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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tommaso who wrote (164066)	11/13/2008 11:05:24 AM
From: MoneyPenny	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

No skill on my part with the orchid. They just hang outside in a tree and I bring them onto the lanai as they come into bloom. The vandas are my favorites as they require no medium to grow in, just roots hanging down in the air. To make this post on-topic, all kinds of nasty stuff happening here in SW Florida. Fort Myers, Cape Coral home woes worst in Florida By DICK HOGAN dhogan@news-press.com Almost one in three Lee County homeowners owes more on his or her mortgage than the home is worth. And the situation is likely to keep getting worse as foreclosures mount and unemployment rises, according to a report issued Wednesday by housing information company Zillow. The report by the Seattle-based firm found the county's home prices had suffered the fifth worst decline in the country over the past year, behind only the Merced, Stockton, Modesto and Salinas areas in California's Central Valley region. The median home value dropped 19.6 percent to $177,718, Zillow reported. There's not much hope for the immediate future, Zillow vice president for communications Amy Bohutinsky said, noting the backlog of 29,000 foreclosure actions already in the court system, plus a skyrocketing unemployment rate, would likely keep prices going down. Lee County's unemployment rate in September was 9.2 percent compared to 5.7 percent a year earlier. "It is staggering," Cape Coral-based real estate agent Steve Koffman of Century 21 Sunbelt Realty said of the bleak economic numbers. Already, he said, the market for home sales is dominated by banks selling foreclosed houses and by short sales, in which the lender agrees to forgive part of the mortgage so the deal can go through. Of the roughly 20,000 residences for sale in the county, Koffman said, about 34 percent are short sales and 15 percent are bank foreclosures. Of the 895 homes sold in the past month, 378 were foreclosures and 146 were short sales. According to the Zillow report, 79.1 percent of those who bought in 2006 at the height of the real estate boom owe more than their homes are worth now. That compares to 44.8 percent nationwide. Koffman said even more people likely will find themselves "upside down" or owing more than their homes are worth because prices are still going down. "It looks like we're losing a percent or two a month in some areas" such as Lehigh Acres and Cape Coral. But David Hall, president of First Community Bank of Southwest Florida in Fort Myers, said even the declining market doesn't necessarily mean that everyone in that predicament will file for foreclosure. "I think there will be a lot of people who will feel a moral obligation to make their payment even though they're upside down," he said. "The market went very high and fast and then it went very low. I think it's going to come back in the normal range if they can just hold on a couple of years. When you think of a 30-year mortgage, a couple years isn't that much." One Cape Coral resident said she owes more on her mortgage than her home is worth but wants to stay in her house if she can work something out with her lender, Countrywide. Donna Murray bought her house for $60,000 12 years ago but refinanced and now owes $128,000 on an adjustable rate mortgage. Her mortgage payment is $1,600 a month and soon will reset even higher. "It's absolutely killing me," she said. "I can't seem to get any relief anywhere." Just letting the house go in foreclosure is not an option Murray's considering, however. "This is my home," she said. "My kids grew up in it. My grandson is making memories here. We want to stay here. It's not a mansion, it's not anything special, but it's my home." MP