According to a University of Florida study, the state's population is supposed to grow another 2 million by 2010. Now, call me cynical, but that sounds like a lot of extra alligator food to me. And by 2025, the Hurricane, I mean Sunshine State is expected to house a whopping 25 million residents. Overall, Florida is one of the fastest-growing states in the country, and that is unlikely to change, says Stefan Rayer, a demographer with UF's Bureau of Economic and Business Research. So what [...]

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I've suggested elsewhere in this forum, that the reason there are so many condos still going up, despite the slowdown, is because they were already in the "Oh-crap-can't-stop-it -now" pipeline. But there's another reason. A more encouraging one. Despite what you may have been reading about the market, developers from other states recognize that Florida just isn't like the rest of the U.S. Take MCZ/Centrum Development Corp., for example, a Chicago based firm. Even this late in the game, they [...]

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A girlfriend asked me at a party this weekend: So what exactly IS a condo conversion? That's easy, I said, It's when a community that was once for sale converts back to being rental again. Oh, I see, she replied. Except she didn't. Thankfully, she'll probably never sue me for my humor because the truth is, nobody has any idea anymore who's going condo or, more importantly, who's turning back to the dark side “or, who's turning back (but only half way); or even, who was turning back (but[...]

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BusinessWeek.com screened data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) to identify markets with the highest home-price appreciation during the second quarter. Nationally, home prices increased 3.7 percent in the second quarter. But these top 10 markets all saw prices climb at least three times faster than that: * Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News (Va.-N.C.), up 23.6 percent from a year ago * Portland-Vancouver (Ore.), 19.1 percent. * Tampa-St. Petersburg (Fla.), 18.8 percent. * [...]

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