Mar 16 2009
Vero Beach Area Home Sales Graphs 1-1-2004 to 2-28-2009
Overall real estate sales in the Vero Beach – Hutchinson Island area were a bit stronger than last month. The graphs and commentary below compare the sales month by month since January 2004 through March 2009.
There are a few buyers, but they are still looking for best-buy values and making low offers.
Barrier Island Condos: It is good to see this class of sales rebound to 8 sales from poor January sales. Prices ranged from $130,000 for a 2 BR, 1 bath condo on Dahlia near the beach town center to $520,000 for a 2/2 in John’s Island and another at Seaquay. Months on the market ranged from 2 months for a unit Pebble Beach Villas to 45 months for the unit in John’s Island. The ratio of sale price to list price averaged 68%.
The Island home market showed a nice upturn with 19 sales in February. There were 4 homes sold for over $1,000,000 (one for $9,000,000) and 12 homes sold for under $500,000. Prices ranged from $180,000 in the Wabasso Beach area to $9,000,000 in Orchid Island. Time on the market averaged 17 months and the sales-to-original-list-price ratio was 67%. Note of interest: the sales ratio on the $1,000,000 was 57%. The time-on-market overall averaged 33 months.
Countywide house sales increased a respectable amount from 77 in January to 91 in February. The median sales price was $140,000 and 24 houses (26%) were bank/corporate owned. On the mainland, prices ranged from $23,000 in the South Dixie Highway area to $680,000 in Pine Hammock off 70th Ave out in the county. There are still almost 2500 houses for sale, which is over a 3 year supply at the present absorption rate.
Indian River County Townhomes: There was a jump in sales from last month. However, it was the lowest number of February sales in the past 6 years as noted on the 5 year graph below. On the mainland there were 13 sales—6 sold in Vista Royale between $28,000 for a 1 bedroom unit to $40,000 for a 2 bedroom unit. The high sale for the month on the mainland was $225,000 in Oak Harbour.
North Hutchinson Island: Another slow month—3 condos were sold and no single family homes. Barkley Beach Club # 803 sold for $305,000. It had been originally listed for $499,000 and had been on the market for around 25 months. Seabreeze # 401 sold for $208,000. This was a bank-owned property originally listed for $286,000 and had been on the market for 6 months. Tiara #503 sold for $349,000. It was originally listed for $629,000 and had been on the market for approximately 36 months.
Presently there are 3549 homes for sale for sale. In Feb. 07 there were 4097 for sale, a reduction of 548 homes on the market.
Are we making progress?
During this same 2 year time period approximately 3500 homes were sold. Even though there were 3500 sold, the overall reduction was only 548. There still is a long way to reduce the inventory down to a reasonable number of homes on the market.
In 2004 the average number of homes on the market was under 200/300 and a few months dropped to around 100. Starting in January 2005, homes-for-sale jumped to 700 and grew to around 3500 by March of 2006 and has stayed there since then.