Shelly, I can never figure out your basis for conclusions, whether it is wishful thinking or just myopic. It is interesting to me that you seem to view the SoWal market from the perspective of a service worker hoping to purchase a Gulf front or view home, live and work down there on $15/hr. wages. That has been out of reach for years and that opportunity will not return in SoWal, for better or for worse. And the investors are not gone, they are watching and waiting to see some activity to feed momentum. I know because I am one of them and I talk regularly with many others so inclined.
We considered and then reconsidered selling our property this year and interviewed several local realtors in the process. We told them that when we do sell the house, we want to price it to sell, not to languish on the market and get stale. The prices quoted translated into a range representing roughly three times what we paid for the property. So that is hardly lame. Most real estate investors, even when their timing is not great, don't enter the market just once and then quoth, "Nevermore." They are typically well informed people who know this is a game one doesn't play in short pants. They have had great success and marginal experiences, or even losses in the mix.
Finally, I want to say something on behalf of realtors. They work very hard for their money and are a bargain compared to paying an attorney's fees for other than reviewing the transaction work. If you start nipping and tucking at your realtor's commission, you are undermining their incentive to move your property. And "For Sale by Owner" or other imitations of this only tell a potential buyer that they should offer a corresponding amount less than your list price, while seriously restricting the list of suitable buyers that will see your property. This hardly ever works, in the long run.
SoWal will be fine and the recovery won't take years. Even the most serious true real estate recessions don't play out over years and years. Your world has just changed, Shelly. Learn to cope if you're going to keep playing. Hurricanes didn't begin in 2004 and they will not drive the real estate market over more than a season for those in the know. The price of gasoline is not going to make the difference in whether someone drives to SoWal to vacation. I mean, have you noticed the new rates for airline tickets, or even the increase in rates for Disney World, for that matter? We are still a remarkable bargain for the most discriminating of vacationers.
In my estimation, here are the factors most likely to adversely effect the SoWal market for real estate:
(1) Changing interest rates or changes in the capital gains tax laws,
especially if such changes involve a FL State income tax (yikes).
(2) A direct hit from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane (read=redevelopment opps)
(3) Overbuilding, especially if infrastructure is not adequately provided for
and at least partially financed by those who stand to benefit most.
(4) Increases in bed taxes, so that SoWal is conspicuously higher than
neighboring counties.
(5) Loss of confidence related to delays with the new airport, environmental
degradation, eroded qualilty of life, poor media relations, etc.
Where's
your confidence, Shelly? And who's yo' Daddy, after all? Come on...'fess up!
