Housing report: Homes prices up, condos down

Housing report: Homes prices up, condos down
By Daily News staff
Saturday, May 26, 2007
The sales price of existing single-family homes in April increased modestly over the same month last year, even as prices slipped a little further around the state.

In an analysis of last month’s real estate sales that was released Friday, the Florida Association of Realtors noted stricter lending standards and a drop in the number of speculators as factors that will continue to affect the state’s housing market.
Statewide, the median sales price in April was $237,800, a 3 percent drop from the same time last year.
For Lee County, one of 20 local markets the state association tracks each month, the market was not what it was two years ago, when 1,266 existing single family homes sold in April. In the Fort Myers and Cape Coral Metropolitan Statistical Area this April, there were 573 existing single-family homes sales.
Prices were up, though, both over last month and last year. Last month’s median sale price was $283,300. It was $280,500 in April 2006.
The existing condominium market, though, was another story.
In the Fort Myers and Cape Coral Metropolitan Statistical Area, condominium sales were down over last year, and prices were down even more.
Among the 223 condo sales in April, the median sales price was $244,100, a 24 percent drop in the median price from April 2006, when the median price among the 259 Lee condos sold was $322,500.
That difference in sales price between this April and last April — a difference of nearly $80,000 — was the largest drop in both percentage and absolute terms reported in any major condominium market in the state.
The Florida Association of Realtors report does not include data from the Naples Area Board of Realtors or the Marco Island Association of Realtors, effectively leaving Collier County out of its statewide analysis.