Sarasota Single Family Home Sales Up for Third Year in a Row
The inventory of unsold homes across Sarasota County at the end of November 2010 totaled 3,993 homes, down slightly from the 4,026 level last month. The level at the same time in 2009 was 3,902 homes. This makes 17 consecutive months where inventory levels have been +/- 100 from 4000 homes –roughly the same levels at 2005. Inventory appears to have leveled off. This adds credibility to the leveling off of prices shown in the Case-Shiller chart posted last month.
Bank-owned (foreclosed) inventory levels were 230 at the end of this November, up from 204 in October and 143 the previous November. The unsold inventory of homes being sold as short sales was 841 at month end down from 912 last month and 942 in November 2009. The total of all distressed inventory of single family homes is roughly one-fourth of all inventory.
Sales of single family homes in November 2010 totaled 381 homes, down from 405 in October and 437 in November 2009. For the 11 month period ended November 30, 2009, sales were 5,434 homes up 7% from the 5,075 homes during the same period last year. This will be the third consecutive year of increased sales volume since the first year of the crash in 2006.
Sales of bank-owned single family homes were 110 this year compared to 123 in October and 77 in November 2009. This year bank owned inventory pulled in over 28% of the total sales while accounting for just 6% of the inventory available. The sales this month amounted to an amazing 54% of the unsold inventory at the start of the month. This shows the huge appetite the market still has for bank-owned inventory.
In fact, of the 110 bank-owned sales this month, 50 sold for the full, current asking price or higher – NEARLY HALF of bank owned sales were at or above full price. PEOPLE WILL PAY AT OR ABOVE FULL PRICE IF THEY FEEL THERE IS VALUE. The corollary is (for the owners of the 3993 homes still in inventory at month’s end), PEOPLE WON’T BUY HOMES THAT ARE OVER PRICED. Another benefit to a good price is the short time to contract. MEDIAN DAYS TO CONTRACT OF HOMES THAT SOLD AT OR ABOVE FULL PRICE WAS 35 – LESS THAN HALF THE TIME REQUIRED FOR THE THOSE HOMES THAT SOLD FOR UNDER FULL PRICE. (to learn about the real and full costs of overpricing your home, download my free report “How
This is also a heads up to home buyers, especially those looking at bank owned homes. Don’t expect every seller to accept some huge discount from their asking price (in total, 99 homes sold at or above full price, so it’s not only bank owned properties fetching full price or more). If the home looks to be priced like a deal and has been on the market a short time, don’t expect it to lay around for months while you wait for further price reductions.