The Fort Myers area is now a popular resort destination commonly referred to as the “City of Palms.” Years ago, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford made Fort Myers their special winter retreat. Today, visitors can tour the Edison-Ford Winter Estates, their impressive side-by-side properties. Each February, in commemoration of Edison, the city puts on a thrilling two-week extravaganza called the Festival of Light. Tourists are also drawn to the city’s variety of restaurants, nightclubs and shops as well as a number of attractions including scenic boat cruises from the downtown yacht basin, and the fascinating Shell Factory in North Fort Myers. Nearby, Fort Myers Beach and the surrounding barrier reef offer plenty of recreational opportunities. And each spring, baseball fans can watch the Twins and Red Sox at spring training camps.
The Greater Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce is a voluntary organization of business and professional men and women who have joined together for the purpose of promoting the civic and commercial progress of our community. The chamber has more than 1,300 members and has a variety of programs to help your business grow. Our welcome center staff and Web site guide prospective residents, visitors and even locals to the various businesses and services in Fort Myers. For more information about the chamber, please visit our Web site at www.fortmyers.org.
The above information was provided to us courtesy of the Greater Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce. Whether you already live in the area or are thinking of relocating here, you should read the thoroughly informative advertorials below. These fine firms are available and looking forward to providing you with their quality products, goods and services.
Spanish Wells in Bonita Springs has been around for several decades, and it was showing its age. Now, the gated community looks “young” again after major renovations to everything from its 27-hole golf course to its two popular bocce courts.
When Escalante took over the amenities at Spanish Wells in March, the company promised improvements. Many members were skeptical. The homeowners were used to running the club and didn’t want things to change. Now that they’ve seen the improvements, most are happy with the new look.
One of the biggest jobs was upgrading the golf course.
“We’ve taken an average golf course to a really nice golf course,” said Mark Nicklas, general manager of Escalante.
Golf course superintendent Matt DiMase said he put down winter rye grass to get the course back up to par.
“It’s costly, but we opted to do it for the members to get Spanish Wells back on the map,” DiMase said. “The goal was to take a 30-year-old golf course and make it look young again.”
Eighty new golf carts are now being used by members to zip around the grass.
The thick underbrush was removed and the grass was all reseeded. That’s an improvement that resident John Joyce really likes.
“I lose half as many golf balls now,” Joyce said.
While the golf course might be the centerpiece of the community, Escalante spread its improvements to most of the amenities. The company hauled in 30 tons of new clay to resurface the tennis courts. Windscreen, fences and new nets were also added.
Existing home sales in Lee County fell 13 percent in November compared to last year, but the median price jumped 20 percent.
A main reason for both results is there are fewer foreclosures and other distressed sales coming on the market, and fewer fire sales, say real estate experts in Southwest Florida.
“Inventory is declining as we’re chewing up these short sales and foreclosures,” said Steve Koffman, a broker associate with Century 21 Sunbelt in Cape Coral. “The driving force for our buyers was the fact that it was bargain pricing. Everything under 100,000 is basically getting fought over, and as you get to the higher price level, a little of the steam is being let off the market.”
Median home prices rose to $106,300 in November compared with $88,500 a year ago, according to figures released Wednesday by Florida Realtors. And that followed a strong October: The median sales price was $102,100, a 15 percent rise over $89,100 in October 2010. There are no similar numbers available for Collier County.
The number of sales dropped in November to 868 versus 1,003 in November 2010.
But Brett Ellis, a partner with The Ellis Team at Remax Realty Group in Fort Myers, said that decline is nothing to be alarmed about and agreed with Koffman about the drop-off.
“It’s because we don’t have those bargain-basement prices, and with those going away that means less transactions,” he said. “I’d rather see a healthy market and more balanced market with prices and transactions.”
Ellis said there are fewer distressed sales, but also less of what he calls priced-right inventory.
Many homeowners who want to sell their homes are either pricing them too high or simply holding on, waiting for better times.
“A lot of people are upside down, and they don’t want to sell short, and they just don’t like today’s prices,” Ellis said. Short sales are when the lender allows the home to be sold for less than what’s owed on the property.
“I think we’re in for a pretty good season, because the buyers are here a little earlier this year,” said Ellis at Remax. “The question is do we have enough to sell and enough priced-right to sell.”
Southwest Florida is on sale, and commercial property has seen its fair share of the action.
Depressed property values have investors and owner-operators laying down cash for land and buildings, but foreign investors also are weighing in on recent sales.
“Florida is on sale, both residential and commercial,” said Adam Palmer, director of the office division at LandQwest Commercial. “That news is traveling across the country and subsequently across the world. Match that with the weakness of the dollar and the decline in value makes it an attractive investment for foreign investors.”
In some cases, buyers are able to snatch up properties for 25 to 50 percent of the replacement costs, Palmer said.
In Lee County, total investment in commercial property and land from January to October reached $269.5 million, up 11 percent from the $242.6 million spent in all of 2010, according to New York-based Real Capital Analytics.
Palmer has seen increased interest from foreign investors especially in high-density apartments, but says many of the transactions are still for owner-operators.
The Real Capital report also showed foreign buyers invested about $40 million in commercial property in Lee County in 2010 and have invested almost $36 million so far this year, compared to limited activity in 2008 and 2009.
