You're watching Southwest Florida in focus.

Coming up.

Condo owners say enough is enough.

Excessive fees are just one reason why the real estate market is saturated with condos.

Now, the Florida legislature is trying to find a ways to ease condo concerns.

It's been an unusually dry spring, leading to severe drought warnings.

How warmer oceans associated with climate change could impact the state's critical wetlands.

And it's goodbye, snowbirds.

Hello, shorebirds.

We show you how Southwest Floridians are helping hatchlings that are vital to our ecosystem.

Hello, I'm Sandra Victorova.

Thank you for joining us.

Florida's real estate market is changing.

Realtors say it is no longer a seller's market.

And that's making things extra difficult for anyone trying to sell a condo.

Homeowners who can no longer afford their condos are causing a surge on the market, which is at its highest rate since the pandemic.

Some of the cost concerns come from Florida stricter condo rules.

Now, state lawmakers are looking at new regulations again to offer some relief.

There are plenty of selling points to carry Irving's North Fort Myers condo.

A relaxing pool right next to the Caloosahatchee and just minutes from downtown Fort Myers.

We also have dolphins that come up and down this river along the boardwalk.

But Irving knows finding a buyer won't be easy.

It's been on the market since last year.

He reluctantly dropped the price by 15 grand to $195,000.

The market is just tough here, and the one reason they're not selling is they haven't done a lot of repairs on the outside.

His condo association hasn't completed repairs left by Hurricane Ian.

If you walk around, you'll see that for two and a half years.

So it's a terrible selling point to come in here and see this.

And I'm not happy at all about it.

Irving says he's selling because his friends have left, and he wants more time with grandkids up north.

Well, hurricanes don't factor in his decision, he suspects.

Southwest Florida's recent storms will make it harder to find a buyer.

I don't think anybody seen that in years and consecutively right now, Florida and looks like it's a very good option.

Silvana Thistle in Fort Myers says she's selling because higher insurance rates and higher condo fees are hard to keep up with.

Eight years ago, she paid about $400 in condo fees here.

That amount has more than doubled, and she could face even higher fees at her other condo.

I'm afraid that they will also go too close to the thousand.

So Fischl says her fees went up because her association wasn't collecting enough reserves, as required by Florida's new condo rules.

She regrets not putting her condos on the market earlier, when prices were higher and she wasn't competing with other condo units for sale in her own neighborhood.

So I wish we could do that in that time.

But, yeah, now it's too late.

According to Zillow, condo inventory in Naples is up 25% compared to five years ago.

Cape Coral's inventory is up 51% and Punta Gorda increased by 119%.

That's more than 1000 condo units on the market in the Punta Gorda metro area.

Cara ING, senior economist with Zillow, says more inventory is good news for home hunters.

Color prices are falling in southwest Florida, but part of the fall in prices is the recalibration of supply demand during the pandemic.

We're working.

The desire for sunshine drove mass migration to Florida.

Builders stepped in to take advantage of the surge in demand, and this helped increase the number of homes available for sale.

This strong building activity contributed to making many metros within Florida rank as some of the strongest buyers markets within the U.S..

It's a great time to be a buyer.

Buyers are in the driver's seat in the negotiations, and condos right now are selling on average, 4 to 5% under their list price.

So buyers are winning in the negotiations.

And on average this year, condos have been selling 10 to 11% less than what they originally started out.

So I mean, over time, buyers are going to have a lot of baked in equity.

If they buy now and they hang onto what they purchased.

Vessel wishes the cost of holding onto her investment properties wasn't so tough, so she could follow through with plans to retire here.

Right now, I need to probably look for someplace else.

Irving says he'll be back to Southwest Florida, but more likely as a renter.

He's looking on the bright side because he doesn't need to sell quickly.

He has time to find the right buyer.

It was a good starter home for a family of small family.

The state's new condo laws mandated tougher inspections for older condos and forced associations to maintain a certain amount of money in reserves for maintenance.

That led associations to hike monthly fees, discouraging buyer interest to alleviate some of the pressure on condo owners.

Now, the state legislature is proposing updates to condo laws again.

Here to explain is WLRN host and senior economic reporter Tom Hudson.

Welcome, Tom.

Great to be back with you.

Thanks for the invitation.

So it seems like every few days, Tom, I see headlines even in national media saying Florida's condo crisis.

Are we in a condo crisis?

Well, it depends upon location and perspective.

The condominium market here in Florida no doubt is experiencing an increase in units for sale.

So there's more supply of units for sale and median prices of closed sales have been falling.

So is it a crisis?

Well, listen, I mean, if you bought your condo ten, 15, 20 years ago, you're still up money.

If you bought your condo in the last five years, maybe not so much.

