By Bill Cotterell
FLORIDA CAPITAL BUREAU POLITICAL EDITOR

“The housing-driven economic slump that made Florida legislators cut $1.1 billion from the state budget last month isn’t getting worse, but it will last “a lot longer” than expected, state economists said Friday.

No hard dollar amounts came out of the two-hour round table by top fiscal forecasters from the Legislature and governor’s office.

But planners made some downward revisions of their July forecasts amid gloomy forecasts that consumer spending, wages, auto sales, tourism, fuel costs and other leading economic indicators will languish longer in the trough dug by the slowed housing and construction markets.

Amy Baker, coordinator of the Economic and Demographic Research Office, said at least a few factors were forecast in July to begin recovery next year. But she and Frank Williams, an economist in her office, said it will be late 2009 before the economy really revives. . .” (more)

I couldn’t find the article on the FAR website, so I don’t know if it was reported by The Goulding Agency, but I’ll give them a plug here anyway.   I got an email, and this is what it said:

Panama City, Florida Real Estate Market Continues to Show Improvement  

Florida Association of Realtors® (FAR) releases monthly home/condo resales data

Panama City, Florida, October 24, 2007

The Florida Association of REALTORS® (FAR) today releases home and condo resales numbers for September, 2007 and Panama City places best in the state for overall percentage of change in sales of existing single family homes, while second best in the state for overall percentage of change in sales of existing condos.

The median price for detached, existing single-family homes in Panama City is down by 9 percent compared to September 2006, about average for the entire state, while the median price for existing condos is down 5 percent, once again closely following the state average.

According to the data, Panama City places second only to Ft. Walton Beach in percentage of change for existing condominium sales in Florida.  A 19 percent increase in condo resales in Panama City over September 2006  measures up favorably against an overall statewide decrease of 37 percent, due in part to a 5 percent correction in Panama City condominium prices, providing incentive to buyers.

Bay County Association of REALTORS® president Scott Bowman points to public awareness campaigns, educating home buyers that now is the best time to invest in real estate, and executed in Panama City, Sarasota and Pensacola, areas showing some of the most positive sales data in the state. 

The Panama City/Bay County area continues to see aggressive retail and commercial development, indicating a high degree of optimism for long-term sustainable growth from investors.  CNN and other news sources observe that Panama City will possibly see as much as a seventy two percent increase in home prices over the next five years, with as large as a twelve percent growth in population and as much as a thirty percent rise in per capita income.

For additional information on the Bay County Association of REALTORS® or ‘Gotta Buy Panama City’ contact The Goulding Agency at 850-625-6888 or the Bay County Association of REALTORS® (Scott Bowman, President) at 850-319-0509.  Further information can also be found at www.GottaBuyPanamaCity.com.

When are we going to hit bottom, and how will we know when we get there?  Nobody knows, and we won’t.  There are many indicators that we are close or that we are there, but still many agree that we have some way to go.  Some speculators say that we still have a huge foreclosure swing to get through and that it may take 12 to 24 months to get through it. 

One of my favorite magazines, Business 2.0 (stinks it got canceled) featured an article on how to take advantage of the current market conditions in its last issue.  Titled “How to Play the Real Estate Bounce-Back”, it discusses 10 US cities that are poised for an immediate bounce-back.  Amongst the 10 are bid cities such as Dallas-Ft. Worth, New Orleans, Atlanta, Montgomery, Austin and Houston.  The article talks about “bounce-backs”, but I would argue that non of these big cities really experienced the frenzy that many of us were quite familiar with over the last couple of years.  Each city has an average growth rate over the next two years of 5.5% with Dallas having the greatest rate and St. Louis having the lowest rate. 

The article can be found here.

It is no secret that the real estate market is troubled right now.  If fact many would argue that even using the word “troubled” is a serious understatement.  I have heard some that have been in the real estate market for 25-30 years say that this is the worst they have ever seen it.  I have heard others say that the last time the real estate market was this bad was post World War II. 

Of course, there is always two sides to every story.  Sure right now is a terrible time to be trying to sell (I’m a good case in point, my house has been on the market for a month and not one showing), but it is a great time to be buying.  There are tons of great deals out there, but why aren’t investors flooding the market place?  Because, why buy a great deal today when that great deal tomorrow will be 10% less? 

 The bottom line is, the real estate market will not be like this forever, and if you have money to be buying now, you should be looking for the deals.  Now is the time!  A buddy of mine was telling me about something one of his grad school professors always said:  “If you wait to start doing something when everyone else is doing it, you’re too late.” 

As much as I feel for those that are hurting, lets face it, people bought property a couple of years ago assuming that they were going to be able to either afford to hold it or flip out of it for a profit and are now finding themselves preparing for foreclosure.  There are tons of properties that are trading hands at 50 cents on the dollar and less.  Owning real estate is one of the great ways a commoner like you and me can accumulate wealth.  Through strategic, methodical purchases we can find ourselves owning three or four properties or more that cashflow and pay for themselves.  That is the ultimate goal of real estate ownership – owning the properties and getting them to not only pay for themselves, but put a little extra money in your pocket at the end of each month. 

I was able to get some data from the Panama city MLS that shows averages from September 20 – October 20 of 2004 – 2007. 

[TABLE=2]

The average days on market went up from 2004 to 2006 (almost doubling from 05 to 06) but slightly dropped in 07.  The total number of sales for this exact period over the last four years has dropped an average of 22 sales each year with the listing price this year 94.6% of last year’s number and the average sold price this year at 94.7% of last years price. 

The parameters for this data are: Single family homes ONLY, $300,000 and down searching Bay County-Central, Bay County-Beach, Bay County-North, and Bay County-East, searching from 9/20/04-10/20/04, 9/20/05-10/20/05, 9/20/06-10/20/06, 9/20/07-10/20/07.

Panama City MLS Study – 9/20-10/20 from 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007