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Three significant things are starting to happen in the Southwest Florida market:

1. The newspapers are reporting that month to month sales are on the increase in both Charlotte and Lee counties (Collier does not provide this data). Read the recent April 23rd article here: http://www.gulfwaterfrontproperty.com/News-Press-Stats-April

2. Buyers are flocking to low-priced properties and actually entering into bidding wars. We haven't seen that since 2005. But that shows how the prices are at the point where the deal is too good to pass up.

3. Our inventory of resale homes in Charlotte County has declined for the 14th straight month in a row. Finally, as of today (May 1st) we're now below 5000 homes on the market. At our peak in March of '07 there were 6600 homes for sale. So we're steadily working through the inventory.  

Other areas of the country are still at the beginning of the Foreclosure curve, but we may be starting to come out of it here in this corner of the world. Most of the Builder's inventory of spec homes is sold at this point - except for a few planned communities that started too late in the peak in 2005 to sell out then. 

There are currently 175 foreclosures listed in the Charlotte county MLS. They're selling briskly because they're priced so aggressively. Here's a list for reference: Summary-of-Foreclosures-4-29-08.pdf

I've often said that we were the first to crash and we'll be the first to start the climb back up. Maybe we're starting that transition now.

Interestingly, today an article in Moneywatch.com (read an excerpt here) has finally stated that the reported statistics for home sales around the country are very skewed because the analysts are too intent on applying a universal trend to markets that are inherently local. As one expert admits, it's like trying to say the temperature outside is the same everywhere in the country.

At least in this market, there are some great buys disappearing daily. Stay tuned - or better yet - call me for the latest great deals.

Thanks for reading.

Sandi