Melinda & Paul Sullivan have launched their new Sales Reports. Get monthly sales stats, and year to date sales stats for real estate in Southwest Florida. Find out what the average sales price in a particular community is. Or, average days on the market or list price vs closed sales price. Click on the following link to view reports by community, area and waterfront areas.
Nine hundred days after putting their house on the market, Andrew and Jane Palestini were beginning to think they might be stuck in Iowa forever.
The looming expiration of the government’s housing tax credit pushed them into action. They dropped their price by an additional $10,000, to $235,000. Somewhat to their shock, a buyer emerged. The house is now under contract.
Foreclosures filed in Lee County fell in March to 1,198 – down 16 percent from February and lower for the first time in recent memory than the number of public auction sales of foreclosed properties.
“It’s the first time we’ve truly disposed of more out the doors of the courthouse since it (the collapse of the real estate market) started,” said Jeff Tumbarello, director of the Southwest Florida Real Estate Investors Association, which issued a report Thursday on the month’s foreclosures.
There were 1,412 properties sold at public auction during the month, according to the report.
“This should have a decent net effect” at reducing the number of foreclosure lawsuits backlogged in the county courts. About 23,000 cases are working their way through the system.
Even with the slowing pace of foreclosures, however, the county’s real estate market is not headed for a dramatic recovery, said real estate broker Denny Grimes, owner of Fort Myers-based Denny Grimes & Co.
“There is not going to be a lightning bolt from heaven that will end our misery,” he said, although “There have been some encouraging signs.”
For one thing, he said, in a few areas the price of building a new home is close to being competitive with the cost of buying an existing one, probably a foreclosure.
Tumbarello said the number of foreclosures is clearly on the wane, and noted that last year 64.5 percent of home purchases were cash and 71 percent this year so far.
There have been 65,000 foreclosures since the boom ended in January 2006 and there are only 245,000 parcels of land in the county, he said. “At some point we can’t foreclose on the whole county.”
In other real estate news, preliminary statistics released Thursday by the Lee County Department of Community Development showed that permits for 51 single-family homes were pulled in the unincorporated county in March.
That’s up from 34 in February and 20 in March 2009, and it’s the most permits issued since there were 56 pulled in June 2008.
In other municipalities in the county, one permit was pulled in Fort Myers Beach, one in Sanibel and 21 in Bonita Springs. Numbers were not available Thursday for the cities of Fort Myers and Cape Coral.
Courtesy of Naples News
A surprisingly strong rebound in California’s real estate market helped lift a key home price index for the eighth month in a row.
That is good news for people who plan to sell their homes this spring. Prices are now up almost 4 percent from the bottom in May 2009, though still almost 30 percent below the May 2006 peak.
Prices rose 0.3 percent from December to January on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index released Tuesday. Prices increased in 12 cities in the index.
The biggest monthly gain was in Los Angeles, where prices rose 1.8 percent from December. Real estate agents say there is a distinct sense the worst of the downturn is over.
The Cape Coral-Fort Myers area is the second most undervalued residential real estate market in the country, according to a new research report. That means this is a good time for investors looking to buy land, experts say. “Is land undervalued?” asked Fort Myers-based real estate broker Randy Thibaut of Land Solutions. “Yes and no. Land prices for residential development land has bottomed out, it can’t get much lower. But not commercial property.” Douglas Hannah, a partner in Fort Myers-based Silverleaf Capital Group LLC, which puts together deals for investors, said a lack of demand has caused prices to fall sharply since the boom ended late in 2005.
“Because it was overvalued (in the boom), it’s really swung back,” Hannah said. “We just bought some freshwater lots for 10 grand apiece that would have been 150 grand four years ago. They’re down more than 90 percent. Are they worth 10 grand today? Maybe they are, maybe they’re not, but because there’s an oversupply of homes, there’s no market for them here.” There are a lot of local opportunities now, Hannah said. “We’re aggressively bullish on real estate in Southwest Florida right now,” he said. Lee County’s homes, with a median price of $112,800, were selling for 40.5 percent under value in the fourth quarter of 2009, down from being overvalued by 31.5 percent at $236,200 four years earlier, the report by financial consulting company IHS Global Insight states.
