Issue 1 March 2008

Brevard County Market Watch

by Sandy Shores

It seems that none of us can truly predict where the Brevard County Real Estate Market will be heading over the course of the next year. Have we hit rock bottom, or do we still have a long way to go? No one knows for sure. The Federal Reserve slashed key interest rates, twice in January, by 1.25 percentage points. And according to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the central bank is prepared to keep on lowering the key interest rate as needed to shore up economy.

Conditions are beginning to improve for buyers who have been sitting on the fence, waiting to see what’s going to happen in our market.

What about tax reform? It is intended to allow sellers to bring their tax base with them when they move to another property. Will reform help? That remains to be seen. Will we start being assessed special fees that we didn’t pay before tax reform? In some areas, that’s already in the works.

According to the Florida Association of Realtors the median home resale price in Brevard dropped 13% to $180,600, in the fourth quarter of 2007; from $207,300 in the fourth quarter of 2006.

According to the Melbourne Area Board of Realtors in January 2008:

898 resale properties listed for sale -22.52% from 01/07 +66.30% from 12/07
149 resale listings that sold -23.98% from 01/07 -32.27% from 12/07

124 days - average market time for solds
234 properties currently under contract–single family & condos/townhouses
3901 single family homes on the market for sale
1105 condos/townhouses on the market for sale

According to Brevard County Clerks Office – statistics for Brevard County:

1144 foreclosure filings in 2005
1868 foreclosure filings in 2006
5153 foreclosure filings in 2007
704 Foreclosure filings in January 2008 – a record high-per Florida Today News
Note: these figures are for foreclosure filings, these may not have gotten all the way to the end of the foreclosure process

No one can truly predict where this market is going. None of us has every really been through a market like this before. The projection is that prices are going to continue to adjust to today's market, as additional properties drop into foreclosure. Will prices in the Summer and Winter of 2008 will be lower than they are today? Or will they have started upward again? No one knows for sure. Many sellers are holding out for prices that they paid at the peak of the market in 2004-2006. Unfortunately, I'm afraid those artificially over inflated prices are a thing of the past. Many of the homes that were purchased during the buying frenzy (2004-2006) were overvalued.

Buy or wait? According to the Florida Association of Realtors it's a great time to buy. There are many positives in today's market. What we must keep in mind is that interest rates are still historically low. When will they start heading upward? There is a large supply of homes for sale. Florida passed Amendment 1, to bring your tax base with you.

But, the real question is…how did we get here? Stay tuned... I’ll talk more about that in next month’s issue of my newsletter, Home Again!


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