Ocala Real Estate Talk

Posts Tagged ‘Ocala real estate market report’

June was another good month for home sales in Marion County. There were 372 residential home sales in the Ocala area which is about what we have been seeing since March. Also, as we have been seeing for well over a year now, short sales and foreclosures represented 208 out of the total of 372 homes sold.

Here’s my advise to buyers. Interest rates, much to my surprise, have gone down even further. Rates are at a 50 year low with no where to go but up. There is a great selection of bargain priced homes. Buy now .

My advise to sellers is to price your house right. Testing the market is a waste of time, no one will look at your house. Speaking of a lack of showings, buyers are looking at your house every day, just not in person. Buyers look at homes online and then decide to view the best priced homes in person. Finally even if you do get an offer on your house it still has to pass a bank appraisal. Banks are using short sales and foreclosures as comparables for traditional sales. Well priced traditional sales are selling as evidenced by the 164 sales this month.

If you are interested in buying a home in the Ocala area call me, email me or use my Dream Home Finder in the right hand column of this blog.

Statistics used for this blog post are from the Ocala Marion County MLS and are deemed to be accurate at the time this blog was written but are not guaranteed. All information is time sensitive and subject to change without notice. Home sales are for Marion County only and do not include FSBO, homes sold by builders not listed on the MLS, commercial properties or vacant land.

Once again we had a pretty good month here in the Ocala area with 369 sales for the month of May. That’s a huge improvement over May 2009 when we had only 253 sales.

Inventory is still high at about 14 months. The Ocala Marion County MLS  has had over 5,000 homes for about a year now. Inventory is actually down from June 2007 when there were 7,167 homes for sale on our MLS. We will have a buyers market until inventory drops well below 6 months or around 2,500 home listings. By the way, a buyers market is more common than a sellers market historically.

There were 146 foreclosures and 41 short sales in May. It is these distress sales that keep prices down. Traditional sales have had to drop their prices in order to compete.

If you’re a buyer, interest rates are at historical lows and prices can’t drop much more. If there is a bottom, this is it.

If you are a seller you can either sell at market value or stay put for the next 3 to 5 years because prices aren’t going up any time soon.

Statistics used for this blog post are from the Ocala Marion County MLS and are deemed to be accurate at the time this blog was written but are not guaranteed. All information is time sensitive and subject to change without notice. Home sales are for Marion County only and do not include FSBO, homes sold by builders not listed on the MLS, commercial properties or vacant land.

Ocala home sales in April, with 382 sales were pretty similar to March.That comes out to about 19 sales every business day. Although 45% of sales were foreclosures the other 55% were traditional sales by motivated sellers.

A recent Ocala Star Banner article noted that median home prices plunge in the Ocala area. Comparing the 1st quarter of 2010 to the 1st quarter of 09, the Ocala area median home price fell 14.5%. This was the 2nd largest drop in the country exceeded by only Orlando.

Now I think in some ways these statistics are a little deceiving because they show what is selling and not what you get for your money. The median home prices in Ocala are being brought down by a lot of sub $50,000- home sales. A lot of these houses are selling to investors mostly for cash. More importantly these sub $50K sales need work and often a lot of work. They also suffer from functional obsolescence, a real estate term that means out dated in a way that’s either impossible or very expensive to correct. These are often 2 bedroom homes, small square footage, maybe only 1 full bath and not CBS construction. Also included in the sub $50K category are older mobile homes. In total there were 63 sub $50K sales in April or about 16%.

This is not to say that there aren’t great deals here in the Ocala area. In fact I think we have the best homes prices in Florida. It’s just my job to add perspective.

Statistics used for this blog post are from the Ocala Marion County MLS and are deemed to be accurate at the time this blog was written but are not guaranteed. All information is time sensitive and subject to change without notice. Home sales are for Marion County only and do not include FSBO, homes sold by builders not listed on the MLS, commercial properties or vacant land.

Sales in March were way up over the 2 previous months so far this year. January had 227 residential sales and February had 283. Of course both those months were influenced by the holidays when you consider that it takes 30 to 60 days to close.

Short Sales and Foreclosures combined represented 46% of sales. This is a percentage that was pretty constant through most of 2009. As long as these distress sales are such a huge part of our market we will not see home prices rising. This is bad for sellers and great for buyers.

The Fed just recently stopped buying mortgage backed securities from Fannie and Freddie. A lot of people including myself were concerned that mortgage rates would shoot up because the FED was artificially keeping rates low. So far rates have edged up slightly and are up just a little over this time last year.  This is good news for both buyers and sellers but rates need to be watched carefully.

If you are a seller waiting for the market to come back forget it. Prices in 2005-2008 should never have been that high in the first place. The Ocala area never had an economy to support those high home prices and won’t for the foreseeable future.

If you are a buyer interest rates are at historical lows and the type of buyers market that we have currently will only happen once in a life time. If you are a serious buyer you need an agent. Call me or fill out my Ocala Dream Home Finder today.

Statistics used for this blog post are from the Ocala Marion County MLS and are deemed to be accurate at the time this blog was written but are not guaranteed. All information is time sensitive and subject to change without notice. Home sales are for Marion County only and do not include FSBO, homes sold by builders not listed on the MLS, commercial properties or vacant land.

There were 283 sales of residential homes in Marion County during February. That’s pretty good considering some contracts were probably written over the holidays. What’s selling is still pretty cheap. A whopping 64% of sales were below $100,000-.

