Single Family Home Sales in Hobe Sound Top the Charts
As we “sprung forward” last weekend the nice sunny skies lasting later in the day are a perfect reminder that spring home buying season is upon us once again. For the first time in over 6 years we are in a position where interest rates are at historic low rates, housing inventories are at multi-year lows and many economists are finally calling the bottom of the great real estate bubble.
There is no doubt that the foundation for potential price increases is stronger than we have seen for a very long time. Indexes that track sales of previously owned homes continue to rise on a national level and again strengthens the potential for prices to once again be on the rise. As we all know, real estate is very local in nature so let’s evaluate how sales looked in the local markets during the month of February.
#1 Hobe Sound - up 45%
#2 Jupiter - up 43%
#3 Palm Beach Gardens - up 27%
#4 Tequesta - down 44%
#4 North Palm Beach - down 44%
#6 Juno Beach - down 57%
When looking at the breakdown of local sales during the month of February the one word that comes to mind is bizarre. The smallest change in any municipality was 27% with three communities way ahead of January’s numbers and three reporting sales way below. The average difference in sales in the month over month reporting cycle was over a 43% change. When you balance out the highs and lows the “average” difference over the 30 day period was a more modest 5% change. The lack of quality inventory coupled with the low interest rates and pent up demand is the main factor in a rather strange month.
Weighing in last month as our 1st place finisher with big 45% increase over January numbers is Hobe Sound. In January we had fallen to year long lows with just 11 sales so it was a positive sign to see 16 homes close during February. Even with a 1st place finish and a solid month we still remain below the 12 month average which stands at 19.25 but did manage to stay well ahead of the 12 homes that sold in February of last year. 
While sales pace showing improvement, prices realized were heavily weighted below the $300,000 benchmark with 69% of all sales below this level. The luxury home market with sales above $500,000 were a bit disappointing with only 2 sales and 12% of all sales with no sales above $750,000 during the month. In order to announce a real turn around in the market we need to see some marked improvement here. The chart below shows the percentage of sales by price category for the month of February.
With the vast majority of sales falling below $300,000 we should expect a little weakness in the monthly median numbers and in reality we snuck out a small gain from January levels. In February the median sales price in Hobe Sound increased about 11% to $255,000 from the $229,777 we saw in January. With this showing we remained above the the 12-month average of $226,973 and also above the median price from February 2011 which stood at $210,250. While the increase in sales was a great sign certainly a bit disappointing when it comes to prices realized and if we are in fact going to see an overall increase in prices this year we need to see things pick up from these levels. The chart below shows median prices on a monthly basis over the previous 12 month period.
So another month rolls by with more questions than answers but the signs still point to the local real estate markets continuing to recover with a few more bumps in the road but the economy seems to have the shock absorbers needed to handle whatever is thrown it’s way and with spring buying season staring us in the face it should be continued good times ahead.
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