Click the image to see full size chart in printable format.

RISMEDIA, August 26, 2010—Sales of existing condominiums in Florida rose 11% in July 2010, with a total of 5,557 condos sold statewide compared to 4,991 units sold in July 2009, according to the latest housing data released by Florida Realtors.

Eleven of Florida’s metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) reported higher existing condo sales in July, according to Florida Realtors. The statewide existing condo median sales price last month was $87,200; in July 2009 it was $108,500 for a 20% decrease. The national median existing condo price was $181,300 in June, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Meanwhile, in the year-to-year comparison for existing home sales, a total of 13,589 single-family existing homes sold statewide last month compared to 15,762 homes sold in July 2009 for a decrease of 14%. Florida’s median existing-home sales price in July was $138,000; a year earlier, it was $147,600 for a decrease of 7%. The median is the midpoint; half the homes sold for more, half for less.

“The home buyer tax credit expiration added a double dip to what has already been a harrowing ride in the Florida housing market,” said Dr. Sean Snaith, director for the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Competitiveness. “As we move past this second dip, which is evident in the July data, the continued recovery of the state’s housing market will be contingent upon the improvement of the fundamental underpinnings of the housing sector.

“A healthy housing market depends upon a healthy Florida economy, and in particular, an improving labor market,” Snaith added. “Job growth and a declining unemployment rate will help sales continue to grow while at the same time reducing the number of foreclosures in Florida.”

2010 Florida Realtors President Wendell Davis, a broker with Watson Realty Corp. in Jacksonville, noted that the Gulf oil spill, along with uncertainty over its impact, has affected the state’s housing market.

“Along with many local businesses in the Florida Panhandle and in other Gulf Coast states, real estate has experienced significant economic harm following the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion and oil spill,” Davis said. “The announcement that a special allocation from the BP Oil Spill Fund is now available to help the claims of real estate professionals’ – Realtors and licensees – over loss of income or sales due to the Gulf oil spill is a positive action that will help bolster the state’s fragile economy recovery.”

The national median sales price for existing single-family homes in June 2010 was $184,200, up 1.3% from a year earlier, according to NAR. In Massachusetts, the statewide median resales price was $331,150 in June; in California, it was $311,950; in Maryland, it was $265,268; and in New York, it was $220,750.

More jobs continue to be key to the housing sector’s recovery, according to NAR’s latest industry outlook. “There could be a couple of additional months of slow home-sales activity before picking up later in the year, provided the job market continues to improve,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.

The interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.56% in July, down from the 5.22% averaged in July 2009, according to Freddie Mac. Florida Realtors’ sales figures reflect closings, which typically occur 30-90 days after sales contracts are written.

For more information, visit http://www.floridarealtors.org.

http://rismedia.com/2010-08-25/regional-spotlight-floridas-existing-condo-sales-rise-in-july-2010-2/

RISMEDIA, August 26, 2010—Home sales statistics are likely to paint a picture of a weakening market through the end of 2010 and the first half of 2011. While it’s tempting to attribute the bleak numbers to a deteriorating housing market, an economist with the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University said that doesn’t tell the whole story.

“The year-over-year decline in existing home sales will be the result of comparing months when there was no tax credit with those from a year earlier, when the tax credit was artificially increasing sales,” said Dr. Mark Dotzour, the Center’s chief economist.

The $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers went into effect in January 2009 and was planned to expire in November 2009. Home sales gradually started to increase after the tax credit was announced, after bottoming out in January at an annual rate just above 4.5 million sales.

Existing home sales gradually increased in 2009 as buyers and real estate agents became more familiar with the program. Sales topped an annual rate of five million in July 2009 for the first time since September 2008.

As the tax credit deadline approached, home sales spiked in September, October and November 2009. November 2009 was the peak at an annual rate of almost 6.5 million.

The tax credit was extended late in 2009 to include sales with contracts written until April 30, 2010, and closed by June 30 (extended to September 30). Initial home buyer response to this extension was tepid, but sales picked up substantially in March, April and May 2010, when sales were up 18%, 28% and 18%, respectively, over the same months in 2009.

