A Big Thank You

I'd like to offer a few thanks to the listing broker with whom I just closed a sale. Thanks for always taking days to answer (when you actually did) my requests and questions about your listing both before and after we had an accepted contract. I got the impression that you check email once a week, texts every other day and never answer voice calls. Thanks for "leaking" the price of the other offer to me so my client could beat it. Shame on you for then taking our price to the other agent and "leaking" it so they could better it. Thanks for costing your client two full weeks by refusing to present our first offer because you didn't like the length of the inspection period. Thanks for then agreeing to those very same terms two weeks later. Thanks for taking four days to get the agreed-upon offer signed and returned. Thanks for never bothering to respond to repeated requests for survey and utility questions. Thanks for not bothering to get the seller to sign the last addendum until I offered to drive by for you to get it signed rather than miss closing date. AND, thanks most of all, for going on an cruise the week of closing without telling anyone and telling the seller that it was OK to keep a key and finish moving two days after closing. I assume you're back but who knows since I haven't heard a peep from you since the week before closing. Your client was impressed with how hard one of us worked. Guess who.

As we approach the holidays, property sales have slowed. After closing two condos a day every day since January 1 in Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral, only 26 condos have gone under contract since the first of December. That's not unusual and will likely change right after Christmas. In years past, activity has been at times frantic in the last week of the year and then ramping up as we move into the our busiest time of year. This coming year 2016 might be slightly different as we are entering the year with the lowest starting inventory in history. Or, maybe not, as we have continued to beat the preceding year every year for the last ten even as inventory continued to shrink. We'll see. Consider our starting condo unit inventory levels in recent years:

• January 2010 - 525
• January 2011 - 459
• January 2012 - 365
• January 2013 - 300
• January 2014 - 303
• January 2015 - 251
• December '15-  224

We officially set a new sales record this week when closed condo sales in Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral passed last year's record 682 units. We look to easily pass the 700 mark by year's end. That means we'll have to sell more than three times the existing inventory to hold the same pace next year. Not an impossibility but definitely a challenge. I'm up for it. Those of you looking to purchase need to be nimble and ready to move quickly when your ideal property presents. If planning to use a mortgage to purchase, talk to your lender now instead of waiting until offering. Happy hunting and may the Force be with you.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season and a positive and prosperous new year.

“In case it’s not clear yet, the language of real estate listings is bogged down in secret rules and code words. It’s a language where 'modern' means the opposite, and 'unique' is just about the worst thing you could be.” ____Spencer Rascoff, Zillow CEO