News that effects the Ocala Marion County area real estate market
Sales were up in March from previous months this year. That’s the good news. The reason that sales are picking up is that home prices have gone down. The median home price on the Ocala Marion County MLS dropped 16% in 2008. Great for buyers. Seller have to accept the fact that the bubble burst and 2004-07 price are gone and won’t return any time soon.
The weather is Ocala is just fantastic in the month of April. The highs are in the low to mid 80’s and the lows are in the 50 to 60 range. The air is still dry with no humidity. This is my favorite time of year here in Ocala. The grass is getting green, shrubs are flowering and it’s as warm as mid summer in other parts of the country except without the humidity. If you’d like to live in Ocala see my Free Ocala MLS Search
Note, sales for this period are from offers made 30 to 45 days earlier. This means that the holidays impacted sales and this accounts for the low total. Additionally there was a foreclosure moratorium during that time also.
Active listing continue to go down as over priced sellers just give up. As I always say we will remain in a buyers market until active listings drop below 3,000 homes.
Azalea
Spring has sprung here in Ocala. March is the first month of spring in Ocala. All of a sudden the weather warms up to the high 70’s & low 80’s, the grass turns green & the azaleas bloom. Nights do get down to the 50’s but things warm up by 10 in the morning. The air is dry with no humidity. It’s my favorite time of year. No need for heat or the AC. It’s a great time to be outside.
According to the Ocala area MLS we sold 141 homes in January 2009. This number is low because most contracts take 30 to 45 days to close. That means all the closing in January came from offers written during the holidays from Thanksgiving to the end of December.
Of the 142 homes sold 59 were $100,000.00 and below. There are some very affordable houses in Ocala right now. Between $100K and $200K there were 61 sales, still very affordable.
If you are a seller you can see that most sales were below $200,000.00. Buyers are out there but they are mostly in the lower price ranges.
Foreclosures are still hot. During January they accounted for almost 30% of all sales.There were also 10 Short Sales. This is a fairly large number of Short sales that got to closing. I don’t know if banks are being more cooperative or if this was just an unusual month.
Inventory levels are about the same at around 6,500. This still gives us over 30 months of inventory and a severe buyers market.