In 2011, 18,634 residential properties sold in Lee County for a total of $2.8B in sales.  The average listing price was $163,541 and the average selling price was $153,021.  This represents an average selling price to listing price ratio of 94%.  This average selling to listing ratio of 94% remains unchanged from 2010 and 2009 in Lee County and is an excellent barometer for buyers to keep in mind when making an offer.

Anyone who tells you that banks are accepting offers at 50% of asking price is just not dealing in reality.  If you are interested in finding a discounted home in Southwest Florida, here is a resource to search for Southwest Florida Foreclosures.

Many baby-boomers have childhood memories of a Florida in the 1960s and 1970s that just doesn’t exist anymore.  This earlier Florida was dominated by farming, fields of palmettos and pines and free from a 7-11 or CVS on every other corner.  When reflecting on Florida’s development over the last generation…..I often think of the Pretenders song, My City Was Gone, where Chrissie Hynde sums up her feelings about development around Akron Ohio as follows……the farms of Ohio Florida had been replaced by shopping malls and Muzak filled the air.

If you are looking for a place to call home in Southwest Florida that still feels like the Florida in your childhood memories, then you might want to take a look at Pine Island.  After crossing over the quaint Matlacha Bridge onto Florida’s largest island, a visitor senses a very different Florida unfolding before their eyes. Farming still dominates the landscape on Pine Island and retail chain establishments and traffic lights are scarce.

Pine Island’s 9,000 residents live in one of the islands four villages in housing predominately consisting of single-family homes.  Almost as rare on Pine Island as fast food restaurants and traffic lights are gated communities that so dominate the residential housing landscape in Southwest Florida. Calusa Ridge is a gated community located in Bokeelia on Pine Island.  Development in this community had stalled as a result of the housing bust, but with new ownership in place, Calusa Ridge is back in business.  This intimate community of 45 homes features over-sized one-acre homesites clustered around a six-acre lake.  New homes at Calusa Ridge start at $179,000.  Here is a resource to learn more about Calusa Ridge real estate.

See larger image Bokeelia (Paperback) By (author) Robert A. Waldron List Price: $14.95 USD New From: $13.82 In Stock Used from: $18.83 In Stock

RSW in Fort Myers has scored a major tourism coupe landing direct flights from Denmark cities of Copenhagen and Aalborg, Denmark’s fourth largest city.  European discount operator, Comefly selected RSW for its first Florida destination over East Coast locations.  Currently, RSW serves Dusseldorf, Montreal and Toronto with direct International flights.

While the Fort Myers area has traditionally been a major draw for Canadians, Germans and Brits, we are excited to welcome new Scandinavian visitors to our area.  These new visitors can enjoy our pristine Gulf of Mexico beaches, barrier islands including Sanibel and Captiva, championship golf courses and tropical weather.

Many seasonal visitors to Southwest Florida eventually decide to call this area home.  Here is a resource to get acquainted with the neighborhoods and and developments in the Fort Myers real estate market.

Naples Pier

Everyone celebrates Christmas differently, and holiday traditions and festivities do not have to be limited to singing carols around snow-covered evergreens. The merry season can be enjoyed in any climate. People in southern locales such as Florida can delight in the cheer as much as anyone else.

Christmas is not just a chilly-weather holiday. Even if Jack Frost is not nipping at your nose, you can celebrate the season in a grand way. The holiday celebrations in a balmy climate may not be typical, but Floridians have found a way to rejoice in some very exceptional ways. In many cases, celebrating Christmas in a warm region has advantages over celebrating in colder climates.

How many times in a year do you wish you were on vacation? Celebrating Christmas in Naples, Florida is the ultimate retreat. You can enjoy the warmth of the season by taking a Christmas Day cruise, picnicking at the beach, or swimming in the ocean. The best way to make Christmas merry is to celebrate with loved ones. Why not bring the entire family to the beach for an afternoon of sun and surf? The sounds of the sea at Christmas are unmatched. Relaxing to the mesmerizing drone of the waves is a great way to reflect on what is truly important in life. While you bask in the warmth, you can also be entertained by the many beach Santas who roam the sandy shores.

