Monthly Archives: October 2018

Some Experts Warn of Shifting Nationwide Real Estate Market

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Have you read the headlines lately?  Home sales are sliding nationwide.  September home sales fell 4.1% nationwide, and we hear new home construction has fallen too.  What’s to blame for this?  Home affordability.  Rising rates are cutting into home buyers’ ability to pay ever increasing prices, and it’s showing up at the closing table.  Rates have risen about 1% in the past year.  Some experts warn of shifting nationwide real estate market upcoming.

We know that a 1% rise in interest rates erases about 11% of buyer’s purchasing power.  So if a buyer could afford a $250,000 home last year, that same buyer can now only afford $222,500 unless they received a pay raise since last year.  Nationwide wages are growing while unemployment is falling, so there is room for further gains, but that takes time.  Higher rates are here now.

Some Experts Warn of Shifting Nationwide Real Estate Market

Locally in SW Florida, we may be in good shape.  If you look at the chart, you’ll notice that SW Florida hasn’t participated in a price run-up the past two years like the rest of the state has.  Prices in September are down.  The median price in September was down 3.9% while the average price was down 3.5%.  Remember, closing last year was disrupted due to Hurricane Irma, so we can’t read too much into this just yet.  We don’t know if the lower or higher end were disrupted, so these numbers could potentially level out in coming months.

We know active inventory is up 18% over last year.  Again, many listings came off the market after Irma, so that’s not a surprise.  Inventory has been building a bit in 2018, but so have the closed sales.  In fact, 2018 is shaping up to be a very good year for home sales.  We have the highest YTD home sales of any year since 2015.

Is SW Florida in a Shifting Market?  Not right now.  Technically we’re still in a seller’s market, but it is getting very close to a balanced market. The thing that may be protecting SW Florida versus the rest of the country is the fact that we didn’t go up in value the past 2 years.  The median price of a home in January 2017 was $245,000.  Today, it’s $245,000. The average price of a home was $340,604 in January 2017.  Today it’s $313,102.

Could our market shift?  Absolutely.  No market stays the same forever.  Agents who have been in the business less than 5 years probably don’t know how to handle a shifting market.  The way you sell in a rising market is completely different than in a declining market.  An experienced agent can sell in an up, down, or sideways market.  Today, all indications are we’ve got a pretty good market, and there’s no reason to believe that will change drastically one way or the other.

It always pays to study the market.  We have a Market Report section on our website, so buyers and sellers can study the active, pending, and sold listings in a neighborhood as well as view all the photos.  No other site has the sold data for you like this.  It’s updated instantly, so when a home goes pending or sells in your neighborhood, you’ll see it live.  You can create your own neighborhood report if you don’t see yours listed.  Simply go to www.LeeCountyOnline.com to view your neighborhood.

If you want a quick and Free home price analysis, go to www.SWFLhomevalues.com  In less than a minute you’ll have your home’s value.  If you’re thinking of selling, please call Sande or Brett Ellis 239-489-4042 Ext 4.  We’ll be happy to answer your questions, show you how much you’ll net at closing, and about how long it will take to sell your home.

Good luck and Happy Selling!

Median Time to Contract Date 63 Days This Year

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A few weeks ago, we wrote about how strong closings have been in 2018.  This week we’ll talk about two more indicators that help us evaluate the health of the market; median time to contract and dollar volume.  Currently median time to contract date 63 days this year.

Median Time to Contract Date 63 Days This Year

The median time to contract is 63 days this year.  This is measured by taking the number of days from listing to time of pending contract.  In other words, it’s taking just over 2 months for homes to go under contract.  If you have a home on the market and it’s taking longer than that, it’s either not being marketed correctly, it’s overpriced, or both.

Because the market has been strong in 2018, the median time to contract is down 4.5%. It’s taking less time to sell homes this year than last.  In the past month or two we’ve seen listings increase, and yet the market has gobbled up many of these listings.  This tells us buyers are out there and ready to buy, but at the right price.  Even in a hot seller’s markets some sellers seem to overshoot the market.  Ask all those sellers in 2005 and 2006 who were on the market and failed to sell if they’d love to have that opportunity back.