If you're facing a condominium with big, special assessments or an increase in higher fees and are trying to find a buyer while your neighbors are also trying to find buyers.

Yeah, that could be a crisis, but it really is.

Location and perspective unique.

So, Tom, how do state lawmakers propose to change the current condo rules again and improve the situation for condo owners?

Yeah, the lawmakers want to reform their own reforms that they put into place just a few years ago in reaction to the collapse of the Champlain Tower South condominium building in Surfside.

The House and Senate on Wednesday this week gave, an okay to changes to these reforms, essentially extending allowing condominium associations more time to get their milestone structural inspections done.

Those were supposed to be done at the end of last year.

They want to give another year for those inspections to be done.

And condominium associations this year were supposed to begin building their reserves, essentially saving money for a list of, pretty basic maintenance, repairs.

They're allowing, under this legislation, more time for condominium associations to build up their reserves, to build up that savings account in order to pay for regular maintenance and repairs.

So really just trying to kind of kick the can down the road just a little bit more so that these associations and their owners aren't facing such high special assessments or significantly higher monthly assessments right away.

Could there be a bright side to this surplus, to the falling prices as far as our affordable housing crisis?

Well, there is the bright side that condominium prices are going down.

If you are a buyer, certainly.

But that comes with a couple of caveats.

To note that buyers need to be aware that they could be buying in a building that is undergoing a structural inspection and may not have financial reserves to pay for regular repairs, and could be facing a special assessment, or could be facing higher monthly assessments.

While we do have a lot more condominiums on the market looking for buyers here and prices for those vintage condominiums, condominiums that are 30 years old or older are moving down, we are not seeing anything like we saw during the Great Recession.

Yes, we are at multi-year highs of the number of condominiums for sale, even in Southwest Florida.

But we're not seeing the kind of numbers that we saw during the worst of the Great Recession.

Tom Hudson, we always appreciate you reporting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Coming up.

Could a black bear hunt return to Florida?

We speak to a hunting advocacy group to learn how a new proposal could differ from previous controversial hunts.

If you're hoping for more rain, you are not alone.

According to Noah, the current drought is affecting nearly 1.5 million Southwest Floridians.

All counties in the region have severe to extreme drought conditions, and that's raising concerns about this year's wildfire season.

While a lack of precipitation is uncommon here.

Scientists say we're actually seeing a change in our area rain patterns that will have profound impacts on our region.

To explain, we are joined now by Professor of Ecology and Environmental studies at FGCU Doctor Edwin Everham.

Welcome, doctor Everham.

Thanks for joining us.

Thank you.

Sandra, Really nice to be here today.

Well, let's start with this.

I think a lot of us got used to basically every afternoon.

We could just anticipate those afternoon, late afternoon rain showers.

And it feels like that's changing.

Is it?

And if so, why?

Yeah, I think anybody who has been here for more than ten years remembers that time.

But of course, it's it's April still.

Yeah.

And so we don't anticipate that time coming until sometime between May 15th and June 15th, when God turns on the rain.

Right.

But historically, in our experience, that there's a moment when the rainy season starts and it just sets in so you can.

I used to joke about you could look at the, the weekly weather broadcast and it would say, you know, high in the low 90s and low in the high 70s and chance of rain 70% every day.

Yeah.

So we were just used to those afternoon rainfalls and that sure seems to have changed.

So help us to understand why and and in and the other change, it seems, is that we're seeing at least scientists say we're seeing more intense rainfalls, what some folks call these rain bombs.

Yeah.

So when I think, when I talked with other ecologists, when they started to see these shifts in the, in the afternoon rainfall, one theory was that we were losing so many inland wetlands, you know, as we as we develop away from the coast, we drained often drained wetlands to put in homes, to put in roads.

And that those interior wetlands, on a hot summer day, are going to evaporate water, create clouds, and then cause a rainfall.

So that could have been what was driving it.

I really feel like the change has changed in the last five years, and it seems very much more that what we're seeing is, shifts in these global patterns of movement, of currents, of movements, of masses of air, the trade winds, the things that are making these more intense storms land in different parts of the landscape.

Does a warmer climate play a big role in this?

I think it absolutely does.

And, you know, it's hard.

We only have one planet, so it's really hard to control the experiment and figure out exactly what's happening.

But I when I started here in 1996, I, you know, we already understood what the increased amount of carbon in the atmosphere was doing to solar radiation patterns.

So there were certainly projections about how, on average, the Earth would warm.

And again, I've really felt in the last five years and I'm not thinking about the future any more.

It's arrived, and I think we've all felt how much hotter it's gotten in April and May and into June, when the rainy season sets in.

That tends to cool things down a little bit during the day.

