Brett Ellis from the Ellis Team at RE/MAX Realty Group specializes in selling homes in Cape Coral Florida, Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres, onita Springs, and all of SW Florida.  Brett created another weekly video update and tells a little about what he presented last week at the Annual State of the Market Report presentation at the SW Florida Real Estate Investors Asociation meeting.

Yesterday Brett Ellis of the Ellis TEAM at RE/MAX delivered the SW Florida State of the Market Report to the public.  The report is 77 pages and includes data on Lee County Florida home sales, including Cape Coral real estate sales numbers, Fort Myers real estate sales numbers and pricing trends, Bonita Spring real estate updates, Estero, Lehigh Acres, Fort Myers Beach, Sanibel and Captiva, Pine Island, and all of Lee Couny.

The report shows single family home inventory in Lee County Florida declined 15.61%, and months supply of inventory in Lee County declined 42.66% due to decreasing inventory and increasing sales.

Cape Coral is the hot spot for sales activity, with 4,633 sales and less than a 1 yr supply of inventory.  Lee County overall inventory level stands at 17.53 months, down from 30.57 last year.  Median single family home sale prices were down 37.89%.  Two areas actually saw a rise in mean average sales prices in 2008; Bonita Spring-Estero and Central Fort Myers.

The report provides insightful data at the county level, and at the neighborhood level, as well as foreclosure data.  The sub-markets we analyzed were Cape Coral North, Cape Coral Central, Cape Coral South, North Fort Myers, Central Fort Myers, SE Fort Myers, SW Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres, East Fort Myers including Alva, Bonita-Estero, Pine Island, Fort Myers Beach, and Sanibel and Captiva Islands.  We provide data such as monthly pricing graphs for 2008, monthly sales charts, List price to sales price ratios, months supply of inventory levels, total list and sales volume,Minimum listing, maximum listing, lowest sold listing, highest sold listing, median price, average price, and total sales.

It is our most detailed report yet.  We scrutinized the data from multiple MLS boards and eliminated duplicates.  This one of a kind database is more thorough and accurate than services such as MLS Alliance because some boards pull their data out of the Alliance.  Additionally, we scrubbed the data for known errors.  We allowed duplicates when there were actually multiple sales on the same property for the same year.

73% of foreclosures in SW Florida were non-homestaeded property, meaning investors walked from their investments when the value fell below what they owed.  Most investors were planning to flip for a profit when they purchased.  SW Florida bank foreclosures were absorbed and sold, and inventory fell as the market heated up, even if prices have not.

We’ll add video of news stories from the report in coming days.

The 2009 Ellis Team annual SW Florida State of the Market Report will be released February 18, 2009 at the general meeting of the Southwest Florida Investment Association.  It is located at Island Park Bridge Club – 16520 S Tamiami Trl # 16 Fort Myers, FL 33908

The format has changed from last year’s format. This year we’ll address the following topics:

  • Sales Trends by Area
  • Pricing Trends by Area
  • Lee County Pricing Trends by Month
  • Lee County Sales Trends by Month
  • Median Prices Vs. Avg Prices
  • $ Volume of Sales by Area
  • Find Out Which Areas are Selling
  • Identify Where the Deals Are
  • How Will Recent Lending Changes Affect Investors
  • How Will Recent Guidelines Affect Condo Sales
  • Don’t Follow the Herd-Be the First to Know How This Market is Changing and Capitalize
  • Get the Facts-Don’t believe Everything You Read
  • Find out How the Stimulus Package Could Affect Our Market
  • What Does the Latest Current market Index Predict for our Market
  • Should you be Positive or Negative in 2009
  • Ask Questions-Only Even of it’s Kind Where You can ask the Experts Questions

Compare areas such as Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Estero, Bonita Springs, Lehigh Acres, Sanibel-Captiva, Pine Island and see how your area is doing.

This year we’ve compiled two independent sets of data.  The first is the most exhaustive set ever compiled.  We tool MLS data from multiple sources, compared for duplicates, and deleted, and scrubbed the data for known errors.  We used this data to compile a comprehensive database.  Secondly, Jeff Tumbarello has compiled the area’s finest foreclosure database.  This year we have analysed both sets of data and we’ll be able to compare and contrast the two independent empirical sets.  Foreclosures have affected the real estate market, and by analysing the two together we’ll be better able to illustrate past trends, future trends, and show how the cause and effect is influencing the other.  We look forward to demonstrating the lagging and leading indicators in this market, and how you can plan to take advantage of this knowledge.

Click here for more information on attending the SW Florida Real Estate Investors Association meeting and viewing the Annual State of the market Report.