Newly released by the Realtor® Association of Greater Fort Myers & the Beach, Inc:

February 2010

In February, our members sold 1,141 single-family homes, which is 21.9% above last year and 12% above the prior month. The median price of a single family home in the Greater Fort Myers area was $85,000, down 5.6% from $90,000 a year ago due to the continued influence of distressed properties on the market. Buyers from around the country (and the world) continue to be attracted to our area because of the affordability, the low interest rates and the looming deadline for the home buyer tax credit.

January 2010

In January, a total of 1,079 homes were sold by members of the MLS, which is 22.5 percent more homes than the previous January. 1,799 pending sales were recorded, which is 29.8 percent lower than January 2009 and 48.2 percent lower than the prior month. The decline in pending home sales resulted in the months of inventory growing from 2.0 months in December to 4.1 months in January – this figure is still below what is considered to be a balanced market – 5-6 months of available inventory.

December 2009:

Members of the Association closed 1,340 single family home sales in December, bringing the total for 2009 to 16,789; this is a 91.4 percent increase vs. 2008 when 8,768 homes were sold.  Of the December sales, 48.3 percent were bank-owned, 18.2% were short sales and the remaining traditional sales made up 33.4 %. The median price was $89,929, which is 8.0 percent lower than the prior December; however, the median price continues to be driven down by the number of bank-owned and short sales properties. During Quarter 4, the median price for traditional sales was $135,000 (a 3.5 % decrease from the prior quarter), for bank-owned sales it was $69,900 (up 2.7 %) and the median price for short sales was $94,950 (up 6.6 % from last quarter).