Late April and we are into our mini spring slow season that lasts until schools begin letting out for the summer and vacationers replace the snowbirds that just departed. We usually have about a month and a half of respite before the summer season begins in earnest in June.
It’s been a busy snowbird season for real estate sales. After closing 55 units in March, three weeks into April and we have closed 28 condos and townhomes and 15 single-family homes so far in the month. Most of these were contracted in February and March. First the condos:
Inventory this morning stands at 313 units for sale in Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral. Median time on market is somewhere around 90 days adjusted for listing agent monkey business. Median time on market for the 28 closed units was 113 days. The half that were on the market more than 113 days averaged selling for just 82% of original asking price. Most of these had multiple price drops over the life of the listing confirming what the high discount is already telling us, unreasonable initial expectations from the sellers and reluctance to accept the market’s message. Four of the units sold for less than the sellers paid, all four of those purchased in the last five years.
The half that sold in less than 113 days averaged 94% of original asking price. That market message is clear. Price realistically and get closer to asking price and sell faster. Half of the closed units sold for $300,000 or less, a lower median than we’re used to.
The single family home market has been very busy with 15 closed sales so far in April with a median selling price of $885,000. All fifteen were in Cocoa Beach with none closed in Cape Canaveral. In strong contrast to the 113 median days on market for the sold condos, median time on market for the homes was 47 days. The current inventory is 56 homes in our two cities with a median time on market of 88 days. This market segment is far healthier than our much larger condo market.
In a surprise move, the new Destination Downtown Food Hall closed it’s doors last week after just ten months in business. I’ve heard no word on what may happen to the prime downtown property at the former location of Yen Yen’s Chinese and, before that, the Prince of Wales Restaurant.
The extent of the earlier freeze damage to our vegetation all over town is plainly obvious now. Our streets are lined with piles of trimmings from dead and damaged palms, plumerias, mangoes, sea grapes and beach cabbage among others. I’m seeing green shoots around the base of the sea grapes and beach cabbage and a few green leaves on some mango trees but a lot of the more tropical species were killed outright. The coconuts appear to have mostly survived after shedding layers of fronds in the weeks following the freeze. This is exactly how climate zones are defined and redefined. I wonder where the new northernmost Florida coconut tree is. The previous placeholder probably did not survive.
“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.”____Jan Glidewell
