It was a cold winter.

But the real estate market warmed in the first quarter of this year in the Naples area.

Showings increased and so did home and condo resales, according to a report by the Naples Area Board of Realtors.

“The cold weather did not dampen the spirits of the buyers,” said Mike Hughes, a vice president of Downing-Frye Realty in Naples.

From January to March, there were 1,981 closed sales, up 45 percent from 1,370 in the same quarter a year ago.

The numbers reflect sales made through the SunshineMLS, or multiple listing service, in Collier County, excluding Marco Island.

“I can tell you across the board it was a strong quarter,” Hughes said.

At a press conference Friday, a panel of local real estate brokers discussed the trends they’ve seen in the market. One of them is increasing sales at the upper end of the market.

“I think it pleasantly surprised all of us,” said Brenda Fioretti, NABOR president and managing broker for Prudential Florida Realty in Naples.

Pending sales – or signed contracts – for homes in the $1 million to $2 million market rose 100 percent in the quarter, according to NABOR. There were 146 contracts in this price range, compared to 73 in the first quarter of 2009.

Another 95 contracts were signed for more than $2 million in the quarter. That was up 56 percent from 61 in the same quarter a year ago.

Most of the closed sales in the first quarter continued to be homes in the under $300,000 price range. Foreclosures and short sales – sales made for less than what’s owed on the mortgage – continue to drive that market.

As banks get better at dealing with short sales there seem to be more short sales than foreclosure sales, said John Steinwand, president of Naples Realty Services Inc.

From January to March, there were 1,393 sales for less than $300,000, up 40 percent from 992 a year ago. Another 2,315 homes in this price range went under contract.

In the first quarter, the median price – the price at which half the homes sell for more and half for less – for all sales edged up slightly to $182,000, up from $178,000 a year ago.

Another trend is a spike in condo sales. There were 1,012 closed sales in the first quarter, up more than 60 percent from 630 in the same quarter a year ago.

Another 1,679 condos went pending in the quarter. Pending sales were up 75 percent from a year ago.

“The buyers are buying condominiums in all price ranges. I have no idea why. Nor do I want to question it,” Steinwand said.

In the $500,000 to $1 million price range, there were 96 condo sales. That was up 100 percent from a year ago, when there were 48.

“The majority of our buyers right now are second home buyers,” said Phil Wood, president of John R. Wood Realtors in Naples.

He said improvements in the stock market have helped drive more vacation home sales.

With so many second home buyers purchasing in the Naples area, the first-time homebuyer credit that is set to expire April 30 isn’t having as much of an impact on the local market, Hughes said.

“As it kept getting extended I think the impact was less and less and less,” he said.

The inventory of homes on the market continues to shrink. It dropped 15 percent to 9,557 properties in the first quarter, down from 11,211 a year ago. The change is now “good enough to talk about,” Steinwand said.

The inventory began dropping in the fourth quarter of last year. If the trend continues, it’s expected to eventually lead to price increases and to help stabilize neighborhoods.

Sales rose in every geographic area tracked by NABOR in the quarter. “It wasn’t just one side of town or another side of town,” Hughes said.

Sales in Naples Beach west of U.S. 41 rose 63 percent to 351, up from 215 in the first quarter of 2009. North Naples had the most sales at 513. In the Immokalee/Ave Maria market, there were eight sales in the quarter, up from three in the same months a year ago.

NABOR also reported its March sales Friday. There were 850 closed sales, up more than 40 percent from 592 a year ago. Another 1,394 homes and condos went under contract, up from 909 a year ago.

In the first quarter, Fioretti said her company had more showings than it’s had in any other quarter since it began tracking them seven years ago.

Downing-Frye saw a record number of showings in March, Hughes said. “It’s very encouraging,” he said.

Based on the number of showings, local brokers expect a strong second quarter. They’re hopeful the trend will continue through the summer.

“There’s more interest in real estate and how low it can go,” Steinwand said. “I think that’s what we saw this quarter.”