Then the process reversed itself. Pending home sales fell dramatically in May 2010, the month after the tax credits expired. This was followed by a significant drop in home sales in June and July. In Texas, July 2010 sales were down approximately 25% from July 2009.

Dotzour said August figures may not be much better since many buyers purchased homes before the tax incentive expired.

“When you ‘bring forward’ sales through tax incentives, sales will be lower after the tax credit ends,” he said.

Unless Congress creates a new tax credit this fall, Dotzour said monthly sales for 2010 will likely exhibit significant variance from 2009, and a true reading of housing market conditions may not be possible until June or July 2011.

For more information, visit http://www.recenter.tamu.edu.

http://rismedia.com/2010-08-25/weak-home-sales-numbers-dont-tell-whole-story-real-estate-center-economist-says/

As this edition of the Longboat Key News goes to press, the last chapter in the ugly saga of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is being written. After a summer of depressing headlines and grim images of the spill’s effects on beaches, marine life, businesses and tourism along the northern Gulf Coast, the latest dispatches from the disaster site bring much welcomed relief.

The Macondo Well has been successfully capped from above; and a more elaborate procedure involving pumping mud and concrete down its casing—called “static kill”— was declared a complete success by the officials, scientists and engineers involved. Over the next few days, the long-awaited relief well will intersect the damaged well at its base and pump in additional mud and concrete from below. Once the concrete hardens, as it already has from above, the well will be declared officially dead and recovery along the affected areas of the gulf Coast can truly begin in earnest. Thankfully Southwest Florida is nowhere near the affected areas—those being certain beaches and waterways along coastal Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and a small sliver of Florida’s far western panhandle (which has already been cleaned-up).

It’s very important to note that oil never once threatened the Southwest Coast of Florida; and never came within hundreds of miles of our shoreline. Not so much as a single tar ball from the spill has washed up onto one of our beaches. In fact, we are tremendously proud of Sarasota’s Mote Marine Laboratory, which, among its many contributions in analyzing, fighting and cleaning-up after the spill, has sent at least two robotic submarines into the waters off Southwest Florida to constantly monitor for the presence of oil and chemical dispersants off our coastline. Additionally it has used its beach monitoring system to advise beach-goers of conditions at 33 selected beaches in nine counties.

No doubt valuable lessons will be learned in the aftermath of the spill, including more ironclad ways to prevent future ones; but residents along our particular stretch of the Gulf Coast—well more than 300 miles southeast of the disaster site—have already learned that ours is a location blessed by nature. It has positioned our stretch of Southwest Florida’s magnificent coastline in such a way as to benefit from the prevailing “loop current,” whose flow will literally pull oil-tainted water away from our region and route it out of the Gulf of Mexico and into the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. We also learned that the constant counterclockwise motion of these currents takes place no closer than 150 miles from our shoreline.

It is also worth noting that even if the situation had deteriorated into the worst-case scenario that many feared, Southwest Florida—from just north of Tampa to below Marco Island—was nevertheless predicted to be the one region along Florida’s two coasts to least feel its effects. In that scientifically proven fact we were able to take great comfort throughout the crisis, knowing that our beaches and waterways stood less than a one percent chance of experiencing fallout from a spill of unprecedented proportions. Other parts of the West Coast north of Tampa faced a more ominous 20 percent chance; while somewhat surprisingly, the East Coast of Florida was the most threatened of all regions after the Northern Gulf coastlines nearest the spill. The Florida Keys and Miami were given an 80 percent chance of seeing tar balls and oil sheen within 20 miles of their beaches once the loop current flushed them from the Gulf and into the Gulf Stream current that travels up the east coast.

Given the massive uncertainty about the actual size of the spill, its anticipated spread and seemingly endless days of watching new oil spew unfettered into the gulf, it was quite natural—even prudent—for many homebuyers to postpone purchasing waterfront properties along the Gulf Coast until more was known or the situation resolved.

Subsequent evidence that our beaches are naturally protected from major spills by the Gulf of Mexico’s prevailing currents was enough to bring many waterfront homebuyers back into the market. But now that the well is fully capped and just days from being entombed for good, well-priced waterfront properties are selling as rapidly as before the incident. In fact, now that widely-broadcast studies have revealed that Southwest Florida beaches were the most naturally protected of all during the spill, one might even conclude that communities such as Longboat Key will attract that many more waterfront buyers previously undecided about where to purchase.

