The big difference, Wayne, is that the baby boomers that are retiring have
houses up North that aren't keeping pace with the costs down here. If, 5
years ago,their house up North was worth $400k, then they could move down
here and buy waterfront property. Now, their house up North is worth
$475k...but the waterfront property is $750k. They've been priced out of
the waterfront market down here. Eventually you reach an "ouch" point where
the prices can't continue to climb because there aren't enough wealthy
people to fill them.

I ran a search the other day listing all of the high-rise condos for sale in
Naples over $2 million. I think the results showed 147 units over $2
million! Just 3 years ago, people were buying these up on speculation, and
selling them 6 months later for a 50-100% profit. Well, they've finally
reached the "ouch" point. Prices haven't really fallen, however, because
the people that bought them have enough money to hold on to 'em until the
market rebounds again.



"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 07 Sep 2003 03:33:09 GMT, "NOYB" wrote:
Of course, in Naples, the housing market hasn't made sense
for about 5 or 6 years now. They're still reporting housing prices
increasing 20% last year again. My house's appraised value is up almost
50%
since Jan. '01. That's nuts.
=================================

Probably not. Cape Coral is decidedly less upscale than Naples but we
found that housing prices had just about doubled in the 4 years since
we last looked. That's about 18% annualized. I wanted to buy 4 years
ago but Mrs B did not. Guess who won that one. My theory was (and
still is) that the baby boomers are just starting to get serious about
retirement and there is a tremendous demographic bulge coming along
that will have an interest in warmer climates and waterfront property.
There's only so much waterfront, even in Cape Coral, and it will be
virtually impossible to create new canal communities in Florida or
anywhere else. I think it's going to be interesting.