OCALA REAL ESTATE MARKET REPORT

Homes Sold July  2008 ..............178*

$100,000.00 or less..........................60

$101 to $200,000.00........................87

$201 to $300,000.00........................17

$301 to $500,000.00.........................9

$500,000.00 Plus..............................5

Active Listings as of 8/05/08.......7101*

*This does not count homes sold by builders that may not be listed on the MLS Number may be revised due to late reports from board of Realtors.

 WHAT"S HOT IN OCALA REAL ESTATE

· Foreclosures

· Newer Homes priced to compete with foreclosures & short sales

Buyers are looking for foreclosures. and Short Sales, which are pre foreclosures.  It is these types of sales that are pulling prices down. Although they aren't supposed to be used as comp's for financing, seller's who have to sell are dropping their prices in an effort to compete with these types of bank sales.

  I think foreclosures are just getting started and they will be a driving force in our market for the next year or so.

  CHASING THE MARKET DOWN is real estate jargon for lowering your price but always in response to the competition. Unfortunately the leaders sell their houses and the followers don't sell and actually get less than if they had dropped their price initially.

  Other times people drop their price to a very competitive level and then just give up after only a month at that good price. Even very well priced homes take 3 or 4 months to sell in this market.

  This is all part of a predictable cycle. Builders over build and slash prices to sell off inventory, sellers try short sales to get out of homes they owe too much on, banks foreclose, then there is a period of years before prices rise again. The key will be when inventory declines to more normal levels. We currently have about 30 months of inventory and it needs to be more like 6 months. I think it will take 3 to 5 years before prices go up and I don't think we will hit bottom until mid 2009