By now you have heard...January home sales were waaaayyyy down. By my calculations, sales in ALL sectors - homes, condos, beach, mainland, etc - were down 40%-50%.

What does this portend?? Well, that "V"-shaped recovery is an extended "U". I think is was a typical post-holiday lull complicated by record low temps (man, was it cold showing houses) coupled w/ a slowly declining market. I think we'll see more "normal" (a term I use very loosely) numbers in Feb and beyond.

The bugger in the covers are now the appraisals. Arms length sellers and buyers are watching their dreams evaporate thanks to new mortgage rules that require ZERO communication between sellers, buyers, realtors, mortgage brokers, etc. This rule would have been great 4-5 years ago but there are few who believe they can get away with mortgage fraud these days...which is what these rules aim to eliminate. Now, it's the regular joes like you and me who can't move on with their lives because some appraisers are UNWILLING to correctly value our homes.

January home sale stats (compiled from our Tampa Bay MLS) are attached to this email and, as expected, the numbers are somewhat sobering. However, I expect the next 3 months to be very fruitful for buyers and sellers alike. NOW is the time to ensure your property is priced correctly for the current market. If you haven’t noticed it already, Buyers are out there grabbing flyers and calling off signs.

The brightest spot in the latest numbers is that our available inventory continues to decline, but not as fast as we would like to see. Throughout the tri-county area, just 4.59% of all available properties sold, leaving us with almost 2 years of inventory at current levels. I expect this number to shrink as our buying season progresses. HOWEVER…properties are currently selling at just 72% - 80% of their ORIGINAL LIST PRICE, which means we are over-pricing many of our properties from the outset. The beach continues to be a weaker segment of the home sale market, but that is expected to change as we experience an influx of visitors.

If you have any questions about the info provided, pls call, email, or text me. Below are 2 graphs depicting tri-county property sales (home & condo):