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Lee County sets home sales record in 2009
Posted by I was recently interviewed by the News-Press regarding our 2009 real estate market performance for Lee County, Florida. Here is the article as it appeared. More will be shared at our annual MarketWatch Real Estate event.
Sales of existing homes in Lee County ended the decade with a bang — a record 16,260 were sold with the assistance of a Realtor in 2009, according to statistics released Monday by the Florida Association of Realtors.
That shattered the old record of 12,123 set in 2005 at the top of the residential real estate boom that collapsed the following year.
…continue reading this article Lee County sets home sales record in 2009
Getting a Great Deal or a Great Tan Requires the Right Plan
This time of year we have winter guests that want to check out our beaches and our real estate market, but end up frustrated because they end up doing too much of one and not the other.
Real estate expert Denny Grimes talks about having the right plan to find the best deal while making the best use of your time.
To see the full interview click here
Real Estate Contributor Denny Grimes Gives Market A’s & B’s
By WINK News
What buyers/sellers should know about chinese drywall
Point 1: Realize that there is more to be learned about CDW then what’s already known
18 months ago people wouldn’t have been able to describe the difference between Chinese drywall and Chinese checkers
So, there are still many unanswered questions about the best way to identify and correct it, potential health risks, and how it will effect the value of the property or even the surrounding neighborhood.
Point 2: Pay attention to the year the property was built
Most experts suggest that if a property was built or remodeled from 2004 to 2006 that there MAY be a potential for CDW
In Lee County 25% of the available inventory was built in that time frame, so there is a 25% chance CDW could exist
Point 3: If the property was built in that time range, have the property inspected for sooner verses later. That means buyers of short sales, have a Chinese drywall inspection as soon as the seller signs your offer.
Don’t wait for the lender’s approval because that may take months
Sellers, have your home inspected before you put it on the market
In fact, all owners of property built in that time frame should have an inspection because not only is there property tax relief but I believe there will be government intervention into the correction of it.
Watch whole story: http://www.winknews.com/features/62314162.html By WINK News
Real estate matters: Short sale doesn’t mean quick sale!
Rule 1: Be realistic but aggressive with the asking price
There is nothing short about the short sale process, but sellers MUST remember that time is not on their side.
Because most sellers of short sale properties are not making mortgage payments and many are facing foreclosure. Lenders are taking months to respond to an offer on a property, so the sooner the seller receives as offer, the better.
Therefore, it should be every seller’s goal to have a contract within the first 90 days.
Watch the full video interview of with Denny Grimes here
By WINK News
Story Created: Sep 7, 2009 at 3:05 AM EDT
(Story Updated: Sep 7, 2009 at 3:05 AM EDT )
Lee County’s home prices inch up, but sales may level off
Pending transactions in August are lower
BY DON MANLEY
dmanley@news-press.com
Single-family home prices are climbing in Lee County and sales continued at a torrid pace in July, although there was a slight dip from June’s record-setting pace.
Meanwhile, sales across the nation and state are up, but with a drop in the median sales price.
A total of 1,570 single-family homes were sold with the assistance of a Realtor in Lee County in July, according to statistics released today by the Florida Association of Realtors. That’s down from a record-setting 1,705 sales in June, but the July total was staggering compared with the same month in 2008 - a 104 percent increase.
The median sales price for July in Lee County was $89,000, an increase over June’s median sales price of $87,900. For most of the past 31Ú2 years, the sales price has been dropping sharply.
Statewide, there were 115,882 Realtor-assisted sales in July, up 37 percent from July 2008. The median sales price was $147,600, down 24 percent from the July 2008 median price of $193,800.
In a separate report released Friday, the National Association of Realtors announced that sales of previously occupied homes rose for the fourth consecutive month, posting an increase of 7.2 percent - the largest increase in at least 10 years.
Experts say the flood of foreclosed homes that has hit the market is still glutting inventories and depressing prices. But some local experts say the red-hot market is about to cool, at least temporarily.
Fort Myers-based real estate broker Denny Grimes of Denny Grimes & Co. predicts sales numbers for August will show a decline because the pending sales for July (815) are down by 50 percent from June. Not all pending sales close, but pendings feed the number of closed sales.
Grimes cited three possible reasons for a drop in sales: July, August and September are traditionally slow sales months; an “interruption of supply line,” meaning fewer foreclosures hitting the market; or demand has declined, which Grimes said he doubts.
“We’ve had a fantastic year and we’ve had a great month, year over year, but before we go out and buy a bottle of Dom Perignon, July pending sales are down,” Grimes said. “The prudent person is going to keep the champagne on ice, and over a cup of coffee, try to figure out why are sales slowing.”
He also predicted a drop in the median home sales price for August because the median price for July pending sales was $79,000.
Banks have been releasing fewer foreclosed homes onto the market of late, perhaps hoping for prices to escalate, said Keith Campbell, a managing partner for Silverleaf Capital Group in Fort Myers. The company sometimes represents large investors who buy available homes in bulk.
