Is There Hope For Cape Coral Vacant Lots?

There haven’t been many blog posts from me or anyone else in the last couple of years about Cape Coral vacant lots.  If you bought land in Cape Coral during the boom years, you have watched its value shrivel by somewhere in the neighborhood of  75-90%.  If your lot is in the current path of Cape Coral utilities expansion, then every tax bill brings a painful reminder of the assessments that you also owe on this asset.

An article on Inman News titled, Residential Lots: The Next Big Boom caught my eye today.  The article begins:

Over the past two years, in a number of markets stretching across the West, from Phoenix through Las Vegas to Sacramento and Riverside, investor groups have been maneuvering to acquire finished residential lots that due to the recession ended up stranded without hope like lost pilgrims in a vast desert.

For all my glass-half-full readers, unfortunately there was no mention of Cape Coral or Florida vacant land in the article.

One of the questions that I frequently get asked is when will Cape lots start appreciating again? The simplistic answer is that we need to work through the backlog of existing REO inventory before it will be economically feasible to build again in Lee County.  With over 20,000 properties in the foreclosure pipeline, this process is sure to last at least a couple of more years.  The other key issue, particularly in Cape Coral, is whether or not the community leaders have the where-with-all to attract new businesses and jobs to the community.  It is truly a shame that very little activity and intellectual capitol is expended on job creation by our community leaders.