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

Our local lending industry is often more difficult to solve than many of the challenging games, puzzles or riddles one has encountered. My father use to almost finish the Sunday N.Y Times crossword puzzle in about 45 minutes. Today, in southwest Florida's mortgage market, closing a real estate deal with a mortgage normally takes more than 45 days. The Obama's administration's main mortgage assistance plan has as many people who have achieved permanent assistance as those who have tried and dropped out. The number of people who attend the foreclosure sales daily in Lee County has risen from 3-4 to over 100. Our local Multiple Listing Service has almost 1200 closed residental sales under $100k since 2010 with over 30% being REO's of foreclosures. Many of these sales are without loans when closed. Lee County is essentially pulling itself away from the "maddening crowd" of the opti-arm no documents loans that Wall Street helped fuel our place as a leader in foreclosures. Hopefully we are postioning ourselves to be the place to be in this decade.

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As we head toward what may be a dozzie of Hurricane season (June1-Nov.30), one can hope, pray, and beg for our southwest Florida housing market to continue to buld in strength. Our local Multiple Listing Service has figures that show prices stabilizing, even moving up in some areas, and some movement in the upper end price range.

Okay campers, rise and shine :).  April home sales here in Lee County were up almost 3% from last year according to the Realtor Association of Greater Fort Myers and the Beaches. Our median price moved up to $96,000 from $80,000 in April 2009. Our pending sales, those that are under contract but have not closed yet increased to 2193 in April, up over 6% from March. Another very interesting statistic is closed sales for homes under $100k dropped about 10%. Homes in the next tiered ranges actually increased about 5%. Reviewing these numbers usggest our local real estate market is moving forward from the really unhealthy recession we went through in southwest Florida.

Our local paper the News-Press carried a front page story Sunday on North Fort Myers and how they have Never really busted, because they Never really Boomed. This mostly quiet community north of the Caloosahatchee River in Lee County, Florida has little ingredients to make it a haven for speculators and flippers. Mostly older, retired, frugal and Midwesterners, the income and inclination don't add up to roller coaster rides in real estate. The median family income of around $40,000 per year, lack of many commerical opportunties, median age of over 60 years old, and until 2007 13 story Yacht Club opening, no real "skyscrapers". They are actually building again in Del Tura Country Club with 50 lots still available for manufactured homes. Our Lee County, Florida with Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres leading the way, has been continuously near the top on lists for worst hit areas for real estate foreclosures. It is always nice to see a small amount of our population not have to ride the zoomer to the top and then fall off the mountain topinto the sea with the oysters and their eyes.

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 :).

As our April, 2010, begins to ebb into mornings in May, and our infamous HOT summers are getting nearer, I am cautiously confident that the "eyes of the oysters" are getting smaller, as we ascend to the surface of normalcy in Lee County real estate investments.  While our U.S. Congress takes their shots at members of Goldman Sachs, Washington Mutual, Lehman Bros., Citigroup, and the rest of the Wall Street crowd that engineered our rise and fall in Southwest Florida real estate (along with Las Vegas, California, Arizona, et al.), we have survived, and a new order of real estate investments have occured. Many real estate investments in southwest Florida are cash sales or short sales, or REO sales, along with about 15-20% the good old fashioned way (the banks are really loaning money to credit worthy people??). Prices are still very favorable, as are current interst rates, and alot of inventory (going down as we read), provide smart investment choices for full time, part time, or vacation properties in the Fort Myers area.

As mentioned here before, Jackson Browne has a song, "Running on Empty", which hosts a refrain of" in 69 I was 21, and I called the world my own", and it may be the point of reference of many of my stream of conscious thoughts on todays current events. Some years later, the Rolling Stones had a song named "Under My Thumb", that really rose to epic proportions in the movie "Gimme Shelter", http://www.imbd.com that closely parallels our local real estate market and many others nationwide.

The month of March came in like a pride of lions, and is beginning to ebb like Mary and the remaining lambs. Our thoughts here, in Lee County, Florida, turn to an assortment of mind altering thoughts ranging from maybe road traffic volume will go down, Easter is almost with us, maybe I can get a tee time soon, what am i going to do with the kids this summer, and my favorite of How many days to the National Football League draft. What ever one's thought process is, assurances abound that warmer weather is near, and HOOOTTTT is close by also.

Our local Multiple Listing Service has more closed sales in 2010, than this time in 2009 (which established records), and 71%ish are cash deals. Consumers are finding good value here in southwest Florida, and loveable Lee County needs influx of visitors and residents to keep us healthy. Many sharp money people have bought early and often with cash to position themselves favorably in our future.