If your favorite part of the season is checking out the decorated homes in your neighborhood, you can get your fix in Naples. Many Naples homes are decorated to extreme levels by putting up thousands of lights, themed decorations, and whimsical statues. You will even see palm trees decorated with seashell ornaments and starfish toppers. Some neighborhoods have decorating contests, and people from all areas stop by to see the festive displays.

If you long for the inspiring services provided by your local church, there are some communities that offer Christmas Eve service on the beach. In Naples, the community church gives members a chance to enjoy the magnificence of an ocean view while giving thanks for the season. Thousands of candles are lit and traditional, faith-filled carols are sung by members.

While it may warm your heart, the tropical climate in Florida will not stop you from enjoying a winter wonderland. In various parts of the state, you can find skating rinks, ice sculptures, and quaint villages depicting wintry scenes. You can even do some traditional Christmas shopping in the many shops that are dedicated to keeping the holiday spirit alive. Disney World and Sea World also provide unique holiday experiences with festive parades and Christmas-themed shows.

Christmas is known as a time for celebrating with family and friends. It allows you to give from your heart and to reflect on the positives in your life. You can celebrate the season from any location, but Christmas in Florida is a unique experience that can add a new level of warmth to your holiday.

The holiday season also coincides with the start of the peak months for real estate.  So, if you are in Naples during the holidays and are curious about the Naples real estate market, you may get a head start on the buyers that come down in the first quarter of the year.

Tim Ryan – Amerivest Realty

Fort Myers Real Estate

Portfolio.com rated each area in the six categories below. The highest scores in each category went to the markets described in parentheses.

1. Seniors as share of total population—Percentage of all residents who are 65 or older. (Highest scores: largest percentages.)
2. Median age—The market’s midpoint age, with half of all residents being older and half being younger. (Highest scores: oldest medians.)
3. Seniors born out of state—Percentage of all seniors who were born in a different state from their current state of residence. (Highest scores: largest percentages.)
4. Incoming seniors—Percentage of all seniors who moved to their current county of residence from another county (or nation) during the previous 12 months. (Highest scores: largest percentages.)
5. Difference in out-of-state births—Comparison of the percentages of seniors and younger residents (64 or younger) who were born out of state. (Highest scores: largest advantages for seniors.)
6. Difference in incoming rates—Comparison of the percentages of seniors and younger residents who moved to their current county from another county (or nation) during the previous 12 months. (Highest scores: largest advantages for seniors.)

Here in the trenches of Southwest Florida, we are seeing a steady flow of pre-retirement baby boomers from Northern cold-weather climates looking to jump on a retirement home while our prices are really low.   A large percentage of these clients are paying cash and viewing the purchase as an asset relocation from a stock portfolio to value-priced Southwest Florida real estate.  On average over the past year, our clients are spending just under $200K on their Fort Myers area properties.  The housing style is fairly evenly divided between town homes, condos and single-family homes with a significant majority located in gated communities.

If you are considering an investment in a retirement home in Southwest Florida, here is a comprehensive Fort Myers area real estate resource to begin your search from the comfort of your home.  Hopefully, this resource will help you evaluate different housing options from afar so that your trip down to view properties is most productive.

The Associated Press ran a story yesterday titled Where fewer foreclosures are now bad for business which featured Lee County and detailed how the slowdown in the foreclosure pipeline is bad for business. The irony of this premise is thick enough to cut with a knife…..yes our economy has become dependent on foreclosure transactions to keep sputtering along.

While the volume of foreclosures has slowed, there are still plenty of foreclosure listings for astute, bargain-hunting buyers to sort through during this winter season.  Today, our MLS inventory for Lee County has 870 residential foreclosure listings ranging in price from $9,900 for a boarded up Franklin Park bungalow to $3.2M for a Bayshore Road riverfront compound.  There are some real winners as well as a few dogs in this inventory of Fort Myers area foreclosures.  Here is a resource to start your search for a Southwest Florida foreclosure deal.  Let us know if you need any help finding a home run foreclosure deal.

