Valerie’s Values
With the changing of the seasons, comes more than just warm weather! The new normal of selling real estate appears to be in full force. As the graphic below shows we are back to the mid 2004 indices. This is tracking true for Ocala as back in 2004 we were selling 425 properties per month and we sold 444 in the month of February.
Along with selling at a consistent rate, home prices are expected to increase between 5-7% this year in Florida. Of course, this number is highly localized and is very dependent on job growth. Ocala continues on a positive trend.
Let us know how we can help you buy or sell your home today!
Reflections of Today’s Real Estate Market
8% of Counties Across the U.S. Better Off Now Than Before the Recession
IRVINE, Calif. – March 21, 2014 – RealtyTrac released an eight-year analysis of housing market health in 410 U.S. counties reflected in two-year increments.
It found that 96 percent of county housing markets are better off now than they were four years ago when foreclosures peaked in 2010 – but only 8 percent are better off than they were eight years ago in 2006 before the housing price bubble burst.
The analysis looked at four different categories of housing market health: home price appreciation, affordability, percentage of bank-owned (REO) sales and the unemployment rate. Each county received a ranking between 1 and 2.5 for each category each year, and those four rankings were summed up for a total index score for a maximum possible score of 10 each year. The 410 counties analyzed in the report account for 63 percent of the U.S. population.
RealtyTrac created a heat map of the trend. Scroll across the map for a county-by-county breakdown of current employment rates, home prices, percent of REO sales and household incomes.
Local Ocala News
MLS data for February sales:
444 closed sales- an increase of 25.1% from a year ago
-1.2% decrease in pending sales year over year
Average sale price – $130,624 an increase of 8.5%
An increase of 1.1% of Active Listings
7.6 months of inventory compared to 9.6 last year
The February report is available from the Ocala Marion County Association of Realtors (OMCAR) report. Please click on the link for the full report.
If you would like to have information regarding the sale of horse farms, or agricultural land in general please contact me.
News From Around the State
RealtyTrac: Florida Still #1 in Foreclosure Activity
IRVINE, Calif. – March 13, 2014 – Florida remained the No. 1 state in the nation in foreclosure activity in February despite a long trend of improvement, according to RealtyTrac.
For February, Florida’s foreclosure activity, which is a tally of initial filings, auction notices, and lender repossessions, dropped 24 percent from a year earlier, the Irvine, Calif.-based data firm said. Even with that decline, one in every 372 residences in Florida got some sort of filing during the month, a rate more than three times the national average.
Fla. cities prevalent in foreclosure top 10
1. Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville (one in every 296 housing units)
2. Tampa (one in every 318)
3. Jacksonville (one in every 319)
4. Miami (one in every 328)
5. Port St. Lucie (one in every 361)
6. Orlando (one in every 370)
7. Atlantic City, N.J. (one in every 398)
8. Ocala (one in every 404)
9. Tallahassee (one in every 407)
10. Lakeland (one in every 410)
Hopeful signs? New foreclosure filings in Florida dropped year over year for the 12th consecutive month, and Florida bank repossessions fell annually for the sixth consecutive month, RealtyTrac said.
Until Next Month
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