Steve Koffman Real Estate Blog

How much does home rear exposure matter?

Does home rear  exposure matter?

   Absolutely, yes and no!  Some buyers will insist that they must have a certain rear exposure, to them it absolutely matters. Many times buyers will insist on south or west exposure. We did a little data diving to see if we could uncover any statistical truths from the past two years of sales in MLS. We chose to look at the southeast and southwest areas of Cape Coral and compiled sales of gulf access pool homes. On the average, these homes were almost identical in size. The actual sales statistics of 534 homes gave us some real data.

    Rear exposure        Number of sales        Median List Price       Median Sale Price

     South                             136                                $352,450               $321,250

     East                                125                                $325,000               $320,000

     West                              143                                $330,000               $320,000

     North                             130                               $322,400               $300,000

 

    As you can see, buyers paid almost identical prices for south, east and west exposures. Only north exposure showed lower median sale price 6.25% lower than other exposures.  One critique we hear of north exposure is that the pool area can be shaded and colder during the winter. The other side of that is a little more summer shade.  It is interesting that sellers with south exposure appeared to price their homes nearly 8% higher than east exposure homes but had to settle for virtually the same sale price.  Bottom line is there are buyers for all exposures but statistically buyers pay a little less for north exposure.   All are close enough that the individual home features are still the biggest factor on price not the rear exposure.

 

Steve Koffman

Broker/Associate

Century21 Sunbelt Realty, Inc

239-443-2463  Steve@koffman.com

www.koffman.com

A quick synopsis of 2010 home sales in Cape Coral

2010 Synopsis for Cape Coral

 2010 was a great year for sales in Cape Coral. A total of 5908 closed sales were listed through the MLS which is a pretty remarkable number especially since we started the year with 4301 listings and ended with 3787. At first it sounds like we sold more than we had for sale!  This says a lot about the state of our market. Our inventory went down 514 homes because while 5908 closed 5394 came onto the market. The attached chart shows our trends.

 

 

 We had significant things occur in our market in 2010.

1.  The large number of foreclosed and preforeclosure homes remained dominant with new homes continuing to flow into the market.  The “shadow inventory”, homes somewhere in foreclosure process but not yet on market, still exists and it is difficult to establish exactly how big that number is.  Indications are that the foreclosure peaks may be declining.
2. Tax incentives for first time buyers caused the number of spring sales to jump from March through June and we felt a buyer drop when those incentives expired. A lot of existing buyers got pulled ahead.
3. Historically low prices and interest rates afforded many renters the chance to become homeowners. The same low prices made real estate investment as rental property practical.
4. Investors as well as resident homeowners caused strong competition on homes which were priced at very bottom of competitive range for their market. Homes priced above a competitive level received almost no buyer attention.
5. For the first time in a couple of years, we saw investors who had successfully bought low priced homes, did some rehab,  and resold.
6. A statistical stabilization of median sale prices throughout almost all segments of our home sale prices may indicate we have reached the bottom of price declines.

Where are we heading?

     It will take time and economic growth to absorb our excess homes and then let market pressure start to cause real increases in value. Fortunately, we are still a great destination for value and weather for potential retirees and we should see continued growth and home sales to people from outside our area. Our local economy will probably not draw significant numbers of new job seekers for a few years. Our expectation is that our values will remain relatively stable for the next couple years and after our excess inventory of homes get absorbed by population growth we will start to see real price improvement.

Steve Koffman

Broker/Associate

Century21 Sunbelt Realty

239-443-2463  Steve@koffman.com