SoWal Home Sales Soar in June

As June brought forth the beginning of hot weather, people escaped to the water to cool off. The weather isn’t the only thing to heat up. Condo sales were up sharply, as were home sales, and hopefully, they won’t be cooling off anytime soon.

This chart shows the monthly quantity of sales since Jan 2006, and as you can see, the 102 home sales (single family detached) reported to ECAR (Emerald Coast Association of Realtors) during June 2011, are the most we’ve seen during that period.
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I informed you last month to expect sales in June 2011 to be greater than June 2010 (62 sales), when sales slowed greatly due to the unknowns about the oil spill, so it’s no surprise that we are up 65% over last June. However, we also saw a 20% increase over May 2011 home sales.

Let’s look beyond just June 2010, and compare June home sales from other years. ECAR has been tracking home sales for 19 years. Looking solely at June home sales during that period (from 1993 – 2011), June 2011 was reported as the second-highest quantity of sales! *

With increased sales, and new listings coming onto the market, priced closer to true market value, we are seeing inventory decrease substantially. Going back six years, inventory of detached single family homes is at the lowest point we’ve seen, about half of the peak.

Median selling price of homes in South Walton has mostly leveled out over the last twelve months. Median price is the price where half of the sales are above that point and half are below.

Where will the market go? Will summer continue to bring heat to the real estate market? Stay tuned.

Murray Balkcom is a licensed Realtor with The Premier Property Group. All sales data referenced above is provided by Emerald Coast Association of Realtors and is thought to be accurate but not guaranteed.