Median Prices Stay Rock Solid in Tequesta
Spring is in the air, our streets here in paradise are less crowded and a seat at The Food Shack on Friday night is easier to find. All is well and the real estate market continues to thrive in south Florida. Finding well priced properties, especially single family homes in good shape, remains a struggle and seeing multiple Realtors with their clients in tow within hours of a new listing hitting the market is a typical sight.
While inventory levels remain lower than those we have been spoiled by over the past few years we are seeing some renewed listing activity over the past week or so. While we are still about a week away from our detailed look at inventory levels I expect them to have remained relatively unchanged. With interest rates setting new all time lows and plenty of buyers looking for the right opportunity this years spring buying season remains very interesting to watch. So without further adieu let’s evaluate how sales looked in the local markets during the month of March.
#1 Juno Beach
#2 Tequesta up 66%
#3 Hobe Sound - up 44%
#4 North Palm Beach - up 20%
#4 Palm Beach Gardens - up 6%
#6 Jupiter - down 12%
While we started off on kind of a down note with Jupiter showing a decline in sales of 12% over the previous month I can assure you that is a function of a huge jump in February and a lack of quality inventory. Overall, the best word to use when describing March real estate sales in the north county area is stupendous. Maybe super duper stupendous. The median increase over February sales was 31.5% and the average an even more incredible 42.8%.
Weighing in last month in 2nd place was Tequesta with a huge 66% increase over February sales numbers. Are you kidding; a 66% increase and only a 2nd place finish? Shows you how strong the local real estate markets truly are. During March, 15 single family homes were sold compared with 9 during the previous month. We remain firmly ahead of the 12 month average which stands at 12.5 and also far above the 2011 pace when 10 homes sold in March of last year. 
While sales increased they also were evenly balanced in all price categories which is the balance we like to see. The strongest sales numbers were seen in the middle price ranges but buyers showed up in each category. The chart below shows the percentage of sales by price category for the month of March.
With a balance of sales across all pricing categories we would expect a solid performance in the median sales price last month, In fact, in March the median sales price in Tequesta fell to $450,000 well down from the $505,000 we saw in February. With this showing we stayed above the 12-month average of $420,592 and far ahead of the median price from March 2011 which stood at $256,000. Signs still point to 2012 being the first year with a median price increase since the big bubble burst over 6 years ago. The chart below shows median prices on a monthly basis over the previous 12 month period.
Interesting times continue so keep turned in for the latest news from paradise.
Comments(0)