As we have been reporting for a few months  now, pending sales have been jumping as buyers have been taking notice this season of incredible buying opportunities.  Sale across the board have picked up, as well as foreclosure sales along the bottom.  When official sales numbers are released next week, we won’t be surprised to see a jump in closings in February, however many of these closings won’t take place until March or April.

We also won’t be surprised if the median price decreases, which won’t necessarily be an indication that the market is free falling, but rather an indication more sales are occurring in the foreclosure realm in the lower price ranges, skewing the median price downward.

For great deals on foreclosure sales, be sure to check out our foreclosure page which we update frequently.  Foreclosures have added to the pending sales as many of the short sales never panned out.  Banks needed time to fight over who should take the loss and for how much, while foreclosure sales have been good to go for buyers, and the seller has been much more motivated.  Foreclsoures in SW Florida has been the one thing that has really freed up the market, although homes sales were simultaneously picking up in all segments as sellers pricing has begun to meet buyes expectations.

The higher the CMI Index, the more supply we have relative to demand.

March 15,  2008	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	16,357	1,610	10.16
Condo	8,789	603	14.58

February 14,  2008	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	16,694	1,088	15.34
Condo	8,787	456	19.27

January 14,  2008	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	15,812	821	19.26
Condo	8,581	334	25.69

December  17, 2007	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	16,098	892	18.05
Condo	8,655	386	22.42

November 14, 2007	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	15,710	797	19.71
Condo	8,361	388	21.55

October 16, 2007	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	15,438	783	19.72
Condo	8,212	354	23.20

September 15, 2007	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	15,215	809	18.81
Condo	8,141	369	22.06

August 15, 2007	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	14,919	955	15.62
Condo	8,190	417	19.64

July 12, 2007	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	15,095	975	15.48
Condo	8,380	443	18.91

June 14, 2007	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	15,164	1,014	14.95
Condo	8,761	485	18.06

May 17, 2007	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	15,607	1,107	14.10
Condo	9,205	560	16.44

April 15, 2007	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	15,896	1,152	13.80
Condo	9,660	569	16.98

January 23, 2007	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	13,769	1,016	13.55
Condo	9,002	529	17.02

November 27, 2006	Active	Pending	CMI
Single Family	13,186	1,031	12.79
Condo	8,344	535	15.60

The webiste for SW Florida’s Bank Owned Bargains is up.  You can access it at http://www.swflbankownedbargains.com or at http://www.topagent.com/bob.htm   You can use these webistes to track foreclosures listed by the Ellis Team at RE/MAX Realty Group. 

Most of these foreclosures are brand new and never lived in, and are located throughout Lee County Florida.  Many are in Cape Coral, Lehigh Acres, but some may be in Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Estero, and North Fort Myers.  We’re listing new properties all the time, so bookmark this website and get in on a great deal.

The Ellis Team at RE/MAX Realty Group has been selected to market a significant number of bank foreclosures in the SW Florida real estate marketplace.  Many of these bank foreclosures and REO are located in Lehigh Acres and Cape Coral, while others are located in Fort Myers and throughout Lee County Florida.

Starting today, we’ll have a loan officer on hand to pre-qualify buyers for free at our office located at 7910 Summerlin Lakes Dr, Fort Myers, FL  33907.  After the buyer is pre-qualified, we’ll have Ellis Team buyer specialists available to sit down with you and find out what your needs are and price points.  We’ll share with you what inventory we have available to you and help you purchase one of these bank owned bargains.

The bargain properties are a good deal, and we’d really love to sell these to an end user.  An investor is just going to purchase these homes and resell it to an end user for a profit, so we’d like to let the end user in on a good deal if possible.

The banks do desire to sell these and not hang on to them, so we’re sure some of these homes will sell to investors as we can’t hold off selling these homes for all end users to buy them.  In a perfect world, we could, but it is the banks money.

So if you’re looking for a good deal on ah home this weekend, stop by or call our office immediately before these bank owned baragins in SW Florida get scooped up.

The Ellis Team has been selected to market a significant amount of properties in SW Florida.  Many of these properties have never been lived and have been taken back by the bank from speculators who walked away from their investment when they failed to flip the home for a profit.  A smaller amount have been rented out by the investors in hopes of obtaining some cash flow, and a still smaller amount were actually lived in by a homeowner who has been displaced.

While the foreclosure process is sad, it is also a healthy last step for this market’s recovery.  Many listings in MLS were listed as short sales, however very few of those actually sold as multiple banks involved required multiple decision makers, and the acceptance process can be quite lengthy in many cases.  When the answer did come back, the buyers sometimes balked as banks squabbled as to who should take the loss and for how much.

The foreclosure process cleanses all that and leaves just one motivated bank with a property to sell, and one decision maker who can act quickly as time is money.  These properties tend to be excellent bargains to the end user.

Today the Ellis Team listed the first 42 of these properties, with more to follow.  Obviously it does take time to process each listing.  Interested buyers should call our office at 239-489-4042 and leave with us your buying criteria so that we can match up what you’re looking for with what we just listed or what may come available in the coming weeks.  Today many of the homes have been located in Lehigh Acres, Cape Coral, and one in North Fort Myers.  We do expect some in the Fort Myers area in the future.

The institutions involved range from credit unions to large national banks.  We will be setting up a new webpage specifically for bank owned properties in the coming days.