At last report, government officials are estimating that 75 percent of the spilled oil has been captured, skimmed-off, burnt-off or naturally degraded. Which, of course, remains to be seen. But the big story for us as Labor Day approaches and summer nears its end is that our white sand beaches and azure blue surf are as clean, gorgeous and inviting as they were April 19, the day before the Deepwater Horizon exploded and all hell broke loose in the Northern Gulf.

http://www.lbknews.com/2010/08/16/lbk%e2%80%99s-sand-surf-still-as-clean-as-before/

The big question in real estate is what will happen with home prices over the next few months. The experts have already weighed-in predicting prices will probably take another dip down. The reasoning? Put simply, the inventory of homes on the market is greater than the demand for housing.

Demand will remain stable at best. No study or report is predicting a dramatic increase in demand over previous estimates. PMI, Inc. is actually cutting their forecast back. In their most recent issue of The Home and Mortgage Market Review they announced:

“We have lowered our projection of home sales for 2010 in response to the larger-than-expected decline in sales in May.”

If demand doesn’t increase, the supply of inventory will determine future prices. Here is a great industry guideline that has withstood the test of time:

• 1-4 months inventory means it is a sellers’ market and we can expect appreciation.
• 5-6 months inventory means it is a balanced market with prices following inflation.
• 7+ months inventory means it is a buyers’ market and we can expect depreciation.

According to the National association of Realtors (NAR), there is currently an 8.9 month supply of housing inventory on the market. Here is a graph showing how the months supply of inventory has increased since last November:

Calculated Risk addressed this point recently by saying:

“For July, if sales fall to 4.5 million (it could be lower) and inventory is still at 3.9 million units, months of supply will rise to 10.4 months. I think these estimates are conservative (actual will probably be higher). For reference, the all time record high was 11.2 months of supply in 2008. This level of supply will put additional downward pressure on house prices.”

Couple this with the fact that banks will repossess approximately a million foreclosed homes this year and you realize the supply of housing inventory could jump to numbers close to those we experienced when home prices were falling dramatically.

We must keep an eye on the months supply of inventory to determine where housing prices are headed.

http://kcmblog.com/2010/08/03/supply-goes-up-prices-come-down-its-that-simple/#more-5195

By Jim Buchtaic

RISMEDIA, July 30, 2010—(MCT)—Government cash didn’t help John Foley and Cindy Case sell their Minneapolis house before the federal home buyer’s tax credit expired at the end of April, so the couple decided to take matters into their own hands.

Sales without incentives:
In lieu of attention-grabbing incentives, here’s what works best today:
-Price it right. Buyers have access to lots of data, and they’ll know if your house is too expensive.
-Offer to pay some of the buyer’s closing costs.
-Maximize exposure. Saturate the Internet and all forms of social media with your listing.
-Use great photos, not good ones. Make sure your house makes a great first impression.
-Make it sing. Listing information must be complete and well-written.
-Curb appeal matters. Spend a little money on flowers, new plants and fresh paint.
-Inside, your house should look fresh, so make sure the paint, carpeting, light fixtures and appliances are updated and clean.
-De-clutter. Eliminate one-third to two-thirds of your stuff; hire a stager.
-Network. Sales come together because brains understand homes better than computers.
-Be patient. Statistics say that it takes 21 showings, not including open-house traffic, to sell a house.

RISMEDIA, July 23, 2010—With the scheduled closing deadline for the home buyer tax credits, existing-home sales slowed in June 2010 but remained at relatively elevated levels, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Existing-home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, fell 5.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.37 million units in June from 5.66 million in May, but are 9.8% higher than the 4.89 million-unit pace in June 2009.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said the market shows uncharacteristic yet understandable swings as buyers responded to the tax credits. “June home sales still reflect a tax credit impact with some sales not closed due to delays, which will show up in the next two months,” he said.

“Broadly speaking, sales closed after the home buyer tax credit will be significantly lower compared to the credit-induced spring surge. Only when jobs are created at a sufficient pace will home sales return to sustainable healthy levels.”

