All about business

There’s a long list of reasons why the financial markets took a pounding Thursday: new concerns about joblessness, soft Christmas sales, the threat of more big write-downs by financial firms, and rising oil prices brought on, in part, by the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

So why were some local mortgage brokers acting so cheery?

On Thursday we learned that Miami and Tampa led the nation in declining home prices, falling 12.4 percent and 11.8 percent respectively in October according to one monthly index.

Orlando isn’t included in that index, but home values here appear to be faring somewhat better. And the prevailing feeling is that the first few months of 2008 will bring more improvement.

Call it a post-Christmas haze of hopefulness, or a dose of overdue optimism, but the area’s home-loan brokers sounded downright jolly after months in the doldrums.

Home sellers are at the point where they would rather burn their properties than take today’s low prices, said Ritch Workman, president of the Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers and co-owner of a Melbourne firm.

“Prices just can’t fall much lower,” he said. But buyers, who have been sitting on the fence waiting for prices to fall further, have started seizing opportunities in cases where sellers feel bound to unload their properties.

As a result, Workman told me, December has been his company’s best month this year. And a year from now, he said, we’ll be talking about a small rise in home prices — “I’d bet my reputation on it.”

Over at FBC Mortgage LLC in Orlando, things are also looking up.

“Our phones are starting to ring again,” chief executive Joe Nunziata said. “The prices are more affordable for first-time buyers. As they start buying, it’s going to stabilize the market.”

Most analysts are forecasting home-price increases, however small, by the first quarter of 2009 $500 payday loan. It won’t be anything like the big jumps we saw in 2005 and 2006.

Your house likely won’t be worth what it would have sold for a year or two ago until 2012 or beyond.

Still, I’d take healthy appreciation over another false bubble any day.

Stock gazing dims

As cheery as all that sounds, at least two local stocks appear to be ending the year in the dumps.

Darden Restaurants hasn’t recovered since it announced a less-than-stellar second quarter last week. It closed Thursday at $27.48, a 23 percent drop in eight trading days. AirTran Airways’ stock closed Thursday at $7.35, a low for the year.

It just so happens that both those companies are in the process of planning or building new Orlando headquarters. Investors must be wiping their brows in relief that both corporations have government incentives to help them out — as much as $7.3 million plus road improvements in Darden’s case, and an expected $3 million or more for AirTran.

Party time

Local hoteliers may be reeling at the thought of all those local Gator fans filling up the Capital One Bowl on Tuesday to watch the matchup against Michigan. There’s no money to be made from hotel rooms, dining spots or shopping malls if most of the fans can just hop in their cars and drive home after the game.

But fear not. Four popular Internet travel sites have each ranked Orlando among the Top 10 domestic destinations for New Year’s Eve. Hotwire, Yahoo Travel, Orbitz and CheapTickets ranked Orlando, on average, as the fourth-most-popular spot, in most cases trailing Las Vegas, New York and Chicago.
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The Indiana Statewide Certified Development Corporation set a new record for small business expansion loans in fiscal 2007.

At its annual board meeting tonight (Dec. 13), the Indiana Statewide CDC will confirm that it provided $37,517,000 along with local banks to 66 projects for the year ending September 30. Total funding for the projects reached $103,538,588. The old funding records set last year were $35,469,000 to 69 projects and total funding from all participants of $99,479,979.

Indiana Statewide CDC partners with local lenders to provide loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration 504 loan program. Thirty-three different lenders worked with the Indiana Statewide CDC this year.

Jean Wojtowicz, executive director of the Indiana Statewide CDC says, “Many business owners tell us they could not have financed key expansions without our help. Even though we are an alternative lending program, many more of our borrowers succeed than fail. I think this is because business owners are optimists by nature guaranteed payday loans. Otherwise they would not take the risk: expanding a business is a risk, no matter how well considered.”

Wojtowicz adds that she believes Indiana is on the right track. Major companies such as Honda and Wellpoint are proceeding with welcome expansion. “In addition, small high-tech companies partially funded by the Indiana Statewide CDC, such as Aerodyne Engineering in Indianapolis and e-biofuels in Middletown, are diversifying the industrial landscape of Indiana,” she adds.

Congress created the SBA 504 program to help small businesses gain favorable financing terms and retain operating cash while expanding. Indiana Statewide CDC has helped created or save more than 24,000 jobs in Indiana with SBA 504 loans since 1983.

“The SBA guarantees bonds that are sold to finance a portion of the loan, which allows us to offer a low, fixed interest rate for as long as 20 years,” says Wojtowicz. “The guarantee also allows borrowers to pay as little as ten percent down. The interest rate and down payment stipulations are better than those provided by conventional loans,” she adds.

Indiana Statewide CDC has helped create or save more than 24,000 Hoosier jobs with the SBA 504 program.

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