Lee leads nation in ‘hotness’ of housing market

Collier second in permits issued per 1,000 people

The News-Press, Monday, August 4, 2003

By Dick Hogan

As Southwest Florida gets bigger, it’s harder to match the growth rates it had in the roaring 80s and 90s.

But it still ranks high by another growth measure: market hotness.

U.S. Housing Markets magazine ranks Lee County No. 1 in the nation for hotness, an index showing the number of home-building permits compared to the size of the population. And Collier comes in second.

Lee had 24.8 home permits issued per thousand residents in the year ending the first quarter of 2003. Collier had 23.6 and No. 3, Myrtle Beach, S.C., had 21.

But uneasy lies the head that wears the crown of growth, warned Wayne Daltry, director of Smart Growth for the county.

“The high rate shows the importance of the growth being smart,” he said, “because if you’re not doing it right you’re assembling a lot of problems quickly. You’ve got to keep the funding streams relatively equal to what’s needed.”

So far, he said, the county is having trouble keeping up with storm-water management but should get high marks for its efforts to diversify its economy – with Florida Gulf Coast University in Estero, for example.

A lot of the county’s growth these days is coming in Cape Coral, with its burgeoning population and plentiful supply of residential lots.

Gary Aubuchon of Cape-based Aubuchon Homes said the city has much more room to grow despite zooming to nearly 120,000 residents in the past few years.

“I don’t think this is a short-term phenomenon,” he said. “By no means is it a flash in the pan.”
The city has almost 100,000 lots ready to build on, he noted – not counting future developments on large tracts of land that haven’t been subdivided. “We’re going to remain at this high rate of growth through the next decade.”

As the home-building industry has migrated north, he said, so have some of the people doing the work.

“From a builder’s perspective, we’re seeing the impact,” Aubuchon said. “Five years ago the subcontractors were leaving the Cape to go down to Naples to earn the higher rate of pay. Now we’re finding they’re coming back – the same folks who were too busy for us are coming back today.”

It hasn’t hurt, he chuckled, that driving down to a job in Naples has become ever more time consuming. “Add to that the frustration of traveling south on Interstate 75” in morning rush hour.

Tim Oaks, home-building division president of WCI Communities – a Bonita Springs-based publicly traded builder of upscale homes – said that if anything “it’s probably that the index is maybe even a little behind where the trend really is.”

He’s noticed a lot of builders who used to operate exclusively in Collier County now are moving into Lee as the supply of land in Collier dries up.

The future will see continued development east of Interstate 75 such as WCI’s own Sun City Fort Myers retirement community, he said. “It’s inevitable that it’s going to have to go there.”

North Fort Myers, which long has lagged as an area where new homes are being built, will also see a variety of types of developments, he said.
Pat Logue, owner of First Home Builders, said the Naples area isn’t in a position to duplicate its successes of the past.

While Cape Coral and Lehigh Acres have a huge supply of lots, there’s no equivalent places in Collier County, he said. “It’s had much of its land absorbed and as you go to the east, it’s environmentally sensitive” and largely owned by the government.

It’s also an area where housing is much more expensive than in Lee. “Naples used to be affordable; now it’s beyond most people’s reach.”

According to the Florida Association of Realtors, the median price of a house sold in the Naples area in May was $287,000, highest in the state. In Lee County, the median was $156,900.

Dealing with the consequences of growth can be tricky, however, said Arnold Rosenthal, a long time civic activist in the fast-growing Estero area.

"Dealing with growth intelligently is difficult because there’s a large group out there whose main purpose is to make a lot of money,” he said. “Those of us who live here have to live with what is built and we look to control it with intelligent growth management.”

The difference is often in what’s allowed where, he said. “We’ve got a Mobil station with a car wash right near Corkscrew Road and U.S. 41 and no one has complained about it because it’s completely surrounded by commercial. Three miles south is essentially the same thing and it backs up to Pelican Landing, and the people there hate it. And the difference is, one is compatible with its surroundings and the other is definitely not.”

One advantage Estero has is the Estero Community Planning Council, which looks at developments with an eye to the community’s well being, he said.

Daltry said Lee’s community-based plans in Estero and elsewhere are “an important institutional addition” that will ultimately result in better planning although they need to encompass more of the county.

In a rapidly growing community, he said, time is not necessarily on your side.

“When you’re adding a lot of people, you run out of capacities to make mistakes today and fix it tomorrow,” he said. “You just can’t afford to think tomorrow we’ll fix tomorrow’s problems – because tomorrow you’ll also have to deal with aging infrastructure from today.”