April to May Continues to Deteriorate

Richard Newquist, Realtor
Jacksonville Beach, FL
http://www.liveatthebeach.net

Both the national and the Florida real estate markets continue to deterioriate, substantially, from April to May, 2007. These stats. come from the National Association of Realtors and are generally accepted as being representative of the actual market conditions.

Where the national existing home sales showed an increase in April of +3.9% over a year ago, our contacts in other states didn't seem to bear that out. The stats. for existing home sales for May show a huge negative turn around.... +3.9% for April to - 8.4% in May! That is a net change of 12.4% downhill.

Richard Newquist, Jacksonville's most sought after real estate agent thinks the stats have not really changed much over the course of the last year and no improvement in the market is being observed. Lereah, Chief Economist for NAR predicted the beginnings of a turn around in early 2007 but that doesn't seem to be materializing.

In Florida, the stats are still bad and aren't improving. The volume in Florida is WAaaaaaaay off but the prices have only declined a few percentage points, according to the stats. The problem is the "incentives" that are being offered by sellers that don't show up in the closing price.

A lot of people want to sell their own homes to save the commission. "YES YOU CAN" but do it intelligently and professionally. Go to www.fsbomover.com to get information on a website specific to YOUR property. A website will help move your property 3X's faster than not having one. Put the URL on your yard sign, put it on your flyers, put it in your classified ads and expand the value without increasing the cost.

Housing Market Indicators:

Florida existing home sales:
April -23% May -28%

Florida existing condo sales:
April -28% May -32%

National existing home sales:
April + 3.9% May -8.4%