Watching the Market

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We are watching the market

We are watching the market, as, probably many people do nowadays. It is changing, but how? How fast, what drives the change, what can you expect in the future?

Questions, questions, questions…

This report is on the lot activity in Palm Coast.

Why would I, a condo broker in Daytona area, write about vacant building lots in Palm Coast, which is, actually, not my core area of activity?

It is simple.

Palm Coast is giving a great opportunity to watch the trends because of its homogeneity and big numbers. There is no other sizable land market in Volusia County to watch. And there is no homogeneous condo market in the area. With the decreased inventory, there are a few condos in 1-bedr category, a few in 2-bedr and so on and so forth. Numbers are too small to make any sense. Of course, we understand that the inventory is down and the prices are up, but to see the trend you need representative numbers, hundreds and maybe even thousands of comparable properties, and land in Palm Coast is the closest we can get.

When the market changes, it changes across the board. So, we assume that the trends are similar among all types of properties. And understanding the dynamics in one type of property, we can reasonably extrapolate it to other types of real estate.

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Current Status Active

Currently there are 260 lots for sale in Palm Coast. Median price $69,900 but one should be cautious as median price is affected by expensive lots, and one sale for $250,000 reflects in this number.
Actual prices – lots for sale in the $50K-$60K range (59 and it was 75 2 weeks ago). It was a dominant group 2 weeks ago, but not anymore.
78 lots for sale are in the $60K to $70K range. (from 55-58 2 weeks ago). This is a dramatic increase in prices overall.
No prices less than $40K, and only 7 lots are priced for less than $50K.

Pending/Contingent

There are 253 lots, which are under contract. Median price of those is $49,900. When they are sold, the new listings are coming at higher prices, and change the dynamics.
In the last 3 days 35 lots were closed.
In the last 3 days 26 lots were listed.

Summary

It looks like very soon the prices would be increasing and the price category of $70K-$80K will start growing. Now it is only 26. When this number will grow and outnumber the $50K-$60K price bracket, then the actual sale on average would be in in the mid $60s to low $70s.
Among the factors are:
expected decrease of inventory of lots. With 35 sales and 26 listings, it is net loss of inventory of 9 listings. That’s about 3 listing a day, so in 3 months you may see a reduction of about 270 lots. This would mostly affect the listings, which are already under contract (253 now). In the same period we may expect 180 new listing, all higher than what is closing now.
If the level of buying activity stays the same, the supply of lots would only last a few months, and the way the market reacts to that and slows this trend is by increasing the prices, and this is what we are watching now.

Predictions

We are watching the market. Unless there are some drastic changes in the market in the next 6 months, we should realistically see the level of prices of 2005-2006, which peaked at $75K for a regular lot.

About Jon Zolsky

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