Flipping is sparking a housing recovery in Florida

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(Free-Press-Release.com) November 23, 2009 --

Dominic Pickering, CEO of MRO Overseas Property, noted that the US market real estate market seems to be showing some signs of recovery.  "I travel regularly between the USA and Europe" he said. "When I was in Florida this time last year, I got the impression that the real estate market was scraping along the bottom.  Europe seemed to be more optimistic, particularly Spain and Portugal.  But a year later the table has turned. Florida is again providing a platform for investors to see growth, and it looks like it will be out of the recession before Europe, certainly from a Real Estate perspective".  

Pickering went onto to cite the following article from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune as an example to reinforce his assertion. "There are a lot of people that came unstuck during the down-turn" he commented. "What impresses me about the people highlighted in Braga's article is that they took a risk, and it went bad.  But unlike others who just sit on the their collective backside and blame everybody else, they are back on the horse and making money.  Its fantastic to see".

Flipping is sparking a housing recovery By Michael Braga Monday, November 23, 2009.

Property flipping was partly to blame for getting Florida and the rest of the country into its current financial mess, and flipping just might be what helps the state and nation come back out. Even though the pain of the recession is far from over, there are clear signs that investors have re-entered the game and are making money.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 200 properties in Sarasota have been bought and resold at a profit. Many of the people involved are the same investors who took big risks during the boom and defaulted on millions of dollars in loans.

“I’m a risk-taker,” said Gabriel Reed, a Bradenton real estate agent who defaulted on $3.6 million borrowed during the boom.

Sarasota real estate agents Patrick Brester, Marc Pelletz and Judson Villa are all are back at it, as is Sarasota investor Kevin Zeigler. Collectively, these men have defaulted on more than $10 million in loans borrowed during the boom. But their appetite for real estate has not diminished.

“People go around to garage sales, looking for good deals on antiques,” said Zeigler, who defaulted on nearly $900,000 in loans. “I do the same thing with houses.” Zeigler said that when the market began dropping, he owned about 20 properties.

“The day the market stopped, I could no longer move that inventory. My situation became a quagmire. I felt more and more tentacles grabbing up at me and pulling me down,” he said.

Zeigler was so depressed in 2008 that he could not leave his house. “My business was gone. I lost my reputation and my credit.” But he pulled himself together by the end of that year and began looking for opportunities. Since May, he has bought two houses in the South Gate area of Sarasota for $192,500 and resold them for $169,500 more than he paid.

“I had to regain confidence in myself,” Zeigler said.