| Sluggish [tag]real estate appreciation[/tag] getting you down? Don’t think of the [tag]housing market[/tag] as sick. Think of it as convalescent. David Lereah, chief economist for the [tag]National Association of Realtors[/tag], regards 2006 as the year a fundamentally healthy [tag]real estate marke[/tag]t purged itself of toxins. In other words, in many markets, it’s probably wise to wait until 2007 to reinvest in housing and land, Lereah (pronounced Le-RAY) said at a conference in [tag]Lakeland[/tag] of more than 100 land owners, bankers, appraisers and developers from West and Central [tag]Florida[/tag]. |
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There’s good news for the [tag]Tampa Bay[/tag] area in all of this. Lereah said Florida remains the market with the strongest “gravity”: the favorite retirement destination of late career baby boomers. (Though hurricanes could encourage alternatives like [tag]Arizona[/tag] and [tag]North Carolina[/tag].) [tag]Tampa-St. Petersburg[/tag], [tag]Fort Myers[/tag] and [tag]West Palm Beach[/tag] avoided the rampant overconstruction and speculation afflicting [tag]Orlando[/tag], [tag]Miami and Naples[/tag], Lereah said. “You’re not going anywhere. You’ve got a good future,” Lereah said, touting projections showing Florida, by 2030, absorbing new residents equal to the populations of Pennsylvania and Maryland.