If you are interested in purchasing a foreclosed home in Southwest Florida, here is a resource to view active Southwest Florida foreclosure listings.

The Save Our Homes Amendment, which was passed in 1993, was put in place to limit changes in home valuations for full-time homesteaded residences.  The purpose of this amendment was protect Floridians from being taxed out of their homes as values increased over time.

This amendment did not protect part-time snowbirds from valuation increases and their properties adjusted in value every year with the market.  The effect of this was that snowbirds were paying significantly higher taxes for like properties even though they are part-time residents.

The Save Our Homes Amendment also limits downward reductions in home valuations to 3% annually for homesteaders.  Non-resident valuations have dropped with the market, but residents are capped, creating a scenario where the snowbirds are seeing huge reductions while full-time residents are not.  It is rather ironic that the designers of the Save Our Homes Amendment must have never envisioned a scenario where property values would drop as dramatically as they have over the past few years.

Hopefully the taxpayers of Florida will collectively move to repeal this unfair tax act and normalize the valuations of all Florida property.

The general consensus in the real estate industry is that listings have the most activity in the first seven days, have the best chance of selling in the first 30 days and become stale in the 90 day time frame.  It is hard to imagine any buyer giving a second thought to a listing that has been on the market over 1700 days like these 2005 listings.

Currently, there are four active listings in our MLS dating back to dating back to 2005.  Three are in Cape Coral and the fourth on Sanibel Island.  There are no short sales or foreclosures in this group, heck most of us didn’t even know what a short sale was in 2005!

The prize for the oldest, stalest  listing goes to a Cape Coral home located at 615 SW 52nd Street that has been on the market for a whopping 2010 days.  This 1,344 SF home is listed for $495,000 / $368 SF.  No million dollar intersecting canal view hidden behind some overgrown brush, in fact this is an off-water home.  Over the past 90 days, 17 similar off-water homes in this part of Cape Coral have sold.  The average selling price of these homes was $58 / SF.  Based on actual comps, the value of this property is in the $78K range or about $417K below asking price!

If you are looking for a good deal on a new home in the Fort Myers area, here is a resource to learn about and view the hottest, newest Southwest Florida real estate deals.

The latest Brookings Institute State of Metropolitan America Report has some very interesting data regarding the Cape Coral-Fort Myers Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).  This area is categorized as a Mid-Sized Magnet with similar characteristics (high growth, low diversity, low education) as cities including: Baton Rouge, LA; Boise, ID; Greenville, SC; Jacksonville, FL; Little Rock, AR and Oklahoma City, OK.

Some of the key indicators about the Cape Coral – Lee County including our ranking out of the top 100 MSAs:

• Total population: 593,136     US Rank: 86

• % change in population 2000-2008: 33.6%      US Rank: 4

• % non-white population% 27.4%      US Rank: 56

• % of population that is foreign-born: 15.1%     US Rank: 27

• % of population age 45 and over 47.3%     US Rank: 3

• Percent seniors (65+) 22.9%     US Rank: 2

• Percent adults with bachelor’s degrees 26.1%     US Rank: 74

• % of households that are married couples with children: 16.2%     US Rank: 97

• Median household income: $51,081     US Rank: 60

The age demographics truly jumped out at me, with our region ranking second nationally for senior citizens and third for baby boomers.  The baby boomer (45+) stats truly correlate with what we are seeing in the trenches.  The overwhelming majority of our customers right now fall into the pre-retirement baby boomer demographic bucket.  Many have lost confidence in the stock market and are looking to reallocate assets away from the stock market and into a piece of Fort Myers real estate.  Key drivers for this demographic group include a move toward urbanism, a growing interest in amenity-rich gated communities and 55+ communities.

Canadians are drawn to the Fort Myers area for our average annual temperatures of 72 F, our year round golfing and our Gulf coastline.  The Southwest Florida market downturn has reduced home prices in many upscale communities to a level of unprecedented affordability. Buying a Fort Myers foreclosure property from a bank is an approach many Canadians are taking to get the absolute best deal.

