Jacksonville Ranch Club—02/13/2009—Jacksonville Business Journal - by Christian Conte Staff Writer

NORTHEAST FLORIDA - Residential real estate agents could only watch as home sales and prices plummeted for more than two years, but after experiencing a surge in what is typically one of the slowest months of the year, some sense that the market might have hit bottom.

Analysts warn about the risks of guessing the market's fluctuations, but based on January sales, Jen Edwards of RE/MAX Unlimited said, "I think 2009 is going to be just fine."

Real estate professionals cite several factors contributing to the uptick in sales, including lower mortgage rates, falling home prices and even a new president.

Edwards, who owns the Ponte Vedra Beach office with her husband, Bob, is basing her optimism on the 6.5 percent increase in closings she saw last month compared with January 2008 and the doubling of showing appointments during January compared with the same time last year.

Other agencies are noticing an uptick in business.

Gene Jones, of ERA Dan Jones & Associates Inc., reported 12 sales for a total of $1.6 million and 13 listings in January, compared with eight sales for nearly $762,000 and 12 listings in January 2008.

Prudential Network Realty reported a similar trend with January volume up 28 percent.

Prudential also experienced, as did other agencies, a rising number of high-end homes selling. It sold 10 homes valued at $750,000 or more in both December and January, compared with an average of four such homes sold during the last six months of 2008.

"When you see somebody make a million-dollar investment in the market, it lets you know there is definitely some optimism," said Christy Budnick, executive vice president at Prudential.

Millie Kanyar, the president of the Northeast Florida Realtors Association and an agent at Watson Realty Corp., where there was also an increase, said many recent buyers had been some of the fence-sitters who waited to buy a home. For some, the change in administration was enough to get them off the fence and to the closing table.

"Those people who were sitting in the background finally got out there," Kanyar said. "There was pent-up energy."

Real estate agents said the drop in the Jacksonville median home price to $168,300 and interest rates at about 5.35 percent for conventional loans helped the recent increase in sales.

Other buyers have been lured into the market by the rising number of properties being sold by lenders. They are known as real estate owned properties, which are foreclosed properties that failed to sell to a third party.

Tracy Barth, an agent at Excel Realty Group LLC, said most of her sales are now real estate owned, foreclosures or short sales in the $150,000 to $300,000 range. A short sale is where the lender is willing to accept less money than what it is still owed for the property.

"It doesn't have the stigma it used to," Barth said of such sales.

Statewide, January statistics won't be available until Feb. 25, but in December the Jacksonville area saw a 20 percent increase in existing family home sales to 930 from 778 in December 2007, while the median sale price continued to slide 7 percent to $168,300 from $180,300. Jacksonville's median sale price for an existing single-family home has not been that low since January 2005, when it was about $169,000.

Statewide single-family home sales were up 27 percent to more than 11,000 and the median sale price was down 27 percent to about $155,500.

Condominium sales in the Jacksonville area declined in December 15.5 percent from 90 to 76 and the median price dropped 19 percent to $123,800. Statewide condo sales rose 12 percent to more than 3,000 and the median price dropped 32 percent to $130,600.

Real estate agents said although the trend looks promising, only time will tell.

"If there's one thing we've learned from this economy and this market," Budnick said, "it's that nobody has a crystal ball."

Source: Jacksonville Business Journal