Tom Keene Talks to Metrostudy's Brad Hunter
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Brad, you pride yourself on traveling to subdivisions. What are you observing?
We do drive through all the markets, and what we are finding is that absorption of new homes, meaning people moving into new homes, rose strongly in the first quarter in places like south Florida, Naples, Fort Myers, even the triad of North Carolina. Vacant new homes are down 66 percent from the peak nationwide.
Well, wasn't Fort Myers ground zero in the housing collapse?
In Naples and Fort Myers, 50 percent of the foreclosures that have gotten so much attention are just in two areas of that market known as Lehigh Acres and Cape Coral. If you take those out, things look a lot better.