Naples News By Laura Laydan

Rich Schmidt acted Friday like he’d hit a hole-in-one.  The chairman of the Mediterra Advisory Board announced that a deal finally had been struck for members to buy their golf club from the financially strapped Bonita Bay Group.  “It’s a good day,” he said.  The agreement comes after months of negotiations that at times looked as if they were dead.

Members have agreed to buy the club and its assets for $6.8 million cash and to assume $15 million in debt for a Community Development District that helped pay for roads, sewer hookups and other shared needs as Mediterra got off the ground.

Ninety-five percent of the current members _ or more than 470 residents _ have agreed to join the new club. Another 150 residents, who aren’t members, will become either golf, sports or social members.

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A cheese shop once called the building home.

So did a movie theater, a library and some even say it’s the original home of Naples City Hall.

Now the historic building, 1148 Third St. S., sits empty, filled with dust, dirt and memories of years gone by.

That could change soon, as contractors begin work on renovating the historic Third Street South building that’s been vacant for about three years.

The city of Naples issued a demolition permit to contractors working on the Olde Naples Building. The building has been vacant since 2006, when Fantozzi’s, a wine and cheese shop, and two small galleries left the property.

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Home resales rose in September to the highest level in more than two years, beating expectations, as buyers scrambled to complete their purchases before a tax credit for first-time owners expires.

The National Association of Realtors said Friday that sales rose 9.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million in September, from a downwardly revised pace of 5.1 million in August. Sales had been expected to rise to an annual pace of 5.35 million, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

The median sales price was $174,900, down 8.5 percent from a year earlier, and slightly lower than August’s median of $177,300.

“There’s a mini-boom going on in the housing market,” said Thomas Popik, who conducts a monthly survey of real estate agents for Campbell Communications, a research firm.

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By LAURA LAYDEN  Naples News

NAPLES — Local Realtors are questioning a national report that predicts home prices will drop nearly 27 percent in the Naples-Marco Island market by June.

A forecast by Fiserv, a financial information firm, shows home values dropping in 342 out of 381 markets around the country, according to a story posted on CNNMoney.com.

The story singles out a few of the markets that are expected to see the largest price declines in the next year, including Naples.

Nationally, the median home price is expected to fall 11.3 percent by June 2010, according to Fiserv’s study.

For the Naples area, the study forecasts a 26.8 percent drop in home prices by summer 2010. Prices are expected to flatten out in 2011, dropping by 0.3 percent.

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The median price of a single-family-home resale in September in Lee County was $89,700 in Lee County — 37 percent off $141,400 a year earlier, according to statistics released today by the Florida Association of Realtors.  Meanwhile, the number of homes sold increased 77 percent in the same period from 746 to 1,321.

In Charlotte County, the median price fell 19 percent from $136,900 to $110,600 while the number of homes sold increased 56 percent from 153 to 238.  Statewide, the median price fell 19 percent from $174,900 to $142,000 while the number of homes sold increased 34 percent from 10,778 to 14,419.

In a separate report also issued today, the National Association of Realtors said U.S. home sales rose 9.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million in September, from a downwardly revised pace of 5.1 million in August.

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he Obama administration on Monday unveiled a new program to help state and local housing finance agencies make more home loans, but some Lee County experts say the program should proceed with caution.  The plan will help the agencies finance mortgages for first-time homebuyers and develop rental housing.

The agencies have had a hard time raising money because of the housing crisis and credit crunch. This year, the agencies have sold about $4 billion in tax-exempt bonds — one-fourth the amount in a typical year. That reduction is limiting the number of loans they can make.

Making credit more available is a good idea as long as it doesn’t lead to reckless lending, said Suzanne Sherer of Remax Realty Team in Cape Coral, who’s also president of the Realtor Association of Greater Fort Myers and the Beach.

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It just keeps getting better.

