Leading Question

Prices skyrocketed so much before the slowdown that, despite a recent drop in prices, housing is still unaffordable for many Southwest Florida workers. Using a common measure—three times the buyer’s annual salary—teachers earning in the mid-$30,000s can afford homes only in the low- to mid-$100,000s.

Median home prices for 2006 were $245,900 in Lee County, and $365,750 in Collier County, both of which topped the Florida median of $236,000, according to data from the Naples office of Fishkind & Associates.

"People feel the need is not as great with the market dropping the way it is. Unfortunately, it’s still needed, because people don’t have the cash flow or the money to actually afford to move into these homes," says Lee Ford, vice president of the nonprofit Lee County Housing Development Corp.

The median annual household income for 2006 was $63,000 in Collier and $54,700 in Lee, although Fishkind senior associate Russ Weyer notes that those figures are inflated by the region’s affluent retirees.

Many of the 6,000-plus properties on the market in Naples are priced from $350,000 to the $500,000s, says Phil Wood, president and CEO of John R. Wood Realtors. "I hate to see any government people or politicians or anyone else think [the need] has gone away simply because of what the market has done," he says.

What’s helping some people land homes is the sheer number that are on the market. The situation is more dire in Lee, which has five to six years worth of inventory, compared with about one to one-and-a-half years’ worth in Collier, Weyer says. The only way to sell is to drop prices, but it takes significant cuts to lower them to affordable levels.

"Yes, the recent downturn of the market has made homes more affordable and yes, it has for the short term eased the housing crisis to perhaps a crunch. But this is temporary," says Settle, who also chairs the Naples-based ESP Affordable Housing Coalition.

A newly hired worker probably can make it work, as long as he or she is willing to buy a basic home and build from there, Settle says. He’s concerned about workers 12 to 18 months down the road, when prices are expected to start rising again.

Federal and state assistance, including funds and incentives to build workforce housing, are needed. Settle says impact fees, which are slated to increase by 15 percent this month in Collier, must be adjusted to control the initial cost of creating workforce housing.

"When you start looking at what the average income is in the community in terms of our workforce, things really haven’t changed a whole lot," says Michael Polito, workforce development and planning business partner, human resources, for Lee Memorial Health System.