February brought us a little relief from the dismal numbers of January. We had 105 sales of single family homes, with a median sold price of $158,000 and a median “dollar per square foot” figure of $97. These aren’t huge increases over recent months, but at least it is an upward trend. As of the middle of the month, there were 1584 houses on the market, which equates to 15 months worth of inventory.
I continue to think that the dropping inventory numbers are not necessarily an indication of the market getting stronger. I think it is due to the “shadow inventory” of homes that are in distress, but that have not yet been foreclosed on due to the “robo signing” fiasco. There were only 29 foreclosure sales at the courthouse in February. We were having over 100 per month in 2010! Florida still has the second highest mortgage delinquency rate in the nation (behind Nevada), so I think that there is still a big backlog of houses that are going to be foreclosed on and come to market in the near future. The good news is, if you are seller, there is a little reprieve from the flooded market…at least in relative terms. So if you thinking of selling, do it now…once this next wave of distressed properties hits, you can expect for prices to take another hit.