Florida - the historic epicenter of real estate booms and busts

What is it about Florida that lends itself to real estate booms, scams and crashes?

Florida 1925:

The Great Florida Land Bush

There was plenty of evidence that the Florida Land Boom was on swampy ground. Forbes magazine warned that Florida land prices were based solely upon the expectation of finding a customer, not upon any reality of land value. New York bankers, losing money over Florida investment, attacked the entire operation as one great sham. By 1925, there were other signs. Companies were laying off construction and other blue collar workers while the number of realtors and auto mechanics was still increasing.

Florida 2007:

Boom of condo crash loudest in Miami

Orlando and other Florida cities -- Naples, Fort Myers, Tampa and Sarasota among them -- also have huge condo gluts. With 4,440 condos listed for sale, Orlando has an unprecedented 29-month supply, and last month sales plummeted 64 percent lower than a year ago.

But Miami, with its unmatched volume and untold number of speculative buyers, is ripe for the hardest fall in the U.S.

Housing Crash: They're just walking away and turning in the keys in Florida, Nevada, California and Arizona now

Want to see what happens when the speculator roaches flee? Foreclosures everywhere, destroyed comps, unsaleable supply, collapsed demand, and you got it - finally, plummeting prices and a rush for the exits.

It's just the way the world works. Even if the corrupt NAR and stupid realtor bloggers want to tell you otherwise.

"Information provided to the MBA from a variety of sources indicates that the foreclosures in Florida, Nevada, California, and Arizona are heavily influenced by speculators who are walking away from properties now that home prices have started to fall in areas of those states and they face resets in the adjustable-rate mortgages they took out for these homes," the trade group said.