Naples housing market – onwards and upwards
The March 2021 Market Report, released by the Naples Area Board of REALTORS® (NABOR®), which tracks home listings and sales within Collier County (excluding Marco Island), shows that March was the highest performing month in the 13 years NABOR has tracked these metrics.
Sellers are raising prices and multiple offers are still coming in,” said Budge Huskey, CEO, Premier Sotheby’s International Realty. “This is because inventory is limited, and more sellers are realizing now is a good time to place their home on the market and get top value in the current market conditions!”
Broker analysts predict the level of demand experienced in March is sustainable and should be expected to continue for the next few months, or longer. “Season was disrupted this year because many people elected to hold off relocating until they were fully vaccinated,” added Huskey. “Agents also report that many seasonal visitors are staying longer than in previous years, possibly because they can afford to wait in anticipation of more homes becoming available in the luxury market. I believe we’ll continue to see more newcomers from northern states looking for homes in the high end in the coming months. Beyond that, and as we enter the summer season, we might begin to see a second wave of international buyers entering our market as travel restrictions begin to relax.”
Median closed prices in March increased 12.2 percent to $415,000 (the highest median price increase month/month on record since 2008) from $370,000 in March 2020. In March 2021, there were just 1,819 homes in inventory (the lowest it has been since 2014), which was a 73.2 percent decrease from 6,795 homes in inventory in March 2020.
The March report revealed that the Naples area now has only a 1.6 month supply of homes available to buyers
The following charts give a visual summary of market activity: (more…)
The US is 3.8 Million Homes Short
The U.S. housing market needs nearly 4 million single-family homes to meet the nation’s demand, according to a new analysis from Freddie Mac. The 3.8 million shortfall marks a 52% increase in the housing shortage since 2018.
“This is what you get when you underbuild for 10 years,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “We should have almost four million more housing units if we had kept up with demand the last few years.”
Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of REALTORS®, has been among real estate economists leading the calls over the last few years for greater inventory and more homebuilding to meet demand. “We need to build more homes,” Yun told NPR, adding that since the housing crisis more than a decade ago, homebuilders have been building too few homes.
The housing shortage mixed with strong buyer demand since the pandemic is prompting home prices to rise rapidly. The median existing-home price for all housing types in February was $313,000, up 15.8% compared to a year earlier, according to the National Association of REALTORS®.
By the Numbers: COVID-19 Vaccinations in Florida
As of April 19, more than 8.14 million people in Florida had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccines. Of those, more than half (4.82M) are ages 55 to 84.
Here is a breakdown by age groups:
*Ages 16 to 24: 395,449 people
*Ages 25 to 34: 612, 238 people
*Ages 35 to 44: 811,815 people
*Ages 45 to 54: 1,098,485 people
*Ages 55 to 64: 1,622,525 people
*Ages 65 to 74: 2,031,098 people
*Ages 75 to 84: 1,169,703 people
*Age 85 or older: 402,286 people
Source: Florida Department of Health (more…)
‘When is the housing market going to crash?’
The housing market has been white hot for the past year, thanks to the stay at home and work from anywhere culture of the coronavirus pandemic.
But there is increasing concern among consumers that housing is experiencing a price bubble – and that the bubble may be ready to burst.
Google reported last week that the search question “When is the housing market going to crash?” had spiked 2,450% in the past month. “Why is the market so hot?” searches had doubled in just a week. (more…)
No slowdown in buyer demand for Bonita and Estero market
According to the Bonita Springs-Estero REALTORS® (BER), buyer interest in February 2021 was robust, leading to multiple offer situations and a very active start to the spring selling season in Bonita Springs and Estero. Along with robust sales, inventory shortages are also a continuation into springtime as well. Most notable was the 76.7 percent drop in available inventory as compared to the same time in 2020. While there are inventory challenges, this should not deter buyers and sellers from entering the market.
Demand for Pools, Hot Tubs Surging Due to COVID-19
New in-ground residential pools saw a 21% uptick in 2020 compared to 2019. States like Arizona, Texas, and Florida saw permits rise by up to 30%, Janay Rickwalder, a spokesperson for the Pool & Hot Tub Alliance, an industry research group, told The Escape Home.