According to Freddie Mac, the national average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage fell to a record low 4.74% in June from 4.89% in May; the rate was 5.42% in June 2009.

The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $183,700 in June, which is 1.0% higher than a year ago. Distressed homes were at 32% of sales last month, compared with 31% in May; it was also 31% in June 2009.

NAR President Vicki Cox Golder, owner of Vicki L. Cox & Associates in Tucson, Ariz., said softer home sales expected this summer don’t tell the whole story. “Despite these market swings, total annual home sales are rising above 2009 and we’re looking for overall gains again this year as well as in 2011,” she said. “Conditions have become more balanced in much of the country, which is good for both buyers and sellers. However, consumers find it even more challenging to navigate the transaction process, especially for distressed properties, which only underscores the value Realtors bring to buyers and sellers in this market.”

A parallel NAR practitioner survey shows first-time buyers purchased 43% of homes in June, down from 46% in May. Investors accounted for 13% of sales in June, little changed from 14% in May; the remaining purchases were by repeat buyers. All-cash sales were at 24% in June compared with 25% in May.

Total housing inventory at the end of June rose 2.5% to 3.99 million existing homes available for sale, which represents an 8.9-month supply at the current sales pace, up from an 8.3-month supply in May.

“The supply of homes on the market is higher than we’d like to see. But home prices are still holding their ground because prices had already overcorrected in many local markets,” Yun said. Raw unsold inventory remains 12.7% below the record of 4.58 million in July 2008.

Single-family home sales fell 5.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.70 million in June from a level of 4.98 million in May, but are 8.5% above the 4.33 million pace in June 2009. The median existing single-family home price was $184,200 in June, up 1.3% from a year ago.

Single-family median existing-home prices were higher in 10 out of 19 metropolitan statistical areas reported in June in comparison with June 2009. In addition, existing single-family home sales rose in 12 of the 19 areas from a year ago while two were unchanged.

Existing condominium and co-op sales slipped 1.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 670,000 in June from 680,000 in May, but are 20.5% higher than the 556,000-unit pace in June 2009. The median existing condo price was $180,100 in June, which is 1.4% below a year ago.

Regionally, existing-home sales in the Northeast rose 7.9% to an annual level of 960,000 in June and are 17.1% above June 2009. The median price in the Northeast was $244,300, down 1.2% from a year ago.

Existing-home sales in the Midwest dropped 7.5% in June to a pace of 1.23 million but are 11.8% higher than a year ago. The median price in the Midwest was $155,900, down 0.1% from June 2009.

In the South, existing-home sales fell 6.5% to an annual level of 2.01 million in June but are 11.0% above June 2009. The median price in the South was $163,600, unchanged from a year ago.

Existing-home sales in the West dropped 9.3% to an annual pace of 1.17 million in June but are 0.9% higher than a year ago. The median price in the West was $221,800, up 1.5% from June 2009.

For more information, visit http://www.realtor.org.

http://rismedia.com/2010-07-22/existing-home-sales-slow-in-june-2010-but-remain-above-year-ago-levels/

July 15, 2010

Homeowners throughout southwest Florida received good news from Congress this afternoon.  A strong bi-partisan majority of the House, which I was pleased to be a part of, approved legislation (H.R. 5114) extending the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) through 2015.  The House approved this bill with a 329-90 vote.

An estimated 60,000 homeowners in southwest Florida purchase flood insurance through the NFIP.  This program provides an invaluable service to these families.

This bi-partisan legislation is also intended to strengthen the flood insurance program over the long-term.  It calls for actuarially-appropriate flood insurance premiums, updated maximum insurance limits and revised flood zone maps.  The House-passed version of H.R. 5114 now goes to the U.S. Senate for consideration.  I hope that the Senate will quickly send this important bill to President Obama for his signature.

Extending the federal flood insurance program will help families looking to sell or buy a home in our part of Florida.  This is essential for a coastal state like Florida, where our real estate market has struggled.  Extending the NFIP will help revitalize this important sector of our regional economy.

http://buchanan.houseenews.net/mail/util.cfm?gpiv=2100060863.69102.245&gen=1