Tampa Palms, Westchase, Carrollwood and Tampa Bay Real Estate News From Jeanne Prigitano

Before I get into the actual Tampa Bay housing numbers, I thought I would share my experiences and observations over the last month.

As I mentioned last month, it appears that there are a significant number of owner occupied sales and not just sales to investors. Again, this is important if we hope to see a more stable housing market in the Tampa area. Most of my buyers are planning on occupying the homes they purchase as their primary residence. I actually have buyers purchasing new construction. There are incredible values in new construction that rival anything that you can find in the way of bank-owned or short sales. Savvy buyers are taking advantage of these opportunities.

Yes, the investors are still out there. However there is a shift in the type of investor. Most of my investor clients are purchasing properties that they will fix up and subsequently rent. They are holding on to the properties rather than flipping. Even more surprising is the competition. There aren’t as many bank-owned properties on the market. By the time we submit offers, there are already multiple offers on the property. On one offer, we were competing with 16, yes I said 16, other offers and on another, there were 15 offers. I am sure they weren’t all investor offers. It just shows that there is definitely some pent up demand.

Now let’s take a look at the numbers. Overall sales for May 2011 were down about 6% from April but stable with May 2010 sales. However, last year we had tax incentives that were fueling the market. There were approximately 23% more homes on the market last year at this time. Year to date, we are still seeing an almost 12% increase in sales over last year. Single family home sales are holding steady with a slight decline in condo sales. Once again, the numbers of home sales in the higher price ranges are improving with an overall increase of 1.6% in average sale price in May 2011 as compared to April 2011. Months inventory is at 6.3 which is considered a balanced market.

Inventory levels may be lower because the numbers of bank-owned foreclosed homes have been held back from the market. Once the banks start to release their properties, it may change the housing picture again. Stay tuned.