Buyers have come out in droves and are embracing our heat and humidity to score deals on real estate outside of the “season”. The pace of sales has been staggering at our brokerage firm Downing-Frye Realty as general manager, Mike Hughes released the following statement earlier this week.
“Congratulations, we have now closed 2,040 transactions for the first 172 days of the year. In 2007 and 2008 it took us TWELVE months to close 1,970 transactions in each year. In 2013 we have hit our number in SIX months! We will need to move up our Billion Dollar party to honor the firm hitting one billion in closed sales volume, a true accomplishment! June is turning out to be a very busy month, in the first 21 days we have had 250 pending sales turned into our office, a 29% increase over June 2012. Our closed sales price is also remarkable – in 2012 our average was $ 369,668 this year thus far it has increased to $477,878. As I recently stated in the newspaper, we had too much sales momentum in May for it to slow down. It looks like a lot of us are going to be busy this summer!
State wide real estate results as reported in May by Florida Realtors depict a similar story. Dean Asher, president of Florida Realtors association commented, “This is the 17th month in a row that we have seen the statewide median sales price increase year-over-year for both single-family homes and for townhome-condo properties.”
The Highlights:
In Naples the statistics for May 2012 to May 2013 outline the following results as reported by the Naples Area Board of Realtors:
- The median closed price increased 16 percent from $ 190,000 in 2012 to $ 220,000 in 2013
- Pending sales increased 28 percent in the $ 300,000 to $ 500,000 category
- Pending sales increased 23 percent in the $ 1 million to $ 2 million category
- The average days on market decreased 16 percent from 191 days to 161 days
The Takeaway:
As buyer demand has increased many of my colleagues work overtime to reach out to their seller clients. The amount of available inventory is what is now driving our market. Wes Kunkle, President of the Naples Area Board of Realtors commented “the lack of inventory is creating multiple offers in many situations.” We at Naples Meridian have witnessed scarcity in areas along the beach and in certain gated communities where bidding wars are taking place.
We first began to talk about scarcity in our market in March 2013 where we reported the results of the sales activity for the first quarter. The perceived scarcity in our market is a strong driver for properties being newly listed in the middle of summer. June is a typically a very slow time of year for real estate as our area has usually bid goodbye to seasonal visitors and awaits the arrival of the European crowds. This year the pace of the market has shattered the old tempo in Naples as local buyers seek to purchase before interest rates climb and investors and foreign buyers put pressure on inventory with their all cash buys. The lack of available of homes in desirable areas (as perceived by buyers) is the primary obstacle in this local market and an increase in the number of listings is required. Buyer are poised and ready to stroke checks for the right property!
Everyone in real estate game in Naples is sharpening their pencils as the summer season is turning out to be red hot! We at Naples Meridian are taking part in the mix and look forward to reporting the results as the summer draws to a close.