Hi from BlueWater Realty of Pine Island:

You’ll be delighted to hear that summer is officially here bringing along with it much needed liquid sunshine.  After the wet winter and the dry spring, we are getting our normal afternoon showers that have your lawns and plants happy and hydrated again.  Everything is so very pretty and green again as you can see by the photo below of our grandson, Jake, helping PopPop with yard cleanup.  We also joined our granddaughter, Rachel, along with her mom and dad for a weekend at the Magic Kingdom and SeaWorld.  Rachel was a real trooper with 13 hours at the Magic Kingdom, staying for late night fireworks over Cinderella’s castle.  The Gilles family is growing with two new grandchildren expected in July and December.

The fishing report is very good with lots of tarpon rolling in the passes with anglers scoring multiple hookups.  What an exciting sight to see when the tarpon are rolling and jumping in double digit schools.  If you have not yet experienced this, you may want to consider coming down sometime during the summer to take a peek at this event.  Yes, it’s hot and humid, however, with the liquid sunshine and the beautiful sunsets, you’ll soon forget about the heat.  Offshore fishing has been very good also.  We took a day a couple of weeks ago to out 60 miles and scored red and gag grouper, scamp, red snapper and schoolie dolphin.  We have an acquaintance in St. James City who went out 112 miles and experienced a good day as well.  And, guess what – NO OIL!  The current prediction from NOAA is that Southwest Florida has about a 1% chance of seeing any oil from the BP spill because of our proximity to the Loop Current.  The Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico follows the edge of the continental shelf, which runs parallel to the state’s coast and extends to about 150 miles off the destination’s shores. When the strong current hits the shelf, it curves southward along its edge. So, barring a major storm, it will steer the Loop Current away from our area and well offshore of Southwest Florida.

Despite this good news for Southwest Florida, we have definitely seen a decrease in sales.  We have talked with many other agents and they are experiencing the same.  Additionally, rental companies are experiencing premature cancellations.  We hope this will be short-lived and those working on containing the spill will find a solution very, very soon.

June brought 15 sales to Bokeelia, St. James and Matlacha with 13 out of the 15 being $200,000 and under.  This is almost a 30% decrease as compared with June 2009 at 22 sales.  We are accustomed to slow summer months, however, we believe the oil spill is definitely making an impact on real estate on Pine Island.  We do feel we are at the bottom of our market and interest rates are at the lowest point in decades.  So if you are interested in buying or selling, please call us so that we may have the opportunity to share the local real estate market with you.  Whatever your needs may be, we are always happy to assist you.  We appreciate your friendship, your business and your family and friend’s referrals.  We pride ourselves on our motto ~ “Integrity is our Specialty.”

Donna and Phil