1. Boating – 400+ miles of navigable canals
2. Weather – average annual temperature of 75 degrees
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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 [...] WGCU hosted a panel of Southwest Florida real estate experts including Dick Hogan from the Fort Myer News-Press. One of the buyer misconceptions about our current Fort Myers area real estate market is that banks will approve ultra-aggressive, low-ball offers on short sales and foreclosures. Approving low-ball offers in Lee County has absolutely not been the operating model for lending institutions during 2009. The Miami Press reports on new guidelines coming out from the U.S. Treasury that will place a 10 day limit on bank approval for a short sale. These guidelines cover mortgages for institutions participating in the Home Affordable Modification Program including JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America. Time Magazine covers the re-emergence of flippers to the Florida real estate market. We have certainly seen this in the Fort Myers area, particularly in the entry-level single-family home foreclosure market. Peter Goodman, the author of Past Due, which prominently featured the boom and subsequent bust of the Cape Coral real estate market weighs in with an update in today’s NY Times. This article is a must read for anyone with a vested interest in Cape Coral real estate. If you have spent any time looking at Cape Coral foreclosures or Fort Myers foreclosures, chances are you have visited a home or condo that has been stripped of its appliances, cabinets, fixtures and sometimes even more. NBC-2 reports on unrecorded liens, a surprise post-closing challenge many buyers of foreclosed properties have faced in Cape Coral. Remember the AC/DC song Big Balls………well I have to say that Roger Schutt, CEO of Premier Properties of Cape Coral may have the biggest of all! Premier Properties has purchased the Cape Coral subdivsion formerly known as Pinewood Lakes from Reliance Bank, who took it back from the previous developer. The project has been re-branded as [...] Wink News reports that the foreclosure auction held last night at the Harborside Event Center netted sales of 75 homes. Our market is still heavily weighted towards foreclosures with approximately two-thirds off all homes being sold falling into the distressed category. We continue to see significant activity mostly from second-home buyers looking to take advantage of [...] Tucked away in SW Cape Coral between Pine Island Road and the Cape Coral Sports Complex is the unique community of Saddlewood Farms with multi-acre lots that are perfect for equestrian families. What could be better than keeping your horses on your own property and also living close to everything in SW Cape Coral. Saddlewood Farms [...] The real estate market in the greater Fort Myers area has been dominated by foreclosure and short sale activity. This REO activity has driven significant price declines in Southwest Florida real estate. In the third quarter of 2009, home prices in the Fort Myers-Cape Coral area dropped on average 40%. This 40% decline led the nation [...] Cape Coral has a beautiful new addition with the opening of Tarpon Point’s Resort at MarinaVillage. This new 19-story resort hotel offers comcierge and spa services along with shops, waterfront dining and a 175 slip marina. The spectacular views from the MarinaVillage property are include the Caloosahatchee River, San Carlos Bay and the Gulf of [...] Business Week reports on the tightening short sale standards that banks are imposing these transactions. Time frames to close short sale deals are widening and lenders are looking for increased concessions from many sellers. Short sales have been challenging in our market for quite some time. The sheer quantities of short sales in Southwest Florida has [...] The Wall Street Journal provides an in-depth review of the dispute between Bonita Bay Group and the members of the golf clubs in its various communities. The net-net of this battle is that Bonita Bay pitched that any member could have their deposit returned without conditions if they no longer wanted to be a member [...] The trail of false promises, scammed investors and deceit just never seems to end when it comes to Russ Whitney. His latest venture, Millionaire University is the subject of a class action suit filed by a group of scammed students. Basically, Millionaire University ran late night infomercials designed to lure naive real estate [...] The Star provides a how to guide for Canadians interested in buying distressed Florida real estate. The Fort Myers area is popular with Canadian buyers. Right now, Fort Myers foreclosures and Cape Coral foreclosures are selling at highly discounted prices. With the strong Canadian Dollar, the opportunity to invest in Florida real estate has never been [...] Waterfront living in the low $100,000s Homes on Cape Coral’s freshwater canals offer the same wonderful water views without the price tag of a gulf access home. Many Cape Coral freshwater homes are newer as a significant number were built during the boom years when gulf access lots were priced out of sight. Cape Coral freshwater canals [...] Bye Bye First Homes An ugly era in the annuls of Southwest Florida real estate history came to an end yesterday when Hovnanian sold the last 1,409 lots it owns in Southwest Florida. Hovnanian sold these remaining lots to a Czech investment group for about $3,000 each, a far cry from the peak value about [...] One of the most active search terms on my Southwest Florida real estate website is the phrase “Cape Coral gated communities.” Every month hundreds Google this phrase in their quest to learn more about gated communities in Cape Coral. What is it about cape Coral gated communities that draws so many property shoppers? One of the challenges [...] According to a recent USA Today article, only 23% of short sale deals actually ever close. This figure came from a February 2009 survey by Campbell Communications of 1,300 Realtors. More than 90% of the agents cited slow responses from the lender as the reason that short sales were lost. These figures certainly jive [...] The economic downturn has left some slips empty at the Cape Coral Yacht Club. If you are looking for a slip in Southwest Florida, now is a good time to jump on these openings. For those looking for a dock directly behind their home, there are a wide varitey of Cape Coral gulf access homes [...] Fox News reports on Mr. Clean, a foreclosure fixer as he travels through a path of distressed Florida properties. The story details the damage, vandalism and untidiness associated with recently foreclosed properties. Not all foreclosures get trashed and at any time there can be some hidden gems in the inventory of foreclosure listings. Our foreclosure web [...] Foreclosure filings in the greater Fort Myers area were up 7% in July 2009 over foreclosure filings in June 2009. For the month of July, 1,877 foreclosures were filed, up from 1,756 in June. An increase in foreclosures is a healthy thing for the market. Many of these foreclosures have already been listed and on the [...] Lee County home sales soared to 1,705 in June 2009, up from 1,417 in May 2009. Additionally, sales are up 137% from the 719 homes sold in June 2008. The median price of these June sales was $87,900, a slight drop from the May median of $88,500. Distressed properties that were either foreclosures or [...] One of the key draws to Cape Coral Florida is the 400 miles of canals, most of which are lined with residential housing. Cape Coral, more than any other city in Southwest Florida, offers significant opportunities for affordable waterfront living. At the present time, Cape Coral is one of the national leaders in term [...] One of the questions for those currently considering a Cape Coral real estate investment is how much will I be charged for utility assessments. At this time, both areas Southwest 6/7 and North 1-8 above Pine Island Road are being targeted for utilities. In the Southwest 6/7 area water, wastewater and irrigation are proposed, in the [...] The Chicago Tribune reports that experts are predicting a surge in the number of foreclosures due the expiring of government programs instituted by the Obama administration. Lenders have delayed foreclosure actions to get as many borrows as possible into federally sponsored programs including the Home Affordable Modification Program. The Lee County Court System created a “Rocket Docket” to expeditiously work through the 30,000 pending foreclosure cases. To date, the court has worked through approximately 6,000 cases and the backlog of foreclosures is now under 24,000 cases. If you are looking for a deal on a Southwest Florida foreclosure home, here are resources that [...] |
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