As I was huffing and puffing away on the treadmill this morning at the gym, I watched the local news which displayed the headline “Real Estate Market Heating Up”. I’ve been saying it for awhile now – the Tampa Bay real estate market is heating up. I feel like a bit of a broken record lately! But its true – and I’ve got some really interesting numbers to prove it.
The report below shows the number of buyers who bought homes in each given month, the average listing price, the average sold price, the list-to-sell ratio, the number of days on market, the total current inventory of homes, and the number of month’s supply we have left. This report is for Pinellas County below. When you hit the 6 month mark of inventory, you are a “balanced market”. Anything below 6 indicates a Seller’s Market.
Well let’s see here – in Pinellas County we are at 4.8 months of inventory which is indicating a Seller’s Market. I’m seeing it first hand. Today I’m previewing a property for a client of mine who’s been search for months for a home in the Old Northeast section of St. Petersburg, and because one popped up on the MLS last night, I set an appointment to see it today. The listing agent has already scheduled 5 showings on it in the first day its been on the market. I listed a new property last week as well in St. Petersburg and we had 8 showings in 3 days, and it was under contract in less than 5 days.
It’s also interesting to note that in the report below, people are on average getting 93% of their asking price!
Here’s the same report but for Hillsborough County, below. WOW. Only 4.1 months of inventory and Sellers are getting on average 95% of their asking price! The other thing that is interesting in this report is that the total number of buyers compared to last March in Hillsborough appears to be down a bit, but the average Selling price point has gone up over $13,897 in a year.
As I’ve mentioned before, the naysayers say that the banks are holding back a glut of foreclosures that will soon hit the market and crash it once again. They’ve been saying it for 2 years, but our foreclosure levels are at a record low – less than 4% of our total market in Pinellas! Whether its true that banks are holding back foreclosures – I really don’t know. I don’t have a crystal ball – I wish I did as it pertains to real estate. But in this Realtors opinion, if you’ve been sitting on the sidelines and thinking about selling – maybe now is the time while we are having a bit of a switch from a buyer’s market to a seller’s market in many areas. If you wait too long, it may be too late.
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