“This year it looks like it’s going to be a strong buyers’ market,” Hughes said.

Buyers are coming from all over the world, including Canada, England, France and Germany.

“It’s stunning the number of buyers that come to us through the Internet,” Hughes said. “We’re not a secret anymore.”

Courtesy of Naples News

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Cliff Williams, bass player for rock group AC/DC, has bought real estate tycoon Al Hoffman’s Gulf Harbour mansion for $5.12 million five years after Hoffman first put it up for sale.

Williams will only have to move a few streets to occupy his 13,000-square-foot house. He and his wife, Georganne, already live in Gulf Harbour Golf & Country Club – a gated luxury community in south Fort Myers – in an 8,407-square-foot house he’s just put up for sale for $1,375,000.

AC/DC is known for hits such as “Back in Black,” “Highway to Hell” and “You Shook Me All Night Long.”

The five years it took to sell Hoffman’s home was one of the longest periods a house in Lee County had been on the market, said Marilyn Kistler of Marilyn Kistler of Prudential Florida WCI Realty in Fort Myers.

“At last!” she said Wednesday with a laugh.

Hoffman, founder of WCI Communities Inc., put the house on the market when he was appointed ambassador to Portugal in 2005.

He gradually dropped his price from $17 million as the real estate market collapsed. Finally, he put the house up for sale at absolute auction – the highest bidder would take it.

He canceled a March 13 auction the night before.

But Kistler said the three-month marketing campaign by Naples-based Daniel DeCaro Real Estate Auctions met its goal – three serious would-be buyers, including Williams, emerged.

The government launched a new effort today to speed up the time-consuming, often-frustrating process of selling your home if you owe more than it’s worth.

The Obama administration will give $3,000 for moving expenses to homeowners who complete such a sale — known as a short sale — or agree to turn over the deed of the property to the lender. It’s designed for homeowners who are in financial trouble but don’t qualify for the administration’s $75 billion mortgage modification program.

Owners will still lose their homes, but a short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure doesn’t hurt a borrower’s credit score for as much time as a foreclosure. For lenders, a home usually fetches more money in a short sale than a foreclosure. And the bank avoids expensive legal bills, cleanup fees and maintenance costs that follow a foreclosure.

“It’s very traumatic and embarrassing and frustrating to go through a foreclosure,” said Laurie Maggiano, policy director of the Treasury Department’s homeownership preservation office. With a short sale, she said, “your financial issues are your own problem and not neighborhood conversation.”

Falling home prices and lost jobs have forced many sellers into this position. For example, in Orange County, Calif., short sales made up about 26 percent of the market in March, compared with 17 percent a year earlier, according to data complied by Altera Real Estate, a local brokerage. In the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, about 12 percent of all deals since October were short sales, up from about 8 percent a year earlier, according to the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors.

The expanded incentives will help accelerate short sales, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. He expects 350,000 homeowners nationwide to use the program through the end of 2012, more than double his earlier forecast.

A short sale appears to be the only way out for Brandee Chambers, 36, of Las Vegas. She got into trouble during the housing boom by taking out a risky loan against her home and using the money to buy two investment properties in Phoenix.

Courtesy of News Press

Selling your house if you owe more than it’s worth just got a lot easier if a plan launched by the Obama administration works out.

The new rules could also help reduce the glut of unsold houses that’s accumulated since the housing market collapsed in late 2005.

That’s what some Southwest Florida real estate professionals were saying Monday as they sorted through the details of the new regulations.

Reforms could speed up a lot of transactions in Lee County, one of the nation’s hardest hit economies in the aftermath of the housing market collapse that happened at the end of 2005. About 20 percent of home sales in the county have been short – 214 out of 1,113 in February, the latest month available.

Successful short sales also prevent foreclosures, since many underwater homeowners go that route if they can’t sell. There are about 23,000 foreclosure lawsuits backlogged in the county’s court system.

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