Realtors packed the house to hear experts talk about economic and real estate trends

Naples Realtors have no reason to panic.

That was one of the key takeaways from the sixth annual Naples Area Board of Realtors Economic Summit, held Wednesday at the Hilton Naples.

"Almost everywhere you look it's a pretty good story. Great? No," said Elliot Eisenberg, a nationally acclaimed economist with Graphs and Laughs LLC.

But "pretty good" is OK, he emphasized in an impassioned talk that brought plenty of laughs from a crowd of more than 400.

At times standing on the few empty chairs in the front row to rouse his audience, Eisenberg gave a long list of reasons to feel good about the national economy, from low unemployment rates and wage growth, to a strong stock market and rising house prices.

Although borrowing has been on the rise, he said it has been responsible, unlike the excessive kind that contributed to the Great Recession.

"Are we on the verge of another meltdown because we are borrowing more? Clearly not, because the economy is a lot bigger now," Eisenberg said.

What about fears of another recession? He doesn't see another one on the horizon — at least not in the next 12 to 18 months.

"We're happy. We're good to go. This is nice," Eisenberg said.

To emphasize his point with a little humor, he showed how tourism numbers are rocking in Las Vegas.

"Look, we're going to freaking Vegas," he said. "What else do you need? We are buying cars; we are going to Vegas."

He couldn't leave out President Donald Trump and his array of proposed policies, including one to cut the corporate tax rate by more than half.

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While there are concerns Trump's tax plan would expand the federal deficit and send interest rates soaring, Eisenberg said he doesn't expect it to get through a divided Congress.

With Trump's policies taking longer than expected to implement, Eisenberg expects only a modest economic growth rate of about 2 percent this year.

"If Trump can get it up to 2.75 percent, that would be miraculous," he said.

The crowd didn't just get a national view of the economy. They heard from local experts, too, who shared local real estate and development trends.

Cindy Carroll, with Carroll & Carroll Appraisers & Consultants in Naples, said housing inventory in the Naples area climbed 23 percent from March 2016 to March 2017, but she told the Realtor-packed audience "not to panic about this."

She pointed out the increase wasn't nearly as big as the year before, when the number of homes on the market rose by 35 percent over 12 months.

"We all felt that," she said.

After taking a deeper dive into the numbers, Carroll said, "It looks like the inventory growth is slowing," which could lead to a more balanced real estate market.

Where is the inventory growing? At the higher end.

Over the past year the largest increase in listings in the single-family market has been in the $1 million to $2 million price range, which rose 18 percent, Carroll said.

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Median price — the price at which half the homes sell for more and half for less — has remained steady over the past year, with only the under $300,000 market showing a noticeable increase, Carroll said. Many of those more affordable homes are in East Naples and Golden Gate Estates.

The inventory of condominiums in the under $300,00 market has increased 25 percent in the past year after rising 33 percent the year before. Carroll said the huge increase is a "mystery to me."

The positive news, she said, is that pending sales and closed sales appear to be on the rebound after a slowdown in 2016, based on the last five months of data reported by the Naples Area Board of Realtors.

"It looks to me like we might have turned the corner. It seems awfully quick to have done that, but it might have happened," she said.

Mark Strain, Collier County's hearing examiner and chairman of the county's Planning Commission, gave a dizzying presentation on plans for future development that included new towns near Ave Maria, which he pointed out is "going like gangbusters now."

"We have got tremendous new development in this county going on everywhere. Of course, you can feel it when you are driving around," he said.

In 2016, 32 residential developments came on to the books, producing 4,182 lots, Strain said. Some of the more active communities include Isles of Collier Preserve, Hacienda Lakes, Treviso Bay and Fiddler's Creek, which has diversified its offerings with new builders.

Where rooftops are built, commercial development follows. Last year 76 commercial developments were approved in the county, including a handful of new senior living centers, which are "popping up all over," Strain said.

The county has 56 senior living centers, with more than 7,500 units, with 13 more centers planned, he said.

Self-storage projects continue to proliferate, with at least 10 more planned, Strain said.

He rattled off other big developments that are coming soon, including car dealerships, new retail centers, big-box stores and a 122-foot tower for medical device manufacturer Arthrex to support its growing business.

Strain assured the crowd that Collier County is prepared for growth and that it will never look like the bigger cities of Fort Lauderdale or Miami, with mega high-rises and massive flyovers.

"The county is managing its growth," he said.