Naples Real Estate Update 11/21/10

Hello Folks,

I have been pleasantly surprised about the preseason real estate traffic I've experienced over the last couple of weeks.  For those of you who are always looking for the latest Naples real estate happenings, you'll want to know besides the fact that our residential listing inventories are shrinking I'm also not seeing as many homes hit the market this time of year as I did last year either.  But I think the most interesting tid bit of information I can give you is that buyer behavior is REALLY different this year compared to the last several years.  People are MUCH more serious about purchasing this year and seem to be MUCH more excited to do it here in Naples compared to wanting to consider other locations.  Last year I saw quite a few people who were weighing the options in competing markets like Fort Lauderdale or Sarasota while this year I'm hearing people say that there are no other locations that fit for them and that they are in deed purchasing in ONLY Naples.  I've shown this graph before when times were not so great but I think it's important to show you again:

A few years ago we were easily seeing buyer behavior at the bottom and somewhere around depression I would've also added "angry" I saw alot of angry buyers the last couple of years.  I haven't seen any of that this preseason and have to say the temperature of the buyers I've assisted range between hope, relief and even optimism and I'll even go as far as to say that some are very cautiously excited.  While price is still a concern for all of my customers right now, many of my customers are indicating that "what they want" is equally or sometimes more important.  For example I've had a couple of buyers come expecting to purchase at a certain price point and push up significantly to get what they want.  The other thing I've seen some of that is different compared to past seasons is that there are a few people who are selling something back home and are prepared to take a bit of a hit to get moving on their purchase here.  The past few years I've heard buyers say something to the effect that they'd love to do something but they couldn't because they had too much money in real estate somewhere else and nothing was moving or they weren't interested in taking the level of a hit they suspected they'd be required to get the deal done. 

Of course all of this could be just a quick little trend and may not at all determine how the rest of the season will be.  Time of course will tell and I will be happy to keep you updated.

As always, if there's something specific you'd like to know more about, let me know!

Best Regards,

Shannon Lefevre, PA
Your Naples Smart Girl!