I appreciate the positive feedback about last week's wrap-up, so, here's another.
For the week Sunday, January 22 to Sunday, January 29 there were 21 new MLS listings of residential properties in Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral, slightly more than last week. Fourteen of those were condos or townhomes and seven were single-family homes. Four of the sellers priced their properties attractively and were under contract by the end of the week. Most of the others could not resist the urge to over-price. During the same week another twelve properties that had been listed prior to last Sunday went under contract. Nine properties were reported closed during the week, all but one were condos.
There are currently 219 existing condos and townhomes offered for sale in our two cities and another 28 pre-construction units. Nothing has changed with the tendency to over-price with still more than a third of the total on the market for over six months. There are 60 single-family homes on offer, 25 of them waterfront.
The strategy has not changed for those hoping to purchase. A prospective buyer who knows how to approximate fair value for their target property and is willing and able to offer when the right property becomes available stands a good chance of succeeding as long as her criteria are not too restrictive. Out of town buyers who are unwilling to offer without physically touring the property are at a severe disadvantage to those who have an agent they can trust to protect them in a quick sight-unseen offer situation. The best properties and deals rarely happen with properties that have been on the market long enough for American Airlines to deliver a buyer to Cocoa Beach.
About those restrictive criteria: With our tight inventory, some flexibility with must-haves can go a long way towards a successful purchase. A buyer looking for a condo that will allow their Labrador that has a two car garage has exactly three possibilities this morning. If they must be on the ocean, there is but one. As always, a purchaser with a buyer's agent who knows and is active in this market and understands what is working has a great advantage over those who may have selected a face from Zillow's gallery of paid agent listings.
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"The best scams are the ones that are not actually dishonest but that simply set up the mark to make decisions against their own interest." __dbr
