Statistical Trends - Short Sales in Port St Lucie

The year 2009 has drawn to a close and I became curious to know how many short sales were sold in Port St Lucie this past year versus 2008. I ran a search on our MLS only looking at Single Family Residences (SFR) that sold - not condos, townhomes, villas, or manufactured homes.

Here are the numbers for Port St Lucie:

2008 Statistics
3,234 SFRs sold
314 were short sales
That means 10% of all sales in 2008 were short sales

2009 Statistics*
4,430 SFRs sold
992 were short sales
That means 22% of all sales in 2009 were short sales - a 12% increase from the year before!

Current available inventory of single family homes (as of Jan. 4, 2010)
1,668 Single Family Homes Available for sale
714 are short sales!
That means 43% of all homes for sale are in the short sale status - that's almost half of the market of Port St Lucie!

What does this mean for Buyers?
Short Sales are not going away - they're increasing!
If you're planning on purchasing a home in the near future, you want to work with an agent who understands the process and can anticipate hang-ups before they happen. It's also always a double-bonus if you can make an offer on a property where the listing agent is a Certified Distressed Property Expert.
I can help you navigate through the sea of short sales and help you find one that will suit your needs and (hopefully) not take forever to close!
Fill out this contact form to get started.

What does this mean for Sellers?
Half of your competition is a "distressed sale" and that doesn't even include the foreclosures on the market.
But don't dispair because if you're priced competitively a buyer may be more apt to look at your property over a short sale for the sheer fact that they know there is no third party approval.
If you are facing a financial hardship, you and I need to talk because there are many ways from saving your property from foreclosure.
Fill out this contact form to get started.

So this, my friends, is what we're facing as we go in to 2010. I'm incredibly optimistic because I know that I'm going to be able to help many homeowners avoid foreclosure and I'm going to put many buyers in to a home that they can afford and that meets their needs.

*This was data on January 4, 2010. It's quite possible that some agents may not enter their sales for December 2009 until later (maybe they forgot to change the status in the MLS). These numbers may be higher after those sales are entered.