As the nursery rhyme goes, “March winds and April showers, bring forth May flowers.” We like to think that the windy month of March is just stirring things up in the market for a great month of May.
The Northeast Florida Association of Realtors Market Stats for March shows that there is a very positive trend in pending sales right now. There was a 17% increase in contracts written from March, 2011’s 1,719 to March of 2012’s 2018 contracts written. Most interesting to note is the price range with the biggest increase is the pending sales of $1 million and above with an 18% increase.
There were 1,419 closings in March of 2012 and 1,529 closings in March of 2011; therefore we had a 7% decrease in closings during the month of March and a 3% decrease during the first quarter of 2012 over the first quarter of 2011. However, with the pending sales increase this year, we should see the closing percentage rise soon. Only 40% of the closings were lender-mediated during March compared to 60% of them being lender mediated at the beginning of 2011. A very encouraging fact is that traditional closings are up 27%.
We had a 5% increase in the median sales price of $124,063 in March, 2011 to $130,000 in March of 2012 and a 10% increase in the average sales price to $175,181.
March of 2011, we had 14,051 properties in active status in MLS. March of 2012 there were only 9,782, which is a 6.5 months of inventory available. This is down 36% from March of 2011’s 10.2 months of inventory available.
The positive highlights effecting our northeast Florida area is that unemployment in the area has declined, inventory is down, sales are up and the closings should ramp up real soon. If you would like more information about the market, or if you are considering buying or selling, please call us at Davidson Realty. We would be glad to help!
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