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This Sanibel Island home serves as an ideal example of how today’s single-family housing market in Lee County compares to that of the super-heated atmosphere of its 2005 peak.

The asking price for the home in the island’s Gumbo Limbo section is $539,000. In 2005, it probably would have been in the $700,000 range, said Brian Johnson of VIP Realty Group on Sanibel, which is handling the listing.

“It’s just a beautiful house. I didn’t think I’d see a house that nice at that price point. Around $500,000 for that? That’s a great deal. Certainly, times have changed.”

This is the fourth installment of the News-Press’ examination of how the 2009 version of the county’s housing market stacks up against that of 2005, when it was at its zenith. The overview started the series, and we are looking at six different price points, including this week’s focus — $500,000 — or what’s available for between $450,000 to $500,000.

Realtors say the inventory of such homes is generous and as with other price ranges, house hunters can find much more for their money than four years ago.

Larger lots, upgraded interior finishes, more square-footage and a more desirable waterfront location can all be had by shoppers able to swing roughly $500,000 for a home.

Activity in that market is brisk currently, said Dru Martinovich, a Realtor for Premier Properties in Bonita Springs.

“The market is like lasagna,” she said. “It cools in layers and it heats up in layers. $500,000 is pretty hot right now.”

On Fort Myers Beach, a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, furnished home along a deep canal, with a dock and boat lift, is available for $425,000. A short, unobstructed cruise to the Gulf of Mexico, deeded beach access and shopping nearby are a just a few of the home’s other qualities, said Patricia Reidy of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate, which is handling the listing.

In 2005, it would have sold “I would say for the $600,000 mark,” she said.

The price range was dominated by older, off-water homes and an off-water listing probably would have been a “little shack” that people bought for the land,” Reidy said.

A 10-acre spread on a rural lane in Alva, with a remodeled home designed by its architect owner, is on the market for $498,000. The grounds also contain a three-stall barn and a detached building that can serve as an office or small apartment. Bedman Creek flows through the property.

“It’s really pretty,” said the listing agent, Randy Lauer of Intracoastal Real Estate in Alva. “It’s got tons of oak trees on it and Bedman Creek has a sandy bottom, so the water remains clear all year long.”

The list price was about $900,000 when the home hit the market roughly 18 months ago, which is what it might have fetched during the market’s peak, he said.

Susan DeShong of Premier Properties cited the Copperleaf section of the Brooks development in Bonita Springs to illustrate what buyers in the price range couldn’t have accessed in 2005, but can today.

Copperleaf has detached villas that today average about $473,000, but during the boom would probably have averaged $640,000, she said. Country club membership is bundled into the purchase price of homes in the gated community.

“That would buy you a very nice home,” DeShong said of what can be found in the Estero-Bonita area for $500,000. “You can get newer construction, to new construction. The builders are offering very nice discounts.”

More price reductions are likely in this market sector, according to Brett Ellis of Re/Max Realty Group in Fort Myers. Speculators didn’t overwhelm this price range to the same degree they did less expensive market sectors, so prices in the upper ranges haven’t plummeted either. As prices for more affordable housing rise, it’s likely prices in the $500,000 range will drop to capture buyers, he said.

From the News-Press

Lists for Section 8 – a program that gives people a voucher to choose private housing and pay an affordable rent based on income – stretch years long and are closed to new applicants.

They’re not expected to open any time soon.

Public housing lists in Lee County and Fort Myers are open and waits endure from months to a year or more depending on the development. Here’s some information on applying.

Who is eligible? Lee officials say that very low and extremely low-income people who are disabled, elderly and part of families are given preference. Very low income is $30,350 for a family of four and extremely low is about $18,000.

Fort Myers officials accept applicants between the low and extremely low income limits. The limit for a low-income family of four is about $48,000.

How to apply? Applications are taken from 8:30 to 11 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays for the 142 units through Lee County Housing Authority at its North Fort Myers office, 14170 Warner Circle NW. In Fort Myers, people can apply from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for the roughly 800 subsidized units at any of the six subsidized Fort Myers authority’s developments. The public housing office is based at 4301 Veronica Shoemaker Blvd.

Find a list of developments at news-press.com or hacfm.org, and go to Become a Resident.

People can also print an application from the site and mail it to any of the developments.

Can I get in sooner? Housing officials recommend applying for several developments instead of just one. The Fort Myers authority allows people to mail applications with a different cover sheet for each development to any one of its developments.

In Fort Myers, the wait is shorter for the senior developments, which permit people who are age 55 and older.

What to bring? Lee officials require Social Security cards and a photo identification for all family members to start an application and will likely ask for more information such as income-related documents.

Fort Myers officials require birth certificates and Social Security cards for all family members and applicants should expect them to ask for more as well.

Both authorities conduct background checks.

