President of GTAR’s View of Tampa Bay Market

An article from the President of Greater Tampa Association of Realtors regarding the Tampa Bay real estate market. Here it is below:

Slow down? Not in our numbers… by Brad Monroe, President

It’s all the rage. Everyone is talking about the slowdown in the real estate market. The media is all over it. It’s on the 6 o’clock news, it’s in the papers, and it’s in the magazines. The end of the real estate boom has come. The real estate bubble is bursting.

Are you sure? We are all chatting about the slowing market but the numbers aren’t showing it. Our statistics from February show our members sold 1,667 homes. Last year, when we saw record sales for a February, we sold 1,948, that translates to a 14% decrease for this year. But if you look further back, in 2004 we sold 1,557, in 2003 we sold 1,249. This February we show a 7% increase over 2004, a whooping 33% increase over 2003! Slow down? Where?

Maybe that’s just a fluke, something weird in the data. Let’s look at January. This past January our members sold 1,681 homes compared to last year’s 1,652, that is a 1.5% increase. Granted that is not much of an increase, but it is definitely not a decrease! In January of 2004 we sold 1,336 and in 2003 our members sold 1,231 homes. That is a 26% increase from 2004 and a 36% jump from January 2003. Slow down? Where?

Almost everyone I speak to says they are feeling the changing market, the slow down. Where is the change? Are the listings taking longer to sell? Average Days on Market was 44 for February, 42 for January and 39 for December. Well that’s just 5 days longer. But last year’s DOM was 78 for February, 90 for January and 80 for December. The 2004 Days on Market were even longer at 90+ days. Slow down? Where?

The statistics show a slight decrease in the List Price to Sold Price ratio in the last three months. But only one half of one percent. Not a change you’d notice or feel. Again, we now have slightly higher LP/SP ratios than in past three years. Slow Down? Where?

But we’re not seeing multiple offers the day the property hits the MLS like we did 6 months ago. Is this the slow down? This February we had 11,521 listings on the MLS, last February we had 4,830 in 2004 we had 7,043. That is 2.4 times the inventory from a year ago! Actually, if you look back to May of 2005 we had the lowest inventory of the past three years, 3,709 available homes. But we also had 3,003 sales that month, a 1.2 months supply. Today, we have a 6.4 months supply.

The statistics indicate that sales are still great, and the prices are stable. The change we’re feeling is the huge increase in inventory. The urgency to buy now before it’s gone has subsided; now there are homes to select from, lots of them. But January & February have always been the slowest selling months. We are still selling at a pace exceeding that of 2003 & 2004!

Stay tuned, the next few months will tell where we are headed. But for now - Slow down? Where?