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.

Huskey has since been promoted a few times, most recently on Jan. 1, when he was named president and CEO of Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. Now based in Coldwell Banker's Parsippany, N.J., headquarters, Huskey oversees 83,000 agents and sales associates spread through 3,100 offices in 50 countries.

Huskey must have had some dejà vu moments during his interview, because his comments, in the April 30 story, “Housing Market Accelerates,” could have been straight from 2003. “Nobody that I'm aware of anticipated the kind of price growth that we've had,” Huskey says in the story. “It's simple supply and demand.”