Greg Snow - Southwest Florida Real Estate Expert provides real estate services to Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Sanibel and Captiva Islands

We are "back in the saddle again" with the F-word, foreclosures in our lovely county of Lee, off Florida's vibrant West Coast. Instead of moving AWAY from the top spot in foreclosures, we moved back into the top five in metro areas in the U.S. at number four. Our area of Cape Coral-Fort Myers had almost 3500 foreclosure-related filings, or one in every 105 local households last month. On the flip side, the filings are down over 44% from jsut one year ago. Our urbane sister neighbors of Naples-Marco Island had a filing for one in every 172 households (17th in nation), and for perspective, Florida had one in every 182 households. Foreclosure filings actually DROPPED 2% nationwide in April for a first in last Five years, and that is certainly welcome to the hotel news :).

Nationally, Florida is 3rd (bronze medal) behind Nevada and Arizona(probably should repeal law just passed to keep non residents away), and California lurks just behind. This current brief view of better days ahead can be attributed to increases in job opportunites, stabilizing of housing markets in many areas, low interest rates, first time buyers tax credit, and efforts of some banks to deal with problem loans in a practical manner. The jury is still way out on Bank of America's attempts to address some of the most exotic and toxic loans in it's portfolio. My forecast is one mingling hope, help, health and happiness for continual progress in arising from the depths we have suffered in last thirty months.