Bethel Has A Challenger

City Commissioner Harry Bethel who is not seeking re-election to the City Commission but, instead, is seeking the Group 1 seat on the Utility Board finally has a challenger. He is Ty Symroski, the former City Planner of Key West. He is 55 years old and has lived in Key West since 1984. He was City Planner from 1998 to 2006 when he left to take a job as the Growth Management Director with Monroe County. He left that job this year, indicating differences with the County Administrator. (Given the messed up County situation, voters should not hold that against him). As for his other credentials, Symrosky has a bachelor's degree in land-use planning and a master's in regional planning.

It should be an interesting, but tough race. Bethel will be a formidable candidate, despite his troubles. He is being investigated for an ethics violation in connection with a dinner on Sunset Key that he and City Commissioners Danny Kolhage and Clayton Lopez allegedly attended with a VP of one of the companies involved with the development of Wisteria Island. Bethel later returned a $1500 campaign contribution from the family of developers who had supported the annexation of Wisteria Island when it was before the City Commission.

Stay tuned.

Existing Home Sales Plunge

Sales of existing homes plunged 8.4% in March, the steepest decline in 18 years according to the NYT that was reporting data from the National Association of Realtors. Existing homes account for the vast majority of home sales.

As if anyone needed to tell those trying to sell in Truman Annex, the housing market is becoming increasingly unfriendly to those looking to sell their homes. Prices are dropping. The median price of an existing single family home decreased almost 1% last month. Sales in the South declined 6.2% in March. The backlog of unsold homes is growing. The trend is downward. The only Cities in the country where prices rose were in Dallas, Portland, Ore., and Seattle.

Cayo Dave has an interesting post on how all this is affecting Key West.

Was Renting Smarter Than Buying?

"[I]t’s now clear that people who chose renting over buying in the last two years made the right move." See for yourself. It turns out that recent home buyers have faced higher monthly costs than renters and have lost money on their investment. Home prices are still too high to make buying a more attractive option than renting, unless you plan to keep a home for many many years. No matter which way you cut it, the costs of buying a home are much more now than the costs of renting. No wonder then that no houses are selling in Truman Annex.

It is likely to be quite some time before this situation turns around. Meanwhile those in the Annex who want to get out are stuck. Not only is there the problem of the real estate market generally, another factor that inhibits buying in the Annex, by any sane person, is the uncertainty over the path of the litigation TAMPOA is pursuing and its impact on new residents of Truman Annex. Will they really live in a gated community as prospective buyers are being promised? Will the assessments of TAMPOA members continue to spiral out of control? Realtors will have difficulty convincing any wise buyer that there is any certainty regarding the future assessments or the outcome of the TAMPOA litigation. Wise buyers are simply not going to take on those risks when they can easily buy elsewhere.

Who is to blame for this state of affairs? Well, there is enough to go around, and it is useless to finger-point -- enough of that has been done. What we need to realize in the Annex is that while we can't control the general real estate market, we can control one aspect of the effect on it with regard to the Annex. Instead of tolerating a terrible state of affairs, we ought to get busy and fix our problems within the Annex so that our community will not continue to stagnate as it has done for the last four years. At least when the real estate market (if the market) begins to turn around, we'll be able to take advantage of the turnaround instead of watching it go by.