Foreclosures and Short Sales combined for a total of 137 sales and 48% of all sales in the month. Just 2 huge sub divisions, Marion Oaks and Silver Springs Shores, accounted for 60 of the 137 short sales and foreclosures. Both of these communities were areas of intense speculative building during 2004-2008. New homes built by investors and house flippers were never sold and have been taken by the banks.

It’s a great time to buy. Interest rates are around 5% for people with good credit. The First Time Buyers Tax Credit and Existing Home Owner Tax Credit are still available but you need to get your house under contract by April 30th. Houses in The Shores and Marion Oaks that are just a few years old are selling for under $100,000-. What are you waiting for?

Email me or use my Dream Home Finder to get a list of homes for sale in areas that interest you.

Statistics used for this blog post are from the Ocala Marion County MLS and are deemed to be accurate at the time this blog was written but are not guaranteed. All information is time sensitive and subject to change without notice. Home sales are for Marion County only and do not include FSBO, homes sold by builders not listed on the MLS, commercial properties or vacant land.

Here are some interesting statistics from 2009.

In 2009 compared to 2008 the average sale price in Marion County declined 22% and the median price fell 25%.

Homes in gated communities did better. The average decline from 2008 to 2009 was 16% and the median priced was down by only 7%.

The median home price was at it’s highest in Marion County during 2006 at $165,000-. By 2009 the median home price was down to $95,000-.

You will notice a big difference in the decline between the county in general and the gated communities. That’s because there are a huge number of foreclosures and short sales dragging down the county average. Just 2 subdivisions, Silver Springs Shores and Marion Oaks account for just 6% of the population of Marion County but had 23% of all sales in 2009. The vast majority of which were foreclosures and to a much lesser extent short sales.

If you’d like more info on buying or selling a home in the Ocala Marion County area give me a call or send me an email. It’s only the middle of February and I already have 3 sales. I can help you too.

Some of the above statistics come from Ocala Appraisals.

Statistics used for this blog post are from the Ocala Marion County MLS and are deemed to be accurate at the time this blog was written but are not guaranteed. All information is time sensitive and subject to change without notice. Home sales are for Marion County only and do not include FSBO, homes sold by builders not listed on the MLS, commercial properties or vacant land.

Sales in December were 374 homes here in Marion County. If you remember my November report I thought sales were oddly low that month with only 266 sales. Apparently it was just a statistical fluctuation. Probably just a result of the time that offers were accepted or the time required to close the transactions.

Just as in previous months, the vast majority of sales are below $200,000- and over half are below $100,000.00. Once again foreclosures and to a lesser extent short sales account for over 50% of all sales.

The total number of listings seem to be pretty constant at around 5,500. As I’ve said many times, our market won’t recover until the number of active listings goes down. If you take 5534 active listings and divide it by the sales in December you get 14.8 months of inventory.

In general 2009 was a huge improvement over the past 2 years.  Prices are down but volume is way up. There were 3224 sales of residential homes in Marion County in 2009 as compared to 2008 with 2453 and 2007 at 3169.

Statistics used for this blog post are from the Ocala Marion County MLS and are deemed to be accurate at the time this blog was written but are not guaranteed. All information is time sensitive and subject to change without notice. Home sales are for Marion County only and do not include FSBO, homes sold by builders not listed on the MLS, commercial properties or vacant land.

Much to my surprise sales in November at 266 homes were down from previous months. Sales in Marion County in October were 344, September 302 and August 293. I am really surprised by this and I doubt it is any sort of trend. There are 588 houses listed as Pending but of course not all of them will close. It’s important to realize sales are the result of contracts that take 30 to 45 days to close and often more in the case of foreclosures and short sales.

Once again foreclosures at 95 sales and short sales at 25 sales are an important part of our market. It should be no surprise that about half of all foreclosures are concentrated in just a few subdivisions such as The Shores, Marion Oaks, Rolling Hills, Rainbow Park, The Ocala Waterway and Ocala Park. The rest are scattered around in various areas and price ranges.

Buyers if you are trying to figure out if the market is near the bottom consider the following. Interest rates are at historical lows and may even dip below 5%. There is a federal tax credit but you have to get your house under contract by the end of April. Finally, a lot of buyers are interested in the newer foreclosures in Marion County. There is a finite number of newer foreclosed homes and some day the supply will run out. For example there were a lot more large, almost never lived in, foreclosed homes in Rolling Hills 12 months ago than there are today.

Statistics used for this blog post are from the Ocala Marion County MLS and are deemed to be accurate but are not guaranteed at the time this blog was written and are subject to change

Ocala Real Estate Market Report for September 2009

Sales in September were 273 homes, August was 283 homes, July came in at 269 homes and June was the best month so far this year at 319. Total listings remain around 5,500 homes. Homes are selling every day here in Marion County.

Sales are still being driven by bargain hunters. There were 27 short sales and 92 foreclosure sales in September. That accounts for 45% of all sold homes. Worse yet are the number of short sales that expire or get withdrawn because these are the foreclosures of 6 months from now.

My advice to sellers is to price your house very aggressively. In addition to a great price the only thing that might give you an advantage over bank sales is condition. By that I mean an immaculate move in ready house. A house with maintenance issues isn’t much better than a foreclosure.

Buyers, now is the time to buy. Prices are low and there is a great selection out there. Interest rates are at historical lows and given our countries debt have no where to go but up.

Statistics used for this blog post are from the Ocala Marion County MLS and are deemed to be accurate at the time this blog was written but are not guaranteed. All information is time sensitive and subject to change without notice.