When an Aug. 11 Fast Company story published comparing the housing bubble burst after prices peaked in 2006 to today’s falling home prices in Punta Gorda, local Realtors and an analyst took notice.

The story, written by Lance Lambert, former editor at Fortune, carried the headline: “This Florida city was hit hard when the 2008 housing bubble burst—now prices are falling again.”

Lambert cited data and a report from credit rating agency Moody’s and referred to the price spike from December 2019 and July 2022 when “Punta Gorda home prices surged a staggering 73.2%. They have since dropped by 9.1%.”

It went on to state “Punta Gorda was one of the hardest hit housing markets during the housing bubble burst in 2008.”

Then, it gave an example of a private equity-owned home in Burnt Store Village that was bought for $445,000 in May 2022, during the height of the pandemic housing boom.

The home was rented, and then the company decided to sell it. The first listing price was $400,000 in February this year. In July, it is still for sale, with an asking price of $336,000 after six price cuts. If it sells for that amount, it would be a 25% decline from its original purchase price.

What was confusing is the headline seems to target the city of Punta Gorda as one of the hardest hit price-wise.

When contacted, Lambert said the headline is misleading—he didn’t write the headline and reached out to his editor, saying there were two discrepancies, he explained.

First, the entire story refers to the Punta Gorda Metropolitan Statistical Area, or MSA, and not the city of Punta Gorda itself, he said.

He clarifies this in the story: “While national aggregate home price indices are hovering around all-time highs, some regional housing markets in states like Florida, Texas and Louisiana are experiencing home price corrections. This includes the Punta Gorda metro area in Southwest Florida.”

The Punta Gorda MSA includes all of Charlotte County, including Port Charlotte, Englewood, Rotonda, part of Manasota Key, Gulf Cove, South Gulf Cove, Placida, Babcock Ranch, part of Boca Grande on Gasparilla Island, Solona and Deep Creek.

Home prices vary significantly from neighborhood to neighborhood.

There are multimillion-dollar homes on Boca Grande and modest mobile home communities scattered throughout the county. In between are suburban homes with many different price ranges.

Some areas are in more demand than others.

Lambert acknowledged this and said his report addresses the MSA and that his report was about “just a correction, not a crash.”

He wrote that the pandemic caused a housing boom that was “particularly intense in Punta Gorda, which was impacted by accelerated retirement and work-from-home migration.”

While home prices jumped nationwide by 42.6% from December 2019 to July 2022, prices in the Punta Gorda MSA jumped 73.2%.

Lambert went on to write that home prices in Punta Gorda haven’t stopped falling and will likely continue to fall in the second half of 2024.

Several refuted his report’s forecast.

While agreeing with the story’s statistics showing a buildup in inventory and lower prices for single-family homes and factors leading to the market’s spike of July 2022 when home prices jumped 73.2%, local Realtors and a professor said a crash is not imminent and that recovery might come sooner.

Shelton Weeks, Lucas Professor of Real Estate for Florida Gulf Coast University, read Lambert’s report and said he has “a slightly different take on things.”

He said there are price variations from neighborhood to neighborhood.It’s difficult to talk about prices within “a single zip code,” he said.

“While we certainly had a buildup in inventory due to slower sales and new developments being built in the area, builders are currently not pulling as many permits,” he said.

Weeks said Hurricane Ian contributed to the present situation along with the increasing cost of home ownership due to insurance costs, which “kept new home buyers from coming into the market.”

He also said first-time home buyers, who have set a budget, suddenly find that there are not enough dollars to cover the cost of owning the home, even though the price is within their range.

A positive note for the area is that builders are backing off pulling permits and the pace of sales is ahead of the previous year, Weeks noted.

“The market is working through this, and I don’t expect to see a dramatic crash,” he said.

“Prices are not coming down, and I don’t think they’re going to fall a lot more.”

What led to the crash over a decade ago was “lending standards had gotten extremely loose,” and that “students waiting tables were obtaining loans,” Weeks said.

Realtors of Punta Gorda-Port Charlotte-North Port-DeSoto Inc. provide monthly statistics that show in July the median price of single-family homes was $355,000, which reflects a 9.3% drop.

But, as Weeks stated, sales were higher from a year ago. In July, there were 450 closed sales, up 16% from the previous year, according to the Realtors association data.

President of the Realtors association Leanne Walker also agreed with Lambert’s assessment that the pandemic was a factor, which led to people moving to Florida, with many moving to Charlotte County.

The demand for homes caused a price surge and multiple offers on homes. Before and during the pandemic there were bidding wars on some properties.

“In 40 years, I have never seen values doubled in my lifetime,” Walker said.

Many new developments located along Burnt Store Road and West Port were just getting started, and inventory was low at the pandemic’s peak and migration to Southwest Florida.

While Lambert writes that home prices in Punta Gorda haven’t stopped falling and will fall further in the second half of 2024, Walker said many people are “on the fence,” waiting to buy in the midst of an election, a possible interest rate reduction and high inflation, which is preventing some from entering the market.

She said while the Florida Legislature is “working on getting insurers back here,” insurance rates are another barrier to those wanting to become homeowners.

Particularly hard-hit are condo owners whose HOA fees in some cases have doubled, she said.

Now condo owners face a new Florida law that went into effect in July, requiring engineering inspections of condos three stories and higher and more than 30 years old. The inspections would be at the HOA boards’ expense.

If safety issues are discovered, repairs would have to be made at that point and not delayed, hence homeowners would face assessment fees.

Weeks agreed that some condo owners are facing the highest increases due to the new Florida law.

Some HOA boards are running out of reserves, but they must make the mandated repairs and not put off having safety-related work done, he added.

Realtor Carla Nix, of The Nix Team in Punta Gorda, said the area “is going to return to a state of normalcy this fall and running through April.”

She cited the election year is a factor in making the market skittish.

Walker said that, traditionally, sales are slower July through September.

“This time of the year we are slow—it’s like everybody’s else’s winter,” she said.