Renters have less options than ever before.

Not everyone is buying the recent condominium conversion sweeping through Southwest Florida.Most notably, renters usually do not purchase their units, even though they have first right of refusal, according to Florida Statutes. The cost of a condo often is too steep for renters despite developers' attempts to entice buyers. During October 2005 the median price of a condo was more than that of a single-family home, the National Association of Realtors reported.Renters then scurry for affordable housing elsewhere, a challenge as more apartments go condo.
Bay Communities in Palm Coast is among the state's East Coast-based developers with multiple conversions in Southwest Florida. Rich Halpern, a principal at The Prince Group, has been involved in Bay Communities conversions in Lee and Collier counties. "We try to make it very easy," Halpern said about wooing renters. "We try to do 100 percent financing for renters, so we can help, and we do. We make special arrangements."Other projects offer discount incentives, including a reduction in deposit.
Yet Halpern said few renters opted to buy at The Enclave at Naples, where the conversion of 380 units took six months. The community of one-bedroom, one-bathroom to three-bedroom, two-bathroom units is complete with garages, carports, clubhouse, pool, lake and tennis courts. Most have not bought at Coral Cove in Cape Coral, whose conversion is ongoing, through three months of sales, he said."It's a much smaller number than you would expect," Halpern said of the renters buying. "I've heard and seen at conferences from many, many different communities that the number is more like 5 percent to 10 percent."Bonita Springs resident Leah Limano is among the minority who purchased, yet she had plenty of company from neighbors at San Mirage, a gated community. The 24-year-old said "the great majority bought" units in the three-story building where she and fiance Jared Krempels purchased in 2005, although she did not know how many in other buildings did.
And though conversions attract outside buyers, many aren't interested in a permanent stay, either."It's speculators or investors," said Tom Coler from The Buyer's Broker of Southwest Florida. "The whole market has been fueled by a lot of speculative buying."
Coler and Jim Garinger, a commercial real estate adviser with VIP Commercial-TCN Worldwide in Fort Myers, said about 30 percent of buyers are investors. Coler said he knows individuals who have bought units in six developments.When investors want to unload units, however, Coler said they may hold them longer than desired. Coler said the inventories from Naples to Sarasota are growing, with those in Naples and Sarasota triple what they were a year ago."All these investors who have bought," he said, "they all put the property on the market at the same time."