When looking at the real estate stats its important to understand that not all stats are the same, its gets back to the basics of real estate LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.
Lets talk about the national numbers first.
From Morgan Stanley Research Dec 2012: 2013 US Housing Projections: As 2012 winds down, we continue to expect aggregate home prices to finish the year up 7-9% from where they were last December. For 2013, we project an annualized increase of 4-6% in our base case. Our bull
and bear case projections posit increases of 7-9% and 0-2%, respectively. We expect both new and existing home sales to increase in 2013 in response to positive demand and supply factors. We are calling for new home sales to increase by 15% to 450,000 and existing home sales to climb 10% to 5.26 million. As far as transactions are concerned, we expect the composition of home sales to remain weighted towards non-distressed transactions. However, we do expect the number of distressed transactions to increase from current levels.
So in aggregate Morgan Stanley paints a pretty good scenario for the national real estate market in general for 2013
Here are the year over year numbers as provided by the Palm Beach Board of Realtors
"New Listings were down 1.4 percent for detached homes and 9.7 percent for
attached properties. Pending Sales increased 53.6 percent for single-family
homes and 75.9 percent for townhouse-condo properties. The Median Sales Price was down 13.5 percent to $596,900 for detached homes and 27.0 percent to $365,000 for attached properties. Months Supply of Inventory decreased 32.3 percent for single-family units and 31.8 percent for
townhouse-condo units."
The numbers are even more interesting when you focus on Town homes and Condos.
New listings (93) -9.7%, Pending
Sales (51) +75.9%, Closed sales (25) +8.7%,
Days on the market (158) +18.8%, Median sales price (365K) -27%, Average
sales price (438K) -54.5%, discounted from original list price (+9%)
still -14%, For sale units (679) -17.8%, months supply(15.9) -31.8%
So the Palm Beach stats for
attached Town homes and or condos seems quite different then the national
numbers as well as for Palm Beach
detached homes. Its appears that these properties are not yet in recovery, in other words they don't appear to
have hit bottom yet. Which makes sense because in Palm
Beach probably 80% or better of all sales are for
cash. As a result the pressure to sell during the great recession wasn't as great as for those owners who
had leveraged there purchase using a mortgage, which in many cases would have resulted
in the owner owing more then the value of their property. This being the case
those buyers would have a great incentive to sell to break even or at a loss to
get out from underneath the debt. While these types of sales do take place in Palm
Beach they are far and away in the minority, actually
these types of distress sales have for the most part had already taken place during
the previous couple of years.
So then what explains such a difference in the stats for Palm
Beach Town homes
and Condos as compared to the national numbers. Well many Palm Beach condo/town home owners have misinterpreted the good national housing news to mean that what
happens on a national level happens in Palm Beach
as well. Well now we know that's not exactly true, the Palm
Beach housing market is quite different in many ways,
one of the biggest reasons is the preponderance of cash transactions that take place on the island. So with
little pressure to sell many owners are reluctant to reduce prices to reflect
current market conditions. Also there are many owners who have owned their units for several
decades and done so without doing any major renovations but still expecting to sell at top dollar. So when you factor in high price and original condition you can see why the year over
year stats in Palm Beach for these
types of properties is not reflecting the positive results that are reflected in the national sales stats. So once again if you want to sell, you need to price your home properly to reflect its fair market value. Thats why its imperative that any owner looking to sell deal with a professional Realtor who will do a proper full market analysis and explain to the owner all the relative factors that will help or hinder its sale so that the required steps to maximize results are employed from the start.
