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Cape Coral Real Estate Video Update
This week’s SW Florida real estate video update presented by The Ellis Team at RE/MAX Realty Group focuses on cape Coral Florida. Cape Coral is leading sales transactions in Lee County due to the number of foreclosures and short sales bringing affordability back into the SW Florida real estate market.
Cape Coral Real Estate Video Update
View This Week’s Cape Coral Video Update.
Check out the entire SW Florida real estate State of the Market Report
Video Coverage of State of the Market Report
The Ellis Team at RE/MAX Realty Group in Fort Myers released the Annual SW Florida State of the Market Report in February. Local TV stations covered the release and here are some of the stories.
WINK News 6PM Coverage of State of the Market Report
WINK News 10 PM Coverage-Home Prices Back to 1999 Prices
WINK News 11 PM-Housing Prices and New Construction
FOX 4 News Coverage of State of market Report Release
Download the State of the Market Report In this report we detail the Fort Myers real estate market, along with updates on the Cape Coral real estate market, Lehigh Acres home sales, Bonita Springs and Estero real estate updates, Sanibel and Captiva, Fort Myers Beach, Pine Island, and all of Lee County Florida.
We also detailed bank foreclosure information, and short sales statistics, distressed property information, and we talked about the CDPE (Certified Distressed Property Expert) designation to help owners keep their homes or sell their homes to protect their credit
We’ll be uploading more video in the coming days, so stay tuned.
Fort Myers Florida Real Estate Update Feb 24, 2009
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.
2009 SW Florida Real Estate State of the Market Report Released Yesterday
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.
SW Florida Annual State of the Market Report Presented by the Ellis Team
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.
January 2009 Ellis Team SW Florida Real Estate Current Market Index
The January 2009 Ellis Team SW Florida real estate current market index covering Fort Myers real estate, Cape Coral real estate, and Estero leveled off this past month and currently stands at 6.74, up slightly from 6.65 the previous month. The index still shows signs of strong buying activity and overall market absorbtion.
Single family inventory for Lee County dropped below 14,000 this month to 13,740, while pendings remained relatively the same. The Current Market Index for the entore county actually fell from 7.99 to 7.89, but we are reporting numbers in the graph for just Fort Myers and Cape Coral real estate single family homes. Single family home inventory has been falling nicely as the market has been absorbing homes to the market all throughout 2008. Other agents are just now starting to pick up on this trend and report it, instead of the gloom and doom some have been reporting all year.
Next month we’ll be releasing our annual SW Florida State of the Market Report, which will be much more comprehensive this year. We’ve been hard at work analysing the data and identifying emerging trends. As usual, there will be some surprises. We’ve spent extra time eliminating duplicate entries in various MLS systems, so we feel quite confident this new set of numbers will be the Most realistic picture of what is actually happening in SW Florida real estate.
We’ll be drilling down much deeper so you can see what’s been happening in various neighborhoods. Stay tuned for official announcement for the release date for this very special report.
Fort Myers Florida Real Estate Video Update
OK, who knew the video updates would be so popular? This week’s video updates are in, and instead of doing our traditional in office video update, we decided to post some of the news stories we did last week on the local news. This idea started out last year as a fun experiment, and what we’ve discovered is people like it and expect it. This past week we received several e-mails and comments asking where the video updates are.
On January 6, 2009 we did an interview on WINK News 6 PM regarding Hank Fishkind’s recently released report and how he expects the SW Florida real estate market to go in the next 3 years. We talked about affordability being back in the Fort Myers real estate market and how northern buyers are here this season and buying due to the low prices.
We also did an interview for WINK News at 5 PM and we talked again about Hank Fishkind’s stagnant growth prediction, northern buyers, and making money in real estate on the Buy Vs. the sell. We disagreed with Hank Fishkind’s report to some extent on the SW Florida condo market.
You can let us know whether you like the TV News format better, or the simple video update like we did on September 15 in our office. Just leave your comments to this post.
We also did news stories on NBC Today Show last September and also NBC NIghtly News with Brian Williams on October 8, 2008.
If you’d like to search for your bank owned bargain, or foreclosures in Fort Myers and Cape Coral Florida, visit out Free Search MLS website.
Fort Myers Real Estate and Cape Coral Real Estate sales Numbers Released for November 2008
November 2008 real estate numbers for Fort Myers and Cape Coral were released recently and single family home sales in Cape Coral and Fort Myers were up 64% over last year, a trend we’ve seen repeated throughout 2008. Median sales prices for Fort Myers and Cape Coral real estate fell 53% from last year, down from $228,100 to $106,100. Statewide home sales were up only 4%, so again SW Florida real estate has been leading the state in home sales.
Condo sales in Fort Myers and Cape Coral were down 21% from last year, while statewide they were only down 8%. Statewide sales prices for condo were down 30% and condos in Cape Coral and Fort Myers were only down 20%, perhaps a reason why our sales were down. The better the pricing the more sales we are seeing in any particular market segment.
December 2008 Ellis Team SW Florida Real Estate Current Market Index
The December 2008 Ellis Team SW Florida Real Estate Current Market Index again showed improvement from last month’s index. The Current Market Index now stands at 6.65, down from 6.89 in November. The lower the number the better the market is for sellers. Transactions in the Fort Myers and Cape Coral real estate markets were up again significantly over last year as our index predicted it would be. Single family home sales in Fort Myers and Cape Coral were up 78% over last year’s numbers in October.
Single family inventory is down 12.42% from last year’s numbers. In December 2007 we had over 16,000 single family homes for sale in Lee County and now that number is down to slightly over 14,000. With sales up around 80% over last year’s numbers and inventory declining, many would say that 2008 has been a year of recovery for the SW Florida real estate market, but we cannot do so until prices stabilize. Median prices have continued to head lower all year and this is why Fort Myers and Cape Coral has bucked the state and national trends, because value and affordability are back in the market.
In fact, prices are so far below replacement costs that first time home buyers and investors alike are scooping these properties up as fast as they come on the market. While more foreclosures are scheduled to hit the market in 2009, many are condominiums and vacant land. We are doing a study right now along with the SW Florida Real Estate Investment Association to determine how many Lis Pen dens filings are actual home foreclosures. Keep in mind, a property may have multiple Lis Pen dens filings which may skew the numbers, so we may not see as many foreclosures in 2009 as some are quoting.
Local mortgage companies are reporting fixed rates in the 4.5% range today with 1 point. Loan amounts are also on the rise, which could signal an up tick in future home buying in higher price ranges. We don’t look for drastic upward changes to median home prices, however we do like to look at mortgage applications to get a reading on potential future purchasing activity.
We see regular negative articles and news stories about the real estate market, but the numbers tell another side of the story. Sellers do not like today’s prices, and nobody knows where tomorrow’s prices will be for sure, however we can report there is a market at the right price and this market has been posting large gains all year. We think many buyers and investors have figured out there are tremendous buying opportunities available now and they’re not listening to the Downers in the market.
If you really want to know how a market is doing, follow the money. Buyers are back in this market because the prices are Right. It’s a lot like the BCS polls. Don’t follow what the polls say; follow the Vegas odds, because that’s where the money is. It’s amazing how much better the money does in picking games than the experts do. The numbers always tell a story. The real wisdom is deciding not which expert to listen to, but which numbers you should follow. In the SW Florida real estate market you can look at falling median prices, or increased sales. Both tell a story, and we’ll leave it to the market to decide what the numbers mean. We just thought we’d present another side you may not be seeing in the media or hearing from other experts and let you decide.