While we are busy bailing out the banks, the real estate and construction industries are still in free fall. That's great for people who have money, terrible for those who depended on the money from those industries to support their homes and families.
We've heard a lot about Wall Street and the banks and how greed brought them down. We did not hear about how greedy the construction and real estate sales market was. All of the blame seemed to be put on the financial sector, when in fact, these two industries were actually complicit in pushing for more lenient guidelines so that they could build and sell homes.
Florida was the hardest hit of all by the construction bust. Already the fastest growing state in the nation, it dove headfirst into the construction and sales of new homes. In bedroom communities of larger cities, entire economies were built on the bed of sand that was the housing construction industry. Small town budgets collapsed with the housing boom. In some small towns, such as North Port, Florida, a bedroom community of Sarasota, the unemployment rate went up to 25% at one point. The only thing that brought it back down was that most of those who were unemployed moved out of the area to find work.
Those people who were foolish enough to think it would last forever bought homes and set up shop in areas where the construction boom was going strong. They were making money, so they took the ARM's their own industry had pushed for and bought bigger houses, houses they could not afford. If they have not already been foreclosed on, they are stuck with houses worth less than they paid for them that they can't sell, in towns where there are no jobs. .
Conservative estimates say that Florida now has lost 50% of all construction related jobs. In many areas, the numbers are much higher. The Orlando area alone has a 7 month supply of new homes available, which will put a huge damper on the the industry for quite awhile.