Our names in print

Home sales continue plunge
Deals down 39 percent in Lee since July 2006

By Dick Hogan
Originally posted on August 28, 2007

Bradley and Kathleen Bressler tried everything to sell their three-bedroom, two-bath house in Lehigh Acres — they retained a real-estate agent, held open houses.

Nothing worked.

Now they've got it on Craig's List for $249,000 and they have a blog about their experiences: great-house-4-sale.blogspot.com.

The Bresslers are not alone as prices and the number of home sales continue to drop in Lee County.

Last month, according to a report issued Monday by the Florida Association of Realtors, the median price of a home sold with the help of a Realtor fell 7 percent to $246,100 from $264,600 a year earlier while the number of sales fell 39 percent from 694 to 426.

In a separate report also issued Monday, the National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes dropped for a fifth straight month in July, falling to the slowest pace in nearly five years, while home prices fell for a record 12th consecutive month.

Prices and sales in Lee County were also off compared to June: down 7 percent from $264,600 and off 24 percent from 558.

It all adds up to a market where it's hard to sell a house, Kathleen Bressler said. "I think there's just such a saturation of houses for sale because of foreclosures and investment houses that are for sale."

The Bresslers lost their construction-industry jobs after the boom ended in 2006, but they were able to find jobs at Florida Gulf Coast University, where she's a math teaching assistant and he's an administrator, so they're not forced to sell immediately.

But Maggie Morris, a broker manager with Sellstate Achievers Realty Network in Fort Myers and an executive committee member with the Florida Association of Realtors, said many people in today's market are finding themselves having to let go of their properties.

"I think a lot of people are walking away," she said, and that in turn is causing prices to adjust to real market values at last. "I think the movement we see in the market today is the market adjusting, month by month."

In Charlotte County, the price for existing homes fell 21 percent from $226,200 to $179,600 and the number of sales was down 35 percent from 286 to 185. The price for a Charlotte condominium fell 21 percent from $164,400 to $130,000 while the number of sales was down 70 percent from 40 to 12.

Figures for Collier County were not available because the Naples Area Board of Realtors does not provide its information to the Florida association.

Nationally, sales of existing homes dipped by 0.2 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.75 million units.

The median price of a home sold last month slid to $230,200, down by 0.6 percent from the median price a year ago. It marked the 12th consecutive month that home prices have declined, a record stretch.

The deep slump in housing, combined with recent severe turmoil in financial markets, has raised worries about a possible recession. But many economists believe the Federal Reserve will ward off a full-blown downturn by reducing a key short-term interest rate should financial market conditions fail to stabilize.

The steep slump in housing has trimmed overall growth for the past year and recently the economy has been shaken by spillover effects in financial markets. Rising defaults in subprime mortgages have triggered a serious credit crunch as investors have worried that hedge funds and other big investors in securities backed by subprime loans could suffer serious losses.

The 0.2 percent drop in July sales, compared with activity in June, marked the fifth consecutive monthly decline and left sales 9 percent below the level of a year ago. The sales pace was the slowest since November 2002.

By region of the country, sales fell by 2.2 percent in the Midwest and were unchanged in the South. Sales rose by 1.8 percent in the West and 1 percent in the Northeast.

The increase in the Northeast, which also saw the median home price increase, was seen as possibly hopeful sign that the worst of the housing downturn may be ending.

The inventory of unsold homes rose by 5.1 percent at the end of July to a record of 4.59 million units.

— The Associated Press also contributed to this report