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Highlands Today

Real-Estate Market: Bad But Getting Better?

Jasmina Meyer/Highlands Today

For sale sign near Hammock Road in Sebring.

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By Gary Pinnell | Highlands Today

Published: March 21, 2008

SEBRING — Home prices in Highlands County have declined to 2005 levels, the average house stays on the market for six months, and sellers aren't getting their asking price anymore.

That's the upshot of statistics compiled by Jeri Canale, a Sebring real-estate broker. But there's good news.

"It's gotten a lot better," said Canale, who has sold houses for 25 years.

"Volume is up a tremendous amount. I think we've sold 51 in January, and 91 in February," she said. Canale's more optimistic than Steve Fruit, with RE/MAX Realty Plus II in Lake Placid.

January through April is the peak home sales season in Highlands County, said Fruit. He also tracks real estate numbers in the county.

Sales are down 20 percent when comparing 2008 with 2007, but 50 percent in a comparison of 2007 to 2006.

"So the decline is not as drastic," Fruit said.

What's the difference?
"Sellers today really want to sell," Fruit said. "Sellers are getting realistic, but they're probably still not realistic enough."

Nationally, 73 metropolitan areas reported a decline in the fourth quarter, compared to a year earlier, according to CNN.com. That outpaced the 71 cities that saw a gain. Vacation markets, where investors had driven up prices during the building boom of 2005, were particularly hard hit, CNN said. The Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice market saw the biggest year-over-year decline in the fourth quarter, with prices plunging 18 percent.

Investors are returning to the market, both real estate agents said, but Fruit drew a distinction between speculators and investors. Speculators drove the market from 2003 to 2006, when the average list price almost doubled, from $123,000 to $228,000.

Speculators were people who heard someone else at a party who made thousands of dollars in real estate, and decided to try it.

"The investors are out there still, purchasing what they believe is below-market," Fruit said.
Many are first-time home buyers, but she's seen none who were switching homes because Florida homesteading law now allows Save Our Home portability.

Canale said the great number of houses are selling at the extremes, the most expensive and the cheapest.

Fruit is seeing more low-end buyers, and adds, "The big wave of waterfront buyers will come after Memorial Day."

The majority of buyers are from northern addresses, he said. They include Ontario, taking advantage of the U.S. dollar falling against the Canadian dollar.

Both agents agreed that now is a good time to buy a house.

"There hasn't been a better time to buy in the past five years," Fruit said. "There is a lot to choose from, sellers are motivated, and the interest rate is at record lows."

"You're not going to see better prices," Canale said, "and I think they're going to start going up."

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