ScottSorensonRealEstate.Com
NAPLES —The housing market remains hot heading into summer.
It’s the result of a “trifecta factor” with overall inventory continuing to decrease, the average days-on-the-market declining and median home prices continuing to increase, the Naples Area Board of Realtors announced Friday.
“For the last few years, we have continued to see strong home sales in the summer,” said Mike Hughes, vice president and general manager of Downing-Frye Realty in a statement. “The notion of strong sales occurring only during traditional ‘season’ is no longer, and we are very bullish on the real estate market heading into summer due to the environment of low inventory, the tightening up of days on the market and the increase in median prices. If people have been waiting to list, now may be the time.”
The overall median price increased 18 percent from $186,000 in April 2012 to $219,000 for the 12-month period ending April 2013, according to a prepared statement NABOR released Friday.
The median is the price at which half the homes sell for more and half for less. The monthly report tracks Realtor sales through the Sunshine Multiple Listing Service (MLS) in Collier County, excluding Marco Island.
Overall pending sales increased 5 percent from 10,166 units to 10,678 units for the 12-month period ending April 2013, NABOR’s statement said.
Overall, the total number of closed sales in all price categories increased in April compared to a year ago.
Meanwhile, pending sales rose in all price categories in April compared to a year before except in the under $300,000 category. During that time period, pending sales rose 27 percent in the $300,000 to $500,000 category from 1,405 units to 1,781 units; 13 percent in the $500,000 to $1 million category, from 1,070 units to 1,214 units, and 21 percent in the $1 million to $2 million category, from 450 units to 545 units.
The Realtors’ report said the average number of days on the market decreased 14 percent overall, from 183 days in April 2012 to 158 last month.
The condominium market increased in all price categories. In the $1 million to $2 million category, sales increased 40 percent from 169 to 237 for the 12-month period ending in April. In addition, condominium closed sales increased 13 percent from 165 to 187 for the 12-month period ending in April, the report said. “These are encouraging statistics indeed,” said Phil Wood, president and CEO of John R. Wood Realtors.
Statewide, single-family home sales were up 17.4 percent from a year ago, Florida Realtors reported this week.
The statewide sales mark was trumped in some markets. Single-family home sales jumped 32 percent in Jacksonville in April compared with April 2012, 24.5 percent in the Tampa-St. Petersburg region and 46 percent in Tallahassee.
Sales increases weren’t as high in the southern half of the state, where median sales prices are higher than the $165,000 statewide level.
In the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market, with a median price of home sales at $250,000, the market recorded a 13 percent increase in single-family home sales, according to the Florida Realtors’ report.
Statewide, there were 20,662 single-family home sales in April. Florida’s median single-family sales price continues below the national mark of $185,100.
Florida Realtors chief economist John Tuccillo credited the sales increases to a stabilization of the distressed property market with the number of short sales dropping, while foreclosures and real estate-owned property sales remained steady.
“Because the government is selling foreclosed properties in bulk and also using online auctions, our sales numbers actually understate the vigor of the market,” Tuccillo said in the Florida Realtors’ statement.
__ The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.
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