Real Estate experts look towards recovery

Southwest Florida’s real estate market is down, but it has been down before and will recover because of the area’s attractive lifestyle.  That was the message from experts at a town hall meeting held this evening by the University of Florida Friends and Alumni of Real Estate at the Islamorada Fish Co. restaurant at the Gulf Coast Town Center in south Lee County.  “I think it’s just a matter of time before it comes back, bigger and better,” said Howard Gutman, president of The Lutgert Cos., a major builder of high-rise condominiums in Southwest Florida.

Dennis Gilkey of The Gilkey Organization, a consulting company based in Lee County, said there have been periods before when it’s been hard to sell real estate here.

Gilkey, former president of The Bonita Bay Group, an upscale, Bonita Springs-based developer now facing financial troubles, said that company had hard times when it was just starting out more than 20 years ago.
“”We had a slow start in the mid-’80s,” said Gilkey, a speaker at the forum. “It was pretty tough going the first five years.”

The latest downturn, which started in early 2006 as residential property values collapsed, “has probably hit the second home market the worst.”

Steve Cohen off American Momentum Bank said he recalls people in Florida’s real estate business “mocking” other states until about four years ago because of Florida’s seemingly invulnerability to economic hard times.

“The truth is, we got a little full of ourselves,” he said.

Courtesy of News Press

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