By Robert Nardi
According to the 2019 Year End Market Report released by the Naples Area Board of REALTORS® (NABOR®), which tracks home listings and sales within Collier County (excluding Marco Island), existing home sales through December 2019 are the highest in a decade. Overall closed sales in 2019 increased 5.6 percent to 10,244 closed sales compared to 9,704 closed sales in 2018. In comparison, the only other year that came close to reaching this stellar sales activity was 2015, which had 10,154 closed sales.
Overall pending sales in 2019 also broke a record during the last decade; resulting in 12,604 total pending sales, a 9.4 percent increase over 2018, which reported 11,520 pending sales.
The 2019 Year End Market Report showed closed sales in 2019 increased in all but the $2 million and above price category, which had a 4 percent decrease to 523 closed sales compared to 544 closed sales in 2018. Of those in this price category, 376 were for single-family homes. The MLS revealed that 14 single-family homes priced above $4 million closed in December 2019 compared to just 7 in 2018.
Condominium closed sales held steady with a 1.9 percent increase in 2019 to 5,085 compared to 4,990 in 2018, but broker analysts reviewing the year-end report anticipate closed sales of condominiums in January will be much higher, especially since pending sales for condominiums increased 28.8 percent in December.
A breakdown of December’s closed sales by area showed Naples Beach reported the highest increase in closed sales during December with a 59.1 percent increase to 140 closed sales compared to 88 closed sales in December 2018. Closed sales by zip code revealed 34113 (Southeast Naples where new construction is booming) and 34108 (North Naples area) commanded impressive increases, 62.3 percent and 61.5 percent, respectively, in December 2019 compared to December 2018.
While inventory fell 21 percent in 2019 to 5,401 properties compared to 6,801 properties in 2018, the Collier County market is still commanding a much higher supply than the state’s average levels (as reported by Florida Realtors®). As such, the Market Report showed Collier County enjoyed 6.2 months of supply in the single-family home market during December, while the state reported 3.6 months of supply for the month. Likewise, the report showed 6.4 months of supply in the condominium market for December compared to 5.5 months of supply statewide.
For those of you who like statistics, CLICK HERE for the December 2019 chart and you can CLICK HERE for the Annual Report on the Naples Market for 2019.
What does this all mean?
It basically means that pricing is a key factor in moving property. There were 1,550 price reductions in December. That is 26 percent of the available inventory. This has been a trend for the past few months. And yet, if you do a month to month comparison, median closed prices in December 2019 increased 6.7 percent to $348,000 compared to $326,000 in December 2018. What’s remarkable is that the overall average closed price in Collier County during 2019 increased 19.3 percent to $772,380. Even with all these price reductions, the average closed price in Collier County still increased. In a nutshell, the market is priced higher, when the listing price is lowered to a fair market price, it will still sell at a higher price than it did a year ago. As a seller, it is not such a bad position to be in.
We are clearly in a very stable market seeing year to year increases. There are more flexible financing terms available. Many of my customers can pay cash, but their financial advisors are telling them to seek a mortgage because of the very low interest rates right now or they are urging them to seek out a loan against their investment portfolio. Even with a jumbo loan, the rates offered are very low. Naples, Florida is in a very sweet spot now.
Looking for a March rental?
We still have some great rentals available for March. Therefore, if you are looking to get away, there is no better place to go than Southwest, Florida with its beautiful sub-tropical weather and landscape. Generally, it doesn’t go below 70 degrees as a daytime temperature. We have amazing beaches, restaurants, shopping, amenities and culture! Please feel free to look for our rentals listings at BuyNaples.Net or please feel free to call my Rental Operations Manager, Corine Bordges at 239-206-6457.
Happy Valentine’s Day and before you know it, Spring will be right around the corner!