Local Real Estate Market Statistics Released

GAINESVILLE – “The home sales statistics for April are in for the Gainesville/Alachua County Area and there are several optimistic data points,” says Jeremy Thomas, 2020 Gainesville-Alachua County Association of REALTORS (GACAR) President. “I’ve been anxiously waiting for this data,” Thomas said.

According to Thomas there was a pause in real estate activity in early April but the market showed signs of rebounding as the month progressed. According to the data just released for April there was a 2.9 month supply of available homes vs 3.2 month supply for the same period last year. “This is an indication of a very tight market,” said Thomas. “When the supply side is low a couple of things typically happen,” he added. “The time the home stays on the market decreases and home prices edge up.”

The data is supporting this. The average single-family residential sales price was $286,203 in April 2020 vs $269,414 in April 2019. The median time to contract was 19 days in 2020 vs 28 days in 2019. “We are seeing very short marketing times in most price ranges,” Thomas said. While the number of closed sales were down compared to April 2019, Thomas is optimistic this a short- term matter. “When you consider that employers closed and sent employees home and the financial markets went through a significant reset, these numbers are very encouraging for the real estate sector,” Thomas said. “I’m hearing good things from my colleagues in the industry when they discuss May sales activity,” he added. “There were only two distressed sales during April,” Thomas said. “Let’s hope that number stays low. Homeowners seem to be making their mortgage payments and working through the initial shock most people felt in early April,” Thomas said.

“My instincts are leading me to think that a number of people have been delaying their real estate decisions until they have more certainty about the Coronavirus and how it might affect them personally. However, I still see a significant number of people acting now to either buy or sell. This is still an active market in our area due to two very important factors. For sellers, prices are stable due to the low supply of properties for sale, and for buyers, interest rates are at record lows.” Thomas concluded.