimillion-dollar decisions he made during the boom.

The Siesta Key vacation rental operator has defaulted on eight loans totaling $10.8 million since June, and sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September for three companies that owe more than $20 million to two banks and a prominent Sarasota hard money lender.

Unlike other real estate investors, however, Dear was not caught completely off guard by the downturn. He tried to sell off most of his assets before the end of the boom. But Dear said that potential buyers either pulled out at the last minute or were unable to come up with the necessary funds.

What really put him under, Dear said, was a sluggish county permitting process that delayed his efforts to rehabilitate more than 70 rental units on Siesta Key, and alleged efforts by his hard-money lender, Stephen Witzer, to run down his business.

Marinas watch, wait for end to slow dock market [South Florida]

Marinas watch, wait for end to slow dock market [South Florida]

Southwest Florida’s dockominium industry – going full speed ahead three years ago – is going through a no-wake zone now, say owners and builders.

But long term, they say, individually owned spaces in a dry dock facility are still a good investment because they control an increasingly scarce commodity.

As waterfront property became more valuable in recent years, developers started putting up “boat barns”: multi-story buildings with spaces where boats could be stored and quickly taken down with a fork lift and launched at an owner’s convenience.

Typically buyers get the equivalent of a condominium, and the entire project ends up eventually controlled by the owners when enough of the units are sold.

Condo resorts: The good life can help generate a great income

Condo resorts: The good life can help generate a great income

The sound of gentle Gulf waves washing ashore accentuates the tranquility of an early morning on the beach. The subtle shift of color and light is unique each evening as the crimson sun sinks into distant waves. These are the basics of a great Southwest Florida vacation.

Many people experience it. Many want it to last forever. Many act on that desire and buy a place near the beach. Some buy property that gives them a great beach vacation as well as a tidy income.

The condo resort idea may have started on Fort Myers Beach with Pointe Estero, according to Dina Craig, communications specialist with SunStream Hotels and Resorts.

“SunStream was one of the first to introduce the concept of a ‘condo hotel’ in the state of Florida,” Craig said. “It’s a condo with the look and feel of a hotel. It has a staffed front desk, room service and daily housekeeping. The principal distinction (from a condo) is that individual suites have the option of being daily rentals. It operates like a hotel with transient lodging as the primary function but has the benefit of maintenance-free ownership.”

Sheila Bair’s Mortgage Miracle

Sheila Bair’s Mortgage Miracle

What do you do if you’ve spent your career encouraging mortgage loans to people who can’t repay them? Barney Frank’s answer is to grill federal officials on why they aren’t preventing foreclosures. Infuriated at the difficulty of modifying mortgages, the Beltway crowd doesn’t understand that such contracts weren’t designed to let people live in houses they can’t afford.

Still, at a recent hearing of his Financial Services Committee, Mr. Frank received encouraging words from FDIC Chair Sheila Bair. She outlined her ballyhooed plan to prevent an estimated 1.5 million foreclosures by the end of 2009. She plans to accomplish this feat by modifying more than two million loans at what she estimates would be a taxpayer cost of $24 billion. This may be wonderful politics, but the real-world evidence suggests it will be far more difficult and expensive.

The live-fire test has been going on at failed lender IndyMac Bank since August. Readers will recall that IndyMac wounded itself with sloppy underwriting and then was wounded further when Senator Charles Schumer released letters warning that “the bank could face a failure.” A subsequent wave of withdrawals killed IndyMac, and the FDIC took over. The FDIC soon launched a program to modify IndyMac’s troubled mortgages, and this is now the basis for what Ms. Bair would like to do nationwide.

Our colleagues at Marketwatch.com recently reported on the FDIC’s experience at IndyMac as well as industry-wide data from Lender Processing Services, which manages payments for much of the banking industry. Turns out that the FDIC is moving very slowly in modifying loans, but perhaps not slowly enough, because of the likelihood of further defaults.

Mortgage rates dip, but cash is still king

Mortgage rates dip, but cash is still king

The drop in mortgage rates during the past week is bringing out fresh buyers to a tired real estate market, but only a few of them are scoring.

Rates hovering at 5.38 percent are drawing some fence-sitters with good credit who figure rates are not likely to decline much further.

The drop precipitated by the government’s $800 billion attempt to thaw the credit and housing markets also has lured people interested in refinancing.

The trouble there, brokers say, is that those who need a refinancing the most cannot get it, because they do not have enough equity. In worst shape are those operating “underwater,” or with so-called “negative equity,” meaning the precipitous drop in home prices in the last two years has brought their values below their loan amount.