johnnymk

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb...85/1006/SPORTS

North Port, home of incentives Builders offer home buyers trips, cars, sprees as inventory piles up


NORTH PORT -- Gary Grennell adored his black 1980 Corvette with chrome piping, but when it came down to keeping it as his own or giving it away, Grennell knew what he had to do.

Today, he parks the freshly buffed muscle car out in front of Allstate Builders model home on Lovette Road and offers passersby the chance to win it.

He hopes the Corvette -- along with the live broadcast from KIX country 92.9 FM, the giant balloons, the colorful banners and the hot dog vendor -- will attract buyers for the 20 spec homes he has in his inventory.

"These days, you got to do the work to get them to see your product," Grennell said of the "circus" he puts together every weekend.

The sales manager for Allstate Builders, who with his chin-strap beard, gold jewelry and on-point personality shows the manner of an aggressive car salesman, is hardly alone in offering creative incentives.

Indeed, North Port may be the fault line for the downturn in the Southwest Florida housing market. The adrenaline of a real-estate gold rush has given way in a matter of months to a buyer's market.

Local builders blame investors for the downturn, saying they flooded the market, bought up houses and tried to flip them. And now there's simply too much inventory.

All along Price and Toledo Blade boulevards, North Port's "builders' row," the signs of the cooling housing market are flapping in front of almost every model home in big, bold letters: $10,000 in free upgrades, $20,000 buyer's bonus, homes starting below $200,000.

On top of that, some builders are offering giveaways like a chance to win a trip to Bermuda, a $10,000 gift card to a Rooms To Go furniture store, free moving expenses, an eight-night hotel stay or a shopping spree at Wal-Mart.

A year ago, when the city was issuing more than 350 permits a month and builders had customers on waiting lists because they couldn't build fast enough, marketing tactics like these were unheard of in this fast-growing city.

But today, as the flood of customers has slowed to a trickle, home builders are reaching out in new ways to attract buyers and move their stalled inventory.

"Everybody is doing something; you have to," said Marge Weber, a new home specialist with Jade Homes. "We're sitting here not selling many homes."

North Port officials had expected to permit more than 5,000 single-family homes this year, but in May issued just 74 permits. That followed only 88 in April.

More than 1,400 homes, 377 of which were built this year, are listed for sale with agents in North Port. That's not counting the houses that are for sale by owner and many builders' spec homes. Combined, some real estate professionals estimate, close to 5,000 homes are sitting on the market in the city.

While the entire state is experiencing a softening of the housing market, the only other area where builders are offering such incentives is Orlando, according to the Florida Home Builders Association.

Around Orlando, builders are raffling off Mini Cooper cars, furniture packages and vacation getaways, behavior Beth McGee, executive director of the home builders association there, hasn't seen in more than a decade.

"For a long time, they couldn't keep up; they couldn't build them fast enough to accommodate the sales," McGee said. "Well, now they've caught up."

Although new housing starts are slowing down, builders statewide are remaining optimistic and are not anticipating layoffs, said Edie Ousley of the Florida Home Builders Association.

"We have a great deal of reconstruction and rebuilding from two years of recording-breaking hurricane seasons," Ousley said. "The state still has a shortage of labor, which indicates times are not dire."

Grennell agrees. He is confident he will move his extra inventory.

"Buyers are out there, looking for great bargains," Grennell said. "I've never seen these kinds of savings."

LegendKiller

My MIL is down in Naples. We have noticed 3 trends.


1. Developers are getting *very* desperate. She looked at a Pulte development that hadn't even broke ground 2 years ago. They wanted 30k down and a 2br/2bth was going to be 350k. She is now getting calls every week. They have dropped the down payment to 5k and cost down to 310. They are also offering free upgrades.

2. The apartments she was in went condo. A 2/2 was 310. Everybody moved out and the condos are selling like crap. They are begging renters to stay in the place, otherwise they lose some sort of status where they have to keep 50%+ occupancy.

3. There are a lot of people using refi to take equity out to buy another house, then rent out the first while using the cash-out to use as a DP on the 2nd house. Apparently this is a bit shady.

Naples is the #1 overheated market in the US, with a 103% over pricing. With the hurricanes getting more intense and frequent, I'd say that 1 more year of the same level is going to push it into probably the biggest burst in the country.

It'll be interesting.

cheapie

oops!