Ocala Real Estate Talk

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sales in October were 337 homes, September was 300 homes, August 294 homes, July came in at 282 homes and June at 329. Total listings remain around 5,500 homes. About 14 homes sell every business day in Marion County.

Sellers sales are still being driven by bargain hunters. As you can see most homes sell for less than $200,000 and the majority sell below $100,000. There were 31 short sales and 137 foreclosure sales in October. That accounts for 50% of all sold homes. The Ocala area has a 13.5% unemployment rate. It will be 10 years before the market returns to the prices we saw in 2005-07. Waiting for the market to recover is not an option.

Buyers prices aren’t going much lower. We are already rolled back to about 2004. Interest rates are at historical lows and given the federal deficit and the weak dollar interest rates have to go up soon. There is still a great selection but if you’re looking for one of those newer foreclosures there are a finite number and they will run out sooner or later.