AND YOU THOUGHT OWNING A RENTAL WAS A GOOD IDEA!

With residential real estate in the greater Naples area taking a plunge during the past year and a half or so, so also has the rental market. Not only is there a glut of homes and condominiums for sale, there now is an enormous glut of rental as well.

Certainly it is a natural phenomenon due to the fact that the homes and condos that the investors and ‘flippers’ had intended to dispose of and did not, are now going at bargain prices on the rental market. These former high rollers, (at least in their own minds,) with the bargain rents have hopes of creating some sort of cash flow, in many cases, just to stay afloat.

Many of the developers who were converting rental unit to condominiums, have now reversed direction because of the lack of interest when the buyers dried up and have gone back to renting the former rentals. This now causes problems for the landlords who are faced with increasing property taxes, as well as the higher cost of maintenance of the properties. Because of this situation, formerly positive cash flow in many cases, has turned negative and now the owners are forced to sell in a down market.

Not quite what people envisioned when moving to paradise!