Wood Works

As the Southwest Florida real estate market slogged through 2006, homes sold in months instead of weeks, builders streamlined their workforces and residential developers began to report dwindling profits. Concern among speculators spiked as some analysts, noting the high inventory of available homes, predicted a similarly ragged 2007.

For Phil Wood, president of Naples-based John R. Wood Realtors, the gloomy period is more of a bump in the road than a reason for panic. The company's sales numbers dipped 50 percent in 2006, but Wood has seen it all before.

"Having been here 50 years, we know the typical pattern in this market, and 2006 fits," says Wood, the son of company founder John R. Wood. "This is just part of the cycle and, yes, I have a great amount of faith in this market."

n the past five decades, the golden signs with simple but elegant "John R. Wood" script have become more than familiar in Naples; they're staples in such upscale neighborhoods as Port Royal and the historic areas surrounding downtown Naples.

So rather than circle the wagons and cut expenses, Wood, a youthful 51, extended his company's reach by opening a new office in Fort Myers in January 2006. This past February, the company broke ground on its new corporate headquarters in north Naples. It added another office in Sanibel earlier this summer.

"Many realtors are not only not expanding, they're contracting at this point," says Dorothy Babcock, chief operating officer of John R. Wood. "The new offices and the building will position us very well when the current cycle is completed, when we're back to the normal pace."