The Naples Area Board of Realtors released its third-quarter statistics today, and the figures suggest the local real estate market continues to rebound. For the months of July, August and September, overall closed sales numbered 1,821 units, an increase of 55 percent over the third quarter of 2008.

Overall pending sales numbered 2,570 for the quarter, a whopping 96 percent over the third quarter of 2008.

If the closed sale total was broken down into a daily figure, it would mean 20.2 units closed every day in the third quarter, noted John Steinwand, president and CEO of Naples Realty Services.

“The resiliency of the Naples real estate market is truly amazing,” Steinwand said. “Bear in mind we’re talking about summer sales, summer closings.”

The increases show ongoing improvement in the local market. In the second quarter of 2009, closed sales increased 37 percent over the previous year, while pending sales showed a 92 percent increase.

“It seems like things are going in the right direction,” said Phil Wood, president and CEO of John R. Wood, Realtors. “I can’t complain.”

Some of the most dramatic activity continues to be in the lowest end of the market. Overall pending sales under $300,000 showed a 126 percent increase in third quarter 2009. But as the pending sales increased, the median closed price dropped, decreasing 30 percent to $176,000 in third quarter 2009 from $250,000 in third quarter 2008.

The quarterly report tracked Realtor sales though the SunshineMLS multiple listing service. Excluding Marco Island, it included all of Collier County and was divided into six geographical areas.

One of those areas, East Naples, showed a pending sale increase of 136 percent over the third quarter 2008. Closed sales increased 99 percent. That’s because East Naples includes Golden Gate Estates, explained Brett Brown, president of NABOR, and the area has been the epicenter of the foreclosure and short sale market.

In recent months, it has become easier to put together a short sale, noted Mike Hughes, the vice-president of Downing-Frye Realty, Inc. Lenders are more responsive to short sale buyers and returning a financing answer more quickly.

But short sales have made their share of skeptics, too, Wood explained. Some buyers have heard too many horror stories about short sales, and aren’t interested in seeing them.

Buyers aren’t shy about wanting to see property, though.

Wood said his company, which has offices in Lee and Collier counties, has recorded 80,000 showings to date this year. The main office of Downing-Frye has recorded 26,000 showings to date this year, Hughes said.

“We’re showing a lot more property than we used to before a contract is written, but that’s probably because there’s a lot of inventory,” Hughes said.

Maybe so, but inventory seems to be the one percentage that’s decreasing. In the third quarter of 2008, there were 10,658 units for sale. Now, there are 9,209 – a decrease of 14 percent.

“We’ve known for a while that there have been a lot of people sitting on the fence, trying to time it right,” Hughes said. “I would caution buyers, don’t wait too long because a lot of the choice properties are being picked off.”

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Homes resales are up nearly 120 percent year-to-date in the Fort Myers area.

From January to September, 12,526 single-family homes sold. In the same months last year, there were 5,727 sales, according to the Realtor Association of Greater Fort Myers and the Beach Inc.

In September, sales rose 56.7 percent. There were 1,185 homes sold. Nearly 50 percent of them were bank-owned. A little more than 20 percent were short sales — sales made for less than the bank is owed to avoid foreclosure. The rest were traditional sales.

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Naples News By Tara McLaughlin

Investors have discovered a new market in the latest blow to homeowners and the building industry — houses built with Chinese drywall.

About 30 homes disclosed to contain the noxious drywall sold in Lee County this year.

Experts say the trend is likely to continue as sales close for about half their appraised value.

“There are always investors out there, even during a downturn,” said Bob Knight, vice president of Cape Coral-based Paul Homes.

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Wall Street Journal By Nick Timiraos

New data suggest that foreclosures are rising in more expensive housing markets.

About 30% of foreclosures in June involved homes in the top third of local housing values, up from 16% when the foreclosure crisis began three years ago, according to new data from real-estate Web site Zillow.com. The bottom one-third of housing markets, by home value, now account for 35% of foreclosures, down from 55% in 2006.

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