Thoughts on rental property in the 33903 area

[RebeccA Costa]

I am new to this but noticed prices are coming down.. Looking at a few smaller properties as my first investment..

Thoughts on this , will prices continue to drop?

[Doug Smith]

Hey Rebecca, I'm up in Tampa here...and I've been doing this a very long time. I've seen several crashes and that area (SW FL) seems very prone to big drops. It was really, really bad in that area in the 2007-2008 crash. I think a lot of that had to do with getting hit so bad in 2004 and then again Hurricane Wilma in 2005. The severe damage meant they had to bring in drywall from China...and we know what happened then. Prices in that area really tanked during that last big crash. I always hate to see people "overleverage" by borrowing too much against the value of the property, but I would really watch doing that in SW FL. Just my 2 cents from lending there for many, many years.