âImpact fees, used to pay for capital projects such as road widenings and new parks, account for $28 million of this yearâs budget. To collect that much money would take about 3,900 houses and 50 large commercial projects. The city is nowhere near that pace so far, being on track to issue about 1,000 home permits this budget year.â
ââWhether we did (cut) enough or not remains to be seen,â said City Manager Steven Crowell.â
âThe real estate downturn has been a disappointment beyond City Hall. Rich Deeds, who lives in Pennsylvania, jumped into the North Port spec housing market right before this yearâs precipitous drop. Now heâs sitting on two new houses in the city.â
âHe tried to sell one on eBay this month but didnât get a single bid. Now heâs spending $4,500 on Florida mortgages every month. âI expected a leveling out,â he said. âI didnât expect it to take a plunge.ââ
The St Petersburg Times. ââWe were actually crazy,â said broker Dan Richard. âIt seemed like it was almost out of control, people flipping houses. Itâs much slower now.ââ
âThat, of course, is the big story of 2006, the slowing of the housing market, though by some accounts those terms donât begin to describe it. âThis thing has almost collapsed,â Per Berglund, a senior economist with Moodyâs Economy.com said.â
âThe most telling statistic documenting this reversal is the number of permits the countyâs Development Department issued for construction of new homes. That dropped from 4,185 in 2005, a record high, to 2,765 through Dec. 19 of this year, with a much more pronounced decline in recent months.â
âBut people in the business of building and selling homes donât need to see those numbers to know how things have changed. They can tell by the way they go about their jobs.â
âAs the pace of building slackened in late 2005, builders had an easier time finding materials and workers to complete jobs. Then, toward the end of 2006, said Mark Vallery, owner of Vallery Custom Homes of Clermont, subcontractorsâ prices began to drop substantially because they needed work.â
ââBasically, they donât have anything to do, as opposed to two years ago when we had to beg them and offer them bonuses to get any work done,â said Valler.â
âThe reduced labor costs mean that, finally, the prices of homes have started to drop. The least expensive houses he sells in Southern Hills, called cottages, have recently been repriced at $298,900, down from $350,000. Vallery, whose sales in 2006 dropped 70 percent from 2005, said he has reduced the prices of other homes in the golf course development by a full 20 percent.â
ââYou hear some people say, âMy neighbor sold his for this much a year and a half ago, and I have the exact same house,â said Richard, who said sales in his offices declined 30 percent this year. âWe have to tell them, well, that was a year and a half ago. ⦠Thatâs not working anymore.ââ
The Miami Herald. âThe squeeze on South Florida renters might ease because more rentals are coming onto the market. With condo sales slow, some condo investors are putting their units up for rent instead. And others who converted their rentals into condos in the hope of quick gains are deciding to convert them back.â
âWhile the size of this âshadow marketâ of inventory is hard to gauge, it is having an impact.â
ââThe shadow market has definitely affected the rental market. Whereas a year and a half ago the market was really tight, now you find an abundance of rental property,â said Jay Massirman, a former vice chairman at commercial brokerage CB Richard Ellis.â
ââSix months ago a renter could not find a concession anywhere. Now you can find a half-month or month offered for free in some places,â said Kevin Judd, VP of Apartment Realty Advisors in Boca Raton.â
âAlan Ojeda, among the few developers to build an apartment rental tower in South Florida in recent years, said fully two-thirds of rentals converted into condos are now going right back in the rental market. âIt is going back as rental supply, but under a different owner,â he said.â
âSome 4,000 apartments set to be converted to condos have already reverted back to rentals, according to McCabe Research & Consulting, who has long predicted a meltdown in the condo market. The company only tracks market rate apartments of 100 units or more.â
âEarlier this year Pembroke Cove, a rental community in Pembroke Pines, was set to be sold as condos. Now the 302-unit complex is renting again.â
âRaul Nobili, VP of a small Miami Gardens company that owns a handful of Miami-Dade rental complexes, explains the change: âI used to get three calls a week from buyers wanting to buy the apartments and turn them into condos. Now I get two calls a week and they ask if we are interested in buying other rental buildings.ââ
âThe new condos are spinning off rentals as well. Roughly 10 percent of the units at Neo Vertika, a recently-completed 443-unit condo along the Miami River, are for rent. With thousands of condos under construction across South Florida, the number of new rentals could quickly rise.â