Sales and Home Prices Rise in Sarasota Peak Home Buying Season
Statistics in most US cities show that housing sales are up for the 4th straight month, according to S&P/ Case- Shiller data. Traditionally, summer is the peak season for home buying and thankfully, this year did not disappoint.
Condominium sales increased by fifteen percent. There is also an slight increase in the value of homes sold recently. Median prices have risen slightly at 2%, even though foreclosure statistics still reflect a decline in median prices. More pointedly, Sarasota Real Estate prices are up 15% according to outside sources.
Because more people are buying distressed properties, known as shadow inventory, the supply of homes available for sale is skewed. These distressed properties are not yet listed in the MLS but are considered distressed and/or delinquent by the banks, according to a real estate data provider. Such distressed properties are selling faster than others on the market and this shift does not allow enough room in the pipeline for the sale of newly-constructed homes.
Consequently, the number of new home sales and new home starts is down for the fifth straight year. Generally speaking, 20% of the housing market is new homes. Therefore, the sales volume of new homes is also down. Even though summer is usually the peak season for home buyers, sales of new homes has declined for the 4th month in a row.
Further, the Commerce Department stated this week that new-home sales fell to almost 2%. This number is less than half of what economists say must be sold to in order to sustain a healthy housing market. These findings predict that such low new-home sales may be the most dismal in the Department’s 50 year history. Data also shows that single-family housing starts were down in August, representing 30 year lows. These numbers hover near those of 2010, about 2% below their August 2010 level. Existing-home sales, however, were up in August and are selling at about 20% above their level of a year ago.
Most importantly for Florida homeowners and sellers, overall home values are up in Florida, based on the collection of doc stamps taxes that were collected at closings this past summer. According to U.S. Census Bureau reports, revenues from doc stamp taxes were almost ten per cent higher in the second quarter of 2011, compared to the second quarter of 2010. David Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S & P Indices states, “This is still a seasonal period of stronger demand for houses, so monthly price increases are expected (and in fact occurred) in most of the markets in the US. “We have now seen four consecutive months of generally increasing prices.
Even though many leading pundits may claim that the economy is not yet recovering from the losses sustained in recent memory, optimistic analysts of such tax collections numbers may read the numbers differently.