Campbell theorized banks are being selective to avoid further depressing prices.
“I think the banks have been been besieged with so many properties that now, they’re ramped up to handle them with asset managers,” Campbell said.
He said investors will continue to be a force in Southwest Florida.
“There’s a lot of money trying to come in from outside the area because of all the press we’ve received,” Campbell said.
That helped feed the uptick in prices. Demand is outpacing supply, said Steve Koffman, a real estate broker with Century 21 Sunbelt in Cape Coral.
“We’re clearly seeing inventory levels drop and that’s because of extraordinarily low prices,” Koffman said.
“The mindset of the buyers today is very much what it was in ‘04 and ‘05, with people wanting to buy before prices get too high. The one major difference is we’re selling houses below replacement cost, and back in ‘04 and ‘05, we were not.”
Denny Grimes, President
Denny Grimes & Company, Inc. - Statistics supplied by http://www.homey.com
Summer means heat in Lee County real estate market.
Posted by It was 94 today and my pool was 92. Hard to cool off even getting wet. The real estate market in Lee County is experiencing the same heat. Sales are registering a blistering pace with 1742 pending resale homes in Lee County.
Inventory fell to 10,300 single family resale homes. That’s one percent less than last month. Pending sales were almost 2% meaning there is new inventory still out pacing sales.
Of the sales, over 61% were under $100,000. With out these, sales would be 1072 less. This is the market that is on fire and where buyers are seeing values they can’t pass up. Homes above this price are still facing an uphill battle with some upper price ranges facing 100 months of inventory.
Still seeing this level of demand speaks well for the interest of people to be near our waters and living in the hot sunshine of SW Florida. The heat that’s here even when the artic wind blows in the north. Remember to put the sunscreen on when your on the beach New Year’s eve.
Michael Polly
http://www.homey.com
http://www.michaelpollycom
HOMEY.com
To try it out for yourself visit http://www.homey.com
Will Fort Myers recover from the housing crisis?
By WINK News
See the video:
http://www.winknews.com/news/local/45957832.html
Single-family home resales jump in Fort Myers in April
Buyers continue to snatch up homes at bargain prices in the Fort Myers area.
Single-family home resales rose more than 105 percent in April. There were 1,406 sales, up from 648 in the same month a year ago, according to the Realtor Association of Greater Fort Myers and the Beach Inc.
Pending sales — sales that have yet to close — increased more than 60 percent year-over-year. There were 2,368 of them in April, compared to 1,478 a year ago.
“Our market is at warp speed,†said Denny Grimes, president of Denny Grimes & Co., a local real estate firm based in Fort Myers.
For the past seven months, single-family resales have averaged more than 1,300 a month. During the real estate boom in 2004 and 2005, the best month saw 1,200 sales, Grimes said.
At the end of April, sales this year had exceeded last year’s total sales, according to the Realtor Association.
The inventory of homes continues to shrink. There were 8,665 single-family resales listed at the end of April, down nearly 30 percent from 12,324 a year ago, according to the Realtor association.
Though demand from buyers is up, the median price _ the price at which half the homes sell for more and half for less _ continues to drop because there are so many foreclosures on the market. The median was $80,000 in April.
Bank-owned homes represented 65.9 percent of all single-family homes sold in Lee County last month, according to the Realtor Association. But some of these foreclosures are selling for more than their list price because they’re bringing multiple offers.
Over the weekend, Grimes said there were 30 offers on a bank-owned duplex in Lehigh Acres listed $50,000. It sold for $70,000.
He said 90 percent of the sales for less than $100,000 can be described as “distressed.â€
“It has been fairly frantic and fairly busy, which you don’t think of when you look at the general marketplace,†said Bob Groves, managing broker for Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate in Fort Myers. “It’s all about these distressed property sales.â€
Besides the foreclosures, there are more short sales _ sales made for less than the bank is owned on a mortgage to avoid foreclosure.
“We are finding an awful lot of people coming in and buying their second homes,†Groves said. “We are seeing the more traditional end users coming in. They are not buying it on speculation or to turn it over. They are buying it to use it.â€
Daily his company is getting calls from Northern residents who are ready to make the move to a sunnier place.
For the past 21/2 months, his office has averaged about 1,000 showings a week on its listings.
More buyers are qualifying for FHA and VA loans, which offer closing cost assistance, according to the Realtor association.
“As listings shrink and sales prices move above the listing price, this indicates that our market is starting its recovery,†said Suzanne Sherer, the Realtor association’s president, in a statement. “This should be very welcome news to sellers out there. Priced right homes are selling quickly.â€
In the under $100,000 market there’s now less than a four-month supply of homes on the market, Grimes said.
The Realtor Association estimates the supply of single-family homes at all prices has shrunk to 3.7 months, half of what it was a year ago. Grimes thinks that’s too low.
With so much competition out there, Grimes recommends buyers get preapproved for loans, which will make it easier for them to go up against other offers.
“A lot of eyebrows are focused on this market now,†Grimes said.
