Strong October Home Sales in Tequesta as Median Price Drops

Home Sales in Tequesta Jump 30% in October

With the elections behind us it is time to move forward and watch closely to changes coming our way. No doubt the landscape in America has changed and the challenges ahead for our elected officials are not easy ones. Besides the looming debt ceiling limit and expiration of the Bush Tax Credits coming our way there is another issue of great importance to the real estate industry both locally and nationally.

The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act and Debt Cancellation is set to expire on December 31st of this year. This Act allowed taxpayers to exclude income from the discharge of debt on their principal residence. As an example, if Joan and Jim had to short sale their property and their loan was for $300,000 and the short sale was approved at the now market value of $150,000 there has been no tax consequence since this Act was put in place 5 years ago. If Congress does not extend this Act as of January 1st Joan and Jim will have an additional $150,000 of taxable income.

Banks are required to provide this information to the Internal Revenue Service so this is a big change to what short sellers have enjoyed for the past 5 years. With the debt ceiling and tax issues already front and center the extension of this Act is not guaranteed but the best guess is it will be extended at least for a while.

As we have reported throughout the year we have seen a dramatic improvement of the local real estate market in Southern Florida. Especially in the May to August reporting periods sales have been strong even as inventories continued to drop to multi-year lows. Over the past couple months home sales in Tequesta and the surrounding areas have cooled a bit and we have seen slight increases in inventory throughout the region. Well priced single family homes in good condition remain as rare as getting a $2 bill in your change at the convenience store.

So with changes looming let’s take a look at home sales in Tequesta and the surrounding communities for the month of October and see what has happened since our last report.

Hobe Sound - 

Tequesta - up 30%

Jupiter - up 3%

Palm Beach Gardens - down 3%

North Palm Beach - down 18%

Last month was the first time in a long time that we reported the volume of home sales in Tequesta and the surrounding communities all fell during the same month. This is certainly not what one wants to find in a market in recovery mode. So it is nice to see an about face with increases in 3 of our reporting communities while sales fell again in the other two. In October the median number of sales increased 3% in our reporting area with a much higher jump in the average sales figures fueled by a big month in Hobe Sound. We move next in this months report to home sales in Tequesta where sales volume increased significantly by 30% from September levels. At this juncture it is nice to see some positive news out of the Jupiter market. This was the first increase in monthly home sales in Tequesta and hopefully the start of a new trend. During the month of October a total of 13 Tequesta single family homes sold compared with 10 during the previous month. With this showing we stay just ahead of the 12 month average sales volume which currently stands at 12.33 On a “seasonal” note home sales in Tequesta were down 13% from the 15 sales we had in the same month in 2011.

As we saw sales volume increase in Jupiter we saw the heaviest sales activity in homes priced between $150,001 and $300,000 with 9 sales representing 82% of the entire market. With these sales the median sales price decreased from month ago numbers to $255,000 a bearish sign in an otherwise bullish month. Even of more concern is this was the lowest monthly median price we have seen in Tequesta for 19 long months. We fell far below the 12 month average which stands at $404,788 and a sign that for the second month there has been a lack of sales in the Tequesta luxury home market. From a “seasonal” perspective we also fell far below the median sales price in October of last year which stood at $350,000. Below are the charts showing the percentage of single family home sales in each category for the month of October as well as median prices over the past 12 months in Tequesta.

Many kites in the local real estate sky and as always we will keep you up to date with which way the winds are blowing. The next few months will be key indicators of things to come in the new year.

Until next month............