Some good news? Sherri Campanale, director of housing operations for the Fort Myers authority, said the list isn’t as long as anticipated. She said rents have gone down in response to the housing crisis and rental developments are offering deals. “There are a lot more options for clients than there were,” she said.

For more details go to news-press.com, or the Fort Myers authority at hacfm.org or 344-3220 and the Lee authority at leecountyhousingauthority.org or 997-6688.

From the News-Press

That’s because the pace of homes being sold continues to be quick while prices slowly fall.

The price of an existing single-family home in the county sold with the help of a Realtor dropped 2 percent to $139,500 in October while the number of homes sold fell 3 percent to 720, according to statistics released Monday by the

Experts aren’t saying the real estate market is healthy, but compared to the wild gyrations of the stock market, real estate now seems relatively stable.

Compared to a year ago, sales are strong, said Brett Ellis, a real estate agent with RE/MAX Realty Group in Fort Myers. There were 405 houses sold in October 2007, 44 percent fewer than October 2008.

High sales are good because once the 15,000 houses listed for sale and the 30,000 foreclosure properties backed up in the court system are sold, the laws of supply and demand kick in, he said.

Although October’s sales were slightly off September’s pace, Ellis said, that could be because those sales were based on deals that went on through August and September – two of the slowest months of the year.

In a separate report issued Monday by the National Association of Realtors, sales nationally of existing homes fell 3.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.98 million homes in October, from a downwardly revised pace of 5.14 million in September. Sales had been expected to fall to a rate of 5.05 million, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

The national median sales price plunged 11.3 percent from a year ago to $183,000. That was the largest year-over-year drop on record going back to 1968, and the lowest median sales price since March 2004.

Lee County’s median price is the lowest since February 2003, when it was $135,900.

That’s more good news for the market, Ellis said.

Sales are staying strong because “our prices are where they ought to be” after a long slide following the collapse of the market, he said. The median price reached its all-time high of $322,300 in December 2005.

Still, for people trying to sell a house, competition is heavy from foreclosures and short sales.

“I don’t know, man, everybody wants to buy houses,” said contractor Mike Kelly, who’s trying to sell his house on Devonwood Court in south Lee County for $270,000. “I’m going to cut the price a little bit and then wait. I’m hoping that January through March, in season, maybe they’ll get more buyers.”

But, he said, it’s a tough environment to be selling a house. “Business is really slow, and I don’t want to have to eat into my savings.”

Kelly’s company, Southwest Florida Custom Electronics, installs burglar alarm, camera and sound systems, but demand is soft, he said.

Around the nation, sales were down in October compared to September. But sales were up 40.5 percent in the West compared with October last year, without adjusting for seasonal factors. Buyers in places such as Las Vegas and Orange County, Calif., snapped up distressed properties at bargain prices.

Nationwide, the Realtors group estimates that sales of distressed properties made up 45 percent of all property sales in October.

From the News-Press

The school will offer complete education in real estate, including appraisal, pre- and post-license sales, pre- and post-license broker, mortgage brokers and other national designation courses.

Call 274-5588 for more information.

From the News-press

County Clerk of Courts Charlie Green said the moratorium is ill conceived because it will interfere with a plan by court officials to push more than 25,000 backlogged foreclosure actions through the court system.

“Has the government become Santa Claus?” Green asked sarcastically. “The government’s the reason we’re here, with all the loose lending policies” that encouraged people to

Meanwhile, the number of foreclosures dropped sharply in November from a record October, a bit of encouraging news after two years of steadily worsening conditions.

Crist called a news conference Monday with Alex Sanchez, head of the Florida Bankers Association, and Aletta Shutes, representing the state’s credit unions, to proclaim the “voluntary” respite for troubled homeowners.

They emphasized that the break – which applies to both new foreclosure filings and foreclosure sales – only applies to homesteaded primary residences.

“This is to help people who really need help,” Crist said. “This is not for people who bought a lot of condos on spec.”

About 30 percent of the foreclosure actions in Lee County in recent months have been homesteaded properties.

Green and the Lee circuit judges plan in December to hold 2,555 hearings in foreclosure cases in order to schedule sales on the courthouse steps.

“We worked our buns off to get those hearings,” he said. “The judges busted their tails, the mortgage companies busted their tails.”

In addition, lenders said, the moratorium has little potential to help homeowners.

Mark Morris, president and CEO of Commerce Bank of Southwest Florida, noted that the county’s courts are clogged with foreclosures, so any filed now would not result in someone actually losing a home until months after Christmas. “It’s a moot point.”

“His heart’s in the right place,” he said of Crist’s announcement.

But, he said, “My concern is, ‘Does this ultimately delay the overall recovery by pushing it back a period of time?’ I can certainly understand over the holiday season not wanting to upset the homeowners in this particular time of need. I also worry about the fairness between not foreclosing on someone and the next-door neighbor who’s got a second job and trying to keep his payments current.”

