The following information was gathered from Lee County Appraisers Office (www.leepa.org) as of July 11, 2012.
Of the 248 townhomes in Forest Lake, 88 owners are full-time residents (35.5%). The remaining 160 owners list their primary residence as other than Forest Lake. These include 142 (57.6%) from the United States of which 53 (21.4%) live somewhere else in Florida. The other main states represented are: Illinois at 11, Massachusetts and New Jersey at 9 each, Ohio and Pennsylvania at 8 each, and 7 from New York. There are 18 primary residences from other countries. This includes 14 Canadian owners and one each from the United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, and Austria.
Ten units are owned by banks, Federal National Mortgage Association having 5, indicating that these units have been foreclosed. Seven owners have more than one unit for a total of 28 units (11.3%) and 25 (10.0%) of these are rented either annually or seasonally. I don't know how many other units are rented out. Last year the Board said that at least 62 (25%) were rented out so that one could conclude that at least 37 (15%) are being rented out by single unit owners. The Forest Lake owners bought their properties for various reasons, as their primary home, a vacation home, an eventual retirement home, or as an investment. Bursting of the housing market has disrupted many owners' plans and has created a chaotic and unprecedented situation in the housing market that we all must work through.
The first Forest Lake unit sold on July 16, 2004 for $144,900. Essentially all the townhomes were sold by the end of 2005, some more than once as many properties were flipped. The table below shows the sales for each year through the first six months of 2012. The average price paid per townhome is also given in the table. This is somewhat distorted due to foreclosures beginning in the 2009 data. The general trend is still apparent. Prices peaked in 2006 and dropped precipitously starting in August 2008. Thereafter prices continued dropping reaching a low point in 2010. I compared the first six months of 2011 with that of 2012, removing the foreclosures. In the first six months of 2011 then there were 36 regular sales with an average price of $59,375. In 2012 there were 19 regular sales with an average price of $73,588, indicating that prices are starting to climb again, but still at about 50% of their original prices.
| Year | Sales | Avg. Price |
|---|---|---|
| 2004 | 67 | 144,315 |
| 2005 | 245 | 170,184 |
| 2006 | 34 | 209,421 |
| 2007 | 12 | 169,425 |
| 2008 | 11 | 108,427 |
| 2009 | 42 | 63,560 |
| 2010 | 54 | 49,187 |
| 2011 | 60 | 67,995 |
| 2012 | 27 | 63,307 |
Ken Callahan