By LAURA LAYDEN | Sunday, February 17, 2013
NAPLES — Builders in the Naples market are investing millions in houses with no buyers.With the housing market on the rebound, the speculative, or so called “spec” market has made a comeback, especially in areas near the water such as Port Royal, Aqualane Shores, Coquina Sands and Old Naples.In the past year, more high-end custom builders have been buying lots and putting multimillion-dollar houses on them, expecting buyers to come. And buyers have come, sometimes snatching up houses before they’re finished.Spec home building slowed to a virtual halt after the red-hot housing market went bust starting in 2006, but it’s back.
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41 West, a longtime luxury builder in Naples, decided to start building spec homes again last summer after a four-year pause.”Builders like myself are building homes on a speculative basis. Where everybody has been afraid of their own shadow for the last four years, people are stepping up. It’s a totally different market,” said William Bayes, 41 West’s vice president of operations.It’s a different market because the inventory of both new homes and resales has shrunk, which is slowly driving up prices.41 West’s decision to get back into speculative building came after Naples-area Realtors saw one of their busiest summers for sales in a decade, Bayes said.
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Other builders jumped back into the speculative market more quickly than 41 West, with construction picking up noticeably last year, such as in Old Naples.During the past two years, Waterside Builders built two quaint cottages off Third Street South that fetched some of the highest prices per square foot seen in Old Naples, said Mike Assaad, the company’s president.Buyers paid more than $1,000 per square foot for the living space under air and one of the homes was a spec that brought $2.6 million, he said.”There are a lot more buyers at $2.5 million than there are at $4 million or $5 million,” Assaad said.
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While much of the speculative building is near the water, it has picked up elsewhere in Collier County, including Mediterra, the luxury golf community straddling the Lee-Collier county line off Livingston Road.Most of the builder’s spec homes have been priced at $1 million to $3 million. They are three- and four-bedroom homes, ranging from 3,000 to 5,400 square feet.The builder will soon start similar spec homes in downtown Naples and Quail West, another golf community east of Interstate 75 between Bonita Beach and Immokalee roads.
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WCI Communities Inc., a Bonita Springs-based home builder, has spec homes in all five of its gated communities in Collier and Lee counties.WCI has two communities in Collier, including Tiburon in north Collier, where it’s building four spec homes with four and five bedrooms, priced at about $1 million. They’ll range from 3,800 to 4,500 square feet.There are another seven spec homes under construction at WCI’s Manchester Square community off Livingston Road, north of Pine Ridge Road.”We definitely have increased spec count,” Wolf said. “Last year, we were kind of following a sell one, replace one (strategy). This year, there has been enough demand that we are putting out two specs for every one that we sell.”
© 2013 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online
RISMEDIA, Friday, February 08, 2013
“We are heading into 2013 with home prices on the rebound,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “The upward trend in home prices in 2012 was broad based with 46 of 50 states registering gains for the year. All signals point to a continued improvement in the fundamentals underpinning the U.S. housing market recovery.”
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Although existing homes sales were down in December from the month before, the 2012 total was the highest in five years, according to the National Association of REALTORS®.
“Record-low mortgage interest rates clearly are helping many home buyers, but tight inventory and restrictive mortgage underwriting standards are limiting sales,” says Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s chief economist.
From RISMEDIA, Thursday, January 24, 2013— (MCT) | Read the article by Ruth Mantell
One of the most pernicious effects of the housing bust was the huge number of borrowers stuck in homes worth far less than those properties could be sold for.
Negative equity has been a major drag on mobility and hence the American economy. Being stuck “underwater” means you can’t sell your house or often even move out if you get a job someplace else.
Now that problem is easing, ever so slightly, with the recent rebound in home prices. About 100,000 borrowers popped into a positive equity position during the third quarter of 2012, mortgage tracker CoreLogic reported Thursday.
“Through the third quarter, the number of underwater borrowers declined significantly,” CoreLogic chief economist Mark Fleming said in a news release. “The substantive gain in house prices made in 2012, partly due to tight inventory caused by negative equity’s lock-out effect, has paradoxically alleviated some of the pain.”
As many as 1.8 million borrowers could have equity in their home in the next year if prices continue to rise, the firm reported.