If you are considering a real estate investment in Southwest Florida, it is important to understand all the costs involved with both the transaction itself as well carry costs after you own the property.  A  Montreal Gazette column titled, Is it time to bottom fish for real estate in the U.S.? discusses these issues and is a must read for any Canadian considering an investment in Southwest Florida.

Sanibel Zen Garden

Long popular on the West Coast, creating a zen area in a home or yard is catching on in Southwest Florida.  The Zen movement has Buddhist roots emanating from China and utilizes meditation to attain enlightenment.

With year round temperatures averaging 75 degrees, most Southwest Florida Zen areas have been built outside in the form of a Zen garden.  Zen gardens are often viewed as a living work of art and often feature prominent stone compositions.  The living elements in the Zen garden are carefully pruned to create a near static picture-scape.

Here locally, the South Fort Myers high-rise development of Mastique has a shared Zen garden for its residents.  Also, there are currently a handful of single-family homes on the market with Zen gardens.  An estate home listed for $2.229M in the Fort Myers luxury gated community of Devonwood features an outdoor Zen area with a koi pond.  On Sanibel, in the waterfront sailboat access of Sanibel Isles, a single-family home listed for $2.1M features a wonderfully peaceful Zen garden.

If you are interested in learning more about Zen real estate in Southwest Florida, we are here to assist.

I have another use for Snoop and that is to have him spend some 1 on 1 time with Realtors that are knowingly listing homes with Chinese drywall and not disclosing its presence.  The Greater Fort Myers and the Beach Board of Realtors needs to step up and create and enforce specific rules about listings containing or suspected of containing Chinese drywall.

Highlights from the November 2009 figures released by the Realtor board include:

• An increase in homes sales over November 2008 of 70.5%
• 2009 YTD single-family home sales of 15,336 – up from 8,768 for all of 2008
• November sales included 47.4% bank owned, 18.9% short sales and 33.7% conventional
• MLS inventory of 6,976 homes down from 12,106 in November 2008

It is a great time to be a buyer in Southwest Florida, there are interesting opportunities across all housing types and price ranges.  Use our map tool to start your search of every active listing in the Greater Fort Myers area.

The Bradenton Herald reports that Chinese drywall saga is entering a crucial phase:

Within the next few weeks, officials expect to determine how much of a fire hazard, if any, the contaminated product poses. They’ll also have a better idea of how much the drywall contaminates the air inside affected homes. A federal judge is expected to decide which of the several hundred lawsuits that have been filed over the product will be the first to go to trial.

And the White House will raise the issue for the first time when President Barack Obama visits China this week.

It will be interesting to see if President Obama puts the hammer down on the Chinese to cough up some funding to fix drywall problem.

In a nutshell, real estate professionals and investors are teaming up to by undervalued distressed properties from banks and then immediately flipping the property to a new buyer at a hefty increase.  The short sale flippers often cross the legal line with bogus broker price opinions (BPOs) to misrepresent the properties market value to the lender.

It is great to see that the DOJ is going after two real estate agents in Connecticut that have been charged with engaging in short sale mortgage fraud schemes.

The NY Times has an informative article about seller expectations and the consequences of listing a home for sale at an unrealistic price point. In our market, distressed properties are the baseline which are setting the pricing bar across most communities and sectors.

If you are selling in a community that has short sale or foreclosures, these distressed units will generally be the price leaders in the community.  Until these distressed price leaders sell, traditional sellers should expect buyer offers to reflect pricing based on these distressed units.  Getting an offer based upon distressed pricing is a bitter pill to swallow, but unfortunately is what we are dealing with right now.

Our site offers pricing information on over 600 communities in the Greater Fort Myers area.  It is a great resource to stay up to date on asking prices in your community.  If you are considering a sale of your property and looking for an objective opinion of value, please drop us a quick note.

With the Loonie at parity with the US Dollar and across the board price reductions, many Canadians are now considering an investment in Southwest Florida real estate.  The Canadian Press reports that the currency equality is very enticing but shouldn’t be the key driver in your decision to buy real estate in Florida.  Some of the drivers that should be considered include lifestyle goals and investment expectations.

