Courtesy of Naples News

Home resales in the Naples area got off to a strong start this year.  In January, sales increased 51 percent, when compared to the same month in 2009.  There were 532 sales last month, up from 353 a year ago, according to a monthly report by the Naples Area Board of Realtors.

“It’s all certainly from our perspective good news,” said Joni Albert, managing broker for Coldwell Banker Residential in Naples.  The report tracks Realtor-assisted sales made through the multiple listing service, or MLS, in Collier County, excluding Marco Island.  Of the total sales last month, 244 were single-family homes and 288 were condos.

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Courtesy of Tampa Bay Online

Housing prices aren’t likely to fall much further, but mortgage interest ratesare about to start rising, according to well-known Florida economist Hank Fishkind.

Interest rates, which are still in the 4 percent range, could be 8 percent or higher by early 2012, Fishkind said Wednesday during a meeting of the Bay Area Real Estate Council.

The area is out of the recession, although the recovery will be slow.

“The hurricane is over, but the damage to our economy is dreadful,” Fishkind said. “The only good news is that we’re at the bottom.”

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Naples News

Cape Coral-Fort Myers ranked ninth in the nation for its foreclosure rate in January.

The metro had one foreclosure-related filing for every 121 households, according to Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac. There were a total of 3,022 filings last month, down more than 33 percent from 4,545 in December 2009.

The monthly report counts default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions.

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Naples News, Dave Osborne

Thousands of dollars may be too tempting for some Mediterra residents to pass up.

Bonita Bay Group this week offered residents who chose not to join The Club at Mediterra a cash payment of 30 percent of the amount of their membership deposits. Bonita Bay Group, which is fighting to avoid bankruptcy and selling off its clubs, still says it will honor a lottery designation refund program that’s a lengthier process if they decline the new offer.

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Sales of existing homes in Lee County ended the decade with a bang — a record 16,260 were sold with the assistance of a Realtor in 2009, according to statistics released Monday by the Florida Association of Realtors.

That shattered the old record of 12,123 set in 2005 at the top of the residential real estate boom that collapsed the following year.

Meanwhile, prices were moving in the opposite direction. The median sales price for an existing house was $278,200 in 2005 but only $90,400 in 2009.

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If your idea of a dream retirement home is a luxury contemporary overlooking a championship golf course in the desert, you better be prepared for some mighty small block parties: When it comes to retirement living, golf courses are out.

And Arizona and Florida aren’t the only retirement-relocation hot spots these days. In fact, South and North Carolina now top the preferences of baby boomers who will be retiring in the next decade, according to a survey to be released from home builder Del Webb.

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Want to own a mansion along the Caloosahatchee River?  The south Fort Myers home of WCI founder and former chairman Al Hoffman is headed to the auction block. On the market since 2005, the seven-bedroom, Gulf Harbour mansion will be sold to the highest bidder March 13.

The asking price dropped from $17 million initially to $15.9 million and finally $13 million without attracting a buyer as the housing market cooled during the last five years.

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Florida property taxes dropped by $2.28 billion, or 7.5 percent, over the past three years because of tax-cutting measures approved by the Legislature and voters as well as falling real estate values, according to figures presented to a legislative panel today.

“I would classify that as dropping like a rock,” said Senate Finance and Taxation Committee Chairman Thad Altman, R-Viera.

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If you have a good job and good credit, the next few months might be a sweet time to go house hunting. Then again, maybe not.  Fence-sitters take the risk that Congress may let a rich tax credit expire, and that interest rates may rise. So, let’s walk through some factors for buyers and sellers to consider as they think about jumping in.

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There was one word Naples-area real estate experts especially favored on Friday to describe recent market conditions: momentum.

The Naples Area Board of Realtors released its 2009 summary, as well as its 2009 fourth quarter summary. The figures showed a steady increase in pending and closed sales over the previous year, as well as a decrease in inventory.

“We have a tremendous amount of momentum here heading into 2010,” said Mike Hughes, NABOR media relations director.

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