2008 Year In Review

Happy New Year! Hope you had a joyful celebration with family and friends. It was COLD and windy here, so those bonfires on the beach New Year’s Eve brought very welcome warmth. Time now to take a look back at 2008 and see if there was any renewed fire in our local real estate market.

First, let’s take a look at our overall inventory. We started the year with 489 total MLS listings in the Cape San Blas, C-30 Corridor, Indian Pass market vs. 355 at year’s end which represents a very healthy 27%+ reduction, with 148 homes this year vs. 169 last year, and 207 lots this year vs. a whopping 320 last year, so those are numbers worth celebrating.

If there was a bright spot in our market this year, it was surprisingly in residential sales, which were up 14.5% over 2007. When you look at home sales year to year, it appears that 2007 may have been the bottom and we began a slight recovery in 2008 as the numbers for ’08 were better than ’07 in every respect. Here is a snapshot 6-year history of home sales in the Cape market:

The same cannot be said for lots sales, however, as dollar volume was practically half of what it was last year and down 97% from the market high in 2004. Here’s a similar 6-year record of lot sales in the Cape San Blas market which includes the Cape, C-30 Corridor and Indian Pass.

I feel optimistic overall heading into 2009 and am glad to leave ’08 behind. I think at this point we have weathered the worst in our area and have started a slow recovery. I’ll continue to keep you posted on market conditions as we find our way through the new year.