Regional
Homebuilders Back to Buying Land
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 2:25 PM
By: Dan Weil
Homebuilders are snapping up land again after spending months shedding properties and suffering write-downs during the real estate bust.
The builders seek bargains in areas hit hardest by the real estate slump of the past three years, Bloomberg reports. That includes California, Florida, Arizona and Colorado.
“Like a shark has to keep swimming or it’ll die, it’s the same thing with builders,” Kathryn Boyce, regional director in Sacramento for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, a real estate research company, tells Bloomberg.
“They have to keep building or they’ll die.”
The land purchases represent another sign that the real estate market is improving.
2008 top Florida real estate stories
The top story for 2008? Two words: The economy.
Many of this year’s top stories are connected to the worldwide economic woes. While the current downturn is, to some extent, a correction of the overly-robust market boom, all weak markets have an inherent sensitivity to additional bad news, and federal officials must now tread carefully as they guide a return to stability.
EarlyBird editors chose the following as Florida real estate’s top stories in 2008:
Bargain hunting in short sales can pay off — if you do your homework
Jerry W. Jackson | Sentinel Staff Writer November 23, 2008 Charles J. Kovaleski, president of Orlando-based Attorneys' Title Insurance Fund Inc., has some advice for people interested in trying their luck at buying a home that's headed for foreclosure through a technique called a "short sale."
In a short sale, a lender agrees to accept less than is owed when a property is sold.
The practice has been around for years but has accelerated in recent months, Kovaleski said, especially as nearly one in five U.S. mortgage borrowers owe lenders more than their homes are worth, according to a recent report by First American CoreLogic -- and nearly one in three in Florida.
Florida's Existing Home Sales Increase in the Q3
Florida's Existing Home Sales Increase in 3Q 2008
Last update: 11:05 a.m. EST Nov. 18, 2008 ORLANDO, Fla., Nov 18, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Sales of existing single-family homes in Florida rose 5 percent in third quarter 2008 compared to the same period last year, according to the latest housing statistics from the Florida Association of Realtors(R) (FAR). A total of 33,203 existing homes sold statewide in 3Q 2008; during the same period last year, a total of 31,558 existing homes sold statewide.
Expert says Panhandle not as vulnerable in downturn
Military, health-care industries help deflect economic crisis BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com
Graphic by Jessica Bowie/Gulf Breeze News Has the Wall Street bailout and fluctuating markets got you pulling your hair out?
When the country goes into recession, the Florida Panhandle is the best place in the nation to live, according to Dr. Rick Harper of the Haas Center for Business Research and Economic Development in Pensacola.
"We won't feel a recession as strongly or as quickly as some parts of the country," Harper said last week.
"The military payroll helps keep things rolling here, and health-care spending will continue
here. A lot of the health-care spending flows through Medicare and
Medicaid, which is good for Northwest Florida. We have a lot of health-care facilities of all kinds, all along the Panhandle," Harper said.
"Plus, we are a value destination tourism spot, so families will throw four people in a car and drive here for our beaches instead of spending $600 to $800 on air fare tickets to go someplace else. That will also continue to help us."
ECAR 'cautiously optimistic' about market
Sales across the Sunshine State shone brightly in March, with sales of single-family homes up by more than 12 percent and condos rising by nearly 16 percent as compared to February, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.
