In Naples Housing Market, High-End Homes Defy Regional Real Estate Trends

According to the Naples Daily News, last year wasn’t bad for Realtors such as Bruce Babcock and Merry Coolidge, who made the biggest sale through the Multiple Listing Service in 2006 - a waterfront estate in the exclusive neighborhood of Port Royal for $14.9 million.

It was far from the only multimillion-dollar sale made last year. Luxury homes continue to move fast, despite a cooling Southwest Florida housing market.

In 2006, 28 homes in the Naples area sold for $5 million or more, the same number as in 2005. In that same price range, 11 condos sold last year, down from 15 a year earlier, according to statistics generated by the Naples Area Board of Realtors.

The trend comes down to the buyers.

“They’ve got the money,” Lee County Property Appraiser Ken Wilkinson said.

Last year, Lee County saw some multimillion-dollar sales of its own. The biggest through the MLS last year in Lee was a home in Mediterra that carried a price tag of $5.786 million.

In Collier County, the highest-priced listing is $19.9 million for a gated estate on Marina Drive that fronts Naples Bay in Aqualane Shores.

“I think there is a big difference between Port Royal and anything else in Lee County,” said Brett Ellis, a partner with RE/MAX Realty Group in Fort Myers. “Nothing in Lee County has approached that $20-million mark, and I don’t expect that it probably will real soon.”

Still, more than 35 homes sold for $1 million or more last year in Lee County.

As Florida home mortgage loans remained out of reach for many, the median home price for single-family homes up for resale dropped by 13 percent to $415,200 in the Naples area, and by 12 percent to $258,600 in the Fort Myers-Cape Coral market.

If you isolate higher-end neighborhoods and look at a three-year trend, a different story comes into focus. Statistics generated by the Naples Area Board of Realtors show home prices in most of Naples’ coastal neighborhoods continued their upward swing last year.

• In the third quarter, the median price of sales grew to $1.6 million in the Park Shore, Coquina Sands and Moorings area. That was up from $645,000 at the end of 2003.
• In the Port Royal, Aqualane Shores and Olde Naples areas of the Naples housing market, the median price rose to $1.96 million in the third quarter, representing a 120 percent increase in the past three years.
• Meanwhile, home prices dipped slightly in Pelican Bay in the third quarter. But they’re still trending higher than they were in 2003, and they rose again in the fourth quarter.

“The fact of the matter is that during the past few years the rich are getting richer and those that aren’t are not. That’s all there is to it,” said John Karevoll, an analyst with DataQuick Information Systems Inc. in La Jolla, Calif., which tracks the housing industry.

“Whether it’s Naples, Manhattan, Beverly Hills, or San Francisco, the very expensive homes are selling relatively well. There is still a little bit of a decline, but nothing like the decline we’re seeing in the rest of the Florida real estate market.”

While there’s been a 25-28 percent decline in sales nationwide, the decline in the high-end market is closer to 10 percent.

That market always dances to its own tune, as the people don’t have to worry about qualifying for a Florida mortgage, and whether it’s going to be a 6 percent, 30-year fixed mortgage, or a 6.25, 30-year Florida mortgage. Those are the details the rest of us need to fine tune.

And wealthy sellers are able to wait to get the price they want, which helps keep prices strong in pricey neighborhoods, despite buyers’ attempts at negotiation.