Tampa Real Estate Market Update – December 2014
The housing market in Tampa
and Hillsborough County continues the improving trends we have seen in the last
three years.
Home sales closed the year
strong (see Chart below) with 1,498 unit sold in Dec. compared to 1,323 in Dec.
of 2013, an increase of 13.2%. In fact,
December's sales were the best since May of 2013 when 1,522 homes were
sold. It is also the highest monthly
closing totals since the real estate recovery started back in 2011. That is something we can all be happy about.
With that being said it
should be noted that Pending Home Sales have been trending down for many months
and this is a trend that we need to see reversed in the next few months. However, at this point it is not a red flag
because with the huge decline in Short Sales and Distressed Sales over the same
period also come much faster closings, so it would be natural to assume the number
of Pending Sales would decline as they get taken off the books that much
faster. We will keep an eye on these
numbers in the coming months and look for a trend change.
Active Listings also
finished the year in good shape with 4,988 Listings, a minimal increase over
the corresponding levels for 2013.
Still, a very level compared to the market low levels in the low 3,000
during the market bottom. Truth is, it
will be a very long time before the market activity seen during the real estate
mania of 2006 and 2007 when active listings were substantially higher. See the
chart below for Active Listings Activities.
Finally the Median Price of
all Single Family Homes in the area stood at $182,250 in Dec., a small 1.3
increase over prices a year earlier. Average
prices of home sold were at $243,365 - an increase of 6.4% over the prior 12
months. As you will note in the chart
below, we have a generally healthy uptrend in prices, and this is very good.
The overall housing market
in the Tampa and Hillsborough are remains good, even as inventory remains low
by traditional standards. There are
number of reasons for this, but as prices continue to improve we expect housing
inventory to expand in 2015.
As we look to 2015, right
now the market is in good shape and should continue to improve in incremental
ways. Interest rates are very low and
continue to drop (3.66%) as we write, the economy continues to improve, and the
general mood is generally positive. As
noted many times in the past, we are currently in what typically is the market
cycle low and as we head into Spring we should see good and positive trends.
This Tampa Real Estate
Report for December 2014 has been brought to you by Mary and David Diaz. Thank you.
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