Hello Everyone and thank you for watching. This is Gia with Palm Beach Premier Real Estate here in Boca Raton Florida with your 2-minute local market report for DECEMBER 2016.
So here’s a quick take on the numbers that came out from the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches
The message this month from the association is:
Supply Up, Demand Down…Prices Next?
So in taking a closer look at the internal numbers…. What we’re seeing is the following:
- FIRST – The SUPPLY of Listings continues to increase with Active Inventory Up another 6.6%
- SECOND – We are now 5 months supply of Inventory for SFH’s and 5.7 months for Townhouses & Condos
- THIRD… Closed sales were down sharply in December with SFH sales down 5% and Townhouses/Condos down a whopping 10% versus the corresponding period last year. Once again the number of closed sales continues to decline indicative of waning demand
- FOURTH – The numbers here in Palm Beach County continue to indicate a market in transition….Sellers are getting a median of 94.9% of their list price … with homes going under contract in approximately 50 days …..if priced correctly of course…..
- FINALLY – Interest rates have increased, with the Federal Reserve also indicating at least 2 more raises to come in 2017
So….what we can clearly see from the January data is that several significant factors are taking place here and why we mentioned before that not all UP Arrows are good news:
While the association talks about the positives year-over-year, we are analyzing the data on a month-to-month basis and looking for clear trends and market changes….For Example:
- More Inventory continues to come to market
- Demand is waning
- And third, prices are likely to trend to downwards
So we clearly have some economic fundamentals playing themselves out that further illustrate the transitioning marketplace that we’ve been talking about for several months now.
Specifically – we are watching inventory levels very closely as we have now seen 9 consecutive months where supply has increased versus the same month in the prior year.
So anticipate a continuing transition ahead to a buyers market.