Elmer Tabor, owner of Wonderland Realty and chairman of the board of Cape Coral-based Riverside Bank of the Gulf Coast, said he doubts whether postponing sales on homesteaded property will actually keep anyone in his home.

“Once they get the letter from the lawyer that says legal process has started, they bolt,” he said. “Then the house is typically in the court foreclosure system for six to nine months” with nobody living in it.

As for Riverside, Tabor said, “I can guarantee you to a certainty” that none of its foreclosure sales in December or January involve an occupied primary residence.

He also questioned the wisdom of postponing foreclosures and then putting them back on the market at the same time, further depressing prices. “If we postpone for two months and dump them all in January, that’s not going to be a good thing at all.”

Until November, foreclosures had been rising steadily for more than two years as prices have fallen following the collapse of the housing market in late 2005. From a high of $322,300 in December 2005, the median price of an existing single-family home sold with the help of a Realtor has fallen 57 percent to $139,500 in October 2008, the last month available, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.

But the number of foreclosures filed in November dropped to 1,681, down sharply from the record 2,665 in October, according to a report Monday by the Southwest Florida Real Estate Investors Association. Foreclosures numbered 1,538 in November 2007.

Will that falloff continue?

“It’s cool that there are a thousand fewer people last month who didn’t get their day ruined,” said Jeff Tumbarello, president of the association, but he’s not willing to call it a trend unless it continues through January.

Some of the decline in November came because as a short month that includes Thanksgiving, it had fewer business days. But he noted that, even taking that into account, the number of filings per business day fell from 121 in October to 88 in November.

Green said the reason for the decline may be the sheer volume of what’s come before. “We’re running out of places to foreclose on.”

From the News-Press

On Saturday, November 29, 2008 from 3:00pm -7:00 pm @ the Centennial Park in Downtown Fort Myers a big event is organized to celebrate the start of the 2008 Holiday Season!

Special appearance of Santa Claus and plenty on activities for the kids including Lighting of the City Tree, Kid’s Crafts, Train Ride, Pony Rides, Hayride, and Snow Mountain !

There will be live Entertainment & Food Vendors! Fun for the whole family!

For More Information call 239.321.7530

1. Check on the company the Better Business Bureau. www.bbb.com
2. Check if the company has any legal action against it with the Lee County Clerk of Court http://www.leeclerk.org/
3. Do a criminal background check on the credit advisor at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement

Allen Cooper, a credit advisor from North Fort Myers, has more than two dozen complaints with the Florida Attorney General’s Office, for alledged fraud, false advertising, threatning and abusive language. 

LEE COUNTY: The state of our economy has many asking professionals for financial advice, but a loophole in state law means you could be turning to a criminal for help.

NBC2 found a convicted felon promising to restore people’s credit. There are dozens of complaints against him.

“He was very abrasive on the phone,” said one former customer.

The former customer is talking about “Allen Cooper,” a credit repair advisor who’s real name is protected under federal law.

From his North Fort Myers Office, Cooper has made a living promising to restore people’s credit under the company name World Wide Search Systems.

“I trusted him because he’s very convincing,” said the former customer who didn’t want to be identified.

He paid Cooper $1,900 to improve his credit score.

Four months later, the customer said his credit score began to decline.

When he refused to pay, Cooper responded with threats.

“Things like, ‘I can do things to you that will assure that I get my money.’ It was very intimidating,” he said.

We asked if he feared for his safety.

“Yes I did,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons I don’t want to appear on camera.”

Dalgonal Hyde also hired Cooper. He says Cooper charged him hundreds of dollars without ever improving his credit score by a single point.

“I would like to see no one else become the victim the way I have,” said Hyde.

NBC2 discovered the Florida Attorney General’s Office has nearly two dozen complaints against Cooper on file.

They allege fraud, false advertising, threatening and abusive language.

The complaints are mostly from Southwest Florida, but there are also complaints from Colorado, Nevada, Mississippi, Connecticut, Illinois, and Washington.

In 2005 the state of Illinois sued cooper’s company for making false promises to consumers. Cooper was found guilty and ordered to pay a fine.

We went to Allen Cooper’s office to ask him about the complaints.

Cooper: I have 12,000 clients since 1992, and you said I have how many complaints?
NBC2: Two dozen.
Cooper: Two dozen. So if you divide that in the years I’ve been doing credit restoration, that’s like 5 to 6 people a year.

During the course of our nearly 45 minute interview, Cooper accused the clients who filed complaints against him, of writing bad checks and not doing their part to maintain their credit while he tried to fix it.

He denies he ever used threatening language.

Cooper has a criminal record that includes 9 convictions, ranging from DUI, to hit and run, to grand theft. Cooper claims the charges were dropped to petty theft.

Either way, how does a convicted criminal wind up managing people’s credit? The State of Florida does not require credit advisors to be licensed.

