Monday, March 12, 2012

Cocoa Beach - state of the market

















Current market conditions - March 12, 2012 - Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral
(all data is from the Cocoa Beach MLS)

FOR SALE INVENTORY

Condos and townhomes____369 ( 29 asking more than $500,000 )
Foreclosures______________20 ( 9 of those at the Pier Resort )
Short sales________________31
Total distressed____________14%
Sold since Jan. 1___________52

Single family homes________73 ( 46 are waterfront )
Foreclosures______________0
Short sales_______________5
Total distressed___________7%
Sold since Jan. 1__________11

Inventory of all property types is very picked over with a lot of the current inventory having been on the market for well over a year. Readers of this blog know that the "days on market" number is easily manipulated by listing agents wanting to give a languishing listing a fresh look with a zero DOM number. That means without looking at each listing's history individually, it's impossible to get the exact number but trust me when I say a large percentage of the current inventory is very old. Number one reason that so much of our inventory is old: it is overpriced. The priced-right new listings that are coming on the market are getting contracts quickly. Those that are optimistically priced continue to collect dust.

The percentages of distressed sales are at their lowest level since 2008, the year we saw our first short sale. If there truly is a backlog of pending foreclosures that the "experts" have been predicting for well over a year, there is a ready group of buyers in our market standing by. I don't doubt that this may be the case in some other markets but, based strictly on my daily involvement, observations and street-educated gut, I doubt seriously that we'll see any significant supply of new foreclosures in our two city market. Short sales are a little easier to predict and it seems obvious we'll see less and less of these. My take is that most property owners who were going to short sell or default as their property value slid underwater knew it was happening several years ago and have already disposed of the property. As always, I could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. The sold numbers appear to support me;

YEAR - distressed sales
2007 ----- 0
2008 -----15%
2009 -----36%
2010 -----56%
2011 -----32%
2012 ----- ? - for sale condo inventory is at 14%, single family at 7%

"The wind and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators."
_____Edward Gibbons