But how do you remember sea surface temperatures at 100°F?

I just don't know, you know, and we're seeing them on a regular basis now.

So I think that in southwest Florida, the future of climate change has already arrived and that we're seeing on average warmer temperatures.

Now, of course, we've seen sea level rise slowly, but then that sea level rise manifests itself when we get these cyclonic storms and we get a higher storm surge associated with the storms.

But I don't think I anticipated nor fully understand this shift in rainfall.

I don't I haven't seen any evidence yet that we're getting less rain in a year, but it seems like instead of having a little bit of rain every day during the rainy season, we can get a severe rainstorm and then go three five, seven days with no rain at all during the rainy season and then another severe storm.

And then, of course, we've been getting so many more, hurricanes arriving that when you total up the rain at the end of the year, it's oh, you know, this is what we, we see on average, you know, between, 50 and 60in a year, but it's coming in different slugs.

You know, I if I can add this part, I recently said, if you can imagine trying to grow a house houseplant and it needs a cup of water every day, but you decide not to give it any water for a week.

But then at the end of the week, you give it a whole gallon all at once.

It's not good for the plant.

It's not good for our landscape.

It's not good for our wetlands.

It's not good for the, plants and animals.

They're adapted to the seasonal dry down and then a seasonal saturation doctor ever had.

We so appreciate your insight.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you very much.

We hear a lot about turtle nesting season.

Lights out on the beach began May 1st so hatchlings can find their way to the water.

And people often mock turtle nests.

At the same time, other beach loving wildlife are also laying eggs.

As WGCU reporter Mike Walcher explains, we don't hear nearly as much about staying away from their nests.

It's a vital time of the year for plovers and lease terms.

Those are the birds hopping on the mudflats and along the coastline.

And it's critical for black skimmers zooming over the water, looking to nab a fish.

Right now, these shorebirds are laying eggs and large colonies in the sand and in solitary nests and vegetation on the edge of beaches.

They're doing so all along Florida's Gulf and Atlantic coasts.

I think there's a lot that I can't help in the world, but I can help these birds.

Megan Hatton of Audubon, a Florida medicine lovers key and Lee County.

She says the terns that nest here have a special place in her heart.

They're tiny.

They're tiny little birds.

But they have no fear when it comes to protecting their nest.

And I think that's really special.

They're so cute.

The babies are just they're little cotton balls on toothpicks that run around like mad.

Shorebirds lay 2 to 6 eggs for 30 days.

Parents sit on the eggs, shading them from the sun, and they watch for predators, crows and other birds, raccoons and dogs and humans.

So they have a lot of threats, natural threats.

So keeping the human threats a little bit in check, is where we try to come in using warning tape and signs.

Audubon Florida workers and park rangers mark off nests.

Still, people get curious or careless and disturb nests.

Well, it's heartbreaking.

If they're not able to succeed with their nest, we won't continue to have them here.

We won't continue to enjoy all the beauty that's all around us.

But how will you know if there's an unmarked nest nearby?

So they'll come out and start yelling at you, so they'll start squawking a bunch?

They may kind of throw themselves down in front of you and start beating their wings, so they're pretending that they're injured to try to make themselves look like the prey, and they want you to follow them.

If that happens, happen, says, back away slowly and watch for any eggs in the sand.

Why worry about birds that are not on the endangered species list?

Megan Hatton says as the landmark book Silent Spring pointed out more than 60 years ago, birds are sentinels when the environment hurts them.

It also could hurt people.

Kind of like if you think about the canary in the coal mines, like they brought birds down there to help to see, like what's good for them.

It's here to where we should be helping birds because it helps us, Audubon says.

Shorebird nesting season begins in early May, but peaks in late May through June.

For WGCU news, I'm Mike Walcher.

Florida Fish and Wildlife does not publicize the number of citations given each year for disturbing shorebird nests.

Audubon Florida says officers usually rely on education and warnings.

Citations do carry a fine starting at $100 for a first offense.

For the first time in a decade, Florida Fish and Wildlife is considering the option of reinstituting a bear hunt.

Following a series of public meetings, FWC staff will offer their proposals later this month if a hunt should return.

That appears to be likely to help us understand what a returning bear hunt could entail.

We are joined by Mark Barton, an ecologist and the fundraising chair for the Florida chapter of the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.

Thank you for joining us, Mark.

We appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

I'm excited to be here.

So we know the state obviously monitors the bear population, and I believe there's just about 4000 bears in the state of Florida.

That's nearly double what it was 20 years ago.

Why do you think now is the time for another bear hunt?

So just to be clear, that 4000 number is from 2015.

And there's a lot of evidence that shows that the bear population has increased substantially since then.

There's a number of scientific articles that support this.

