Obviously this is good for Real Estate.

When people buy Real Estate they basically make their decision based on what their costs are.  Lower interest rates means costs are less and higher taxes mean their costs are more, high regime fees mean their costs are more and they usually look at their bottom line. 

In other words, what does it cost them to own a condo at the beach out of pocket?

Your income in this situation would be your rent and your expenses would be mortgage costs, regime fees, taxes, utilities and association fees.  Over my years of selling Real Estate I have had many people say that if they could own a place at the beach that they could use two or three times a year and it only cost me $10,000, I would consider doing it.  If that same cost was $20,000, they might not consider doing it. 

Now is a good time to keep your costs down simply because the #1 factor in your overall cost is the price of the property.  As we all know, prices have dropped somewhere between 20% and 25% since the high of June of 2005.  Therefore, the #1 cost factor would be the cost of the property.  The #2 factor would probably be the interest rate which is at an all time low.  The other costs (taxes, insurance, regime fees and association fees) are up – but they are not up as much as the others are down which means now is a good time to buy.