CoreLogic said that about 10.7 million homes — or about 22 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage — were in negative equity at the end of the third quarter. Negative-equity mortgages and those in a near-negative-equity position accounted for 26.8 percent of all homes with a mortgage.
Negative equity fell to $658 billion at the end of the third quarter, a decrease of $31 billion from the prior quarter. Nevada had the highest percentage of underwater homes at 56.9 percent. After the Silver State came Florida at 42.1 percent and then Arizona at 38.6 percent.
RISMEDIA, Tuesday, January 22, 2013— (MCT) | by Alejando Lazo
©2013 Los Angeles Times | Distributed by MCT Information Services
RISMEDIA, Thursday, January 17, 2013— Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes was unchanged in January, remaining at a level of 47 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, released today. This means that following eight consecutive monthly gains, the index continues to hold at its highest level since April of 2006.
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Naples, Fla. (Jan. 18, 2013) – The Naples area overall median closed price increased a remarkable 17 percent from $175,000 in 2011 to $204,000 in 2012, according to a report released by the Naples Area Board of REALTORS® (NABOR®), which tracks home listings and sales within Collier County (excluding Marco Island).
“At our annual Economic Summit held in April, Dr. Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist of the National Association of REALTORS®, predicted a 10 percent increase in the overall median price by the end of 2012,” stated Brenda Fioretti, Managing Broker at Prudential Florida Realty. “At the time, many people were incredulous with his assessment, but now today we are delighted to see the real estate market’s prices rebounding and surpassing estimates.”
The NABOR® 2012 Annual Report provides comparisons of single-family home and condominium sales (via the SunshineMLS), price ranges, and geographic segmentation and includes an overall market summary. The NABOR® annual sales statistics are presented in chart format, including these overall (single-family and condominium units) findings:
– Overall closed sales increased 9 percent, from 8,345 units in 2011, compared to 9,121 units in 2012. Overall closed sales increased 20 percent in the $300,000-$500,000 category, from 1,129 units to 1,357 units, and increased 29 percent in the $500,000-$1 million category, from 794 units to 1,022 units, from 2011 to 2012, respectively.
– Overall pending sales increased 6 percent, from 10,070 pending sales in 2011 to 10,683 pending sales in 2012.
– Overall inventory decreased by 13 percent, from 7,581 listed properties in 2011 to 6,557 listed properties in 2012. Pending sales with contingent contracts are included in the overall inventory number.
– Overall pending sales in the Naples coastal area increased 15 percent, from 1,791 units to 2,057 units, in 2012. Closed sales increased 14 percent, from 1,641 units in 2011 to 1,869 units in 2012.
The NABOR® 2012 Fourth Quarter Report provides annual comparisons of single-family home and condominium sales (via the SunshineMLS), price ranges, and geographic segmentation and includes an overall market summary. The NABOR® fourth quarter statistics are presented in chart format, including these overall (single-family and condominium units) findings:
– Overall closed sales increased 22 percent, from 1,689 units in fourth quarter 2011 to 2,061 units in fourth quarter 2012. Overall closed sales increased 58 percent in the $300,000-$500,000 category, from 207 units to 328 units, and increased 51 percent in the $500,000-$1 million category, from 146 units to 221 units, from fourth quarter 2011 to fourth quarter 2012, respectively.
– The median closed price increased 24 percent overall, from $165,000 in fourth quarter 2011 to $205,000 in fourth quarter 2012.
– Overall pending sales increased 8 percent, from 2,250 pending sales in fourth quarter 2011 to 2,422 pending sales in fourth quarter 2012.
– Overall inventory decreased 13 percent, from 7,580 units for fourth quarter 2011, compared to 6,557 units in fourth quarter 2012.
NABOR Market Report – A service from the Naples Area Board of REALTORS®
NAPLES — Builders in the Naples market are investing millions in houses with no buyers.With the housing market on the rebound, the speculative, or so called “spec” market has made a comeback, especially in areas near the water such as Port Royal, Aqualane Shores, Coquina Sands and Old Naples.In the past year, more high-end custom builders have been buying lots and putting multimillion-dollar houses on them, expecting buyers to come. And buyers have come, sometimes snatching up houses before they’re finished.Spec home building slowed to a virtual halt after the red-hot housing market went bust starting in 2006, but it’s back.