Every state agency we contacted said it was not their job to monitor the credit repair industry.

The Department of Financial Services told us they don’t look into these complaints and referred us to the Office of Financial Regulation who said it’s ‘not their priority.’

There are laws on the books that protect consumers against fraud, but it’s up to the consumer to sound the alarm.

State Senator Burt Saunders, who’s running for congress, said our investigation makes a good case for a new state law.

“These agencies are dealing with people who are in trouble and people in trouble sometimes put their trust in the wrong people, and there should be some licensing here for that. I would agree with that,” said Saunders.

But until there are laws or licensing is required, you are on your own when hiring a credit repair agency.

Look for a company that’s in good standing with the Better Business Bureau.
Check with the county Clerk of Court to see if the company has any legal action against it.
Do a criminal back ground check on the credit advisor.
Above all, you should consider doing your own credit repair.
Within the past few days the Federal Trade Commission proposed new legislation requiring credit councilors to register with states.

Senator Saunders says he will also push for reform.

Because of our investigation, the Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Financial Services are both looking into the complaints against World Wide Search Systems.

Use caution when hiring credit repair company by

http://www.nbc2investigators.com/articles/readnbc2investigatorsarticle.asp?articleid=21889&z=5

Gerard Marino writes to the news-press about how adversity has helped Southwest Florida citizens to walk ” the extra mile” in their jobs and obligations to try and turn the market around.

I haven’t been writing my usual monthly article for the Commercial Connection lately. The truth is, I haven’t been able to find anything significantly positive to write about and we all know there is more than enough negative news these days.

But as often happens, when we least expect it, the unexpected happens. In this case, several unexpected events occurred in about a week’s time.

First, I happened upon a quote I wrote down some years ago, when times in Southwest Florida were prosperous: “Adversity introduces a man to himself.”

The more I thought about it, the more truth I saw in those six words. Could this also apply to Southwest Florida, I pondered? Could these lean, difficult years actually yield something positive, something that might have been missed in more prosperous times?

The first answer came quickly, specifically, on Nov. 2, right on the front page of the Sunday News-Press: “Sox will call south Lee home.”

I couldn’t believe it. Lee County beat out Sarasota? How?

It happened because of adversity. The very real possibility of losing the Red Sox to Sarasota caused ordinary men, Lee County commissioners and John Yarbrough, an unpaid consultant, to do the extraordinary.

In conversations with other businessmen, it was generally agreed the odds of keeping the Red Sox here were nil. Most, including myself, were prepared for the headline telling us Fort Myers lost to Sarasota, because they are more “tony.”

However, keeping the Red Sox in Lee County isn’t the most important significant part of this story. It’s that these men committed Lee County to construct a mini-Fenway Park. I believe this single event could actually change the economic direction and mind-set of Southwest Florida.

While only history can determine the economic value of this financial commitment, their saying “second best is not good enough for Lee County anymore” is priceless. Thank you commissioners and Mr. Yarbrough. And thank you, adversity.

The next event happened when asked to list a commercial property on Fort Myers Beach. Not in the area of the pier and all the commercial activity, but a couple of miles south. But first, I had to inspect the property, take some photos and recommend its “highest and best use.”

Having some other business in Estero, I decided to drive up from Bonita Beach Road to see this property. I hadn’t driven this route in a while, and I didn’t expect anything new. However, driving over Little Carlos Pass, I was struck by the color of the water … it looked like the Caribbean! It was clear to the bottom with hints of greens. Birds were abundant and the entire area was spotless.

What happened? Adversity, hidden in a two-year drought, showed us the damage caused by the endless stream of nutrient-rich water flowing down the Caloosahatchee River from Lake Okeechobee. Maybe we should thank adversity for exposing what might have taken years, if ever, to prove what was long suspected?

Continuing my drive, I noticed the cleaned up roads on Fort Myers Beach. And the store signs were smaller. And buildings were clean and painted and landscaping timed and neat.

Was this Fort Myers Beach or Palm Beach, I thought to myself? What happened? I think you know … adversity. Economic adversity. In order to survive, change was forced on the business owners and Beach decision makers. Thank you to those responsible. And again, thank you adversity.

I don’t like adversity more than anyone else. But I’m starting to suspect that adversity has exposed problems otherwise hidden in prosperity. Prosperity has a way of doing that.The promise of sunshine is no longer enough to drive our economy. There is good weather in other places too. And no longer is our housing relatively inexpensive, when taxes and insurance costs are considered.

To thrive again, Southwest Florida needs to become “special” again. It needs to become “more.” Having our own “mini-Fenway” is a first step. A big first step. Unspoiled beaches and clear tropical waters are other big steps. But to be economically complete, there is still more to do.

So maybe adversity isn’t so bad after all? It appears to have introduced us to ourselves.