Flippers splash bankers

Remember the flippers?

These were the speculators who made their mark in Florida by buying and quickly reselling or flipping real estate at a profit during the boom of the last decade. Some people viewed flippers as a threat to the real estate market, driving prices to unsustainable heights.

Speaking to a group of real estate investors recently, Florida Bankers Association President and CEO Alex Sanchez says he worries when he hears radio ads that pitch real estate flipping seminars.

“We don't want to go back there again,” Sanchez groans. “The only flippers I want to see are the ones in the aquarium.”

But Sanchez is a veteran of Florida's banking scene and he's seen this scenario play before. “Our state has a habit of repeating itself,” he told executives of the Real Estate Investment Society in Fort Myers.

In remarks that moved from incompetent politicians in Washington, D.C., to the slow economic recovery, Sanchez seemed equally concerned about bubbly real estate markets as federal regulatory overreach into community banks. “I hope nobody's uncorking Champagne,” Sanchez says.