Reeling market taught homeowners hard lessons
The slumping real estate market of 2007 took a dramatic toll on sellers, buyers and everyone in between.
The year started with more than 4,500 condos, town homes and houses on the market — an all-time high for the Emerald Coast.
The spring saw homeowners learning hard lessons about the necessity of realistic pricing.
The market was overbuilt and condos were particularly hard to unload.
“There are a lot of people who are just walking away,” Realtor Ray DiTirro observed in April. “They do their cashflow analysis and they say, ‘It’ll cost me less to walk away than to carry this condo.’ ”
In addition, many real estate agents left the industry to take other jobs to pay the bills.
By summer, it was clear that housing prices had tanked but had even further to go.
On June 21, hundreds of real estate agents held a public prayer luncheon at Destiny Worship Center to ask God to energize the area’s flat sales.
At that time, Okaloosa County’s May sales were down 44 percent compared to May 2006, and year-to-date sales were down 36 percent compared to the previous year.
By September, University of West Florida economist Rick Harper said the healthiest real estate markets were in Walton, Santa Rosa and Bay counties — areas with steady growth and seasonal traffic.
Harper, director of the Haas Center for Business Research and Economic Development, recently predicted that the overall market may not recover until sometime in 2009.
Veteran Realtor Debbie Gericke agrees, saying she does not expect to see significant improvement in 2008.
“There’s a lot of unrealistic stuff on the market,” said Gericke, director of builder developer services at Coldwell Banker JME Realty. “Until we chew through that, we’ll continue to mutter along.”
She said the strategy should be patience, not panic.
“We’re certainly not in a robust market, but it’s not a hopeless market,” she said. “The things that are selling are under $250,000 and under $225,000. They’re moving right along.”
Year-to-date home sales in Santa Rosa County are down more than 23 percent compared to 2006. Sales are down nearly 29 percent in Okaloosa County during the same period.
Current records from the Emerald Coast Association of Realtors show 5,977 single family homes and 4,090 condos on the market.
For buyers, that’s more than enough choice.
For homeowners looking to sell, it could be a long wait.
“If you do not have to sell your home, now is not the time to put your house on the market,” Gericke said. “It’s just diluting it.”