BY DICK HOGAN   News Press
The number of foreclosures filed in Lee County in August fell to 1,692, down from 1,877 in July and 2,156 in August 2008, according to a report released today by the Southwest Florida Real Estate Investment Association.
In a separate report, permits were issued in August for 34 single-family homes in [...]

South Florida Business Journal
WCI Communities has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a newly reorganized, private company, eliminating more than $2 billion in debt and liabilities, according to a company press release.
The Bonita Springs-based luxury homebuilder filed for bankruptcy protection a year ago, and a Delaware bankruptcy court approved its reorganization planlate last month.
Under the [...]

BY DON MANLEY • DMANLEY@NEWS-PRESS.COM • AUGUST 22, 2009
Single-family home prices are climbing in Lee County and sales continued at a torrid pace in July, although there was a slight dip from June’s record-setting pace.
Meanwhile, sales across the nation and state are up, but with a drop in the median sales price.
A total of [...]

By Naples Daily News staff report
Single-family home resales in Lee County increased more than 100 percent in July.
There were 1,570 sales, up from 768 in the same month a year ago, according to a report by the Florida Association of Realtors.
Of all the metro areas tracked in the report, Fort Myers-Cape Coral saw the biggest percentage [...]

Courtesy of Naples Daily News
By TARA E. McLAUGHLIN
After nearly two months of negotiating and many more months of strain, some residents of a Bonita Bay Group community are jumping for joy.
Boards of the Shadow Wood Country Club and The Commons Club at The Brooks agreed to buy from Bonita Bay Group both clubs for $8.3 million [...]

By CHARLIE WHITEHEAD Naples Daily News
Lee County commissioners Tuesday took a step back from a recommendation to put a two-year moratorium on new roadway landscaping.  They’ll have a tough call to make, however, when they have to choose between the landscaping and specific road projects.
“We have to take it in context with what else we’ve had [...]

By JENNIFER LARINO
Posted August 10, 2009 Naples News

ESTERO — Take all the good and bad from a down economy, bundle it up, put it on 500 acres in Estero and you’ve got Coconut Point shopping center in a recession.
In the past few months, the center — a Lee County hub of business and consumer activity since [...]

By TARA E. McLAUGHLIN Naples News
A commercial project that drew complaints from surrounding residents is before another Bonita Springs panel Friday.
Owners of three land parcels at Bonita Beach Road and West Brook Drive would like to rezone the approximately 1 acre to commercial planned development from agricultural.
James and Karysia Demarest’s property, referred to as the Brookside [...]

The pace of new-home starts in subdivisions in Lee County fell to 116 in the second quarter of 2009 — the slowest in more than a decade, according to statistics released today by housing data company MetroStudy.
There were 139 starts in the first quarter, the release states.
Meanwhile, the level of move-ins in subdivisions fell from [...]

How do short sales and foreclosures affect taxable values for those homes and their neighbors? What about the impact of derelict homes on neighbors? Why is the decline in values in Lee County double that of Collier? How soon will the real estate market rebound? Ken Wilkinson, the property appraiser for Lee County for the [...]