Posted by Scott Norris on Sat, Jun 05, 2010 @ 06:43 AM
Here's some news from ground regarding the state of the Manatee and Sarasota real estate market. This week, in 2 separate and unrelated transactions, I had buyers involved in multiple offer situations. In other words, my buyers were actually competing for a property with another buyer. This happened not once but twice during this past week.
The fact that I wrote two offers in a week is rare enough. That both had to raise their offers to stay in the game is amazing. I've mentioned this in most of my last few market update posts, but I'll say it again - I don't care what you hear about the next wave of foreclosures, shadow inventory not yet on the market, or even high unemployment. As long as inventory available for sale on any given day is actually less than the previous day, things are getting better.
It may be true that a large number of foreclosed homes will come on the market later the year. But if we continue to digest foreclosed inventory at the same pace as last year, I don't think the lenders could foreclose fast enough to swamp the market.
Consider this chart. The data comes from the My Florida Regional MLS for all of Sarasota County (all property types) for the periods indicated
| | Bank Owned Property
| Non-Distressed Property
|
Unit Sales Jan-May 2010
| 304 | 2604
|
| Unit Inventory EOM May | 298 | 5375
|
Absorption Rate
| 56 Days
| 314 Days
|
Median Days to Contract
| 18
| 80
|
Median Days to Close
| 57
| 120
|
At the current rate of sales, it would only take 56 days to eliminate all bank-owned inventory from the market.