Posted on Monday, October 24, 2011
We may be bucking a trend here locally in Naples with signs of an improving market evidenced by our decreasing real estate inventories. Is our local market trend running counter to the state in general? This past week Douglas Hanks reported in the Miami Herald “‘Florida brokers reported that home sales growth slowed,’ the Fed report said in summing up the housing market in its Atlanta district. ‘Outside of Florida, Southeast brokers noted a modest pickup in sales growth.’ (Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/19/2461874/feds-beige-book-less-rosy-about.html#ixzz1bgnPaq2T).
We decided to take a look at the local market and see how we were doing. According to the most recent Naples Board of REALTORS report, “the third quarter report tracking home listings and sales shows inventory dropped 20 percent in the third quarter of this year to 7,069 homes, down from 8,800 a year ago. In the third quarter, homes under $300,000 saw the biggest drop in inventory from 4,657 to 3,572. If we hold out volumes than we buck the state-wide trend.
We checked the Naples area real estate inventory this morning and inventories are even lower than the last NABOR report. We are now down to 6127 properties. Since sales in the last twelve months were 8,178, our inventory is down to nine months. We are not seeing the banks “flooding the market” with distressed properties as is often feared, or if they are releasing properties sales volume is keeping up.
We still advise caution. Some areas of Naples are out selling others – always the case but the areas tend differ quarter to quarter, and there is more strength in the under $1,000,000 market than above. Investors seem to like the $200,000 to $800,000 range in a couple of areas and in our client base we see interest from the “flippers” and rehab-renters.
So what do we have here in Naples? A much improved inventory position and a growing number of returning snow birds in town. We will see how this translates into a real estate season and if Naples real estate can buck the state-wide trends.
Tell us what you think.