"Arrive Alive on our license plates has been replace with"Bring Cash".

Being an active, licensed, real estate agent in Florida was kinda fun long ago and in a landscape that is now far away from today's environment. It used to be that agents graded out to higher scores in the public's perspective, than say politicans, lawyers, and car salesman(woman) Using a new poll conducted by the California Association of Realtors from 2004-2009, consumers responded favorably by 79% to the question, "Yes, I would use the same agent" in 2004, to a dismal 22% in 2009. Why? Have we suddenly lost favor because we "make the big bucks" No!!! Most of the respondents thought their house took too long to sell or did not get the price they wanted. Well boys, girls, and others, in case you are tunning in late, the sky has fallen ,and with Wall Street buying up so many risky real estate investments, unemployment at or above 10% (about 14% in Lee County), myriads of bank failures, and individuals greed, stupidity or naivete, it is suprising more real estate agents don't have some sort of new complex (we have many anyhow). The chance to build up our image for relying again on a professional to handle many folks biggest investment is now on the horizon. This is your big day baby, "Won't you smile for the camera", www.lyricsdepot.com/steely-dan/peg.html could mean new acceptance from the public on our value and services.

 Since over 80% of consumers looking for real estate begin their search on "Al Gore's" internet, here is where we must begin our resurrection. My first thought would be removing any type of auto response as "bots" are not the same as the real thing of instant, friendly, knowledgeable help from an expert. Don't put people on "drip-drop" e-mails unless specifically requested by the consumer. Respond very quicky or faster to all inquires with a pleasant voice and the word "LISTEN" suddenly rears it's very fashionable head. Give them what they want, if they know, and if they don't know, ask some questions that will assist you in at least Not giving them what they DON'T want. For all real estate agents in Lee County, Florida, hard work will pay off, and smiles are made out of being there for your customer.

The madness of March is not always linked to the NCAA Basketball tournament of win and you get to play "One more night", www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_More_Night_(Phil_Collins_song) or to "Bewaring the Ides of March"http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki?Ides_of_March or that Spring will appear soon, or are the Boys of Summer really losing their long held national spotlight to other team sports. Sometimes madness spills over into the local real estate market and nobody has the correct formula(s) to relieve the "Mad Hatters", http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_hatters_disease. If you have been involved in a short sale of real estate here in Lee County, Florida recently, either from a selling, buying, realtor, title company, lender, or other vendor(s) standpoint, then you may have some idea of what I mean. Although it may be a little bit short of James Donald, playing Major Clipton in 1957's "The Bridge on the River Kwai", www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_on_the_River_Kwai, where his last words were"Madness....Madness", the process here does require quick access to Excedrin.

The United States Treasury Department did announce new guidelines in November may help soften the use of pain relievers, and take effect in April this year. In order for a bank to participate in a Federal program (HAFA), which is Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives, and be eligble for bonus money in closing short sales, the banks need an effective short sale plan, and to follow it expeditiously.

One can only hope our Lee County, Florida real estate short sale MADNESS, will dwindle away :)

As we enter the month before "the cruelest of months", our weather here in Lee County, southwest Florida, has been "cool, cold, and brisk"and doesn't feel anything like we are getting close to spring. Our real estate market has become somewhat difficult to evaluate with the lack of ideal beach and boating weather lending to many of our visitors "looking" at our local housing opportunites. If we have really "seen the eyes of the oysters", and now the market has stabilized, is this the best time to make a housing decision? Of course, my subjective view is like in "Trading Places", where it's buy, buy, buy, or sell, sell, sell.... If only it would take a wager of a single dollar to successfully promote such market activity.

Have we evolved in the United States from a service -based economy to one that is permeated with experienced-based as our final decision making tie breaker? If this is the case, then we may still be in a hold mode for buying real estate in southwest Florida. "What is past is prologue" is from "The Tempest", and is also on a satute in front of our National Archives building in Washington, D.C.  www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/pa14.cfm, and is very accurate in our world of real estate here. Life is shorter than we would want and choices are an every day opportunity for us all. Our concern should be on creating new experiences that will leave the consumer smiling and sharing their fun times with everyone on Facebook, Twitter, and all the social networking sites. Our real estate product is out there, deals to be made, so let us improve on our customer service, because the world can now see how we interact with the consumer..good..bad..or really ugly :(   :):):)