In Collier, there were no foreign investment commercial property purchases for the past three years, but the report doesn’t capture all transactions. It tracks only investment purchases, not those for end-users, and captures only sales of $2.5 million or more, which leaves out smaller investments, said Ben Carlos Thypin, director of market analytics for Real Capital.
Still, foreign investors are buying more commercial property all across the U.S., Thypin said.
Foreign dollars may also be slipping through the cracks masked as domestic dollars.
When there is a stateside local investor or partner that’s driving the deal, it’s not always easy to see which properties were bought with foreign dollars, said Gary Tasman, founder and executive director of Cushman and Wakefield Alliance CPSWFL.
(Page 2 of 3)
Foreign dollars are present in about 50 percent of the investment sales at the company in the past year, mostly from investors in South America and Latin America followed by investors in Europe and east Asia.
Often they’re going for income-producing properties, whether they’re office, industrial or retail spaces, which are in good locations with nice leases at market rent, he said. He’s seen the most activity for industrial properties and vacant land.
Gil Morzaniga, CEO and executive vice president of Croci North America, said the Italian-based company has been investing in parcels of land and commercial buildings since it bought its first building and opened its U.S. headquarters in Fort Myers in 1993.
As the business grew, it made additional investments which included a 30,000-square-foot building off Crystal Drive near Metro Parkway. In 2008, the company expanded further and bought 11 acres of land nearby, six of which it used to build a new 120,000-square-foot facility where the headquarters now operate from.
Increased business activity for the hurricane shutter manufacturer motivated the company to invest, but there were other factors as well.
“The euro was really high and because the investment was coming from Italy, it was very interesting at that time to make that kind of investment,” Morzaniga said.
At the time of the purchase, he estimates a euro was worth about $1.45 and today the value of the Euro is worth $1.29.
The Italian owners of the companies established thee corporations in the U.S. which function as American companies, and don’t hint at the foreign dollars behind the scenes.
Jim Garinger, senior managing director and a principal of Colliers International, represented Morzaniga in his company’s purchases.
Investors from Canada and from Europe in countries such as Germany have traditionally been active in the Southwest Florida market but in the past few years he’s noticed a wider array of investors.
“As difficult as economic times are currently, the U.S. as a whole and Florida in particular are still considered safe havens for foreign investments,” he said.
(Page 3 of 3)
He’s noticed the increased interest from foreign investors for the last two-and-a-half years, but interest only turned to action in the past year, he said.
Others have seen more activity from domestic investors.
Larry Foster, managing partner for CBRE, said local investors either have the funds to buy and pay cash or are pooling their money with other investors. Often those investors have regularly visited the area or own a vacation home here, he said.
Investors are gravitating toward apartment properties because they’re banking on a shift to renting as homeowners lose their homes or can no longer afford their mortgages, he said.
Rather than traditional sales, most investors are still chasing bank deals and distressed properties that still make financial sense, said Jim Boback, owner of Boback Commercial.
About 20 to 25 foreclosures come onto the market each month and it’s been consistent for a year or so, he said. But it may take a year or two before some of these foreclosure filings make it out the back door.
Although banks are starting to loosen their hold on lending money for commercial property purchases, the emphasis now is more on the buyer than on the property they’re buying, he said.
The more sophisticated buyers are noticing the hefty discounts and are buying.
“Commercial follows residential,” he said. “We’ve already seen the movie in residential; this is just the rerun.”
Fewer than 70 condominium homes remain for sale at Tarpon Landings, a high-rise community located in Tarpon Point Marina in Cape Coral.
Previously in foreclosure, the community was recently re-released for sales, with more than 22 homes being sold in the last 30 days.
Tarpon Landings is a gated village with 210 condominium homes in three, 14-story buildings, offering a bird's-eye view of the Caloosahatchee River, the Gulf of Mexico and beyond. The remaining 70 homes range in size from 2,888 to 3,048 square feet of air-conditioned living space and are priced from the mid $500,000s. Penthouses range from 4,424 to 5,296 square feet with prices available upon request.
"Our homes are gorgeous and offer an abundance of space and waterfront views," said sales manager Lauren Snyder-Hagan. "The sales we've had were a mix of locals, national and international buyers."
Amenities at Tarpon Landings include a swimming pool with a sun deck and hot tub, and a 4,000-square-foot clubhouse with exercise facilities, media lounge, recreation area and catering kitchen. The community also offers a resort pool and lap pool, event lawn, social area, tennis and a putting green.
Tarpon Point Marina, at the southern tip of Cape Coral, mixes its residential offerings with a host of resort-style, waterfront marina amenities including The Resort At Marina Village, which features a waterfront retail center, resort-style hotel and two waterfront restaurants.
Boaters can utilize the existing deep-water marina and its 175 slips for vessels up to 75 feet long. Other amenities include a boat shuttle to Fort Myers Beach, fishing charters, tours, boat rentals and two gated entries
________________-------Dick Hogan News-Press October 22,2011:All of a sudden, the rules really are different for real estate in Lee County: * People selling homes are bragging they're not fresh from the foreclosure auction. * Lenders are frantically checking to see if they really owned the houses they took back in foreclosure and then put back on the market. * Attorneys for banks are canceling large numbers of previously scheduled public auctions of foreclosed properties. * As banks abruptly pull back some of their homes, real estate agents are talking about a possible shortage of homes for sale -- something not seen in recent memory.
|