Kingsview CIO Scott Martin On Fox Weather Live – 7.18.25
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BOB VAN DILLEN: Scott Martin, he’s the Chief Investment Officer with Kingsview Partners and a friend of ours. Scott, it’s great to have you back with us. This was something that you and I talked about over the winter as a possibility, and now the data is showing this trend, but it’s nuanced. It’s not one hurricane season, it’s several factors. Where do you put the most weight?
SCOTT MARTIN: Damn, isn’t it terrible When actually possibility becomes reality. Ian and I hate to throw a relation in here, and there is no relation boys and girls, but Hurricane Ian started it all, I believe, and personal affliction here, personal effect. Hurricane Ian smashed my house and Captiva in Lee County, which is down in Fort Myers area as well. Started the ball rolling. So you’re right, there’s a lot going on here. It’s not just nuance. The numbers are staggering though, Ian, with regards to the fall. I mean, North Fort saw a drop year over year from April, 2024 to April, 2025 of over 10%. And a couple things have gone on. There’s been a surge in home availability, meaning homes for sale. So when more supply gets on the market, prices go down because there’s more availability. And then also, of course the insurance costs, which you noted by the damage that hurricanes have caused, have surged. And so suddenly the cost of the insurance to cover the homes that these folks have is maybe not worth what the homes, not necessarily what the homes are not worth, but not worth staying there because the fact that it’s too costly to live there.
BOB VAN DILLEN: Right? So there are most certainly the things that have played out. We’ve been watching that for several years now, to your point, but in a macro sense, we also have historically high home prices, high interest rates, but only about a quarter of the markets that were analyzed in this study actually had prices drop. Now, do you think weather impacts like this could have more or less accelerated the inevitable in the housing realm? This has felt a little bit unsustainable for a while.
SCOTT MARTIN: That’s a really good comment, and I think you’re putting on your good economic hat there. So I agree with you, and I think you’re right. I mean the prices did get very high economic growth, yes, did support some of that, but it did probably get too extended. I mean, again, for another personal story, which hopefully people don’t mind, when I looked at buying the place in Captiva Union, the prices were off the chart. So we waited a little while and we didn’t get the bottom, but we got some lower prices just because things were not sustainable. Your point too about warehousing prices are now versus where they may go, they probably will settle out here, but there needs to be some say, relief come out of the market. But then two, if you think about interest rates, other things that are afflicting, the housing market rates aren’t terrible. They’re higher than they were, yeah, a few years ago because rates were unsustainably low then. But if you want to talk to anybody that was buying a home in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, rates probably seem pretty valued, if not low right now. So there’s a lot of workout here, and the fact remains that weather does affect things and we probably just need one thing, which is probably not going to happen, but midnight we’re maybe due for, it is a subtle, maybe calm, maybe dare I say, chill tropical environment or tropical season here, so that folks can get some confidence back into the system or into, say, the Florida and the Gulf Coast area to think, well, you know what? Weather doesn’t have to be bad here all the time when we’re expecting it to be.
BOB VAN DILLEN: Yeah, Scott, we need a quiet season for so many different reasons. But while we got you on Fox weather, we’re in the business of forecasting. I have to know, what are you thinking here for a forecast moving forward, maybe call it over the next year or so? Is this a trend that could persist or is it relative? It’s kind of going to be dependent on what we see happen throughout a season like this.
SCOTT MARTIN: Unfortunately that yes. Now here’s a good point. Some of the insurance pains that are out there have largely been remedied. They’ve been at least somewhat stabilized, meaning the companies that are left, I think Ian nowadays in Florida are okay to deal with what they’re going to deal with potentially. I mean, look, you get two cat fours, two cat fives, all bets are off. But you see things that happen in California, for example, where folks that are moving to Florida now or going to buy these homes that have fallen in price are going to have the insurance costs that are appropriate for what the house is worth. That’s something that we saw in the wildfires in California. A lot of these folks were paying ridiculously low insurance rates because home prices were not appropriately valued or say, assessed for what the insurance costs were, meaning they were underinsured. So the insurance costs are going to come back into line with what the housing prices settle out at, and there’s going to be folks, Ian, that we’re starting to see right now, and as I mentioned in Lee County outside of Fort Myers and in Fort Myers, that are showing up that are actually buyers that are likely going to stay and stay through this period. So I think it’s a general, maybe changeover and the fact, to your point about things being unsustainable and abnormal as far as this fall, it’s much like the stock market and how we invest our money. When you see big drawdowns in the s and p 500, everybody wants to run for the hills. Those are actually times to buy because those periods are not sustainable. And the more we fall, the likely we are to go back up.
BOB VAN DILLEN: The old buy the dip. And I think, and nobody does it. You’re right on the money too. I had spoke with a business owner. I was down in Florida just a couple months back, and he said, boy, this stung the money. It was a big hardship. But he thinks if they can move through a couple of seasons without impacts, he’ll be just fine. And that’s what we’re hoping for.
SCOTT MARTIN: We’ll forget about it. Hopefully we’ll have better days ahead
BOB VAN DILLEN: For the whole region. Hey, that’s the Chief Investment Officer at Kingsview Partners, Scott Martin. Scott, it’s always great to pick your financial brain, especially where it intersects with weather. Great to see you.
SCOTT MARTIN: You got it. See you.
