February had 356 sales which is an excellent number. This shouldn’t be a surprise though because the winter here in Florida is snowbird season and sales are always good. The total number of active listings is down a little from previous months. I don’t expect the number of active listings to drop as fast as they did this time last year. I do think active listings will continue to go down as the market improves. If we drop about 1000 listings, down to around 2500, prices will beginning to rise.  I think prices rising is a year off, at least.

You’ll notice that I’m back to my old format for my market reports due to popular demand. If you read other statistics, like the local paper, you will see a different total number of sales. That’s because I count mobile homes with real property as sales. That is a mobile home where the seller owns the land. Mobile homes in parks that rent a lot are not considered real estate.

I mostly work with buyers. When I show them homes an often asked question is how long has this house been on the market. Some seem surprised when a house has been for sales for several months. The average number of days on the market for the past 12 months is 155 days. I don’t think much of days on the market. A great house can be over priced and sit on the market for a couple of years and never sell but if the seller drops the price down to an aggressive number then the house will sell in a couple of months. A big price drop to the correct market value will also expose the listing to a whole new set of buyers.