[January 02, 2007]

Real estate agents look ahead

(News Herald, The (Panama City, FL) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jan. 2--Bay County's housing market came back to earth last year and will continue building steam in early 2007, says the president of the Bay County Association of Realtors.

The National Association of Realtors reported on its Web site Thursday that sales of previously owned homes rose 0.6 percent in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.28 million units.

That followed a 0.5-percent sales increase in October and marked the first back-to-back sales gains since the spring of 2005, according to the association.

Acknowledging that 2006 was a "tough and challenging" year for housing sales and prices, Bay County Association of Realtors President Teresa Dyer said she thought the area's market had corrected itself and started a mild upswing heading into the New Year.

"I've talked to other people, and business is picking up," Dyer said.

Tom Neubauer, owner of ERA Neubauer Real Estate, thinks the trends he's seeing are encouraging.

The FAR release followed a report Wednesday that showed that new home sales nationally rose 3.4 percent in November, the third gain in the past four months.

According to the Associated Press, David Lereah, chief economist for the Realtors, said he believed that September's sales activity may represent the low point for sales this cycle but he cautioned that home prices probably will continue declining for a few more months.

Using data compiled from Pensacola-based Metro Market Trends, Neubauer said a sixyear history of sales and other market information drawn from the third quarter of each year since 2000 showed that the county's 2006 real estate market registered total sales levels comparable to 2002, a thenrecord year.

"We really have a pretty healthy market," Neubauer said. Neubauer said he believes there are a lot of buyers waiting to see when the market would bottom out and looking to time purchases just right.

He said it looks like home prices will stabilize as housing inventory is absorbed.

The Panama City MLS Web site listed 2,199 residential single-family homes and 2,157 condominiums for sale late last week.

Neubauer said the county has a high housing inventory, with an 18-month supply of single-family housing and a 3- to 4-year supply of condominium units.

Some homeowners are still in denial about their homes' values, Neubauer said.

"The ones that are realistic are selling their homes," Neubauer said.

Numbers released Thursday by the Florida Association of Realtors showed a 15-percent November drop in sales for Panama City-area existing homes.

Area sales for existing condominiums fell 7 percent, compared to November 2005.

Prices for existing area homes dropped 12 percent in November, with a median sales price of $201,200, according to FAR.

The median sales price in November for an existing Panama City-area condominium declined to $275,000.

Despite the 2006 decline in area housing sales and prices, Dyer said there are still 1,461 members in her organization.

She said the association will not know until Jan. 25 what its membership numbers will be for next year.

That's the deadline for members' renewal dues, Dyer said, adding that she didn't expect there to be a decline in numbers, based on the steady number of Realtors that have through the association's orientation classes in 2006.

"When somebody drops off, there's always somebody to take their place," Dyer said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.
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