Las Vegas, Nev., was No. 1, undervalued by 45.3 percent at $123,000 compared to being overvalued by 35.3 percent at $287,000 four years earlier. But Michael Timmerman, a Naples-based senior associate with Fishkind & Associates, an Orlando-based economic consulting firm, said he doesn’t agree that Lee County’s property values are that much out of whack. The Global Insight survey, released Friday, looks at too short a time frame to be accurate, he said. “From the point of view of overall fundamentals, if you look at 1980 to today, we’re probably about where we should be, maybe a little below that,” Timmerman said. “It’s all in the eye of the beholder.”
He was also skeptical about another, contradictory survey released this week by Money Magazine predicting that Cape Coral-Fort Myers home values will fall 5.6 percent in the coming year. The report predicts the Naples area will fall 10 percent. People generally are better off not making decisions based on how they think home values will change, Timmerman said. “Real estate is for use, your home, your office,” he said. “That’s how real estate should be viewed.”
Courtesy of News Press
Sales of existing single-family homes in Lee County rose from 1,115 in January to 1,261 in February, while the median price fell from $91,000 to $88,000, according to statistics released today by the Florida Association of Realtors.
Sales were up 44 percent in February from the previous year while the median price fell 10 percent, the report states.
For condominiums, sales rose from 390 in January to 432 in Febrary.
The median price for condos rose from $121,400 to $130,900.
Condominium sales saw a 94 percent increase in February from last year, while the median price fell 7 percent.
Nationally, sales of existing homes fell for a third straight month in February, pushing sales down to the lowest level since last July.
For February, the inventory of unsold homes nationally jumped by 312,000 to 3.59 million, an unusually large jump that pushed the supply of unsold homes to 8.6 months.
Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors, called that increase “discomforting” and said if it climbs above 10 months supply it could put significant downward pressure on prices.
He said it will be critical to see a rebound in sales in coming months to keep inventories from surging and adding further downward pressure on prices.
Courtesy of News Press
Residents and guests who gather at The Miromar Lakes Beach Club say the clubhouse is a winning combination of design, amenities and architecture.
Now it’s official: The Beach Club recently was recognized as the nation’s best clubhouse with a Gold Award from the National Association of Home Builders.
There is something for everyone at the three-building, 41,000-square-foot facility, say residents, designers, guests and the community’s developer. The club is located in the Miromar Lakes community just east of Ben Hill Griffin Parkway between Alico and Corkscrew roads.
The complex includes a pool, beach, lake, theater, library, fitness center, spa, tennis courts, several lounges and indoor and outdoor dining areas.
The venue was chosen from among five Silver Award winners nationwide, one of which was the neighboring Miromar Lakes Golf Club clubhouse. Considered semifinalists, the others were Independence of Millsboro, Del., Ovation of St. Petersburg, and Atlas at Hillcrest Social Lounge of San Diego.
The Realtor Association of Greater Fort Myers and the Beach reported that 1,141 single-family homes were sold in February, up 21.9 percent from last year, and 12 percent from the previous month.
The median price of a single-family home was $85,000, compared to $90,000 a year ago.
Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that his office has filed a civil lawsuit against high-end, Bonita Springs-based developer the Bonita Bay Group — alleging that the company took hundreds of thousands of dollars in “membership fees” to country clubs, marinas and other social establishments, but failed to provide the promised refunds.
The lawsuit alleges that despite demands, Bonita Bay Group has not refunded membership deposits to approximately 800 resigned members and may owe over $215 million in un-returned membership deposits, according to a release this afternoon.
The lawsuit states that an integral part of Bonita Bay Group’s marketing strategy is the marketing of club memberships with the written representation that a member’s “deposit,” which ranged from $25,000 to $180,000, would be immediately refunded within 30 days of a member’s resignation.
The psyche of buyers in Naples has changed.
So say local Realtors, who report having one of their busiest winter seasons in years.
A year ago, house hunters in the Naples area had more of a wait-and-see attitude. Now, they’re more determined to buy.
“With the sales going up and with the inventory decreasing at the same time, it’s almost giving buyers a sense of urgency that we’ve not seen them have,” said Steve Barker, administrative broker for Amerivest Realty in Naples. “I think many buyers have arrived at the conclusion that now is a good time to buy.”
