Blast from the past in real estate

News snippets nationwide have documented the recent housing market surge and one recent source, in a front page Wall Street Journal story, is a familiar voice to the Gulf Coast: Budge Huskey, a top Florida executive for NRT and Coldwell Banker, based in Sarasota, in the early and mid-2000s.

In fact, Huskey was one of the most quoted local sources on the housing market back then, when he oversaw the firm's residential and commercial brokerage units from Panama City to Marco Island. Huskey spoke often about the firm's aggressive growth strategy, though, like a few others in the industry, he also worried the bubble would eventually deflate.