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

Today is my sister's birthday (don't worry Liz, won't tell :), and also the 36th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation as 37th President here. Our real estate market is trying to avoid an association with either event, and recover from a nagging case of starting and stopping to gain strength. Lee County may have been the first hit with the housing recession, since we appreciated over 50% in home values for 2005, and logically, we should be at least one of the first to emerge into a new sunshine state. The list of stop signs run the gamut from the BP oil spill (not here in Lee), end of tax credit(s), delay in implementing National Flood Insurance Program, new difficulties in obtaining conventional financing, and over 12% of our eligible workers not being employed. In the year 2005, most local families were priced out of the rising market. Today, prices have fallen about as far down as they could be, and some choice properties have multi offers when they are marketed. The banking industry claims they have money to lend, but the underwriters want to know everthing, and then want more documentation. Owning a home used to be a dream for almost all of us and now it is more like auditioning for a documentary.

Lovely August, 2010, arrives with the typical summer heat and humidity, lack of steady business for most vendors, and the promise of football very soon. In taking a view of our local real estate market, we still see a large share of short sales, foreclosures, and cash transactions as staples, with changes in any of these three being some time away.

Our southwest Florida housing market is still attractive from a pricing option, variety of choices, and quality of life mantra, so where have the buyers gone???? Could it be ability to obtain financing?? Many an expert here would say it is so, Joe :). Today, attempting to secure a loan is more difficult in most cases than it was as little as 3-6 months ago. Credit scores are under seige, and even FHA loans, traditionally more forgiving on credit, have average FICO scores around 693. One may have a sizeable down payment, however, "willingness" to pay a loan back evidenced by a mediocre credit rating will doom any application for a reasonable interest rate. A few more issues that get in the way of 2003-2006 lending practices are heavy current debt, insufficent liquidity, lack of verifable income, unemployment, self-employment, and using one's imagination in filling out the 1003 (sometimes referred to as Lying...) round out the reson most bankers just say NO!

If we as agents for buyers do not have a back-up plan for them being turned down for traditional financing, we better try somethng different, like being a Cowboy :) Eric Wohl of www.NoteFlo, has just launched this site as a FREE service to buyers to post funding requests and allow several thousand private lenders an opportunity to bid to fund them. This form of non traditional lending has been around for awhile, and Greg thinkS NOW is a wonderful time to see if this helps some people get housing.