Some sellers will always be too greedy for the market.  There’s a term for them.  They’re called Expireds because they were never priced to sell at the market.  It might not be their fault.  If they demanded more than the market would bear, it is.  Perhaps they listened to their agent who didn’t really know that market, or really needed a listing badly and convinced the seller they could sell it higher than any other agent.  I guess you could say it’s the seller’s fault for listening to the wrong people, but how is a seller to know for sure?

We see the same mistake from buyers.  They low-ball sellers and seem to come up short on every offer.  Their goal was to purchase a house, and yet they see everyone else buying but they can’t seem to score a deal.  Greed is getting in their way, just as it does for sellers who overprice.  Greed prevents more buyers and sellers from accomplishing their goals than anything, followed closely by fear.

People have a fear of making a mistake, so often they do nothing.  The sad reality is doing nothing may very well be the biggest mistake they could make.  A seller riding the market down is no fun.  A buyer watching interest rates rise while they sit on sidelines is no fun either.

Dollar Volume Lee County Florida Median Time to Contract Date 63 Days This Year

Getting back to the market, the other indicator we watch is dollar volume. Dollar volume is the cumulative total of all sales.  It is of course influenced by the number of closings and the average price.  As you can see, dollar volume of sales was up 12.9% in August and up 14.9% year to date.  By all accounts, 2018 has been a very good year for real estate sales.

Waiting in this market can be a costly mistake, both on the buy side and the sale side.  It pays to work with a professional that knows the numbers.  I can assure you, agents on the Ellis Team know the market numbers.

If you’re looking to sell a home, call Sande or Brett Ellis at 239-489-4042 Ext 4.  If you’re looking to buy, our team of friendly and knowledgeable agents can help you too.  Don’t forget to check out www.LeeCountyOnline.com  It has all the listings, and it’s updated instantly, so you’ll know about hot new listings before other buyers and sellers on those other sites.  Sometimes they take days to update, and sometimes listings are missing because the agent decides not to list them there.  We have all the listings.  You can even find out what your homes is worth online too.

Always call the Ellis Team at Keller Williams Realty 239-489-4042.  We’ll take good care of you, and give you the straight scoop with what’s really going on in the market!

Ellis Team Weekend Open House

Saturday October 20, 2018 11AM -2 PM

 

Avoid Dr Do It All When Selecting a Realtor to Sell Your Home

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The last few weeks we’ve been reporting official Southwest Florida real estate sales numbers, and the numbers look good.  This flies in the face of what some sellers and some agents are saying about the market.  Real estate tends to be an emotional item.  It is for buyer and seller, and for agents alike. This week we’ll focus on why you should avoid Dr do it all when selecting a Realtor to sell your home.

Buyers and sellers tend to get caught up in their own personal transaction.  Agents tend to get caught up in their overall production.  Sometimes agents confuse their own production with that of the overall market, and often they are completely different.

The typical agent’s production cycle is up and down.  They prospect, farm, and lead generate which leads to appointments.  As they take appointments they get busy.  A lot goes into working with a buyer or bringing a listing to the market.  Both can be time consuming.  As transactions begin to occur, all of the prospecting, farming, and lead generating tends to stop.  They must focus limited resources on the ultimate goal, getting the deals closed.

Once they get their deals closed, they’re basically out of business and must begin the process all over again.  And after they do, the cycle begins anew.  When agents are in the transaction phase, they feel like the market is booming, because they’re busy and they have closings coming up.  When they are in the prospecting phase, they can feel like the market is dead and nobody wants to buy.  Because they honestly feel this way, agents tend to report on how they feel the market is doing by how their personal business is going.  And the answer always lies in which step of the process they are in.  Talk to 10 different agents and you might get 10 different answers, and it’s all real to them.

Avoid Dr Do It All When Selecting a Realtor to Sell Your Home

Experienced agents with a long track record of sales have learned to level out the ups and down by doing two things.  Hire talent to help handle all the fine details of bringing a listing to market and managing a transaction.  This helps agents do the 2nd thing, which is never stop lead generating. 

Avoid Dr Do It All When Selecting a Realtor to Sell Your Home

Not only will it help an agent level out the ups and downs of their business, it also helps their sellers.  Imagine listing with an agent that is so busy taking your listing and closing a few deals that they stop lead generating.  Now that your home is new to the market, there are no new leads for your home because the agent stopped lead generating to get your home ready for MLS.

