Rosy Home Market Prospects Seen

There seems plenty of gas left in the housing sector’s impressive run in Florida moving into the second half of 2015, with better economic prospects seen on the horizon and a slew of encouraging home market data backing up the projection.

In a financial analysis released in early June 2015, University of Central Florida chief economist Sean Snaith forecast an average 3.1% annual growth rate for Sunshine State’s economy during the next four years. An anticipated 2% growth in the state’s workforce from 2015 to 2018 is expected to help propel this gain.

Foreseeing housing starts to pickup from flat levels in 2013-2014, Snaith said that construction is one sector that will experience the strongest average job growth in the next few years. However, he indicated that the pace may not be “fast enough to meet growing single-family (home) demand.”

Market favor sellers

This outlook should be good news to prospective home sellers, as data from Florida Realtors during the first five months of 2015 do indicate sustained growth in home demand. In Sarasota, closed sales of single family homes in May rose 4.8% to 783 transactions. This increase follows gains of 4.2 % in April, 13% in March, 10% in February, and 2.4% in January.

New listings of Sarasota homes for sale, on the other hand, were on a downswing for the first five months of the year. A 7.8% decline was recorded in May, following a 6.6% drop of newly listed single family homes in the county for April. This put months of inventory to 3.8 in May, the lowest so far in 2015 and represent the sharpest drop of 23.1% from last year. Months’ supply of Sarasota homes for sale dropped by nearly 20% in April, while declines of between 14.6% and 16.7% were registered from January to March.

Pricing uptrend

Advantageous for sellers, the recent inventory downswing and the sales uptick have combined to put upward pressure on prices. The median price of single family homes sold in May rose by 20.1% to $230,000, following increases of 13.1% in April, 9.5% in March, 5.9% in February, and 0.7% in January.

With the market tilted in favor of sellers, it would be smart for aspiring buyers of Sarasota homes for sale to hook up with an experienced local realtor. What would be most advantageous are the services of an agent equipped with the latest tools to readily track down new buying opportunities.

With these pro brokers’ assistance, buyers can readily access attractively priced new listings like the one recently posted at the Mirabella, a gated community at Palmer Ranch. Affordably priced in the $200s, this residence has two bedrooms and two baths within its floor area of 1,693 square feet.

Notably, Mirabella is one great destination in searching for highly desirable and well-priced properties, so much so that an available home here can be sold within a few weeks of its listing. In April 2015, for instance, a two-bedroom residence here with a floor area of 1,700 square feet and a tag price in the upper $200s was sold after being sales-listed for just three weeks, truly a reflection of the current brisk market for Sarasota homes for sale.

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