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Highlands Today

After Residents Move Out, Neighbors Deal With Unkempt Property

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

Bonnie King of Sebring said her husband brought in a pump to flush out the dirty water in the neighbor's pool but it is starting to fill back up because of recent rains. Her neighbor's house is one of several houses in Highlands that has gone into disrepair because of foreclosures.

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By GARY PINNELL

Highlands Today

Published: July 19, 2008

Updated: 07/19/2008 08:50 am

SEBRING - It was like a slice of heaven for Gary and Bonnie King. A couple of years ago, they found the home they loved in a quiet subdivision of a rural town.

Across Ben Eastman Drive, there are orange groves. On their own middle-class street, the lawns are all green, the houses all well maintained.

During the winters, most of their neighbors return from the north. But in the summers, said King, a former Fort Myers fireman, they have the 2800 block of Summit Drive pretty much to themselves.

Then, last year, trouble in paradise. Their next-door neighbors moved out, abandoning their $259,000 house, leaving it to the bank.

Months went by, said Bonnie King. The lawn went unmowed. The swimming pool turned black. She started pulling the weeds herself; he threw his own submersible in the neighbor's pool and pumped it out through a garden hose. The recent rains are refilling it though.

"It's a breeding ground," she said.

This is the ugly side of foreclosure.

It's The Economy

Economists are saying that 2008 is the worst economy since 1992, George H.W. Bush's last year in office, and it may remain this bad for the next couple of years, no matter who is elected president in November.

New housing construction will fall to about 60,000 units this year - a 78 decrease from 2005, according to the governor's office. Florida lost 74,700 jobs in the past 12 months - more than any other state in the nation. Florida's construction industry lost 77,000 jobs; manufacturing another 23,000.

And the economists predict more workers in construction, government, manufacturing, financial services, transportation and warehousing will be idle soon.

Ready for some good news? There are employment gains in the health, education and low-paying services fields. And Florida's economy is still growing: 100,000 new residents will arrive in the next three years.

One reason why: there's a surplus of housing units now. Miami-Dade, for instance, was No. 2 in the nation in foreclosures last month. No. 1 was California.

It's a fire sale out there. The median Florida home price is $203,000 - down from $257,000 12 months ago, according to the Miami Herald, quoting Amy Baker, chief of the state legislature's Economic and Demographic Research agency.

The two-bedroom, two-bath house next door to the Kings, said RE/MAX Realty Plus broker Chip Boring, is selling for $139,900. "In November 2005, it sold for $259,000." That's right. It's almost half-price.

"It's got a screened pool and hot tub in the back," said Bonnie King, hoping someone will read this and realize it's an incredible bargain.

What caused the foreclosures?

"A lot of people bought houses who couldn't afford the payments," said Boring. And then there were the speculators.

"They bought houses or built houses and never lived in them, and never intended to," he said. They were simply flipping houses for the profit.

Gary Pinnell can be reached at gpinnell@highlandstoday.com or 863 386-5828

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