A lot goes into placing a home in MLS, if done properly.  Professional photos must be taken.  Several hours are spent on a pricing strategy, and several more hours are spent gathering information for the MLS, like HOA or condo information, and of course listing all the details and fields for the home.  Then there is the dreaded agent remark section where agents must cleverly write a compelling story on why your home is a good buy.

It’s no wonder why single agents get frustrated, because there is so much to do, and when business starts happening, the lead generation stops.  This is where sellers get frustrated.  Their home is fresh on the market, and few people are viewing the home.

Always Call the Ellis Team at Keller Williams Realty

Avoid Dr Do it All- This is why we created a team.  In fact, we were the first team in SW Florida many years ago.  We never stop lead generating.  The Ellis Team has a full-time listing manager to help with all the details of bringing a home to market.  We have a closing manager to help get our deals to the closing table, so we don’t have to start all over with another buyer.  And, we have a full-time marketing manager to make our ads, and our homes look good.

We never stop marketing and lead generating.  This is why our homes sell faster and for more money than the average agent.  We have a list of buyers ready to buy now, and we are working every day to find them homes.  We may already have a buyer for your home, and if not, our marketing will create one.

Call Brett or Sande Ellis 239-489-4042 Ext 4 if you’re thinking of selling, or go to www.SWFLhomevalues.com to see what your home may be worth.

SW Florida Real Estate Closings Setting Strong Pace in 2018

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SW Florida Real Estate Closings Setting Strong Pace in 2018SW Florida Real estate closings setting strong pace in 2018 and it’s the best kept secret out there. Perhaps people are caught-up in the headlines of red-tide and blue-green algae and just assume the market is suffering.

I was just speaking with a lender this morning who mentioned she’s ready for real estate closings to start picking up.  Lenders of course get a large chunk of their business through Realtors, so I asked her what her perception of the market was.  In speaking with Realtors she works with, she had heard it was slow.

SW Florida Real Estate Closings Setting Strong Pace in 2018

If you look at the graph, you’ll see Lee County closings in 2018 are ahead of past year’s closings.  In fact, we are 689 of last year and 211 ahead of 2015, the second highest year in this time frame. The data shows that real estate closings are not slow, and yet Realtors, lenders, and maybe even the public thinks it is.

Your perception becomes your reality, and if you buy into a falsehood that the market is slow, suddenly your closings will be slow, which further confirms your suspicion that the market is indeed slow.  When you buy into false facts, your outcome is determined by your attitude and assumptions rather than what could have been.  If you simply change your thinking, you can change your world.

At Keller Williams we have a list or irrefutable laws, one of which is “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”   The SW Florida real estate market right now is a perfect example.  This market can be whatever you want it to be.  We have buyers looking to buy.  We have a good economy, and rates are low historically speaking although on their way up.  All favorable signs!

And yet we have some negatives.  Interest rates are rising, which is slowing buyer’s purchasing power.  Sales are slowing nationwide.  And of course, we have Red Tide and Blue Green Algae.  There, I said it.  We have positives on the table and we have negatives on the table.  So, which is it?

Every business should run a SWOT analysis.  Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.  Every business will have positives and negatives.  Every relationship will have both.  Your outcome is dependent on how you look at things.  Do you choose to see the opportunity, or do you choose to see the threat?

Facts are facts, and they often get in the way of how we’d like to perceive a situation.  The facts are, we’ve got a pretty good market right now.  If you’re an agent, you could either decide on how you’re going to go get your unfair share of sales or sit back and complain that sales are slow.  They’re not slow for everybody, only those that choose to buy into the negatives.

If you’re a seller, you want an agent that knows how to market and sell in all kinds of weather.  Three things are certain, markets go up, markets go down, and the weather is always changing.  If your home has been on the market and failed to sell, perhaps you need a new approach.

It failed to sell for one of two reasons.  Either it was overpriced, or it wasn’t marketed properly.  We’ve taken over listings that failed to sell and sold them at the same price, so it wasn’t the price.  We’ve taken over other listings that were overpriced, made the proper adjustments, and added our marketing and they sold.  Sometimes it’s both, the price and the marketing.