But more importantly, we know that in the bear management units, which were essentially established because there were sub populations that were genetically distinct within the state, we know that those populations are well above the minimum threshold that was established by FWC, over a decade ago.

And so we know that these populations are sustainable.

We know that there is a resource there that we can use to generate funding for conservation.

You were telling me earlier that there are some hotspots for bears.

There's other areas that don't have very many bears or any at all.

So, you know, some folks are concerned that, you know, this could be a problem for the population growth in the future.

What are your thoughts?

Yeah.

So you know, our goal as conservationists, conservationists is to make sure that we're not having detrimental impact to the population.

We don't want to see that population decrease.

And the way that the proposed hunt is set up, it should prevent that from happening.

And in terms of the, the unevenness in the population, there are certain areas where we really do need to reduce that density.

But in other areas, we really want to encourage bears to move into those areas.

And so there's certain ways that the biologists are going about that.

But they've been incredibly thoughtful in addressing everybody's concerns.

A lot of the folks arguing against this bear hunt point to the problems in the previous hunt.

I believe that was in 2015.

Their concerns were about Baby Bear is being killed and bears that were underway late.

Can that be resolved for a future hunt?

Yeah, I think it's important to address as well that the regulations that are put in place are very, conservative.

And so when when you say baby bears, we're we're really talking about subadult bears that were just beneath the threshold that FWC had said, which was 100 pounds.

As I said, this is very conservative.

In other states like Georgia, that threshold is at 80 pounds.

So, those bears that are a few pounds below that, they're not really baby bears.

But that said, this is obviously not the goal.

This is not what we want, but it is inevitable that people will occasionally make some mistakes.

And the people that made those mistakes were dealt with, they were issued fines and whatever FWC needed to do to deal with those situations.

So, Mark, what specifically is different from this year's proposal on the hunt compared to the previous one?

So first, I think we should talk about the first hunt, in 2015.

It was organized in what they call a derby, which is essentially that anybody can buy a tag.

And then they have a quota that they're trying to meet, and people are reporting when they make a harvest.

And when they get close to that quota, they close the hunt.

So this style of hunt sort of incentivizes hunters to harvest the first bear that they see, because if they wait for a different or a bigger bear than they might not have another chance because the hunt might be closed already.

And so because of this, there was a higher, female to male ratio of harvest.

And we want to avoid that in the future.

So for this hunt the number of tags allocated is the quota.

So those are 187 people that are going to have tags.

And that means that at maximum only 187 bears will be harvested.

They've made sure that the season is a little bit longer.

That allows hunters to be more selective so they can wait for that larger male bear.

Again, minimizing the chances of a female being harvested.

Thank you, Mark Burton.

We appreciate it.

No problem.

After the break, a little bit of happiness comes to the hardwood.

How one game of basketball has become an annual highlight for Lee County High School.

A crowd packed the rafters at Fort Myers High's gym for one of their biggest sporting events of the year, the annual inclusion basketball game for the 15th year.

Athletes from the life skills program, who are traditionally excluded from school sports, got their chance to take over the hardwood.

WGCUs Amanda Inscore Whittamore reports.

And gates.

Gates, you know, is tied to the 15th annual Inclusion Festival.

And each year we celebrate Inclusion Week with the Special Olympics of Florida and our school and promote some activities.

Have themes each day that the kids participate in.

And we end with our inclusion basketball game pep rally.

Watch me.

Dancing to the kids.

Practice for about two two and a half weeks.

We go over basic fundamentals of basketball first because some of them are pretty new to the game.

We also have some experienced players as well that have been on our competitive basketball team.

So we try to mix it up and even it out so that the game has good flow.

The kids are evenly matched up, so it's very entertaining for our student body.

It's by far my favorite day of the year.

I know how much it means to the players and our SC students, but to know that our staff and our students look forward to it as well makes it a big deal.

No, no.

How are we going to end up?

But I hope we have a good game.

I know we lose some.

You win.

So that's why I know I'm thankful I'm learning more things as I grew up.

We're down to 30s.

On Tuesday night.

It's unmatched.

The excitement that even the general students feel and how excited they are for the kids to be having fun and doing good and making baskets.

Everyone is so happy.

They love all the attention on them because with them being in separated classes during the day, it's they don't get to interact with the general student body all the time.

So for them to be able to showcase what they've been working for for weeks and weeks, they just love it.

Coming up next week, competing in the game of better health.

FGCU athletes share their journey as leaders in their respective sports while dealing with the daily struggles of diabetes.

Join us for that story and much more next week.

And don't forget, we'd love for you to like and subscribe to our WGCU News YouTube channel where you will find all of our stories, including those extended interviews.

Until next week.

Have a great weekend everyone!