One of the ways we investigate the health of the Southwest Florida real estate market is to look at the total dollar sales volume.  The SW Florida real estate market is growing right now as the total dollar sales volume grew by $416 million in October.

Total dollar sales volume is calculated by adding up all the sales in Lee County in a given month. If you have both rising prices and rising number of sales, you’re going to have a positive number.  If you have one rising variable and one going down, you could still have a positive number depending on the calculation.  In this case, both are rising.

In 2019 we’ve had 5 months rising total dollar sales volume and 5 months declining.  The trend has been mostly on the rise since May.  For the year the Lee County Florida YTD total sales volume is down 1.9%.  It was down 9.28% back in May, so we’re making incredible process.  By the year end we could see a net gain in total dollar sales volume over 2018.

We think we will, because while 2018 was an excellent year, the market was hit with sales losses due to rising rates.  If you’ll recall, rates rose about 1% very quickly last year when the Fed abruptly changed its monetary policy.  This hurt the real estate market a bit, and sales fell.  When the Fed changed its tune, buyers listened and reacted in 2019.

In October, pending inventory rose 18% over last year.  We know end of the year sales should be strong. New pending sales rose 15.2% in October.  It’s a good time to have your home on the market right now.  At the Ellis Team, we’re seeing buyers looking to purchase and close by the end of the year.  Some want to establish domicile in Florida this year as they are leaving high tax states.

We’ve written extensive articles on the reasons why people are migrating to Florida.  Suffice it to say, we live in an awesome place with lots of advantages, so it’s no wonder people are choosing to move here.

Buyers are smart though.  They’re looking over their options.  If they’re leaving a high tax state, they don’t want to overpay down here.  They also look at total cost of ownership.  That is the price of home, plus yearly taxes, assessments, CDD’s, HOA and condo dues, and any other mandatory fees associated with the property.

This is where the help of a professional comes in.  Consumers get confused while on these national portal sites because they don’t show all that.  One of the features I love about our site www.LeeCountyOnline.com is that it shows the Total Annual Recurring Fees.  It adds up the various HOA fees and totals the together, even if there is more than one.  Simply add that to the property tax amount and you’ve got a good idea of the total fees.  The only thing we like to verify are any assessments as not all agents put those in MLS.

If you’re thinking of selling your home, now is a good time to talk.  Simply call Brett or Sande Ellis 239-489-4042 Ext 4 and we’ll be happy to talk to you about your options.  Some people like to check out their home value online first to see if it even makes sense.  We’ve got a website for that too.  Go to www.SWFLhomevalues.com to get an instant idea of your home’s value.

We’re starting our Customer Club back up.  Members of our customer club will receive videos and emails from us about changes in the market.  If you’re interested in what’s going on in the market, you’ll definitely want to sign up for that.  For now, simply send me an email to Brett@Topagent.com Put “Customer Club” in the subject line and we’ll get you on the list.  We’ll publish a website with a form soon to make it easy for people to sign up.

See last week’s article “Top Dollar Agent Interview Questions for Sellers”

Always call the Ellis Team with your real estate questions.  We hope you enjoyed turkey day and Black Friday.  We’re here to help you with all your real estate needs.