There is no substitute for proper marketing.  Failure to market properly will cause a home to sell at a lower price, or not at all.  Even homes priced correctly sometimes don’t sell, and that’s lack of marketing.

Call Brett or Sande Ellis 239-489-4042 Ext 4 and we’ll be happy to sit down and discuss both with you.  Or, go to www.SWFLhomevalues.com and get a quick and Free estimate of your home’s value, then call us when you’re ready to sell.

Good luck and happy selling!

Ellis Team Weekend Open Houses

Open House Saturday 1-3 PM

1742 Ardmore Rd

 

Open House Saturday 1-3 PM

714 Fifth Ave, Lehigh Acres

New Real Estate Listings Rose 14.8% in August

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New real estate listings rose 14.8% in August and are up 11% year to date.  New pending sales were down 3.4% in August and up 4.4% year to date.  Percentages can be misleading though, so let’s dive deeper into the numbers.

New Real Estate Listings Rose 14.8% in August

New Real Estate Listings Rose 14.8% in August

New listings in August totaled 1,423.  This was up from 1,240 last year.  In August 1,226 properties went pending.  This means 203 more properties came on the market than went pending.  The total inventory of active listings regardless of how long they’ve been on the market rose to 5,307.  This is a 13.7% increase over last year, although it’s practically the same as the month previous.

New Real Estate Listings Rose 14.8% in August New Pending Sales Slid

Our month’s supply of inventory rose to 4.9 months in August.  This is the exact same as July, however it is an 11.4% increase over last year currently.

So, what do these numbers tell us?  Statistically we still have a seller’s market.  Anything less than 5.5 months supply of inventory is considered a seller’s market.  Median prices rose 4.6% over last year while average sales prices rose 2.3%.  Prices are rising, although the rate of rise is leveling off.

Nationwide the Case-Schiller Index was just released for July and it showed nationwide home prices rose 6%, which was smaller than previous gains.  They speculate rising interest rates are beginning to tap the brakes on how much and how fast home prices can appreciate.

Home sales slid .7% nationwide in July. Lee County home sales were up 9.1% back in July, and up 10.3% in August.  While we’re all affected by rising interest rates, SW Florida might be a little insulated because we didn’t participate in the price run-ups the past few years like others did. Our prices were flatter the past few years, and only recently have begun to rise substantially.

Going forward, buyers and sellers will need to do more research.  Sellers looking for top dollar will need to interview agents in search of the best marketing plan.  Anyone can sell a home in a rising market.  Some Realtor’s say price sells homes.  While we won’t argue with that, marketing does too.  And that’s where some Realtors disagree.

Advertising costs money and that eats into margins.  Some agents can’t afford to market homes properly, so they don’t.  They rely on the MLS and other agents to sell their listings.  As inventory begins to grow, the need for marketing increases.

You’ve got to find a way to make your client’s home stand out.  As inventory rises, their home is just another in a long list of homes on the market.  What makes it stand out?  Once you determine that, you must tell the world.

An agent can’t rely on MLS and real estate portals to do that.  They are nothing more than a directory listing of homes on the market.  Imagine searching through your neighborhood directory wonder which neighbor has the best home.  A directory won’t tell you that.  The MLS won’t sell your home, and neither will real estate portals.  If you’re thinking of selling, you should call the Ellis Team at Keller Williams Realty.  239-489-4042 Ext 4.  We’ll show you how advertising makes all the difference.

Buyers today are doing more research too.  As inventory rises, they have more to choose from, and more to learn.  Buyers must be careful though, because although total listings are up, they may not be in your price range or the neighborhood you’re looking for.

A good agent can help you sort through the maze of homes and educate you on the process. Buying or selling a home isn’t simple.  You may not realize it until you run into trouble, and then it can be costly.  Always call a professional.

To get an idea of what your home is worth, you can at www.SWFLhomevalues.com It’s free and easy, and it’s pretty darn accurate most times.  For a more detailed analysis, call Brett or Sande Ellis and we’ll come view your home and show you what we can sell it for, and how much money you’ll end up with in your pocket at closing.

Call us if you need us 239-489-4042 Ext 4 and Happy Selling!