CTON and FL RE prices. Len, I will agree that the market cannot maintain a 43% annual increase in prices. But it also seems to me that a slowdown from an overheated market to a more normal market is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Here's another recent article from the Orlando business journal (notice that the Melbourne-Titusville-Palm Bay areas led the state in sales in Q4. That is where GV operates and just north of CTON's market area):
>>Orlando home prices soar 43% in 4Q
Even with higher mortgage rates and a lull in economic growth, existing single-family homes in Florida had a median sales price of $246,300 for fourth-quarter 2005, an increase of 29 percent over the year-ago period, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.
Leading the pack was Fort Myers-Cape Coral, which saw median sales prices rise 50 percent to $309,300 for the fourth quarter of 2005. The Orlando metropolitan statistical area posted the second-highest median sales price, up 43 percent over the year-ago quarter at $254,800.
In addition, a total of 50,889 existing single-family homes sold statewide during the three-month period, a 7 percent drop from the 54,890 homes sold during the same quarter in 2004. Sales showed only a slight drop in the Orlando area, with 8,074 sold in fourth-quarter 2005 compared with 8,105 a year ago. Melbourne-Titusville-Palm Bay led the state in sales, up 28 percent at 1,512 compared with 1,185 in fourth-quarter 2004.
FAR says home sales traditionally ease during the fourth quarter as a result of holidays, cooler weather and other influences. The decline in existing single-family home sales for fourth-quarter 2005 was consistent with both rising mortgage rates over that period and a dramatic pause in overall U.S. growth, according to Dr. David Scott, executive director of the Dr. Phillips Institute for the Study of American Business Activity and professor of finance at the University of Central Florida .
Scott predicts that double-digit growth rates in sales and prices will cease for the time being and more closely track the performance of the economy. <<
