By: Nancy Smith, Sunshine State News
Here's news the mainstream media will ignore or shoo to the back pages ... shhh, Gov. Rick Scott might get some credit ... but facts are facts: The residential land market in Florida is "very strong as a result of the improving economy, combined with the continued influx of almost 1,000 people per day to the state."
Not my words, they come from "Lay of the Land," a new market report via Florida Trend. The report provides an accounting of verified land sales from 2017.
“As demand for residential development land increases, sales of agriculture land in the paths of progress increase," says Dean Saunders, owner of Lakeland-based Coldwell Banker Commercial Saunders Real Estate and publisher of the report. "With the capital earned from selling land for high development prices, sellers are reinvesting in other rural agriculture land.”
Saunders, once a legislative aide to U.S. Sen. Lawton Chiles and later a Florida legislator, conducted his "Lay of the Land" conference in April at Champions Gate near Orlando. It was the ninth such annual event his firm has sponsored…