After just finishing 2011, we would like to share these observations and trends in the Cape Coral single family home market. This was a year of transition with inventories shrinking, reo’s continuing to reduce in number and total sales slowing slightly. Cape Coral still remains with great opportunities for purchase of homes or condos at nearly the bottom of historical pricing.
Inventories
2011 continued the trend of reducing inventories with unsold single family homes dropping from 4412 in 2009 to 3812 in 2010 and further to 2677 in 2011. This is the lowest we have seen in 5 years. This is definitely the trend we need to see to turn around our market.
Sales
2011 was another strong sales year for single family homes in Cape Coral. There were 5377 sales which, although down from 2010 and 2009, is still a strong market. We saw about a 16% increase in gulf access home sales with a corresponding drop in off water homes. This partially reflects a lower number of reo or bank owned sales which are typically off water homes.
Reo’s, short sales and traditional sales
During 2011 we saw movement away from reo sales to traditional sales with normal sales increasing from 38% to 48% of the home sale market, Reo sales dropped from 41% to 30%. Short sales stayed about constant at 22% of sales. We saw reo inventory decrease with a lowered number of foreclosures being filed in 2011 compared to record levels in previous years. We do not know exactly where foreclosure numbers will be for 2012 but we do expect a continued decline in foreclosures.
In the upcoming weeks, we will expand information on the different market segments in Cape Coral.
Steve Koffman
Broker/Associate
Century 21 Sunbelt Realty, Inc
239-443-5191 Steve@koffman.com
