What Price of Real Estate is Selling?
This year November brought not only our returning snow birds but a truck load of home buyers trying to make it under the wire for the first time home buyer tax credit deadline. Buyers and their agents were working feverishly to get their transactions closed by the end of November to receive their credit. End result: While prices were down, the entry level sales volume remained elevated, selling off excess inventory.
If case you hadn’t heard, the deadline has been extended through next spring at this point and modified to now include tax credits to “move up buyers” who qualify for the program. That’s probably a story for a different day when I try to jam a novel into 500 words or less.
So how is the market down there in Florida? That’s the question heard several times while recently on safari in Lorain County, Ohio. Try not to be jealous of my flannel and Carhartt, fun filled, exotic trip.
The answer in short is that it just depends upon what you’re buying or selling and the price point. Lucky for you I caught a wifi enabled return flight on Delta so I can dump some fresh sales numbers on you for the month of November 2009.
We’re about a year into entry level housing ruling the real estate market. The prices are down and the buyers are out there scooping them up. It’s been about one full year of the $200,000 and under price point dominating the market, followed by the $200-400,000 price point in a close second place. November of 2009 continued the theme with fifty two percent of the sales occurring in the $200,000 and under price point and twenty nine percent of the sales occurring in the $200-400,000 price point.
That’s eighty one percent of the real estate sales occurring in the $400,000 and under price point.
So how is the market in southwest Florida? If you’re buying in the $400,000 and under price point it’s more competitive than you might have anticipated, especially for properties priced under $200,000.
If you’re selling in the $400,000 and up price point you get to share the balance of that nineteen percent sliver of the market share pie to get your home sold. The competition to sell will be tough, even fierce in some locations. If you’ve been holding off on a price reduction you might want to reconsider or at the very least get a fresh market analysis of your home and your current neighborhood absorption rate just to see how long your haul is estimated to be.
Don’t kill the messenger, I didn’t invent the numbers I just collected them for you … at above ten thousand feet. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not true.
Of course, all of the “real estate is local” and “all information is deemed accurate but not guaranteed” disclaimers accompany this market report. There are poor sports with lawyers all over, just waiting to file suit over a minuscule error or the use of a wrong font.
This was printed in the Helvetica font, right?
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Real Life in Bonita Springs is a project by Chris Griffith dedicated to writing useful blog posts for consumers about the Bonita Springs, Florida area. Find out what it is really like to live in Bonita Springs, Florida by reading about our fair city. You’ll get the latest in local real estate information, Bonita Springs real estate market reports and a little bit of humor. If you have topic ideas, feel free to request a story about the idea, after all, this site is just for you.
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