“This is historic growth for the industry—the next closest period was in 1983 with 16% growth over a much smaller base,” Rickwalder says. (more…)
Naples market on fire in February
The February 2021 Market Report, released by the Naples Area Board of REALTORS® (NABOR®), which tracks home listings and sales within Collier County (excluding Marco Island), marks the last month of comparative activity before the pandemic shuttered the global economy in March 2020. That said, overall closed sales of existing homes in Naples for February increased 62 percent to 1,307 closed sales from 807 closed sales in February 2020.
Buyers are scooping up the available inventory of homes in all geographic locations within Naples almost as fast as they come onto the market. Inventory fell 68.8 percent in February to 2,224 homes from 7,127 homes in February 2020. (more…)
Naples market continues strongly upwards in February
Here are the highlights from the Report for the Naples Area for the month of February, showing the same story of a continued increase in sales and median prices, and a continued decrease in inventory.
I will write in more detail when the full report is published on March 24.
Read:
“Party on, dude” says the Federal Reserve
Buyers are overpaying, but are there signs of a bubble (more…)
“Party on, dude” says the Federal Reserve
Former Federal Reserve Chair William McChesney Martin, Jr famously said: “The Federal Reserve…is in the position of the chaperone who has ordered the punch bowl removed just when the party was really warming up.”
This week, current Fed Chair Jerome Powell in effect said “party on, dude.” As the New York Times commented: “The official view of the central bank’s leaders now is that it has been an overly stingy host, taking away the punch bowl so quickly that parties were dreary, disappointing affairs.
The job now is to persuade the world that it really will leave the punch bowl out long enough, and spiked adequately — that it will be a party worth attending. They insist punch bowl removal will be based on actual realized inebriation of the guests, not on forecasts of potential future problematic levels of drunkenness.”
Chairman Powell’s comments
“We will continue to provide the economy the support that it needs for as long as it takes.” (more…)
Buyers are overpaying, but are there signs of a bubble?
As prices continue to soar, Housing Wire asks the question: Are there signs of a bubble?
“The national average of home prices rose 14.4% year-over-year to $336,200 in February – the largest increase since July 2013, according to the latest report from Redfin. As proof of the impact of the country’s low inventory and high cost of building materials, new listings fell 16% – the second-largest decline on record since Redfin’s data began in 2012, only passed by the drop in April 2020. (more…)
How do prices in Southwest Florida compare with 2007/08?
While the market in Southwest Florida is hot and prices are rising sharply, it is interesting to see how prices compare with the peak from 2006/2008.
Naples
The median Single Family Home price in Naples has only just passed the earlier peak.
Are you thinking of moving to Southwest Florida?
With a nor-‘easter coming this week, is it time to think about moving to the Gulf Coast of Southwest Florida? (more…)
It’s 80 degrees in Florida…
In this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan wrote:
“In the past year the owners of great businesses found how much can be done remotely.
They hadn’t known that!
They hadn’t had to find out.
They don’t have to pay that killer rent for office space anymore.
People think it will all snap back when the pandemic is fully over but no, a human habit broke; a new way of operating has begun. People will come back to office life to some degree, maybe a significant one; not everything can be done remotely; people want to gather, make friends, instill a sense of mission; but it will never be what it was.
The Partnership for New York City reports 300,000 residents of high-income neighborhoods have filed change-of-address forms with the U.S. Postal Service. You know where they are going: to lower-tax and no-income-tax states.
A recent report suggested that 850 people per day will move to Florida for the next 5 years as they seek “the weather, lifestyle and tax benefits” offered by Florida. (more…)
Old Airliner Transformed into a Spectacular Home
With the chronic shortage of housing inventory, perhaps more people will follow the example of Oregon man Bruce Campbell, who purchased a retired plane for $100,000. He had a vision. He had the imagination and the skill to set about turning the passenger jet into a home. And the result of this flight of fancy is a piece of real estate that really is something else.
