March 23, 2016
The inventory in Alachua County is dropping as home sales picked up in February, which is driving home prices up. Buyers closed on 157 existing single-family homes last month, which is up 9.8 percent from the 143 closings in February of 2015. February is looking great, even compared with January, whose year-over-year increase was 5.5 percent.
We are moving in to the Spring buying season, and with an uptick in the pace of sales as well as a 15.5 percent drop in the number of homes on the market, we are looking at inventory that dropped to 4.2 months, which was at 5.8 months a year ago.
The drop in inventory forces home prices up and makes renovating older homes a more viable option for many buyers, rather than buying newer, more expensive homes.
However, currently, home-buyers are purchasing larger, higher-priced homes. Sales dropped 19 percent for homes priced between $150,000 and $199,999, but increased a whopping 92 percent for homes priced between $200,000 and $249,999.
Florida as a whole has been doing pretty well, though not nearly as well as Alachua County. Overall state sales were relatively flat while the median sale price for a Florida home was up 11.1 percent in February from the year prior.
Overall U.S. sales were up 2.2 percent over the year, but down 7.1 percent from January, according to the National Association of Realtors.
In general, the main real estate market concerns continue to be low supply and affordable homes. However, with total sales volume up significantly from the previous year, for Alachua County as well as nationwide, the market is definitely looking strong and promising.
For more information on the local real estate market and more, check out the article at gainesville.com.
