More Hot Florida Real Estate Numbers

For the fifth consecutive year, the Florida real estate market sizzled. In fact, few areas around the country boomed louder than Southwest Florida.

In the 12 months ending Nov. 30, the median sales price for existing homes in Charlotte County, Englewood and North Port skyrocketed 41 percent, from $167,700 to $236,900, according to the Florida Association of Realtors and the University of Florida Real Estate Research Center.

The Charlotte market was not far behind the Fort Myers-Cape Coral area, which saw a 49-percent median price jump to $295,400 over the same 12-month period. By comparison, the statewide median sales price rose 31 percent over the same period, from $191,300 to $250,500.

While area home prices have continued to soar, however, the blistering pace of local home sales have cooled considerably, with 15 percent fewer home sales recorded in November than in the same month a year ago.

Nancy McClary, broker associate with Coldwell Banker Morris Realty and immediate past president of the Punta Gorda-Port Charlotte-North Port Association of Realtors, characterized the slowing pace as expected, healthy and extremely temporary.

“The market is definitely seeing a slowdown,” she said. “But it’s really just pausing to catch its breath, and that’s a good thing. There are very few buyers right now and there’s a large inventory of available homes. But this is just a plateau.”

McClary said she expects the market to heat back up in the coming months, with no backsliding in either prices or pace. This goes along with the expectation of others experts in the South Florida home loan world.

McClary cited the significantly lower mortgage rates. She also added:

“The people up north are just getting their first big winter blasts of snow and cold weather, and a lot of people up there have just been laid off. I think you’re going to see a lot of people in the coming months look at the size of their heating bills and electric bills. I think a lot of them are going to lose power in snowstorms in the freezing cold, and ask themselves: ‘Why should I stay up here. At least down in Florida when they lose power they don’t freeze to death.’It’s difficult to argue with that logic. As McClary put it, when discussing the state of Florida home loans: “As long as we have the sun and they have the snow, they will come.”