FYI
Local real estate market heating up
No Bubble to Burst in Tallahassee Local Real Estate Market Is Heating Back Up
By Jason Dehart
{mosimage}Bubble? What bubble? The Tallahassee housing market is moving along at a steady pace.
“There is not going to be a bubble burst in Tallahassee,” said Realtor Don Pickett, chairman of the Tallahassee Board of Realtors’ Market Trends & Research Committee. “We have not seen a slowdown of people buying . . . The number of sales, the annual summaries of totals, continue to go up. Appreciation continues to go up, particularly for homes that are $400,000 or less.”
There has been a run-up in the price of the average Tallahassee home, with values almost doubling in just the past eight years, Pickett said. In 1998, the average price of a single-family home was $126,682. Today, the average price is $243,073 – a 92-percent increase, he said.
“We’re selling a little bit more than we were last year,” he said, adding that 5,472 residential properties were closed in the past 12 months, compared to 4,963 for the previous period.
Listings also seem to be on the rise, Pickett said.
“There are almost twice as many single-family homes (listed for sale in May) as there were last year,” he said. “This year, there are 203 percent more townhomes than last year.”
Pickett said he doesn’t know why the market is bursting with townhomes. One likely reason was the shortage of inventory in recent years.
“There are more homes coming on the market now, and the number of buyers is about the same – but the number of houses in inventory is going up, and exactly why there is more inventory, I’m not sure,” he said.
One thing’s for sure, though. Those houses won’t be on the market for very long. Expensive homes still are selling, and a new trend in “condo conversion” units (apartments turned into condos) means more affordable homes for folks either starting out or downsizing, he said. And more people moving here means houses are going to be sold.
“We’re not going to lose our job base, and that’s one of the reasons why our market is pretty steady.”
Siteseeing
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- Sites You Might Like
- • HouseHunt.com
- • HomeValueHunt.com
- • LeonPA.org
• MyFlorida.com
• Realtytimes.com
• Realtor.org Did you know?
The phrase “cool as a cucumber” originated in Florida. On a hot Florida day, the pulp of a cucumber can be up to 10 degrees cooler than the surrounding air.