An investment by a Canadian in Florida real estate is certainly a decision that should not be rushed into.  It can be most helpful to visit or rent in a community prior to making the decision to buy.  Our team is hearing from many Canadians who have previously taken this approach and are now considering a purchase primarily due to the significant price reductions on much of the real estate inventory in Southwest Florida.  Popular areas for Canadian buyers include Fort Myers, Fort Myers Beach and Estero.

This dramatic increase in sales activity is putting a big dent in our inventory of available homes.  Currently there are 6,809 single-family homes available in the MLS system, down from over 12, 000 in September of 2008.

Bank-owned properties are currently about half of the monthly sales, here is a resource to view available Fort Myers foreclosure listings.

Over the past few years, I have been rather critical of the Save Our Homes Amendment as I have historically believed that it placed an unfair burden on the lifeline of Southwest Florida……..second home owners.

It has always seemed very unfair to me that second homeowners, who were down here on a seasonal basis and not using resources like our schools, were being penalized because they didn’t qualify for a homestead exemption.   These second homeowners have had very little power to change this inequity as they are not residents, don’t vote and are not represented in Tallahassee.

With the drastic reduction in home values throughout our region, the Homestead Act is now penalizing homesteaders as their valuation reductions are capped at a maximum of 3%.  It will be interesting to see if these penalized homesteaders can generate enough of a voice to repeal this unfair act and and  bring normalcy to Florida real estate valuations.

Estero, with its location close to Naples and the beautiful Estero Island beaches, is a Southwest Florida community popular with foreign buyers.

Publicly traded builders are being grilled by analysts about their liability in using defective Chinese drywall.

Miami-based Lennar Corp. has announced that it built about 400 homes between 2006 and 2007 using the foul-smelling, corrosive material. It has set aside $40 million to make repairs and expects to get about half that back in insurance.

Another Florida-based developer WCI communities, which is set to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, will face an estimated 160 potential cases.

D.R. Horton Inc., Beazer Homes USA Inc., and Ryland Group Inc., all have announced very small numbers of affected homes.

Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. will report its third-quarter results on Wednesday and is expected to report some drywall exposure as well.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Dawn Wotapka (09/02/2009)

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 better.

The fall is a great time for Canadians to visit Southwest Florida before the winter tourist season kicks in.  Low airfares and hotel rates provide the perfect environment for finding a place to call your own in Southwest Florida.

Change was often discussed during the 2008 election and after the financial meltdown, but Florida these days often resembles the character played by its native son Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler: a broken-down piece of meat, damaged and sincere, but a little too messed up to drop familiar habits.

The good news for our market here in Southwest Florida is that there are an awful lot of bargain hunters panning for gold in the foreclosure space.  As summer fades to fall, we should only have more buyers visiting the area and participating in this sell-off.

These figures certainly jive with what our team has experienced in the distressed property trenches of Southwest Florida.  It can be challenging trying to convince an eager buyer that the aggresively priced short sale listing has a very low probability of closing.  We are experiencing far higher closing percentages with foreclosure listings.

Here is a free resource that is updated daily to view Southwest Florida foreclosures:

• Bonita Springs foreclosures
• Cape Coral foreclosures
• Estero foreclosures
• Fort Myers foreclosures
• Fort Myers Beach foreclosures
• Pine Island foreclosures

If you do decide to move forward and make an offer on a short sale, please read this blog post about the questions that you need answered prior to submitting the short sale offer.

For those looking for a dock directly behind their home, there are a wide varitey of Cape Coral gulf access homes currently on the market.

Distressed properties that were either foreclosures or short sales represented 76% of the June 2009 sales in Lee County. It will be interesting to see how the local rental market holds up as a majority of these sales were to cash buyers that will be renting them out.

Cape Coral foreclosure and Fort Myers foreclosure inventories continue to offer buying opportunities as court system works through the existing backlog of over 20,000 foreclosures.

At the present time, there are interesting real estate investment opportunities across the Southwest Florida market in Fort Myers, Fort Myers Beach, Estero, Bonita Springs, Cape Coral, Sanibel and Captiva.