The Daily Soak - May 21

HousingBath Impacting Home Improvement Sales in Florida

Home improvement giant The Home Depot (HD) reported a 66% decline in quarterly earnings due in part to weakness in the housing and home improvement markets in key states like Florida and California. The Atlanta-based company posted only $356 million in quarterly earnings compared to $1.05 billion in the first quarter of 2007. Earlier this week, Lowe's (LOW) reported an 18% drop in quarterly earnings citing similar challenges in the Florida market. Shares of both HD and LOW have lost roughly 25% of their value in the past year.



Demand Wanes for Boynton Beach Redevelopment Projects

Just two years ago the City of Boynton Beach set an ambitious agenda for 22 housing and mixed-use developments which would create over 3,500 residences in blighted neighborhoods. Despite millions in incentives offered from the city's Community Redevelopment Authority, many projects are stalling or being pulled completely. A handful of mixed-use projects like Las Ventanas are still moving forward, but Boynton Beach Vice Mayor Jose Rodriguez is less-than-optimistic about the development: "I don't see the demand and nobody else sees the demand. And the economy doesn't project demand."



Tampa Market Added to New Real Estate Website

Web-based real estate search engine, Roost.com, announced the addition of Tampa Bay to its roster of major metropolitan markets. The feature-rich site includes listings of over 9,000 homes in the Tampa Bay area, many with photos and virtual tours. The website site claims "Like real estate, Roost is fundamentally local." This is open to debate considering the Florida map on the company's homepage shows Tampa somewhere in Central Florida and Orlando closer to the Gulf of Mexico. Cartographic nitpicking aside, the site is another attractive online tool empowering individual homebuyers and sellers in Florida.